Hts121

^ Georgetown Rd.?

A couple points about this "Building a Better Ohio" group. I hear it will be headed by Vaughn Flasher, a GOP consultant and lobbyist for...... wait for it...... tobacco, energy, and insurance industries. Grassroots indeed! I wonder what kind of pay scale Kasich and Batchelder gave him....... $1 million for each percentage point swing in the polling perhaps? Kasich seems to like these merit pay systems.

That pretty much sums it up for me. Exactly how I feel about JT. Ohio lost an asset of limitless value when the Vest stepped down. I hate to be skeptical, but they are not going to find a replacement for what he brought to the program, the school, and our state.

And that is exactly why the GOP was unwise to attack the group as a whole. If anything, SB5 eliminates the separation of process between teachers and other public workers. Cops and firefighters, for instance, had a separate process for resolving impasse. No more. The 'dinner table' point sadly is true. But that is sad about any topic that has become so partisan that we can't civilly discuss the issues. Glad to hear you are in favor of holding a referendum. Have you signed the petition yet? Let me know if you need to know where to go.

Don't try and convince me. Try to convince those who are on the fence (not you or me). Give it a shot. I'm up for the challenge. You?

^^Maybe you could explain what is unfair about the current system? I'm sure you know and are not just accepting these talking points without rationale.... Let me get you started. •Senate Bill 5 will help KEEP our hard-working teachers, fire fighters, police officers and other public servants on the job. Is there some provision of SB5 that I am missing? The version I read drastically increases management rights, including making layoffs much, much easier. If you want to just go by past record, the only thing that has kept our hard-working teacher, cops, and firefighters on the job has been union concessions granted in lieu of threatened layoffs. •Senate Bill 5 will PROTECT middle class taxpayers. How? It certainly doesn't protect the middle-class taxpayers which it covers. It hurts them. It removes their protections. The simple truth is that it protects the desires of a distinct minority of taxpayers who Kasich is unwaveringly loyal to. Considering that its negative impacts will be felt more in the middle class neighborhoods, then it will in the wealthy exurbs, I can't agree with that statement. •Senate Bill 5 will give schools and governments the FLEXIBILITY to manage our tax dollars. They act like there wasn't a lengthy and powerful 'management rights' section under the current law. •Senate Bill 5 will SAVE taxpayers millions of dollars a year. Prove it. Here... let me try - "Senate Bill 5 will COST taxpayers millions of dollars a year." That was easy •Senate Bill 5 will help our communities BALANCE their budgets and fund essential services. Fire, police and education are NOT essential services? These people have their priorities all screwed up. The estate tax would help balance local budgets too.... oh wait.... •Senate Bill 5 will restore FAIRNESS between public and private sector jobs. No. It does the opposite. The current system, using third party neutrals, is fair. This new system is rigged in an unbashful way. As an analogy, consider selling your house. You make a demand. The buyer makes an offer. A mediator tries to work out the difference, but you can't agree. Final resolution is brought about by the buyer choosing which of the last two offers is the most fair and that is thereafter deemed the selling price. Might as well not even have the negotiations. •Senate Bill 5 will IMPROVE the accountability and transparency of government labor negotiations. Translation - it will politicize those negotiations. This is going to get ugly. But this is also more than a bend of the truth because SERB proceedings are always open to examination. What SB5 does is push the negotiations into the faces of the voters, sometimes even making them decide at the election booth. •Senate Bill 5 will help REWARD and RETAIN the best teachers and employees. Here's hoping we don't return to the days of chronyism and patronage.... exactly why we got rid of a merit based system in the first place. But this statement, not factoring human nature, is basically true. If this is all SB5 did, there probably would not even be a threat of reerendum What needs to be done is a return to the drawing board. Reform is needed. Politically motivated attacks are not.

I'm not sure if crime has actually risen in Euclid, but I would bet that reported crime has gone up. IMO, the criminals are far less intimidating and far less influential these days.

If you don't mind slowing down the bandwagon, I might want to jump off..... at least until after the all-star break.

Why would have Tressel deserved even a slap on the wrist if he had come forward with the email? You get slapped on the wrist for playing it 'by the book'? To me, JT did one thing wrong. He checked the box on the NCAA form that says he is not aware of any potential rules infractions. That was his only crime. Does anyone truly believe there is one, single college coach in the entire country who could honestly check that box? Given the broad language used, I certainly don't...

1996 stands out to me as a year the 'experts' said it was a weak draft. That is how a skinny, young PG named Allen Iverson got picked first. The draft then proceeded with Camby, Abdur-Rahim, Marbury, Ray Allen, and Antoine Walker being picked 2-6. We picked up Potapenko at 11. Immediately after that pick went Kobe, Stojackovic, Nash, and Jermaine O'Neal :( As for this draft, I would probably project it as being weak from picks 3-10, but not beyond that. Irving and Wiliams could be top 3 picks in just about any draft. They are good values with the top two picks. Then the draft is at least decently stacked with players who hold good value at the back end or just outside the lottery. There just really are not can't miss prospects beyond Williams and Irving.

This is probably better suited for the "Cleveland: Random Quick Questions" thread. I am fairly familiar with Euclid. My dad rented an apartment in Euclid at one time. I grew up not far from there, but have never lived in the City myself. I came close to buying a house off of Chardon road about 6-7 years ago. Euclid essentially still is what it is. It is getting older in housing stock and infrastructure, and the racial composition is trending more towards blacks which is leading to white flight. But, regardless of outward appearances, it still is basically a rough around the edges, tough, blue-collar, middle class neighborhood just like it probably was when you grew up. Not nearly as many Catholics as there once was, but still a heavy presence. It still has a good football program at the high school. Euclid Square Mall is a mess and the Palasades certainly is not the attraction it once was. But most of the area near the lake is still nice and very walkable. What concerns me about Euclid (and some of its inner-ring counterparts) is the housing stock. It is just so bleh. Mostly post-war, aluminum siding bungalows with very little character and not a very popular design by modern or 'timeless' standards. Wood-framed too. If I were looking for a place in Euclid, the only two 'nabes that would probably entice me is the one I mentioned above off of Chardon south of Euclid..... and the areas right around Lakeshore Blvd towards 260th. But I think I prefer North Collinwood to either. When house hunting, Euclid's extremely low property taxes catch your eye.... until you realize they make up a good bit of the difference in a higher income tax.

Jim Tressel is a great man. Its easy for those in who never liked him simply because he coached the Buckeyes to pile on now.

I disagree. Florida was just clicking that day.... better than they had all season, and Ginn Jr. getting hurt destroyed our offensive gameplan and capabilities. If we play that game back 10 times, I would bet that OSU team (if healthy) wins more than 5. LSU, in 2007, was clearly the better team. They wore us down up front as the game progressed. We really had no business being in the NC game that year. It was by sheer luck we made it, but we weren't one of the top two teams. The first year we played USC, they were surely the better team. That might have been the best college team, from a talent standpoint, in the past decade. But we should have won that second matchup.

^Tell that to John Cooper....

Slippery slope, my friend. What happens when a booster wants to pay the kid $150 for his autograph? How about $500? $1,000? $10,000? I agree that it is not THAT bad. It is not like the kids were given the tatoos as an enticement to commit or forego entering the draft. This was not an institutional thing. It was a booster thing. But a rule violation nonetheless. There is easily $100,000 worth of body art on the college football field at any given game. It might not be the "same scam", but these kids aren't paying for all those tatoos. I would also say that what Tressel is ultimately guilty of (not reporting potential violations to the NCAA) goes on at every college campus, not just the top 10 programs. Here's a scenario. I know a 'guy' who played at a school much smaller than OSU. His freshman year, he and a few of his buddies were arrested for fighting and some other 'trumped up' charges. The OIC at the jail decides that their football coach, the OIC's coach in HS ironically, will punish them way worse than a judge ever will, so he calls him at 2am to come and pick the kids up.... never filing the charges. The coach has one of his assistants wake the kids up at 6am and makes the kids run until they puke. NCAA rule violation? Absolutely. Did the coach report it? Absolutely not. It happens EVERYWHERE. The NCAA has a serious problem and it knows it.

No matter what the truth is, it's such a shame.

You mean in the county... but yes, I agree. But that is not realistic. There are certain communities whose identity is being an individual village, like Chagrin Falls, Bratenahl and Bentleyville. It is in their fabric as a community.

20 stories? A bit extreme IMO. That would be a tight circle getting in and out. Would be dizzying. I think the reality of it is that the developers would 'prefer' to save that lot and the one CO has marked in red for 'future development'.... whatever that means, I don't know. But there definitely is the potential for something on each of those lots which would make us all very happy.

He is consumed by hate. I actually feel sorry for him.

Consolidating safety forces and sharing tax revenue are two totally separate issues. Beachwood could still use that tax revenue to pay their "share" of the total operating budget. They would not have to share their revenue. But what they could share in is the Chief salary ($100,000+), a dispatch center, squad cars, pumpers, hook and ladder engines, EMS squads, guns, bullet proof vests, etc...... not to mention greater buying power in the health insurance market. They could take the savings and redirect it to their citizens. That's how they benefit..... since you brought it up. But it's the tenor of your post that makes me feel that true regionalism will never happen here. There is simply too much short-sighted, "what's in it for me" attitude in this region. Everyone is looking for the immediate benefits and not considering the long-term. Rot spreads like a disease. It is in all of our best interest to stop it with our collective strenghth. As Cleveland goes, so goes the region. Think about it this way.... why is it in Myers Park's or Dilworth's best interest to be a part of Charlotte? Those areas certainly provide a disproportionate share of revenue to the City. But their presence gives Charlotte an unbelievable tax base and, perhaps more importantly, a highly educated voting base which helps Charlotte accomplish the type of progress we sit here and fantasize about. I just ask you to consider where you think UH will be in 50 years if the status quo is maintained. How did it look 50 years ago compared to today? You want to continue on that path?

But then how do they get across Ontario? ;)

Lust is leaving? I guess that means that everything is surely going to be peaches and ice cream in the WHD this summer? No more fights. Thank God.

^^"Ultra liberal" ^I think if school districts are completely taken off the table, at least a serious conversation can begin. Fact is, the outer rings, on average, pay MORE salary to their civil servants than Cleveland or the inner ring do. For instance, the starting salary of a Firefighter who works in a place like Beachwood, where there might be 2 or 3 structural fire per year, may be 30%+ higher than the starting salary for a Cleveland Firefighter who constantly has to deal with HAZMAT alarms and other life-threatening situations. It makes little sense, but it is what it is. Same would go for Patrolmen. The Chiefs make ridiculous amounts of money for the relatively small departments they manage. Point being, if people took a good and honest look at it, the people who are the most staunch opponents to regoinalism may actually find that it benefits them. I think the best approach is a phased approach. Start with safety forces. Keep school districts and service departments off the table initially.

He has never had a homophobic moment..... he just doesn't want "them" to touch him. Classic.

The initial solution is easy. Keep the school districts separate. That is the main reason why people are against regionalism.