The Dayton Daily News has just realized we have a leadership void in our community.

Imagine that.

After years of endorsing mediocre candidates based on:

• skin color
• the size of their campaign treasury
• number of endorsements
• being an incumbent

they are realizing that not a single one was able to think on their own, bring new conversations to the table (not even new ideas) or the ability to go out on a limb and actually say something without checking with everyone else first.

The most important rule in gaining power, is that you must give up power to get it. If you don’t understand – go start reading with Sun Tzu and move forward through time-

If you want a regional group to change things- you have to give them some power. The “Miami Valley” leadership by fiefdom isn’t about to do that. There is just one part of their article worth reading: bold & italics mine

MVRPC’s new plan should be to matter

…Other communities have effective and respected regional organizations. But the groups are well regarded because they do things.
Some have implemented tax-sharing at levels beyond Montgomery County’s small EDGE program. Others broker sharing of government resources and services. More than a few have imposed land-use plans that recognize the costs of overbuilding.
These entities, in other words, tackle problems.
But there’s also this: Effective regional groups support initiatives that are at some level controversial; their ideas often require officials to agree to share power or even give up authority.
Controversy, however, is something this community runs from. Who’s irate that it was politically impossible to merge Montgomery County’s and Dayton’s SWAT teams? Who’s complaining that the community has multiple water departments? Or that a flock of people are paid handsomely to attract new businesses, yet the entire region netted just 1,000 new jobs in the 15 years between 1990 and 2005.
Who’s saying that local governments are refusing to make hard choices even as the cost of government is outstripping taxpayers’ ability to pay?

I have my old campaign literature on this site. I was against the “Port Authority” from the start. I was ridiculed  for running for Dayton Commission and talking about lifting the school deseg order on the grounds that it was economically segregating our schools. The list goes on.

The first thing that should be investigated is the net job loss since they raised the taxes on downtown land-owners (SID tax) to grossly overpay the incompetent head of the Downtown Dayton Partnership- Maureen Pero. Paid more than any other local public official- she has a tiny staff and a microscopic budget when compared to Dr. Percy Mack, Deborah Feldman or whoever the next Dayton City Manager will be.

The second is to stop thinking of economic development with a fire sale mentality. Giving away the store isn’t how you grow a business, it’s how you go out of business. Now, more than ever, our dollars should be committed to creating a city that is easy to do business in, and fun to live in, instead of handing out dollars begging companies to stay.

We’ve got lots of advantages in this community- as I’ve said before, we need to have leadership that starts acting like they believe this really is a great place to live and work.