Preble County Official Hopes For High Unemployment

A sad day in Preble County.

One of the greatest betrayals of public trust by elected officials and publicly paid employees would have to be hoping for high unemployment figures among the people they serve. It is heart breaking to find such hope on the official record of the Preble County Commissioners. 

The Preble County Commissioners owe the public an explanation and an apology as they sat there while it took place. It is time that the future of Preble County stops being held hostage to Goose Creek.  People need jobs, not publically paid employees hoping that the unemployment rate stays high to score more points on a grant application.

At the 26 minute mark on the Monday, October 24, 2011 audio the Preble County Economic Development Director starts talking about the JRS grant application and the marketing plan for Goose Creek. Listen to: File 5B. The David & Jay that she refers to are the lead people from Kleingers the developers that the Commissioners chose for the $250,000 grant from the Dayton Development Coalition that had to be spent by March 1, 2010. The “marketing piece” that she refers to is worth (17 Points) (see Section 3 of the attached JRS Low Intensity Scoring Sheet).

Preble County Economic Development Director:  File 5B: “I am just waiting on those last little pieces of information to put in there. I want it to be worded correctly and I am hoping that the ahh the unemployment rate is at a point where we will keep our points.”

Section 2 of the scoring sheet shows E: Unemployment Rate (3 Points)

What the Preble ED director is trying to do is get as many points and as high a score as possible to win the $750,000 JRS grant for Goose Creek.

The higher the unemployment the more likely it is “we (Preble County) keep our points”.

That is where the problem is. You have the Preble ED director hoping to keep the Preble County unemployment number high for a JRS grant application at Goose Creek.  It begs the question how much effort has really gone into bringing those numbers down. It is also alarming that there is at least the appearance of complicity with the Preble County Development Partnership as they are mentioned as reviewing the marketing.

On September 23 the ED director turned in a report of accomplishments during the first year of employment. One of the ways to verify a strong effort to keep companies currently here is to get to know them with what is known as “Retention Visits”. The Preble County Economic Development Director's report showed a total of 24 retention visits had been made and that averages out to a pathetic two visits a month. It makes sense, though, when you read the comment from October 24 once again:

“I am hoping that the, ahh, the unemployment rate is at a point where we will keep our points.”

Grant points vs. Jobs? Trying to keep companies in Preble County or chase new? Think about those choices and on what side of those answers Preble County should be?  The inaction of this commission to stop those comments implies that they agree with the ED director.  Two of them are up for reelection in 2012, hoping for high unemployment in Preble County should not be tolerated.

I know that there will be those that say the comment was taken out of context or that the ED director miss-spoke but the audio record of the entire meeting is available online at:  File 5

There is also further proof that was provided on October 26, 2011, just two days later in a meeting held in the Preble County Commission Chambers with the developers of Goose Creek. Here is a sample of the text:

1:30 P.M. – DAVID WRIGHT – JRS APPLICATION

Jay Stewart and David Wright for Kleingers in Commission Chambers.

Audio of the text below: File 6A  or for higher bit rate file File 6B

Commissioner Day – There were some deficiencies that ahh questionable and I think ahh I was trying to think of the one. Oh shoot, it dealt with unemployment and Shawnda got clarification we could not utilize that I think.

Kleinger official  - ??? and the distressed county status, she checked with the state. Again it is not one that we cannot physically get into. We are waiting and I don’t know what that newest data is on the ahh unemployment rate. We’re ahh well I shouldn’t say we’re hopeful but cause we were, actually we did. Last month it came out, we dipped below the next point kind of thresh hold, by like point somethin percent.

Commissioner Day – It was

Kleinger official  -  It was right

Commissioner Day – It was very small but we dropped

Kleinger official  -  Under it.

Commissioner Day  - On that one

Kleinger official  -  You know

Commissioner Day  -  The one where we thought we might have a chance ahhh there were a couple others that I don’t remember what they are off the top of my head.

Unknown – The water and sewer deal, we think we’ve got a better chance of alleviating because we are further along in the process.  We are better to write a better narrative towards that., just because where you guys are in the process but it is feasible that they could still ding us on that, because they are looking for it to be right there physically in the ground.

Kleinger official  -  If you at I guess from the committee what we did is ahhm two meetings in a row we took the scoring sheets.  There are two separate scoring sheets there is one at the local level  ahh Springfield and then there is one at the state level.  We went through each one and kind of did a self scoring, you know exercise.  Pointed out ways we could maybe get points and ahhm there’s two areas that are just glaring. Again the one I mentioned was; Are you going to have some degree of control over the development agreement. Ahh the other one is there’s that whole almost a whole page of utilities and basically I think it broke into three types of points. And ahh you know; Do you have the utilities to the site? We’re further along on water and sewer in terms of writing a narrative but that’s, if there is an Achilles heel it’s the utility piece.

The audio of the full meeting is available at the post from October 26, 2011, or listen to: File 6.

It’s your county people, your tax dollars pay these officials salary and it is your family, friends and neighbors that are in need of jobs. We simply cannot tolerate officials that hope for high unemployment.

The Preble County Commissioners can be reached at 456-8143

The ED Director's first annual report is posted below: