January 31, 2010 Update from Dave Berger

Greetings, Ladies and Gents!

Today’s bright sunshine is terrific, despite the cold temperatures. I hope to find a little time for some exercise with Smokey in Faurot Park, and hope too that your Sunday is pleasant and enjoyable as we prepare for the coming week’s endeavors.

Lima’s Future with High Speed Rail

As you may be aware, this past Thursday, announcements were made around the country for the first federal commitments to building the initial sections of our nation’s high speed passenger rail systems. I and many others have been hoping that the planned route through Lima would be among those first commitments. I drove to Columbus and joined in the celebration at the Statehouse as Governor Strickland and others announced the commitment to the 3 C corridor (i.e., Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati).

For details, please click on the following link: http://209.51.133.155/cms/index.php/news_releases/more/ohio_rail_routes_win_600_million_in_federal_funds/

Though the route through Lima was not among those announced, several things should be kept in mind:

- This really was the FIRST set of commitments, which, of course, implies that there will be future ones as well. Lima is a part of the Ohio Hub Plan and there are 7 major corridors in that plan, and only 1 corridor is now funded. Our job is to continue to work vigorously to see that the entire Ohio Hub Plan is built.

- Thursday’s announcement included a commitment to the Chicago to Detroit route. This will include improvements through Porter, Indiana and as such will help to solve the N. Indiana bottleneck that does impact all routes to the east, including ours. So there is an indirect benefit for us in Lima and Ohio.

- Active support matters! As I joined in the celebration at the Statehouse it was clear that community and political support was essential to obtaining the federal commitment. We must continue to build active support from our 4^th Congressional District and the Ohio and Indiana communities along the proposed route. The build out of these high speed regional systems is a nationally competitive process, and those who compete well as a team with all of their community and leadership assets will be the winners!

There is an insightful article in Wired magazine illustrating these regional systems. Check it out by clicking on the following link: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_fasttrack/

So, rather than being discouraged that we were not among the first, let’s remain energized and committed to assuring that Lima truly has a future with our nation’s high speed passenger rail system!

Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 Forecast Breakfast remarks

Friday morning, bright and early, the Lima Chamber of Commerce held its annual Forecast Breakfast. I was invited to deliver a 3-4 minute prognostication, which is reprinted below. Feel free to share with others.

2010 will be very, very busy for the City of Lima. Years of planning and engineering are coming to a head on multiple projects.

Through the sustained efforts of the Community Development staff, the city was able to secure $1.7 million in Neighborhood Stabilization funds. Beginning last fall, we identified a list of approximately 250 dilapidated houses and are aggressively pursuing their demolition. Efforts in our first target area on S. Pine are well underway, and similar efforts will now spread to other areas in the city in 2010, all this work being done to clear pockets of blight for long-term redevelopment.

Our west side reservoir project–at $28 million, the single biggest capital expenditure in the history of the City–has made good progress and will continue to come up out of the ground this year. Work on the Auglaize river pump station and 3 miles of connecting pipeline is progressing. The excavation for the 5 billion gallon reservoir itself will begin anew once the spring thaw has taken place. This new water resource will make us drought-proof while providing opportunities for economic and industrial growth.

We also have $10 million in equipment upgrades underway at the wastewater treatment facility and are expecting to ramp up a new $12 million activated carbon filter project for drinking water treatment in coming weeks. This project is required under federal regulations to be on line in 2012, but we are hoping to take advantage of the current bidding environment by moving the project aggressively ahead for a ground breaking yet this summer. This filtering process will make our great Lima water even better.

We have finished the detailed design and engineering for the Vine Street underpass, and the project is heading for bidding in March. The project now totals more than $15 million and is funded largely through a combination of stimulus funding and the city’s gas tax and license tag fees. City staff, outside engineers and consultants have been burning the midnight oil in order to meet the deadlines for this project! This underpass has been designed to be aesthetically pleasing, and will not be just a concrete canyon..

Other stimulus projects involving two storm water projects on the west and north sides have been bid, as is a sewer lining project. These total $900,000 in stimulus funding.

As you may be aware, after nearly 3 years of collaboration with Downtown Lima and other stakeholders, the city has prepared specifications for the renewal of the downtown streetscape. Additionally, we succeeded in securing a grant of $1.2 million for funding 80% of the project. By putting together a package for matching funds, we are hoping to avoid assessments to the property owners and yet to be under construction in Lima’s downtown this summer.

Last fall, the bids came in too high for the JRS project on S. Main. We are now out to bid again, expecting that new bids will be more competitive. This project is expected to cost roughly $1.2 million. In all there are a dozen Public Works projects, including the rebuilding of University Boulevard, that will be underway this year at costs totalling $14 million.

In summary, the city of Lima has roughly $65 million in capital construction projects moving ahead in 2010. Truly, an unprecedented year that will create jobs and will make long term investments in our community’s infrastructure, improving our quality of life and increasing our economic development prospects.

The Automotive Communities Program of the Center for Automotive Research

For about 5 years now, I have chaired the Lima Automotive Task Force and we have been engaged in promoting the region’s automotive industrial base. As a part of these efforts, we are members of the Automotive Communities Program and information about Lima is currently highlighted at their website. Please visit by clicking on the following link: http://acp.cargroup.org/

Take care. And be well.

Dave

David & Linda Berger

1211 Lakewood Avenue

Lima, Ohio 45805

419-228-7498

dberger@wcoil.com

January 10, 2010 Update from Dave Berger

Ladies and Gents:

Hot Off the Presses!

The City of Lima’s latest quarterly newsletter, Our Community, is now available for you and for any with whom you would care to share it.

I hope you’ll take a moment and click on the link below to access the entire issue. Great information that you can use now and in the near future.

http://www.cityhall.lima.oh.us/ourcomm1001.pdf

By the way, to the 10th person who responds to this email and correctly identifies the man in the Tartan tie and Scottish kilt pictured in this issue, I will present a set of Kewpee Hamburger coupons.

USPS Needs to Get Some Mail from YOU and ME!

I hope that you have been following the proposal being advocated by the US Postal Service (USPS) for the closure of the mail processing center here in Lima. This past Wednesday the USPS held a public hearing at Lima Senior High School. The event was well attended with over 500 business leaders, representatives from surrounding communities, elected officials, and postal employees participating.

In summary, the information presented by the USPS was incomplete and the rationale for the proposed closure was ill conceived.

For information about the issue, please visit www.458postaltaskforce.com.

Once you have come up to speed on the issue, please write a letter to the persons listed below to express your support for keeping the Lima mail processing center open.

Ms. Chu Falling Star, District Manager

1591 Dalton Ave.

Cincinnati, Ohio 45234-9994

Ms. Megan J. Brennan, VP Operations

One Marquis Plaza

5315 Campbells Run

Pittsburgh, Pa. 15277-7010

Today’s Lima News provides a helpful perspective on this issue:

Lima News Editorial: Closure decision doesn't add up

| Recommend 2

Postal Service should prove its numbers before shutting Lima center

January 10, 2010 12:05 AM

The Lima News

Everyone can understand the U.S. Postal Service’s need to tighten its belt. It is losing billions a year. Something has to be done to stem the losses.

That something, however, shouldn’t be the random throwing of darts at a map. The something the Postal Service does should be on a national basis. The something should make sense, and it should be a savings that the Postal Service can prove will take place.

The possible closure of the Postal Service’s Lima distribution center doesn’t meet any of those criteria. Closing Lima, which serves 458 zip codes, appears to be what District Manager Chu Falling Star thought would be the easiest option.

Falling Star chose to study the Lima center for closure. It has been her call alone to this point. She says closing the Lima distribution center would save $1.4 million a year, but she has been unwilling — perhaps unable — to show how she arrives at that number. She calls it a conservative estimate, but Lima residents, postal officials and members of Congress apparently just have to take her word for it.

That’s not good enough. It wasn’t good enough for community leaders and postal union workers who turned out Wednesday to protest a possible closure. It shouldn’t be good enough for U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, and Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, whose districts could suffer service delays and even the loss of businesses if the Lima distribution center closes.

The Postal Service closing the Lima center would cost this community 87 jobs. Eventually, merging Lima’s work with that of the Toledo distribution center would eliminate more than 50 jobs in Falling Star’s Western Ohio district. It’s believable that those jobs — which the postal union says pay about $80,000 annually in salary and benefits — could save the Postal Service quite a bit.

But Falling Star should be able to put the numbers on paper. How do transportation costs factor in, for example? Would it make more sense to downsize Toledo or Dayton operations a bit, bringing more work to Lima?

Right now, Falling Star told The Lima News before Wednesday’s public hearing, her numbers are tentative. So, despite our having asked, the postal union having asked, Jordan’s office having asked and community leaders having asked, Falling Star isn’t showing anyone where she gets $1.4 million. We’re just supposed to believe it because she says so.

Eighty-two communities in 10 counties stand to lose, so Falling Star should be able to offer more than her word.

Postal officials — the final decision isn’t Falling Star’s — must be able to show these savings are real and this is the best way to realize them.

Even assuming they do, the Postal Service’s district-by-district approach to trying to save — district managers chose which of their centers to look at — is piecemeal. If Congress wouldn’t have bailed out the Postal Service on retiree health costs, it would have lost $7.8 billion last year. The Postal Service needs to do a comprehensive study of its national operations rather than relying on its district managers alone to try to come up with those savings.

Could Lima absorb work from Toledo? Lima is more efficient. Could Lima or Toledo absorb work from Columbus or Indiana — which are in different districts than what Falling Star oversees — or vice versa?

The digital age has taken a large part of the post office’s business. Nationwide, there has been a 9.2 percent drop in parcels mailed over the past two years, while Lima’s handling has dropped off 17.5 percent in that same time. No one would argue that. But while Falling Star can recite those numbers, she can’t say how much business has dropped for Toledo, Dayton or Cincinnati — suggesting Lima seemed like the least hassle to close.

That isn’t fair. More importantly, it suggests Falling Star could be ignoring better ways to save money.

Take care.

Dave

David & Linda Berger

12ll Lakewood Avenue

Lima, Ohio 45805

419-228-7498

dberger@wcoil.com