February 28 Update from Dave Berger

Greetings, Ladies and Gents:

I don’t know about you, but the Chilean earthquake, the threat of Pacific-wide tsunamis, and the blizzard in the Northeast made the couple of inches of snow we experienced in the past day or two seem fairly insignificant. Without a doubt, we should all be thankful and generous as the requests for help in Haiti, Chile and elsewhere are made.

City Finance Director Testifies

This past week, Steve Cleaves, the Finance Director for the City of Lima, testified before the Ohio House of Representatives concerning proposed legislation that would eliminate Ohio’s income tax. Because of the profoundly disruptive impacts that would be felt locally and statewide from such legislation, Steve prepared and delivered comments that argued forcefully against such a step. By virtue of his 28 year career in the international oil business and his half dozen years of service with the City, Steve’s expertise is broadly acknowledged. But his testimony was not an expression of mere opinion. He relied upon a longstanding resource—KPMG’s Guide to International Business Locations—to validate the relatively low tax burden in Ohio and its cities.

This is a subject that deserves some study time.

Please read Steve’s 2-page testimony at http://www.cityhall.lima.oh.us/dept/local/SCleavesOhioTestimony02242010.pdf

Also, you can download KPMG’s report at http://www.competitivealternatives.com/

The bottom line: There is no free lunch. Quality of life in local communities and in our state requires public expenditures and private investments. We need to do our part as tax payers if we expect to have high quality public services that serve us well and create environments that will motivate investors to keep our economy vibrant in a global economic system.

May 2010 renewal ballot for Ohio’s Third Frontier Program

The Ohio legislature has approved the placement of a renewal for the Third Frontier Program on the May 4, 2010 ballot. The Third Frontier program—begun by Governor Bob Taft--invests in research, commercialization and entrepreneurship in technologies in high tech industry clusters. This past year, the Ohio Department of Development contracted with SRI to conduct an independent economic assessment of the first 7 years of the program’s efforts. SRI concluded that the Third Frontier program created $6.6 billion in economic impact and 41,300 jobs by making grants of $681 million to research, development and commercialization projects at academic, research and development institutions and companies, entrepreneur-development organizations and venture capital funds. An important conclusion of the business case study: the Third Frontier program is likely to pay for itself by 2014 with income and sales taxes generated by organizations receiving its grants.

You can access a copy of the 2009 Annual Report at the following: http://development.ohio.gov/ohiothirdfrontier/Documents/RecentPublications/Third_Frontier_Annual_Report2009.pdf

If you go to pp 14-15, you’ll be able to read about Lima’s American Trim and Rhodes State College teamwork under the Third Frontier Program.

As May approaches, I expect to be working to highlight the investments made in our NW Ohio region from the Third Frontier program. There’s lots to talk about.

Take care. And be well.

Dave

David & Linda Berger

1211 Lakewood Avenue

Lima, Ohio 45805

419-228-7498

dberger@wcoil.com

February 14 Update from Dave Berger

Greetings, Ladies and Gents:

I hope this Valentine’s Day finds you well and comfortably surviving the winter snows that have fallen in 49 out of the 50 states. We have had enough snow here in Lima that yesterday I had to rescue my buddy, Smokey, from a snow drift that he got himself stuck in!

Positive News: $1 million Energy Stimulus award to American Trim

This past week, the Director of the Ohio Department of Development, Lisa Patt McDaniel, was in Lima to announce that American Trim was one of 18 companies around the state that had been selected for a grant of nearly $1 million for construction of a new energy efficient manufacturing line. (cf. http://www.governor.ohio.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=1510). American Trim will be spending $1.3 million of its own resources along with the grant for a state-of-the art coating line, which will save 95% of the energy used in prior technologies.

Steve Hatkevich, head of R&D, for American Trim, describes the new energy savings technology.

American Trim has been highly successful in rolling out new technologies from its laboratories and scaling them up for high-tech manufacturing. These efforts by American Trim are part of a

multi-year commitment by the Company to reinvent its manufacturing processes and pursue an agile manufacturing strategy with the express purpose of retaining jobs in Ohio and Lima in particular.

And this project illustrates the validity of that strategy: After several years in their labs, the company is now prepared to install a coating line that will apply a protective film to steel panels built for doors on appliances. This coating is cured in place using flashes of ultraviolet light, rather than the traditional heating and cooling processes. The energy savings are enormous, and the technology is entirely “green”, with no environmental emissions.

The announcement was made in the company’s Baxter Street facilities where millions of similar products were previously made using the old technology. These facilities are now vacant and unused, but the new energy efficient manufacturing line will create 40 new jobs and allow the company to once again compete globally.

Congratulations, American Trim!

Lima’s Sister City connection to the Winter Olympics (in Nagano, Japan, 1998)

With Friday’s opening of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the Lima Sister City Association has launched a special fundraising effort, connected to the ’98 Winter Olympics held in Nagano, Japan.

Keiko Hahn, a co-chair of our Japan Committee, has a sister, a master quilter, who served as the Coordinator of the Olympic Quilt Exhibition in Nagano. As a part of this exhibition, quilts were created in the shape of kimono using antique kimono fabric by expert Nagano area Japanese quilters. These quilts were presented to each participating country in the spirit of international friendship. After the exhibit, two of these kimono quilts, one for the country of Yugoslavia (which no longer exists) and one for The Gambia, a small country in West Africa, were unclaimed. Keiko’s sister gave these quilts to Keiko and the Lima Sister City Association to be sold as fundraisers in the future.

These quilts were posted separately on e-Bay on February 7.

Bidders should know that 100% of the sale price will go to the LSCA Youth Fund, which provides opportunities for high school students to visit Lima's sister city, Harima-cho, Japan.

Below are links to the quilts' item description pages:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110491805576&ssPageNa

me=S

TRK:MESELX:IT#ht_1136wt_1167

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110491806821&ssPageNa

me=S

TRK:MESELX:IT#ht_994wt_1167

In the spirit of international friendship fostered by the Winter Olympics, I hope you’ll consider participating in this auction and supporting the efforts of Lima Sister City Association.

More Information concerning Ohio’s Passenger Rail Hub Plan

As you probably are aware, the City of Lima has been working for years to re-establish passenger rail service that once linked us to Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York. That opportunity is closer with the federal commitments that are now moving ahead for the funding of high speed passenger rail recently announced. Ohio’s first corridor to be built will be along the 3’C’s and with the announcement of $400 million being available to actually begin its development, lots of debate has begun. And as always, debate is good.

So to help foster the debate I am passing along a link to information being provided by the Ohio Passenger Rail Association.

http://members.cox.net/ohiohsr/3C%20mythbusters.pdf

Hope you’ll take a moment and check it out.

Thanks.

Take care. And be well.

Dave

David & Linda Berger

1211 Lakewood Avenue

Lima, Ohio 45805

419-228-7498

dberger@wcoil.com