From the monthly archives: November 2010
Earlier today, Joseph wrote about how the Cincinnati Enquirer editorial board, whom they endorsed over Governor Strickland, over his lack of transparency with State hiring of political patronage jobs.
Well, you can add the Canton Repository to that list, too.
Gov.-elect John Kasich has been promising to conduct state business differently from his predecessor. But if that means conducting state business in the dark, it’s a promise he needs to break.
…
He doesn’t have to do so, his aide said, because the website is privately operated, and he doesn’t want to do so because he [...]
Full Story... →Here’s the second glaring error in Tim’s post on Sunday:
For example, suddenly, it required a background check to get paid to canvass. I cannot think of a single practice more certain to alienate you in the black community, where the vast majority of the people who need this type of work have criminal records. Then, they paid in checks, which required a trip to a check cashing joint that charges insane fees.
Gang (and Tim), meet Grassroots Solutions, the Ohio Democratic Party’s GOVT paid canvassing vendor that has been overlooked in this entire [...]
Full Story... →I’m not sure what possessed Tim to write the “last word” on street money and ODP on Sunday because he was quite aware that I had interviewed Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern on Friday for a story to be published today. Regardless, before I can even get to Redfern’s interview, I need to point out some obvious errors in Tim’s post.
We’ve written about the long simmering resentment against ODP and Ted Strickland among the elected officials, the activists, the ministers, and other leaders in the African American community, over perceived disrespect, past episodes like the chair [...]
Full Story... →Late last week I wrote about how the Enquirer’s editorial staff should be pissed off at John Kasich for telling them he was going to be all about transparency and accessibility and then immediately proving those statements to be lies mere weeks after winning the election.
It turns out they were, in fact, quite offended by Kasich’s recent announcement to keep private the resumes of job applicants for public jobs. So much so that they wrote a thoroughly scathing editorial on Friday.
In case you didn’t catch it, here are some highlights:
Here’s what the GOP gubernatorial [...]
Full Story... →After a bunch of calls, no one will go on the record, and few people will talk…so given that, here’s what we think happened.
Full Story... →With little news coverage and no fanfare John Kasich named Bob Blair as his choice for Director of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services (ODAS) yesterday. He intentionally did it on a Friday afternoon to avoid pulling the appointment into last week’s news cycle. And it seems to have worked. The coverage so far has been tepid and limited to repeating the stuff included in Kasich’s press release.
But there’s one thing everyone left out. This appointment is vital to Kasich’s big plans for one very important reason: ODAS has a division called the Office of Collective Bargaining which [...]
Full Story... →Here’s the deadline to Dispatch’s “Daily Briefing” blog:
Kaisch: I’ll sit down with ‘unions that make things’
“With organized labor, look, the public-employee unions, particularly the teachers’ union, you know how I feel about them,” Kasich said during the Republican Governors Association’s annual meeting in San Diego this week, where there was a lot of talk from the governors and governors-elect about reigning in public employees’ pay and benefits.
“But for the unions that make things, I’m going to sit down with them. And I’ll tell you what, they’re going to become part of the solution, not part [...]
Full Story... →Kasich next Cabinet appointment was announced yesterday. It’s for the Department of Administrative Services. Yep, another agency that the House Republicans have pledged to eliminate through consolidation.
How else can you interpret this but to say that Kasich has no intention to adopt House Bill 25—the House Republican’s signature government reform/budget cutting measure? After all, why would he be making his early appointment announcements in agencies specifically targeted by Republicans to eliminate?
Full Story... →Jon Keeling writes about the prospect that Ohio will lose $800 million in federal 3C passenger rail start up and education reform money because of John Kasich’s specific campaign promises to cancel those plans.
Naturally, Keeling says: It’s all Ted Strickland’s fault.
And Keeling is absolutely right. It’s totally Ted Strickland’s fault.
After all, if Governor Strickland hadn’t gotten nearly that $1 billion in federal funding for Ohio in the first place, John Kasich wouldn’t have to reject it.
Makes perfect sense, right?
Earlier today, Eric wrote about how State Senator Tim Grendell has now suddenly decided that he didn’t want to take the House seat he was just elected to, but instead stay for the remaining two years of his Senate terms, which he cannot run for re-election for due to term limits.
First, let’s cover the things the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that makes this story look even worse:
Not only does Grendell now suddenly want to say in the Senate, he’s now campaigning to be elected into a leadership position. “Rep. Richard Hollington, a 78-year-old Republican who was [...]
Full Story... →Back in September John Kasich told the Cincy Enquirer that his administration would be all about transparency and accessibility.
The paper’s editors subsequently endorsed Mr. Kasich.
And I can only imagine they are feeling pretty deceived based on the events of the past two days.
A few days ago we discussed Kasich’s private website that was accepting resumes for public jobs and how this lack of transparency seemed to go against everything Kasich was promising during the campaign. Yesterday Kasich made it official when he announced he would be keeping the application information private.
Most [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
