What will a federal stimulus package mean for Ohio?

The Hannah News Service, Inc. released an article,White House: Ohio to Gain or Save More Than 140,000 Jobs from Stimulus, on February 5, 2009 which outlined the status of the Federal Stimulus package, it was passed in the House and is currently delayed by skeptical Republicans, and the benefits of the package for Ohio.

"For Ohio, that analysis predicts the creation or saving of 141,700 jobs over the next two years in a range of industries from clean energy to health care, with more than 90 percent in the private sector.

More than 4.5 million workers would receive a pay tax cut of up to $1,000, and 666,000 out-of-work Ohioans would get an additional $100 a month in unemployment insurance benefits.

Other benefits, according to President Barack Obama’s administration, include:

- 128,000 families would be eligible for a new $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for four years of college.

- At least 369 schools would receive money to help modernize facilities. "

Both U.S. Senator Brown and Gov. Ted Strickland are urging for the passage of the stimulus package.

The full document released by the White House is available at www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/White_House_Releases_Additional_State1.pdf

For more news on the Stimulus package check out the article Estimates of Ohio's benefits from stimulus plan vary widely.

Cities are not the only ones suffering: A look into American Suburbs

The Restoring Prosperity to Ohio initiative is a place-based effort which advocates targeted investment in Ohio's assets in order to fully leverage their economic potential. Some people mistakingly believe that the focus of this initiative is on the city centers. While it is important to reviltalize Ohio's cities, the Restoring Prosperity initiative also realizes that many of Ohio's suburbs are facing similar issues. In order to better understand the problems and opportunities in America's suburbs check out the Newsweek article, The Suburban Challenge, by the Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley of the Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings.

Smart Growth: What does it look like?

Greater Ohio talks about Smart Growth and land use planning. However, for people unfamiliar with the term, it is hard to conceptualize. Well no more. The Natural Resource Defense Council has completed a case study, Picturing Smart Growth, that shows what cities could look like if smart growth principles were applied. Basically, it uses Photoshop to apply smart growth principles to existing sites. It is a great resource to show people how some place (similar to their environments) could transform over time into more friendly environments.  Check it out!

Appointments to the Ohio House standing committees and standing subcommittees

Click to download a copy of the Ohio House Committee Assignments-128th

We need to take care of all areas of Ohio

Ohio Senator John Carey wrote an article in January's newspaper to first, to express hope with the new dynamics in the Ohio General Assembly and the election of Armond Budish as the Speaker, second, to give thanks to the Administration for their efforts to ease the burden for rural Ohioans with the closing of the DHL Plant in Wilmington, Ohio and third to outline his some of his concerns with the Administration's redevelopment efforts.

Senator Carey recognizes that Ohio's big cities are the key to the economic vitality of the state however he also believes that focus on these cities should not come at the expense of the rural areas. Two activities that lead him to believe that this may be the case were the absence of representation from Appalachia Ohio on the 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force created by ODOT (Ohio Department of Transportation) as well as the recent Job Ready Sites program grants which left out funding for project located south of I-70 and east of I-71.

Senator Carey's concerns are valid and felt by numerous Ohioans. As the Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative progresses, we have become aware of similar sentiments in multiple sectors of Ohio; townships, the agricultural community, Appalachia Ohio and even more urban areas, such as Piqua. Restoring Prosperity is a place-based, however, we believe that the state policy recommendations put forward will help Ohioans at every level and we have made strong efforts to increase our outreach to different sectors in Ohio to make sure they too, can contribute their input and become part of the effort to Restore Ohio.

Marion Rotary Club works to revitalize its city

After Greater Ohio's presentation to the Marion Rotary Club in January 2009, the club decided to make to heed the recommendations of teh Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative by investing in its assets. The group made a donation to the Marion Palace Theatre in order to enable needy children to participate in events there. This is one example of the many ways communities can revitalize their cities. All it takes it some community pride, a realistic view of the assets you possess and a strategy to leverage those assets.

Restoring Prosperity goes to Hamilton

Lavea Brachman, Co-Director of Greater Ohio recently visited Hamilton Ohio to present the Restoring Prosperity Initiative to the Vision 20-20 Committee as well as to speak at the Hamilton's Annual Chamber of Commerce Dinner. Click here to open a pdf of her presentation to the Committee.

The State of the State

Governor Strickland spoke to Ohioans on Wednesday, January 28th as he gave the State of the State address. If you would like to read his speech it is available on Ohio.gov. Do you want to know what other people think about his address?

Check out these links to hear fellow Ohioans' opinions:

Area Lawmakers mixed on Strickland's address

Strickland offers surprises in State of the State

One Community wants Technology for All

One Community, a local nonprofit broadband provider in Northeast Ohio, has recently embarked on an initiative to put 50,000 computers in Northeast Ohio schools over the next five years. The Cleveland Plain Dealer highlights the logistics of the plan and potential benefits. Companies like One Community are exactly what Ohio needs to revitalize its economy. Not only is this organization at the cutting edge of technology, it is also dedicated to increasing the well-being of Ohioans. As broadband communication becomes a vital asset, cities and businesses will rely more on companies like One Community to set up the basics of online communication. However, the company takes it one step further by also teaching organizations how to effectively use their new high-speed connections.

One example of how One Community operates occurs in connecting area hospitals to each other.

They put hospital within the same system on a network which allows them to set up VPN connections through the 41 hospital sites without having a charge for setting up point-to-point sites. This results in secure, connected sites at a cheap price. The speed of the connection also allows them to use the internet to share remote diagnostics, live CAT scans, and view live surgeries.

A bitter taste of reality

For those of you who still believe that Ohio's economy will rebound on its own you may want to take a look at the U.S. News article, "Wave of Layoffs in U.S., Europe show severity of the recession." It is evident from this article that everyone is bearing the brunt as the international economy is taking nose dive.

During a time of crisis, it is those that embrace change and dare to try new things that come out on top.

Greater Ohio is working at the state level with Administration officials and legislative leaders to craft new solutions that will arrest these trends and restore prosperity to Ohio once again. We see that the drivers of prosperity can be boiled down into four buckets – innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality of place. We need to press at the state level for progress in all of those areas simultaneously.

The Restoring Prosperity to Ohio proposes policies recommendations that change the fundamentals of government by encouraging actions such as cluster development (geographic concentrations of interconnected firms/organizations); leveraging anchor institutions (universities and medical institutions); proposing a foreclosure action plan; transformative infrastructure investments; advancing workforce training; and governance reform to promote regional solutions. In order for communities to take advantage of the opportunities that come with this financial downturn, they will first have to take stock of their assets and then develop a strategy to build upon them. There are some communities in Ohio that are already on this path, such as Mansfield, Hamilton and Marion and it is vital that the rest of Ohio follow their lead before it is too late.