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Assume the following:

D= Dissatisfaction with what is on television;
V= Better programs might be on another channel; and
F= Missing remote control is not in couch cushions

Thus, R = my lazy arse continuing to watch a crappy program for fear of wasting energy to manually change the channel.

There are other variables, though:

(C*P1), where C= Cheetos cheese-flavored snacks and P1= the percentage of Cheetos remaining in the bag;
I= Level of relative inebriation, as there is an inverse relationship between bad television and drunkenness / stonedness; and
(S*P2), where S= sex factor and P2= the likelihood that one will score with the significant other by continuing to watch the crappy television show.

Thus the new equation should look something like this:

(D(C*P1))*(V(S*P2))*F > R - I

However, breaking news about Category 5 hurricanes, terrorist attacks, or the court trials of coked-up celebrities significantly skew these results.

Assume:
NO= massive hurricanes;
WTC= terrorist attacks; and
LL= actresses who hoover pounds of Bolivian marching powder.

The new equation would be this:

((D(C*P1))*(V(S*P2))*F) - NO - WTC - LL > R - I

posted by historymike on Aug 08, 2007 at 06:49:40 pm     #

Very funny hm, but let's be serious for a sec.

In my previous life as a mgmt. consultant, the fomula worked every time in a corporate environment.

Why wouldn't it work in Building A Region? The Vision is in place; Dissatisfaction has never been greater; Resistance to change has dwindeled; all we need is: First Steps.

How about: Stop saying NW Ohio/SE Michigan and start talking about Lake Erie West Communities?

posted by lew on Aug 08, 2007 at 08:40:09 pm     #

I have been doing this type of work since I graduated, and I profess and teach the model whenever I can, but let me tell you, there is a missing component from the model. Unlike historymike's mockery, the missing letter is "I" which stands for implementation.

We have a process that we use that creates "events" that gather large groups of people (church groups, non-profits, manufacturing companies) together and work with them to craft the vision and first steps for their change process. There are two things, I have found, that ruin this process. 1. Lack of leadership and support from ownership and executives or 2.) Lack of Implementation of the plan that was created.

I would also say that in this instance, a regional approach to Economic Development is a great idea. If you look at most regions that are successful, it is because of the vision and committment of the Civic and Private Sector leadership.

One of my criticisms of leadership and business owners in this area was puncuated by Dan Johnson in this weeks TFP article: http://www.toledofreepress.com/?id=6101

(sorry, don't know how to hyperlink yet)

"As a community and region, we may be spending far too much time promoting and refining what is essentially a defensive strategy for economic development. We are spending valuable time asking questions — often the wrong questions — such as “Why is CITY X progressing so much faster than Toledo?” Or, “Why can't we find some companies to locate Downtown in all those empty buildings?”

Instead Civic and Business Leaders need to say:

"Perhaps now is the time to shift to an offensive strategy. Perhaps it is time for us to develop a genuine shared vision for the future of Toledo and our region. Just maybe it is also time to decide what we want Toledo and our region to be a decade from now and to put in place a strategy that will get us there."

With that being said, yes it is possible for a regional concept to be developed, I do sense the dissatisfaction but unlike LEW I do not see that the Vision is in place. I see, and as Dan pointed out in the article, there are several different ED visions, but not one planned vision for the region.

The only other problem is Leadership. Who are going to be the organizations that will truly put in the effort to make this happen? It needs to be a shared plan that covers two states and numerous counties and cities, and it is going to take a lot of time and support.

With that being said, I would love to be part of the conversation and help create that type of plan.

I leave you with one last quote from the D. Johnson article:

As many have said, “the dots are clear; we just have to connect them.”

posted by jdmsbyrd on Aug 09, 2007 at 01:10:24 pm     #

Lew:

I see your connection now. I was unaware that you posted this as a commentary on how the region could move forward.

The biggest hurdle I see for the region is getting the more thriving municipalities (Sylvania, Maumee, Perrysburg) to buy into the benefits of a regional approach. There is fear among the wealthier suburbs that greater connections with Toledo will only mean a siphoning of revenues.

posted by historymike on Aug 09, 2007 at 01:21:01 pm     #

jdmsbyrd:

I did not intend the above post to appear as "mockery." I saw only a Wikipedia copy-paste and did not understand the context. The post sat uncommented upon, and I hoped to spark some sort of conversation, instead of just having an isolated, unconnected post.

posted by historymike on Aug 09, 2007 at 01:24:29 pm     #

lol, mike, that's ok. You can see that I really appericiate that model in giving an outlook on how to create change.

Cheetos and Sex Factors aside, what LEW is trying to do is great and I think will benefit the communities as a whole.

Also, Mike there is another post that cites Sylvania mayor with this to say:

"The majority of Sylvania residents work outside of the city limits," "Economic development anywhere in the region strengthens our local economy by providing job opportunities for our residents."

What I see as the main issues are trust, committment, and collaboration. A good mix of all three will have to be in place from the private sector, government, non-profit, and the citizens in order to develop a plan of first steps for the region.

posted by jdmsbyrd on Aug 09, 2007 at 03:03:05 pm     #

This formula posting is "connected." If you click on the backlinks link above, you'll see that the Lake Erie West article is linking to this formula posting. The formula article is also being included into the Lake Erie West article.

"The biggest hurdle I see for the region is getting the more thriving municipalities (Sylvania, Maumee, Perrysburg) to buy into the benefits of a regional approach."

I would say the biggest hurdle is getting the Toledo-centric politicians out of the way who I believe do not care about the region but only care how the region can serve Toledo. I do think the other communities don't trust Toledo and the Lucas County government. Why should they?

Toledo's current Mayor provides a couple recent examples of this attitude, and I don't believe this Toledo-first mindset is restricted to only Carty.

Last month, Carty falsely accused Wood County of 'poaching.'

Back in June, Carty attacked the Shriners for moving out of Toledo even though the Shriners are remaining in the region. The Shriners serve the region. And don't forget Councilperson Wilma Brown's unprofessional comment about the Shriners. And this anti-Shriner attitude also exists at the Blade. Think about all the good the Shriners have done through the years for the region, and it's totally missed by people like Carty and Brown.

Unigov supporter Jack Ford apparently knows the reason why people flee Toledo for a community outside Toledo:

It's greener, it appears newer and we think it is safer. And, for those of us who really are honest, it's whiter!

With moronic statements like that from so called Toledo leaders, no wonder people leave.

Does the LCIC truly serve Lucas County, or was it simply created to serve Toledo?

A county-wide hotel/motel tax to help build Toledo's sports arena.

Lucas County commissioners involved in a Dorr St. redevelopment project that's in Toledo. Why are the county commissioners involved? Konop claims redeveloping Dorr St benefits the entire county. How?

If the following is incorrect, let me know. Here are some of the components that comprise Lucas County government:

• Commissioners:
  • Pete Gerken - former Toledo City Councilman
  • Tina Skeldon Wozniak - former Toledo City Councilman
  • Ben Konop - Toledo resident defeated Maumee mayor Tim Wagner in primary.
    • Maggie Thurber - former commissioner and a Toledo resident
    • Harry Barlos - former commissioner and a Maumee resident who was defeated by Gerken
    • In 2006, current Toledo City Councilmen Phil Copeland and George Sarantou campaigned for the commissioner seat.

• Treasurer:
  • Wade Kapszukiewic - former Toledo City Councilman

• Auditor:
  • Anita Lopez - former Toledo School Board member

Back in June, the Toledo City Paper's Hildo writing conglomerate wrote an entertaining article that supports unigov. It's entertaining because their unigov solution is basically meant to help solve Toledo's problems. But that same Hildo piece later on talks about all the retreads running for office that are expected to win elections.

Well, that's the problem. Ineptitude keeps getting elected to the school board and city government, and according to Hildo and friends, the solution to solving the problems caused by these people is to look to the thriving communities.

Carty, Ford, their allies, and their machinations are part of the "One Step Back" crowd. We could find businesses, organizations, and activists doing good work to help move the region forward a couple steps at a time, but their work is slowed by the other group.

I think Thomas Pounds from the Toledo Free Press summed it up in his Jul 27, 2007 opinion :

It seems that if Toledo lands a major company, it benefits the entire region, but if a major company chooses the region, it's not necessarily a boon for Toledo, according to [Toledo] mayoral logic.

And again, I think that describes the thinking of the One Step Back crowd and not just Carty.

Joint Economic Development Zone, Toledo has such agreements with multiple communities. Toledo will make money from the Bass Pro development in Rossford because of a JEDZ.

From a Jun 14, 2006 Toledo Free Press story

Guided by attorney and former mayoral candidate Keith Wilkowski, Toledo and Rossford formed a joint economic development zone agreement in 1992. To fulfill the agreement, Toledo provides water to a designated area in Rossford. In return, Rossford pays Toledo for the water services and gives Toledo a substantial portion of income tax revenue — 27 cents of every dollar generated from employee income tax and net business profits.

But ...

From last month's Perrysburg Messenger story after Carty's poaching claim:

Toledo mayor derails possible regional cooperation The administrator said a joint meeting with Toledo officials was scheduled to take place yesterday, July 24, but was terminated after the mayor's comments. "He derailed it on Friday." Mr. Hrosko said the purpose of that meeting, which was arranged prior to Mayor Finkbeiner's public statements, was to discuss development of a joint economic development zone (JEDZ) for the Ampoint site.

My thought that I've posted before is: I believe that Toledo-based public officials view unigov or regionalism as how can other communities serve Toledo, instead of how all communities together can help the region.

The region has to work around the One Step Back group.

From the 2005 Toledo City Paper article about Lake Erie West (which Hildo should read) titled Open for Business :

"... only the private sector can drive economic development at a regional level"

posted by jr on Aug 09, 2007 at 03:17:47 pm     #

Agreed, jdmsbyrd.

If we take the example of FedEx, the only entity that ultimately wins in a bidding war between Toledo and Perrysburg is the corporation (and at some microeconomic level, its shareholders).

In the case of "keeping" Jeep, we gave away tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue to keep DCX from moving the plant into southern Monroe County. Taking a regional approach reduces the likelihood that multinational corporations can extort exorbitant tax abatements by playing Municipality A against Municipality B.

While this cannot stop Company X from moving to, say, Malaysia, it can eliminate some of the intraregional competition that starves schools and municipal services of operating revenue.

And imagine - if this is possible - that the central city becomes attractive to businesses in 10-15 years. Should Toledo then cannibalize those businesses that fled to the suburbs in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s? The diehard free market believers would agree with this scenario, but I object to multinational corporations being worshipped and fêtaient while average citizens get stuck footing the bill for the tax giveaways.

(yes, I know, poor French - sue me)

posted by historymike on Aug 09, 2007 at 03:25:50 pm     #

Okay - for the record, I don't like being lumped in with all those "toledo" politicians. While I do live inside the Toledo city limits, I always say that I'm from Point Place (which should de-annex from the city, IMHO).

And, in my first elected position I represented a city (Toledo), a village (Ottawa Hills) and a township (Washington). Even while a commissioner, I was the one who reached out to all the jurisdictions in the county and tried to engage them and include them in the decision-making. I developed a reputation for NOT favoring Toledo over the others and got criticized for doing so.

So...I don't really like being lumped in with all those who look out only for Toledo to the detriment of everyone else.

Just my personal rant...

And, on the issue of a shared regional approach, I attended several meetings of elected officials, business leaders, university reps and others when I was first elected. The Port Authority had helped bring in some consultants to help community 'leaders' identify a shared vision for the region. It was very informative and enlightening.

On the second day, we broke into work groups and developed a strategy. Our group focused on the transportation theme and how to tie such a theme to education, industry and government. We identified three main points, showed how those points could be incorporated into k-16 education, how developing the expertise in education could help give us a specifically-trained workforce, how existing and new companies could utilize the workforce, how research at the college level could be focused on transportation (which UT is doing) concepts and then commercialized...and finally, how we could market our region with this shared focus.

We even looked at how the various communities could have their own niche in the concept: Oregon has a free-trade zone, so they could focus on that aspect; Sylvania could focus on the 'great place to live'; Maumee, with Arrowhead Park, could focus on the technical jobs associated with the field - like architecture/engineering/advertising; and Toledo, with it's rail and seaport could be the entry point.

Unfortunately, IMHO, I think that politics entered into the equation, as I'd focused upon transportation opportunities in my campaign and some initially rejected the focus of transportation simply because I'd mentioned it.

Sadly, here we are still, today, trying to see if there is any shared vision we can have for the region. In the mean time, UT is focusing on transportation research (alternative fuels and energy), the Regional Growth Partnership identified transportation as a key industry that can be 'grown' in the area...and the politicians are still fighting over who gets what...

I'm saddened by all of this...

posted by MaggieThurber on Aug 09, 2007 at 04:45:34 pm     #

lol, Maggie, that is truly sad. I can see why you are frustrated and probably have been since you were in office.

That sounds like some great work. Those ideas sound like possibilities, and I would just go for it. Say this is who we are and start planning toward the future.

A First Steps Meeting could be right around the corner.

posted by jdmsbyrd on Aug 09, 2007 at 09:21:54 pm     #

For those of you who are old enough to remember the halcyon days of Toledo in the 70's and 80's, you will remember that people stopped going downtown on Friday nights because there was a continuous traffic jam for CitiFest events every Friday night.

In those days there was the Committee of 100 (all private citizens) which was replaced by the Area Growth Committee (all private citizens),that were responsible for Toledo's growth. Because we had a City Mgr. form of Govt.that was found to be lacking in some areas, we voted in the strong mayor form.

In a way, we blind sided ourselves. We thought that the strong mayor would take care of everything.

Wrong! In a free market society, leadership must come from the private sector. It's not fair to expect regionalism to take hold with political leadership, because politicians have boundaries to contend with, as well as term limits. It's impossible for them to take a long range view of anything.

So,what do we do? Throw up our hands? Not by a long shot ! We have created a Lake Erie West Advisory Board to attempt to provide the type of private sector leadership that the Committee of 100 was able to muster.

The Chairman of this group is Jim Hartung, President of the Toledo/Lucas County Port Authority. The representative for the 20 to 45 year old group is Adam Szuch, a member of EPIC, and reachable at SJS Investments in Sylvania.

Lloyd Jacobs, President of the University of Toledo is an Advisory Board member and he and Dan Johnson are working on building the Technical Corridor, and beyond.

My suggestion is for those of you interested in moving our region forward, to read the articles that Jr. has posted on this blog to get a feel for the history associated with the Lake Erie West movement (which started way back in 1992). Also, visit the web site at www.lakeeriewest.com or .org to get a feel for what has been accomplished thus far,

I will be on vacation 'till the 22nd, so there will not be any postings from me until I get back, but Jr. can provide further details.

We can give Silicon Valley & The Research Triangle a run for their money if we get our act together.

posted by lew on Aug 09, 2007 at 10:02:35 pm     #

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