The Obama administration and environmental interests generally agree that global warming is a threat that must be dealt with.

But they’re on opposite sides of a Supreme Court case over the ability of states and groups such as the Audubon Society that want to sue large electric utilities and force power plants in 20 states to cut their emissions.

The administration is siding with Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co. and three other companies in urging the high court to throw out the lawsuit on grounds the Environmental Protection Agency, not a federal court, is the proper authority to make rules about climate change. The justices will hear arguments in the case April 19.

The court is taking up a climate change case for the second time in four years. In 2007, the court declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. By a 5-4 vote, the justices said the EPA has the authority to regulate those emissions from new cars and trucks under that landmark law. The same reasoning applies to power plants.

The administration says one reason to end the current suit is that the EPA is considering rules that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the administration also acknowledges that it is not certain that limits will be imposed.

At the same time, Republicans in Congress are leading an effort to strip the EPA of its power to regulate greenhouse gases.

The uncertainty about legislation and regulation is the best reason for allowing the case to proceed, said David Doniger, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which represents Audubon and other private groups dedicated to land conservation.

“This case was always the ultimate backstop,” Doniger said, even as he noted that the council would prefer legislation or EPA regulation to court decisions. The suit would end if the EPA does set emission standards for greenhouse gases, he said.

The legal claims advanced by six states, New York City and the land trusts would be pressed only “if all else failed,” he said.

When the suit was filed in 2004, it looked like the only way to force action on global warming. The Bush administration and the Republicans in charge of Congress doubted the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Federal courts long have been active in disputes over pollution. But those cases typically have involved a power plant or sewage treatment plant that was causing some identifiable harm to people, and property downwind or downstream of the polluting plant.

Global warming, by its very name, suggests a more complex problem. The power companies argue that any solution must be comprehensive. No court-ordered change alone would have any effect on climate change, the companies say.

“This is an issue that is of worldwide nature and causation. It’s the result of hundreds of years of emissions all over the world,” said Ed Comer, vice president and general counsel of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group.

The other defendants in the suit are Cinergy Co., now part of Duke Energy Corp. of North Carolina; Southern Co. Inc. of Georgia; Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota; and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA is represented by the government and its views do not precisely align with those of other companies.

Eight states initially banded together to sue. They were California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. But in a sign of the enduring role of partisan politics in this issue, New Jersey and Wisconsin withdrew this year after Republican replaced Democrats in their governor’s offices.

Another complication is that the administration and the companies may be on the same side at the Supreme Court, but the power industry is strongly opposing climate change regulation. The Southern Co. is a vocal supporter of GOP legislation to block the EPA from acting.

“It’s two-faced for them (the companies) to come into court and say everything is well in hand because EPA is going to act,” said Doniger, the NRDC lawyer.

Comer said the key point is that judges should not make environmental policy. “This has important implications for jobs. If you raise energy costs in the U.S., does that lead industry jobs to go elsewhere and if it does, do you get the same emissions, just from another country?” Comer said. “These judgments are properly made by elected officials.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was on the federal appeals court panel that heard the case, is not taking part in the Supreme Court’s consideration of the issue.

The case is American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, 10-174.

Despite the fact some students at Owens Community College aren’t traditional students, this eighth annual student art show is, according to Nathan Daulbaugh, the “carrot at the end of the stick.”

“You bust your butt during the semesters. Being at Owens, a lot of people aren’t traditional students,” Daulbaugh said. “A lot of them work full time jobs, have families, they put a little more effort in than other schools.”

The show, which premiered April 9 and ends April 30 in the Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery located in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts, features almost 100 pieces of artwork by Owens students throughout the Northwest Ohio region. The three categories of work are photography, commercial art and fine art.

Wynn Perry, the part time coordinator of the gallery, said faculty from the three departments select outside jurors to select the pieces put on display.

Perry added the feeling of success for the students is something that helps inspire her work in coordinating the show, describing a “really good feeling” when seeing your own artwork on display.

Daulbaugh, who has three pieces of art on display, said students who have work on display begin to have a sense of realization after having their work selected and begin going through the finalization process.

“What I heard from a lot of students is that it’s one thing to get it ready, but to actually turn it in, signing the contract we had to do, it became real for them,” he said.

Katrina Roberts, a student at Owens who studies commercial photography, has a Hockney photo on display. A Hockney photo is a type of art where smaller, zoomed in photos compose a larger landscape. Robert’s piece, for example is of a tree.

“It was an assignment I liked and I thought that I could do more of and different things of so I played around with different things,” Roberts said.

Both students’ work displayed was based on classroom assignments. Perry said because most pieces were class assignments, the art reflects the faculty and art programs.

“I think the student’s work reflects not only on them but on the growth of the faculty because the student work reflects what they are learning,” Perry said. “I think it’s a positive thing all the way round.”

Admission to the gallery is free and open to the public Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For more information on the art gallery, https://www.owens.edu/arts/

Hot on the heels of announcing his desire to be re-elected, and in the middle of the week when Americans are most conscious of their tax burden, President Obama announced on April 13 his latest plan to force Americans to pay more for his fiscal irresponsibility. The Huffington Post praised his “striking choice of words;” let’s see how striking they really are.

Aside from absurdly minimalistic claims that the federal deficit “could do real damage to the economy” and that it will affect Americans “in potentially profound ways,” he more or less correctly assessed the problems the nation faces because of the deficit. He admitted, “Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond,” and he rightly described the growing insolvency of Social Security (although he falsely implied it was solvent in 2000) and other welfare programs as Baby Boomers retire, while obliquely admitting complicity in worsening this situation through increased spending. But the questions are hereby begged: Since he admits knowing in advance the long-term damage done by deficit spending, why did he choose to multiply that damage exponentially? And would not these problems largely be moot if the government had stayed within its Constitutional limits on spending? (Tellingly, the first Constitutionally authorized spending authorization, defense, is one of his first targets for cuts.)

He says the spending was necessary because it “saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pocket (sic).” The credit part aside, this is a lie. Unemployment is still above the level he promised it would not exceed if the Porkulus was passed, my working-class withholding rate increased again this year, and whatever extra money we may have gained is now gone thanks to inflated food and gas prices.

The President lied extensively about the Ryan budget proposal. Even more brazen were his claims to “keep domestic spending low” and “further reduce health care spending.” This is asinine, since no part of his spending is “low” and that, according to the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare will add $562,000,000,000 to the deficit. He also lied about the history of the federal deficit (claiming it was first a problem in the 1980s) and American history (implying essentially that we’ve always been a welfare state, and boasting of our finances being in “great shape” by 2000 – the year the dotcom bubble exploded.)

The speech was also marked by presumptuous claims that all Americans like all government spending (we don’t) and that the wealthy all want massively higher taxation (how about we poll them to find out?). He gave no details about the cuts he suggested, but he dismissed out of hand cutting waste and redundancy.

Obama said Republicans are “spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.” Even if the number was right, this is patent nonsense. Tax cuts are not spending, any more than your employer spends money in reducing your salary. He callously claimed that seniors have to pay more in health care costs because of tax cuts for the wealthy; okay, if tax cuts equal spending, how much are His Vacationing’s numerous escapes from his duties costing our seniors in increased health care expenses?

He thinks that paying taxes is our patriotic duty. Excuse me, but my patriotic duty here is to protest the government wasting hundreds of billions of dollars and then seizing more of my paycheck without my consent to cover it. Another question: If paying income taxes is a patriotic duty, are we then to believe that Americans were somehow unpatriotic prior imposition of the income tax in 1913?

In sum, this speech is a summary of a profoundly flawed and cynical understanding of America. In Obama’s America, only the government can help the needy, the wealthy are so greedy and selfish that their wealth must be confiscated towards this end, and private philanthropy must be discouraged by taxing it. In Obamerica, to be taxed is to give, confiscation at gunpoint is fundraising for charity, and liberty is gladly sacrificed for security.

This is barely scratching the surface. There is much, much more of like offense in this virulently partisan, cliché-riddled campaign speech. In Barack Hussein Obama, we have a president who manipulates our basest desires to have our every want fulfilled at the expense of others more fortunate than us, and who plays on our basest impulse towards resentment and envy of others doing better than us, while lulling us into blissful ignorance of the growing peril his agenda poses to our prosperity and freedom.

Thomas Berry, for the Children of Liberty, www.meetup.com/The-children-of-liberty.

Football may be more popular, basketball may have a more fervent fan base, but no sport has maintained a hold on the American imagination quite like baseball. The game has a mystique like no other, one that makes it uniquely suited for dramatization on the big screen. And so, as we prepare for another season at Fifth Third Field, what better time than now to break out some of the best movies about the national past time? Here are nine of my favorites, in no particular order.

-Field of Dreams: Of course. Such an audacious idea, made into such an understated and powerful film. Phil Alden Robinson’s valentine to the game puts its finger on one of the most crucial parts of its enduring power: It has a real, palpable legacy, and its annals are filled with figures both heroic and forgotten. And let’s be honest — who wants to endure an afterlife where you couldn’t head out with your friends and play ball once in a while?

-The Sandlot: Say to any kid of my generation, in a slow and deliberate tone, the word “Forever,” and see how they react. You’ll get a sense as to how ubiquitous this little comedy from 1993 has become. It’s far from the most original film in the world — the gang of misfits playing the game has been seen a hundred times — but it’s still a wildly entertaining romp that is filled with nostalgia for those summer childhood afternoons on the diamond.

-The Bad News Bears: I may be alone on this, but either the 1976 original or the 2005 remake would work well here. Both feature superb comic actors at their center — Walter Matthau and Billy Bob Thornton, respectively — and both are genuinely funny looks at a set of laughable losers who eventually grow into something more. An entire generation of kids’ sports comedies would be inspired by the first film, almost every one of them a pale imitation of the original.

-A League of Their Own: Penny Marshall’s dramedy about the first professional women’s baseball league has at its heart is a genuine respect for the pioneers that this story is loosely based on, and the game which brought them together. A very funny and moving film which ignited the careers of stars like Lori Petty and Rosie O’Donnell, and was the first monster hit in a string of them for Tom Hanks, which helped cement him as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Oh, and we learned that there’s no crying in baseball.

-Bull Durham: Strictly speaking, Ron Shelton’s film is more of a romantic comedy set in a minor league baseball team than an actual ‘baseball movie,’ but it’s also one of the most insightful and entertaining about the kind of people who play and surround the game. Great performances and writing make the film a genuine classic of sports cinema.

-Little Big League: Oddly enough, this may be the smartest film on this list about the actual ins-and-outs of the game. A fantasy about a boy who inherits the Minnesota Twins and names himself manager, the movie also has a genuine understanding and admiration for the strategies and personalities involved. A more interesting and thoughtful film about baseball than the plot description would have you believe.

-City Slickers: What?, you ask, not unreasonably. That movie’s a comedy western! It has nothing to do with baseball! And you’d be right. Except for one scene, which starts with Daniel Stern and the late Bruno Kirby debating about the sport, and ends with a genuinely insightful discussion of why baseball, a children’s game, is so important to these adults. Few movie moments capture the magic of the past time quite so well. Major League Baseball agreed, apparently — for a time, they used that scene in commercials for the game.

-Major League: Hey, I’m an Indians fan. But even those who despise the Tribe have a soft spot in their heart for David S. Ward’s raunchy comedy, basically a grown-up “Bad News Bears” with more sex and profanity. For the Cleveland sports faithful, however, the film still provides a healthy dose of wish fulfillment, one which they sorely need nowadays.

-Ken Burns’ Baseball: There has been no endeavor that answers more thoroughly the question of “why?” than Burns’ 9-part epic documentary. Lyrical and realistic, it honors both the legends and scars of the game, and shows us how it is woven into the tapestry of modern history. If you’ve never seen it, the whole kit-and-kaboodle is available on Netflix, including the recently added “Tenth Inning.”

Email Jeff at PopGoesJeff@gmail.com

Editor’s note: Toledo Free Press will follow the Blank family of Millbury for one year as they rebuild their lives after the June 5 tornado destroyed their Main Street home.

Lake High School sophomore Casey Blank is looking forward to attending his first prom ever. He is also looking forward to eating a meal at a restaurant known for its hibachi-style dining and food-throwing chefs.

On April 29, Nagoya Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi will provide dinner for 220 students as well as several staff members and chaperones. After dinner, students will walk to the nearby Hilton Inn at Levis Commons, which is hosting the dance in the main ballroom.

Nagoya owner Mel Ayers said his restaurant and the Hilton want to provide the students with an unforgettable experience, as well as a little bit of normalcy on what should always be a special day. Lake students lost their school to the June 5 tornado.

“Many of the families are feeling the personal financial effects of the disaster as well as the current economy,” Ayers said in an email. “Knowing that we need to continue supporting these kids long term, we reached out to the school last year with the idea of hosting prom and it was immediately embraced by the students, staff and the community.”

Junior Kayleigh Tomanski asked Casey to the prom, which is usually at a local banquet hall. Tickets only cost $10 per person this year as opposed to $50 because of the donated meal and ballroom. The $10 will go toward next year’s prom, according to Tammy Tapley, director of student activities.

“We are going as friends,” Kayleigh said about Casey. “We are just good friends. We were talking about it and I asked him.”

She is looking forward to trying Nagoya with her classmates. The dinner times will be staggered to accommodate the large group.
“We eat at 6 p.m. and then we will go to the dance and then we will probably go to after-prom,” Kayleigh said. “I haven’t ever been to Nagoya, so it is really exciting.”

After-prom will be at the Student Health and Activities Center at Owens instead of the high school where the activities were hosted last year.

Students attending prom will be allowed to leave school at 11 a.m. on the day of prom. Kayleigh’s hair appointment is at 2:30 p.m.  She wants to look perfect in her black and gold dress. Casey is wearing white and gold.

But no matter how she looks, she knows what is important in life. Kayleigh remembers the night she learned about Casey losing his house to the tornado. She thinks it changed him for the better. And she is honored to be his date.

“He seems like the same guy. He always had that positive attitude through everything, but [the tornado] has made him stronger.”

Arizona, a state that has shown little reluctance in bucking the federal government, is again plunging into a political controversy, this time as its Legislature passed a bill to require President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can appear on the state’s ballot.

If Gov. Jan Brewer signs the proposal into law, Arizona would be the first state to pass such a requirement — potentially forcing a court to decide whether the president’s birth certificate is enough to prove he can legally run for re-election. Hawaii officials have certified Obama was born in that state, but so-called “birthers” have demanded more proof.

Opponents say Arizona’s bill gives the state another black eye after lawmakers approved a controversial immigration enforcement law last year, considered legislation asserting state’s rights, and made it illegal to create “human-animal” hybrids by fertilizing human eggs with nonhuman sperm and vice versa.

“Arizona is in the midst of a fiscal crisis. We’ve cut school funding. And they pass a bill questioning Obama’s citizenship? For real?” said Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Phoenix, an opponent of the bill.

Republican Rep. Carl Seel of Phoenix, the bill’s author, said the president’s birth record wouldn’t satisfy the requirements of his proposal and that Obama would have to provide other records, such as baptismal certificates and hospital records. But Seel said the measure wasn’t intended as a swipe against the president and instead was meant to maintain the integrity of elections.

“Mr. Obama drew the question out, but it’s not about him,” Seel said, noting his bill would also require statewide candidates to complete an affidavit showing they meet the qualifications for those offices, which include U.S. citizenship.

The governor, who has until the end of business April 21 to act on the proposal, declined to say whether she would sign the measure. “That bill is an interesting piece of legislation. I certainly have not given it a whole lot of thought with everything that’s been on my plate,” said Brewer, a social conservative who has vetoed four bills and signed more than 100 others since the legislative session began in January.

The U.S. Constitution requires that presidential candidates be “natural-born” U.S. citizens, be at least 35 years old, and be a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

But the term “natural-born citizen” is open to interpretation — and many bloggers, politicians and others have weighed in.

No one knows for sure what the term means, said Gabriel J. Chin, a University of Arizona law professor who is an expert in citizenship and immigration law. “Natural-born citizen” was modeled after a phrase used in British law, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never defined it, he said.

Birthers have maintained since the last presidential election that Obama is ineligible to hold the nation’s highest elected office because, they argue, he was actually born in Kenya, his father’s homeland. Obama’s mother was an American citizen.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama’s citizenship, and his Hawaiian birth certificate has been made public. Even though the courts have rebuffed lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility, the issue hasn’t gone away.

Whether Arizona’s measure would be found constitutional is being raised as a question.

Daniel Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University’s law school, said he doesn’t think the bill on its face conflicts with federal law. But he said a court might find its application unconstitutional. “I think the state of Arizona, like any other state, is entitled to formulate rules to ensure that candidates whose name appear on the ballot are in fact qualified,” Tokaji said.

Laurence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, a constitutional scholar said the bill was unconstitutional. “It wouldn’t hold up for a nanosecond,” said Tribe. “I’m not even sure if it’s intended seriously.”

The U.S. Constitution sets the qualifications for presidential candidates, and the Arizona proposal requires proof of those qualifications. However, opponents question whether Arizona’s bill adds additional requirements.

The Arizona measure says political parties and presidential candidates must hand in affidavits stating a candidate’s citizenship and age. It also requires them to provide the candidate’s birth certificate and a sworn statement saying where the candidate has lived for 14 years. If candidates don’t have a copy of their birth certificates, they could meet the requirement by providing baptismal or circumcision certificates, hospital birth records and other documents.

If it can’t be determined whether candidates who provided documents in place of their birth certificates are eligible to appear on the ballot, the secretary of state would be able to set up a committee to help determine whether the requirements have been met. The names of candidates can be kept off the ballot if the secretary of state doesn’t believe the candidates met the citizenship requirement.

The bill doesn’t explicitly provide an appeals process for a candidate whose name was kept off the ballot.

But Richard Hasen, a University of California, Irvine professor who specializes in election law, said the candidate in such a case could go to federal court to seek an order preventing enforcement of the law on the grounds it would be an unconstitutional qualification for the office.

Hasen believes there’s a good chance the law would get struck down, likely on the grounds that it adds an impermissible requirement for presidential candidates. “It depends on how a court would read the bill,” he said.

“It’s an interference with federal supremacy. It’s not up for a state to decide who is qualified to run for president,” said Tribe.

Seel predicted the proposal would stand up in court because it relies on standards that the Department of Defense uses in making sure military applicants are U.S. citizens.

He said one fan of the measure is real estate tycoon and possible Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who last month appeared on the ABC television talk show “The View” and called on Obama to “show his birth certificate.” Seel said he discussed the bill with Trump last week, and “he liked it.”

Seel added that the measure was not intended as a snipe at the federal government.

“I wouldn’t say that, but I am proud of my Republican colleagues (who voted for the bill),” he said. “It was a good day for the Constitution.”

___

Associated Press reporters Jacques Billeaud, Carmen Castro and Paul Davenport contributed to this report.

Owens Community College’s latest exhibition is offering students a lot to think about. The collection of 81 black and white drawings, which examine critical thinking, also mark the artistic debut of OCC Writing Center tutor, Barbara Goodman. The show, which is entitled “Eventually It Starts to Make Sense” is currently on display through April 30, at the Terhune Gallery Outside, located in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts.

“A lot of our issues with writing stem from our thinking and an awful lot of students come into college without necessary life skills. These pieces offer little life lessons, things I learned while raising my daughter. They examine “The Theory of Knowledge” or thinking about thinking. Many students who’ve seen them have said that they had never really thought about these things,” Goodman said.

A number of Goodman’s pieces have been integrated into a presentation the Writing Center uses as part of a Developmental Education curriculum on Critical Thinking for Academic Success.

Goodman has plenty of experience when it comes to writing. A former TFP columnist, she has also worked as a columnist and editor for Toledo Parent News and as a freelance journalist for the Toledo Blade. In addition to her work at Owens, Goodman has also worked as an adjunct instructor at the University of Toledo and will soon be teaching composition at Mercy College. She received an M.F.A. in Narrative Nonfiction from Goucher College, an MBA from Northwestern, and did her undergraduate work in Graphic Communications at Washington University in St. Louis.

“I had originally intended to put these pieces together and create a little book. I’ve freelanced for dozens of area companies, not-for-profits and publications and think of myself more as a “writer” than an “artist.” I started out at an advertising agency working as a copy writer. I really would like people that see the show to come away with their own aha moment, this exhibit isn’t just about the art, it’s about ideas. It is very professional, but I also think everyone who views the pieces will get a kick out of them and they will also get the opportunity to check out the Owens Student Show.”

“Eventually It Starts to Make Sense” is free and open to the public. Owens’ main campus is located at 30335 Oregon Road in Perrysburg.

For more information, call 1-800-GO-OWENS or visit www.owens.edu

The cover for this edition features Phil Cox and Zak Ward of 3DTOAD, a website with 3-D, rotatable images. Red Cross to give away free detectors on April 18. There are special “Health Zone” and “Worship Guide” sections. Entrepreneurs share success stories at BGSU event. Kate McComb reports on the East Toledo Family Center’s 110th birthday. Vicki L. Kroll talks to James Blunt, who will play at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on April 27. The issue also features Michael S. Miller’s column on Crystal Dixon.

Jobs, production and tax revenue are on the rise in Ohio, and so, too, is the state’s economy.

Yet state leaders warn of a looming budget gap, estimated at nearly $8 billion.

The anticipated gap has been the backdrop of Gov. John Kasich’s proposals to sell five state prisons, lease the Ohio Turnpike, severely limit the power of 350,000 public workers, and lift caps on new charter school start-ups and college tuitions.

Proposed cuts to state programs in his $55.5 billion, two-year spending blueprint have riled advocates for local school districts, libraries, children, and the poor — some of whom have urged tax increases to avert disaster.

Yet there’s an increasingly good chance the estimate will turn out to be too high.

“The numbers are very positive right now, there’s no doubt about it,” said David Pagnard, a spokesman for the state Office of Budget and Management.

News on Friday that Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped for the 13th straight month, to a two-year low of 8.9 percent, was just the latest sign the budget hole could shrink before lawmakers approve the financial plan by the June 30 deadline.

Projections heading into budget negotiations were far more grim. Last June, the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors was predicting unemployment in the state would average 10.2 percent in calendar year 2011 and 9.7 percent in 2012.

But, as Ohioans head back to work, they drop off government-aid programs and pay more income taxes. In turn, that improves the state’s fiscal picture.

The state financial report released Tuesday also contained positive news.

March tax receipts were $157 million, or 13 percent, ahead of projections. It was the eighth consecutive month of better-than-expected receipts across most tax sources, the budget office told Kasich in its report.

A percentage increase in the number of jobs across the state, assuming an average salary of $40,000, would translate into about $2 billion in additional taxable income and $60 million in new tax revenue for state coffers, Ohio Department of Taxation spokesman Gary Gudmundson said.

He cautioned such a figure is just a “back of the envelope” calculation, not the complicated tax revenue analysis that prompts state projections to be adjusted. Also, falling unemployment and rising employment aren’t exactly the same.

“There’s lag time, and there are all sorts of variables that might go into that, as you can appreciate,” he said. “So it’s really not a correlation we can make easily.”

Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services spokesman Ben Johnson said the same applies to government-aid programs, such as public assistance, children’s health insurance, and Medicaid.

But the department did see early evidence of the economic upswing in December, he said. That month, Medicaid enrollment declined very slightly for the first time since December 2007.

“We’re beginning to see those numbers level off, and even decline, as people come off the rolls and go back to work,” he said, noting numbers have crept back up since then.

House Finance Chairman Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican, said it is premature to use new unemployment numbers to change any of the figures his panel will use over the next two weeks to craft changes to the governor’s $55.5 billion, two-year spending blueprint.

Lawmakers will continue to work with the caseload and revenue projections from both the administration and their own analysts at the Legislative Service Commission, which was more optimistic in its outlook, he said Friday.

Amstutz said falling unemployment and rising revenues could change what lawmakers are ultimately able to afford.

“Well, the signs are positive, so that’s helpful,” he said. “Because one of the things you look to, to balance a budget going forward, is stronger revenues.”

Amstutz set April 15 as the deadline for receiving proposed budget amendments from House members. He said final updated figures –which will probably not come until June — will affect which of those changes representatives are ultimately able to approve.

“It depends on the comfort level at the end of the day that we have with how conservative those estimates are,” he said.

The House Finance Committee plans to begin deliberating on the amended bill April 28. Committee and floor votes are expected the first week of May. The bill would go from there to the state Senate.

What is the easiest way to get an idea of the different opinions within our local government on the proposed sale of the Marina District? Sharing some selected comments made during a more than one-hour discussion on the topic at the April 12 Toledo City Council Agenda Review:

Councilman D. Michael Collins: “Before any final decision is made by this Council, I would expect that the prospective purchaser provide within the instrument of purchase, a complete business plan — defining schedules, financing, marketing and all of those essentials that would be required under a business plan for a conventional loan.”

Collins also wanted the time changed for the reverter to be 24 months instead of five years; if 51 percent of the business plan was not complete, the property would revert to the City for $2 million.

Law Director Adam Loukx: “What we are talking about here is an arms-length transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller for the sale of real estate. … The purchaser can say, ‘We’ve looked at your language and sayonara.’  This is different than what we have done with this property in the past.”

Collins: “We must negotiate from a position where we are not begging for a sale. … We are not in a position of weakness.”

Mayor Michael Bell: “We’re not in a begging mode. We’re a city that just came out of a $48 million deficit. What we have to realize here is, outside of buying this property, they are not asking the City for anything. So any of the capital that’s going to be put into this project, they’re not asking you for anything. Everybody else  that has come in here and attempted to do anything with that property, has said ‘I’m willing to do this but — but I need this from the City,’ or ‘I need that from the City.’ They’re not saying that.  They’re saying, ‘Look, let us pay for the property, here’s what we intend to do, if you get out of the way we can make this thing work.’

“With the way it’s going with just the first few questions here … it’s similar to Toledo slowdown.  People want to know why things don’t happen here in  this City. You’re seeing an example of some of this and you will call it due diligence but other people listening will call it something else.

“We’ve done what was asked of us from a standpoint of trying to create  economic development in an area nobody else wanted until we went and found somebody.  So we’re sitting here doing the dance now, so it is a little bit frustrating, but it’s OK. I mean, I respect that you’re 12 members of Council and you have the ability to do whatever you need to do. But I can tell you that this company, if given these stipulations, will walk away from this deal.”

Councilman Steve Steel: “I wasn’t going to respond directly to the mayor’s soliloquy. … Mr. Mayor, one of the significant differences between this group and any of the others who have ever come in is, we know absolutely nothing about them. They’re 12 time zones away and we don’t know anything about their track record. We don’t know what kind of labor they use, we don’t know what kind of development they do.”

Steel referenced his previous two requests for resumes and portfolios that had not been answered.

Bell: “Can I say though that you had that from [Larry] Dillin and you have nothing to show for it. …. What I’m saying is, did he have a track record? And are we right now on the hook for about $3.5 million? Absolutely.  Have we ever asked in the past from anybody that is willing to invest in the City of Toledo, ‘Where does your money come from?’”

Steel: “Yes, yes. Of course and of course we’re going to ask for your track record and what kind of development you’ve done. With Larry Dillin we knew, we’d seen what he had done.  You can roll your eyes if you wish, I suppose but that’s …”

Bell: “I’m looking at a project that’s not done on the other side of the river, I’m looking at a bill that’s coming due, shortly, that we have no money for, that we guaranteed for Larry Dillin.”

Councilman Adam Martinez: “I don’t even know where to start, Mr. Mayor. I certainly understand your passion and frustration because this Council has double standards when it comes to development. We were willing to give Mr. Carney (Berdan Building) $12 million of federal subsidy without even having an appraisal.”

Councilman Mike Craig: “If anybody takes the tape of this and sends it out to future investors of the City of Toledo you can forget about investment here for a long, long time. All the people in this room will be either very, very old or very, very dead.
“You think this is generating good will? Telling somebody you can come in here, invest $100 million and in two years we’re going to take it back for $2 million? Wow. That’s going to get people knocking our doors down.”

Councilman Rob Ludeman wanted this heard April 19 in the Economic Development Committee, on which he serves as chairman. Several other members, including Councilwoman Lindsay Webb wanted it in Committee of the Whole and felt April 19 was too soon.
Council President Wilma Brown said there would be a Committee of the Whole hearing; she would let Council know the time and date.

Webb: “We need to take the time to deliberate as a body as cautioned by The Blade and some of the comments today.”

Ludeman:  “I’ll say this nicely, I hope you are not insinuating that I’m trying to railroad this project in any way, manner or form. It’s obvious that it should be heard in the Economic Development Committee as was The Docks. … There’s nothing in the memo that says I would call for a vote but it needs to be started.”

It started …

Toledo Free Press Web Editor Lisa Renee Ward operates the political blog Glass City Jungle