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By Josh Sweigart
| Saturday, July 5, 2008, 07:30 AM
While working on a piece on the two U.S. presidential parties’ efforts to set up camps in Butler County (read that post here), I spoke briefly to Mike DeWine, former U.S. senator and chairman of John McCain’s election committee in Ohio.
DeWine dismissed the argument that McCain will have a problem motivating conservative voters to show up at the polls — something local Democrats are hopeful for in this conservative county — citing the following issues:
Continue reading "DeWine on McCain’s ‘conservative problem’"...
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Presidential race
By Josh Sweigart
| Friday, July 4, 2008, 05:00 AM
Hamilton Mayor Don Ryan appealed to Butler County commissioners in a Thursday, July 3, letter to save county water customers money by having the city take over the county’s water system.
Ryan’s letter was in response to reports in the JournalNews of merger discussions between the county and Greater Cincinnati Water Works, with county leaders complaining that Hamilton’s water rates are too high and threatening to take its business south.
Click on MayorRyanWaterLetter.pdf below to see the mayor’s letter to the county.
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What do you think? Is this a good idea?
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Environmental Services
By Josh Sweigart
| Thursday, July 3, 2008, 01:32 PM
Both U.S. presidential campaigns are setting the pieces in place for a battle in Butler County.
Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama have dispatched lieutenants to base regional headquarters in and around Hamilton.
The state Republican party has set up a two-person “Victory Center” at the Butler County GOP headquarters. This is only one of nine such offices in Ohio set up to back their party’s candidates on all levels.
The Obama camp has set up its own three-person “Campaign for Change” office at the Democratic party headquarters. They will set up phone banks, register voters and hand out signs in Butler, Warren, Preble and Clinton counties.
Continue reading "McCain, Obama stake claims in Butler County"...
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Presidential race
By Dave Greber
| Thursday, July 3, 2008, 09:26 AM
If you’re a long-term patient at the Butler County Care Facility these days, you’re more likely to have pork for dinner instead of chicken.
That’s because the price of chicken — like gas, pharmacy items and other expenses — are on the increase, forcing agencies like the one housed off Princeton Road to scramble for dollars with six months left in 2008.
Making matters worse, state-based Medicaid reimbursements — which account for a majority of the facility’s budget — have been stagnant for the past four years, and in some years have dropped. In addition, indirect costs have risen nearly $120,000 per year, according to county records.
“I think it’s going to be a rough period of time,” said Chuck Demidovich, Butler County Care Facility administrator. “We’re trying to do all this with the same amount of money we were taking in before.”
See the e-mail request by the facility here:
Continue reading "Care Facility struggling to make ends ‘meat’"...
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Butler County
By Josh Sweigart
| Thursday, July 3, 2008, 07:30 AM
In a story about party and campaign headquarters nationwide, the Huffington Post describes the Butler County Republican Party headquarters as ostentatious, second only to the party headquarters in Manhattan:
Perched atop a grassy mound just down the road from Walden Ponds Golf Course, Butler County HQ comfortably straddles a half-circular drive with a wide awning ideal for protecting guests from the rain. It’s also the clubhouse for one of the country’s most powerful Republican politicians, House Minority Leader John Boehner. President George Bush trolled for green here in 2004, and it paid off. The county voted overwhelmingly for the president and has contributed handsomely to Republican causes over the years. Maybe that’s why this modestly-sized county sports a palatial office in a relatively high-rent neighborhood. Across the street you’ll find a residential development with $300,000 single family homes.
Read the whole blog here.
This is part of the OffTheBus Special Ops experiment sponsored by the Huffington Post to get bloggers across the country to report on what presidential campaigns are doing in their communities.
What do you think?
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Republican Party
By Josh Sweigart
| Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 04:00 PM
Like all things circulating around a proposed road connecting U.S. 27 and Ohio 73, the project’s history is relative, depending on whom you ask.
Officials with the Butler County Engineer’s Office say the proposal stemmed from a two-year study concluded in 2004 of future traffic needs in northwest Butler County. The study found that numerous trucks drive U.S. 27 through the heart of Miami University to get to Ohio 73 en route to Richmond, Indiana.
Critics say its real birth was a university-funded junket that sent Oxford city leaders to Washington D.C. to lobby then-U.S. Sen. DeWine.
DeWine secured three earmarks in 2004 and 2005, totaling $22 million — his largest earmark in his political career, he said — for four projects listed in the 2004 study.
Continue reading "The Oxford connector roil"...
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Transportation
By Dave Greber
| Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 12:55 PM
This story is a must read by reporter Richard Wilson.
It talks about Fonzie, a 1-year-old Shepherd mix recently adopted by the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, to take place in the agency’s first installment of a program geared toward therapeutically helping local inmates.
The problem, though, is that The Fonz is still learning how to play nice with county prisoners, especially when it comes to a game of hoops.
Thoughts?
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Butler County Sheriff's Department
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McCain does have a conservative problem locally, but not near as much of a conservative problem as