Ohio
News from Gov. Kasich’s Office:
The Toledo Blade...
Despite
doubts, Kasich’s jobs machine
rolls on
By David Kushma, Blade Editor
Printed
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
NOTE: But
Ohio needs jobs, Heaven knows. JobsOhio
is a fact, like it or not. So let’s watch the folks who run it like
hawks — but
let’s also give them the opportunity to do what they say they can do.
Says Mr.
Kvamme: “Judge us on our results.”
As
Labor Day approaches, Mark Kvamme
has come to Toledo to talk about jobs. He aims to help create a lot of
them in
Ohio.
Mr.
Kvamme is chief investment officer
of JobsOhio, the private corporation created by Gov. John Kasich to
oversee
state government’s efforts to attract and keep jobs and promote
economic
growth. JobsOhio is taking over many of the duties previously performed
by the
Ohio Department of Development.
That
shift has generated skepticism,
much of it justified, about the extent to which formerly public
business will
be done behind closed doors, with Ohioans learning about it only after
the
fact.
But
the governor and Mr. Kvamme insist
that the state needs to move faster and more flexibly — “at the speed
of
business,” in the administration’s oft-repeated phrase — to compete
more
effectively for jobs and investment.
“We
can’t have public records requests
impinge on economic development,” Mr. Kvamme told me during a visit to
The
Blade last week, after a meeting with local development officials in
Perrysburg.
“If
you’re a public company, you can’t
have that information out there,” he says. “Companies tell us, without
a
nondisclosure agreement, we cannot work with you.”
JobsOhio
is funding itself by leasing
the state’s wholesale liquor monopoly for 25 years, for $1.5 billion.
Mr.
Kvamme estimates the lease will throw off $100 million in annual
profits that
his corporation can use to make loans to businesses, provide
infrastructure
improvement grants, promote tourism, and offer “close the deal” money
to
attract employers.
That
revenue, of course, will no
longer be available to the state budget to help pay for general
government. But
Mr. Kvamme, a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, insists that
JobsOhio
will be “ROI-positive,” using business-speak for return on investment.
JobsOhio
is working with local
economic development agencies across the state to promote regional
assets and
target strategic industries. The Ohio Third Frontier Commission, which
promotes
applications of technology and innovation, also is part of the setup;
it works
with Jobs-Ohio to establish goals for the regional agencies and
provides them
with funding, independent evaluation, and oversight.
JobsOhio’s
affiliate in 19 counties in
northwest Ohio is the Toledo-based Regional Growth Partnership. Dean
Monske,
the partnership’s president, says the arrangement will foster
“efficiency,
speed, and responsiveness.”
“The
state is saying it no longer
wants to dictate to us,” Mr. Monske says. “We’re closer to the decision
makers
in this area.”
Mr.
Kvamme says our part of the state
has “great progress to sell,” both in traditional industries such as
auto
manufacturing and emerging ones such as photovoltaics and alternative
energy.
He
estimates that since the Kasich
administration took office in January, JobsOhio and the revamped
Department of
Development have helped bring 2,500 jobs to northwest Ohio and preserve
another
7,300. Those figures include the 1,105 jobs Chrysler Group LLC is
talking about
creating at its Toledo Assembly complex, although that deal isn’t done
yet.
Mr.
Kvamme is working for Jobs-Ohio
for a dollar a year. He and the governor have recruited a high-powered
board of
directors that includes Ohio State University President Gordon Gee and
the
chief executives of such big Ohio companies as Marathon Petroleum
Corp.,
Procter & Gamble, and Bob Evans Farms.
That
composition, along with Mr.
Kvamme’s pledge to deregulate business — “Silly little things that
government
does add up,” he says — has led to complaints that JobsOhio will favor
corporate interests over those of taxpayers, workers, and environmental
protection.
Two
Democratic state lawmakers and the
liberal advocacy group ProgressOhio are suing to put JobsOhio out of
business.
They claim its private status and investment activities violate the
state
constitution.
Mr.
Kvamme brushes off the lawsuit and
its potential to discourage deals with private businesses, insisting
that
JobsOhio is “not using any public funds.” Christiane Schmenk, the
director of
the development department, says JobsOhio is “on board to do great
things, and
we’re off and running.”
Both
officials take greater offense at
an accusation made by Progress-Ohio last week that the Kasich
administration is
using the grants to the regional development agencies to reward its
political
contributors and allies on such contentious issues as Senate Bill 5,
the
statewide ballot proposal that would erode the collective-bargaining
rights of
public employees.
“There’s
absolutely zero connection,”
Mr. Kvamme says. “The partners already were picked. That’s so
ridiculous, so
irresponsible — it’s disgusting.”
Adds
Ms. Schmenk: “What they’re
talking about never entered our minds. It’s a total fabrication.”
I
have reservations about Jobs-Ohio. I
worry that it will be too quick to discard development initiatives
introduced
by Mr. Kasich’s predecessors in such areas as export promotion. I’m
concerned
that the administration’s penchant for privatization is driven more by
ideology
than proven advantages.
There
are legitimate objections to the
extent to which JobsOhio gets to play by its own rules, and valid
questions
about whether its confidentiality procedures will keep citizens in the
dark, as
well as potential business poachers.
And
when Mr. Kvamme identifies his
competition — “It’s Michigan, it’s Indiana, it’s Pennsylvania and
Kentucky and
North Carolina and Georgia” — he almost sounds as if he’s handicapping
the Big
Ten football season. Has job creation in America truly become a
zero-sum game?
But
Ohio needs jobs, Heaven knows.
JobsOhio is a fact, like it or not. So let’s watch the folks who run it
like
hawks — but let’s also give them the opportunity to do what they say
they can
do.
Says
Mr. Kvamme: “Judge us on our
results.”
David
Kushma is editor of The Blade.
Read
it at the Toledo Blade
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