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Toledo
Blade...
Kasich:
End
partisanship to help Ohio
Touting
2011, governor calls for collaboration
By Jim
Provance
February 11, 2012
STEUBENVILLE,
Ohio -- Gov. John Kasich called Tuesday for an end to the partisan
battles that
characterized 2011 and urged Democrats and fellow Republicans to work
together
to get as close as possible to creating “a prosperous Ohio, a richer
Ohio, the
Ohio free of unemployment.”
“I think we
have to steer clear of mindless partisanship,” he told members of the
General
Assembly, Cabinet members, students, and others gathered in the
auditorium of
the Steubenville City School District’s Wells Academy elementary school.
“I’ve got
to tell you something,” Mr. Kasich said. “Being a good Republican or
being a
good Democrat, you’ve lost it. They don’t give you awards for being
partisan. …
If you look at what’s happening in Washington, do we want to be them?
They
can’t get out of their own way. ... Leave it on the fields, ladies and
gentlemen.”
The governor
delivered his second State of the State address some 150 miles
northeast of the
Statehouse in what is believed to be the first time that an annual
State of the
State speech to lawmakers took place outside of Columbus.
The
struggling steel city of Steubenville, he said, reminded him of his old
home,
which is McKees Rocks, Pa., about 35 miles up the Ohio River just
outside
Pittsburgh.
“If it
wasn’t for bipartisanship, I wouldn’t be standing in Steubenville
today,” Mr.
Kasich said, referring to the heavily Democratic town.
He picked
Wells Academy, a K-4 elementary school built within the walls of
Steubenville
High School, because it is the highest-performing elementary school on
state
tests, flying in the face of arguments that poorer, central-city
schools tend
to struggle.
“[Wells
Academy has] set a standard for the entire rest of the state,” he said.
“They’re the No. 1-performing school in Ohio. If you guess where that
No. 1
school would be located, you may not get to Steubenville. But here it
is.”
The speech
was heavier on looking back at 2011 than it was on proposals looking
forward.
He did unveil a plan for a statewide broadband system that would be as
much as
10 times faster and looked ahead at what he hopes will be a burgeoning
industry
of exploration for natural gas and oil in eastern Ohio shale.
He cited
the state’s dropping unemployment rate and studies showing Ohio leading
the
Midwest in job creation after losing some 600,000 jobs over the last
decade.
“We’re
alive today,” he said. “We’re out of the ditch. We’re growing. We’re
happening
in this state. It’s not me.”
Democrats
criticized the nearly hour-and-a-half speech, delivered without a
teleprompter,
for lacking specifics on the few new proposals he unveiled and for the
budget
cuts that Steubenville and other schools and local governments across
the state
have experienced under Mr. Kasich’s first budget.
“The
governor is in fantasy land,” House Minority Leader Armond Budish (D.,
Beachwood) said. “He took credit for everything under the sun and,
given a few
more minutes, would have taken credit for the sun. … He asks us to put
aside
partisanship and yet he rams through the most extreme radical agenda
that we’ve
seen in quite a long time.”
He noted
that the governor made no mention of Senate Bill 5, the law restricting
public-employee collective bargaining power that voters ultimately
rejected at
the polls.
Interruption
When the
conversation turned to what he is holding out as part of the economic
answer to
struggling eastern Ohio -- the new breed of natural gas and oil
exploration --
the governor’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by a handful of
protesters.
“Kasich is
selling out Ohio,” one shouted as she was led from the school
auditorium by
security officers.
Many of the
more than 150 protesters who were penned into a street across from the
school,
as well as the few who got inside the auditorium, were primarily
concerned
about the use of hydraulic “fracking” to get at the oil and gas.
The process
uses fluids and chemicals at high pressure to fracture underground
shale to
release the fossil fuels trapped within.
There’s no
doubt in the mind of protester Darlene O’Neil of Youngstown that recent
earthquakes that shook her home are related to a local injection well
that
takes mine waste, including that from fracking operations.
“We’ve had
10 or more earthquakes in this exact vicinity since these injection
wells have
gone in,” she said. “I think that’s pretty cause-and-effect. I’m
looking for
them to stop until they can find regulation that will keep our air
safe, our
water safe, and our children safe, and keep my house from crumbling.”
New policy
Mr. Kasich
promised the industry would be appropriately regulated and that Ohio
would not
trade the environment for the billions it is expected to generate.
The only
real new policy he unveiled was a $10 million investment to improve and
expand
on a fiber-optic, high-speed broadband system that the state claims
could
increase Internet download speeds as much as tenfold.
The first
$8.1 million phase of an agreement with Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper
Networks
will fund hardware connections among Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati,
Columbus, and
Cleveland by June, with other parts of the state following by October.
In a
particularly emotional point, Mr. Kasich urged lawmakers to declare war
on
human trafficking in Ohio.
“We have
1,000 Ohio children -- the average age 13 years of age. They’re in the
slave
trade business in our state,” he said. “[Rep.] Teresa Fedor [D.,
Toledo], you
know, she’s on fire about this. … My girls are 12. Can you imagine
someone
snatching your daughter and forcing them into prostitution at 13 and 14
years
of age?
‘It’s a
scourge!’
“We’ve got
to stop this,” he said. “We’ve got to stamp this out of our state. It’s
a
scourge!”
Although
she applauded Mr. Kasich’s support for her bill to strengthen Ohio
services for
victims of human trafficking, Ms. Fedor criticized the governor for
standing in
an excellent public school and making a pitch for expansion of vouchers
and
charter schools that would allow more children to leave more
traditional
schools.
That point
was not lost on Toledo Public Schools Superintendent Jerome Pecko, who
said
vouchers and charter schools drain public schools of students and
revenue.
“I’m
disappointed that he puts so much weight on choice, and in particular
the
charter schools and the EdChoice [voucher] program that we have,
because I
don’t think they necessarily are productive for the students who take
advantage
of them, with some exceptions,” he said.
Rep.
Barbara Sears (R., Monclova Township) said the lack of new proposals
from the
governor was a reflection of past success. “If he hadn’t done so many
reforms
in the budget itself, I think you would have seen a lot of new things
coming
out,” she said. “What I think you saw was a bit of a reflection on
everything
we’ve accomplished and a bit of confirmation of what we’re going to
continue
on, take a look at, and prioritize.”
In addition
to “fracking,” protesters challenged the governor on his potential
lease of the
Ohio Turnpike. A few employees of Findlay’s Cooper Tire &
Rubber Inc., who
have been locked out in a labor dispute, protested what they
characterized as
corporate greed.
University
of Toledo President Dr. Lloyd Jacobs said he agreed with Mr. Kasich’s
emphasis
on the link between manufacturing and education. “It used to be thought
that
manufacturing was dumb, and dirty, and dangerous, and disappearing, and
that is
no longer true,” he said. “Today, manufacturing is smart, safe,
sustainable,
and surging forward. It now needs to be connected to higher education.
We need
to create university-driven manufacturing. Education needs to be
connected to
jobs.”
Owens
Community College also liked what it heard from Mr. Kasich on the
growing link
between higher education and jobs.
Vice
President and Provost Renay Scott said industry wants short-term
training
programs and professional certification programs, such as welding,
baking, and
pastry certificates.
“The key
about education is it needs to be on demand, it needs to be flexible,
and it
needs to terminate in a job,” she said.
Staff
writer Nolan Rosenkrans contributed to this report.
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