Category: Columbus

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Former Ohio teacher Cliff Hite votes to strip collective bargaining from teachers

In politics some things go beyond just simple votes. A politician has to answer to their constituents, donors, and even the party they belong to. On Wednesday March 2nd, the political bill came due for Ohio State Senator Cliff Hite (R-Findlay). He owed a debt to the GOP and they got him to turn his back on his former colleagues in the public schools by voting for Senate Bill 5 that strips collective bargaining from public employees.

Hite was appointed to the 1st Senate District seat on February 1st.

On March 2nd he was suddenly appointed to the Insurance, Commerce and Labor committee that then voted to pass Senate Bill 5, which severely restricts collective bargaining for public employees, to the full Senate for a vote. Ironically the bill would affect public school teachers, Hite’s former profession. He also voted for final passage of the bill.

Before becoming elected as the representative for the 76th Ohio House District, Cliff was a teacher and coach for nearly 30 years. Originally beginning his career in Danville, Kentucky, after earning a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from The University of Kentucky, Cliff made his way back to his hometown of Findlay, Ohio where he retired from teaching and coaching at Findlay High School. During his coaching tenure, Cliff won eight league championships, coached three National Football League players, coached 22 First Team All-State football players and was selected Coach of the Year six times. Cliff remains the winningest head football coach at both Bryan and Findlay high schools.

About Clifford K. Hite

In fact in the 2010 election when he won reelection to the Ohio House he was endorsed by the Ohio Education Association.

I hope the pay back for the appointment was worth it. It was a steep price to take away the rights of union members and add jail time for striking. I’m sure he has all his Teacher pension paperwork in order so it didn’t matter to him turning his back on his former colleagues.

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Media no friend to man with the Golden Voice

You couldn’t miss him. One of the first Internet blow ups of 2011. A homeless man from Columbus, Ohio who gained national exposure for his radio DJ sounding voice. Ted Williams was homeless because of drugs and alcohol abuse that crashed his life and his family relationships. So his sudden fame was one of those great “American dream” stories? Ted was thrust into the media whirlpool and it looks like he will be spit out after the leeches get their fill.

It started out with good intentions. A Columbus Dispatch reporter takes a video of Ted hustling for money at an Interstate exit. He has a “golden voice” and the video proves it as he does a professional sounding radio air check. Next the right people see the video at the right time and Ted is plucked out of the make shift tent home in the bushes near the interchange and into the lime light. National print, radio, and TV appearances follow as does tons of job offers from companies that see a feel good story any first year marketing major could see.

In the first week of Ted’s new fame no one talked about him getting help for his addictions. He claimed he had been sober for two years but it is very rare that an addict can just go cold turkey like that. When other people have lived in such conditions, like if they were abducted, there usually are mental health professionals who help them transistion back into normal society. Here was a guy who lived a rough life on the streets for more than few years and people took him at his word that he was sober and okay. They didn’t seem to be getting him all the help he needed to acclimate back into regular society.

After the umpteenth article in the Columbus Dispatch about Ted, I tweeted the editor, on January 6th, and asked if Ted would be getting some mental health help.

Me: Do you know if there is any mental health help for Ted Williams – I worry he might slip back to bad habits

Ben Marrison: Apparently #TedWilliams, the #GoldenVoice was offered some type of counseling support today.

http://twitter.com/#!/dispatcheditor/status/23026961144094720

So it seems no one addressed his mental health needs for four days. Of course the media got all they needed from Ted with all the appearances and interviews.

Ted next showed up on the Dr. Phil show and I guess people might say he was getting help then but Dr. Phil McGraw gave up his licence to practice psychology in 2005 and the State of California considers his show entertainment. After the third full show, Ted agreed to go to rehab since he had relapsed due to the stress of his new found fame.

Williams left after two weeks because his manager said he had work in Los Angeles.

All ends well, right? Nope. The Hollywood ending is just that – found only in a movie – especially when it involves a drug and alcohol abuser.

Ted Williams really needs professional help if he is going to really control his addictions

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Ohio rail plan subject to misinformation

One mode of transportation missing or not as well known in the US is rail travel. In Europe, where gas prices are large and distances relatively short, rail travel is common. Here in the US the oil and auto industries got all the local urban rail systems torn up in the mid 20th century to force people to buy cars and gas. Now the momentum is swinging back but in Ohio the same tired argument is being heard – “it will cost too much…”. However the facts say different.

One argument being used is that building a passenger train that would connect Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland (the 3C rail plan) would cost too much to build and maintain in a state where budget issues are a common problem.

To the first part – building it will be expensive because the infrastructure was all torn up back in the 1950’s

The second part about the cost of maintaining the system, there is this:

It’s unfortunate to see fiscal conservatives resort to a double standard in claiming to protect Ohio’s taxpayers from the imminent doom of the Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati (3C) passenger-rail project.

The hyperbolic Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, even said he feared the 3C trains’ $17 million annual operating cost would grow into “the biggest money pit in state history.” Perhaps he forgot that the immensely larger, debt-ridden and justifiably celebrated Ohio canal system threatened to be just that to our state as a fledgling.

Or perhaps he mistook Ohio’s ballooning highway subsidy for the 3C trains’ operating bill. On behalf of Ohioans who seek 0.005 percent of the state’s transportation budget for First World travel options other than highways, I ask for fairer treatment.

The double standard is revealed in the $7 billion of highway projects due in the 3C corridor in the next few years: the innerbelt rebuild in Cleveland, the I-70/I-71 reconstruction in Columbus, the I-75 ramps project in Dayton and the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. No one doubts that quality highways are needed. But no one has scrutinized how Ohio taxpayers can afford to sustain this massive infrastructure tomorrow.

In other words, at least $1 billion of ODOT’s operations and maintenance budget was from subsidies in 2010, and that will grow to $1.4 billion by 2017. Meanwhile, the State Highway Patrol’s $318 million annual budget is no longer funded by the gasoline tax. The patrol’s budget is now a general-fund subsidy to highways.

Trains are a better deal than highways

We need to start to move to alternative transportation modes and rail is one that is really needed.

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Failed CEO peddles book on economic policy on former investor’s TV channel

Bill Diffenderffer was CEO of SkyBus airlines that was based in Columbus in 2007. It was billed as a value no frills airline that had limited $10 tickets and cheap regular fares. The airline went belly up in 11 months. Now the same guy that couldn’t run an airline is pushing a book he wrote that complains about President Obama’s economic policy. The even funnier bit is he did an interview on Channel 10 whose parent company was an investor in the failed airline.

The problem, besides a failed CEO trying to lecture on economic policy, was that during the broadcast it wasn’t mentioned that Dispatch Printing Company, parent of WBNS 10TV was one of the investors. The article on the website does mention it.

Then there was this:

“I wanted a president that came in and said ‘We need to fix some things’ – health care needs to be fixed – that doesn’t mean government should manage a health care system; they don’t know how.”

Diffenderffer said the same holds true with the bailouts of automakers and the banking industry.

“They don’t know how to run a company, so why have a car czar? They don’t know how to run banks yet they all have these people now telling them how they should be run,” Diffenderffer said. “I think we have to let the big companies fail so the newer hungrier new models can come in a replace their old models that aren’t working.”

Skybus CEO Speaks On Why Airline Failed

It is understandable that some one who couldn’t run a successful airline might get the actual economic policy he is complaining about wrong. The government isn’t planning on managing the health care system or running the auto and banking industry.

Taking advice on economics from this guy is like taking relationship advice from Tiger Woods.

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