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More money for Lancaster
Lancaster Eagle Gazette
Lancaster health center receives $100,000 of stimulus
March 27, 2009
WASHINTON, D.C. ?— U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, today announced that Ohio will receive $8,036,510 in funds to support 32 community health centers across the state.
The federal funds, which have been awarded to Ohio from the economic recovery package, will allow community health centers in Ohio to expand services and hours of operation.
?“Community health centers provide comprehensive medical care to Ohioans in need,?” said Brown. ?“During tough economic times, too many Americans don?’t know where to turn when they first get sick ?— leading to costly emergency room visits. Community health centers provide critical health services that improve the well-being of Ohioans and reduce the state?’s Medicaid costs.?”
Ohio?’s 34 community health centers serve 350,000 patients in more than 140 communities. Centers provide needed health services to medically undeserved populations.
Health centers submitted plans on how they could use funds to expand or support existing services. The grants are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The Fairfield County Health District?’s Lancaster clinic was awarded $100,000.
Read more about what the money will be used for in tomorrow?’s edition of the Eagle-Gazette.
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Let them eat cake
First let me respond to the guy that said no one reads this blog. I should point out they he or she read it. I will also say that members of the Pickerington City Council read this blog regularly including the President of council. I did ask a few weeks back of a councilperson if the city would get any money from the stimulus. The reply was shrugged shoulders and question marks. They all seem to be more concerned about buying fireworks for the fourth of July.
As for comparing the two cities or areas. I have not seen a break down of the unemployment figures between the two cities. I will tell you that these handouts going to the Lancaster city residents were going there well before this most recent down turn. If you read this blog regularly then you would realize that Pickerington is about to lose half of its police department because they can?’t or won?’t come up with a believable levy campaign to raise the much needed revenues. I have not read anything about Lancaster getting ready to lay off half of its police force. The fact that the residents in Pickerington (yet to be verified) may have a higher per-capita income than Lancaster residents doesn?’t mean we should allow our county tax dollars to only be spent in Lancaster.
I think I have pointed out the risk to our school system. Simply standing back and allowing something to happen here and then move to Baltimore is not a very good solution in my mind. I remember talking with Bob Harding at a soccer game about 9 years ago. He was trying to mobilize the citizens in the city to protest the annexations down along Diley Road. He said that no one was interested in his abstract thinking until they drove by one day and saw the bull dozers moving dirt on the old Diley Farm. By then it was too late.
I will tell you that a merger or a merger strategy will take years to form and execute A 100% annexation takes around 60 days. Right now there is no need to worry unless the housing economy starts to recover and the developers wants to start buying farms and building houses again. By then it will be too late to prevent a flood of new homes into our school district with new children.
Clearly crime creeping our way is a serious problem. One way to hold it back is to raise the values of the homes being built and provide adequate police services. The city has made some efforts to increase the values of new homes and they are choking on providing adequate police protection. Keeping the retail development to a level to only serve the residents of the area (no big boxes) and not depend on outside customers will help prevent places like Brice Road and Hamilton Road from happening here.
A larger city government would be able to better compete with Lancaster for our taxpayer dollars. You may feel rich enough to help the less fortunate but I?’m not. There are some very well healed people living in Lancaster. They should help there own that work at their plants and businesses not the neighbors up north.
By BB
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police/annexation/50 million
The city should contract with the county sheriff for police services like Canal Winchester does. I am quite sure the sheriff would consider utilizing the police station also even though it is on the border of columbus...??....
This may likely save a ton of money, and the current officers could be employed as deputies.
annexation, 30 days for 100 percent... well then the city is in the drivers seat aren't they... maybe they have learned a lesson from the past that once you buy it you have to continue to pay for it and maybe they will not be going door to door to get people to sign up to annex and give away the farm like bushman did.
I am quite sure Lithopolis has the means to annex all the way up here with that huge tax base they have going there. I am not sweating.
One thing you guys are forgetting, the economy is dealing the schools a breather in some respects. The longer things slow down on the housing front, the older the kids get and they graduate... do the families move away then? usually not for some time. I live in one of the first subdivisions out in Violet, and most of my neighbors have been here for 35 years, they built their homes and love it here. There is some turnover now and then but it is still very slow because this is a stable nice community.
So there will be some openings in the classrooms. If you remember when this 50 million state money match for the schools was first talked about back in 2004 or so at that time the money was likely to be used to build the third high school when we looked ahead. Now it will be used to repair schools and upgrade them and free up our other tax money we gave them a while back to upgrade the athletic facilities at Central since you cannot do that with state money...
One thing nobody has looked at in detail though is that 50 million is from the tobacco fund settlement, and I believe in January an injunction was issued against the state to freeze any spending of that money for non tobacco prevention education services... so it can go to court and see if it is legal to spend it on something else. check it out at this link http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/settlements/state.php?StateID=OH google it too you will find other sources...
Do you really think that if the state is ordered to spend this money on tobacco education program instead of everything else that there is an extra 50 million around for this school program?
I asked the superintendent that question but did not receive a response.
By closet philosopher
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more issues
I agree looking at the numbers on PPD that going with the Fairfield County Sheriff?’s department could save a ton of money. The question is does this council have the guts to make that move.
I think that the city should try to get a favorable vote to raise the income tax to 2% with a 100% for earn income from other cities. This tax raise would be able to cover their expenses and give the workers a tax break from the current set up. It would also tax job creation which is where much of the safety services spend their time. I think it would provided an added incentive to future councils to create commercial development rather than residential development based on the projected tax revenues of these future endeavors. If the city voters were to approve this new tax structure I would still consider the shift to the sheriff?’s department for the police protection.
The $50 million from OSFC is hanging out there and the longer it hangs there the greater peril it is in. I believe once the voters approve or renew the maintenance levy in May then PLSD will have met its part of the bargain. I also have asked about growth in the district and what the board and the district is going to do about the ten year master plan that created the need for the $180M of new buildings in the district. The superintendent complains about growth but when asked she dodges the question. I am told even thought the growth has slowed we must still spend the $50 million which seems a waste. I am afraid we will see them abandoning good buildings to build new ones just to spend the money. Has anyone seen or know of a revised ten year master plan?
On the subject of annexation. I think an aggressive annexation policy is not bad by itself but giving away water and sewer tap fees as incentives for these annexations is a very misguided policy. The incentives that were given away in the city?’s annexations in 2000 and 2001 are now being paid for from the general fund which has put pressure on the PPD budget and other general fund operations. I think the city and the township has spent tons of money on lawyers for annexation lawsuits and these agreements that have taken four or five years to work out are in most cases meaningless. By that I mean they will not show the intended results.
A merged city would allow the voters to decide what policy the entire community would follow not one for the township and one for the city. Each trying to maneuver the other party into giving away their position. I think the community could focus on the issues in from of us not the petty differences we now concern with.
I know a number of elderly people through our church that are feeling trapped here in the community. One man in Huntington Hills has bought a condo in Dublin (near his son) and can?’t sell his home here. Another lady who is legally blind in Mingo has issues with getting around. A second widow lady in Mingo would like to sell her home and buy a condo but the prices are so low right now she fears that she would not have enough left over to pay for a condo. I think the population is aging and that is presenting new challenges for everyone. I think we could deal with that better in a merged city.
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