Chamber Answers -

Re: November 2011 General Election Questionnair

The following are my responses to a September 23, 2011 letter requesting my views to the proposed questionnaire. By request, each of my answers are to no more than 175 words.

1. What are the motivating factors in your decision to run for public office?

I have been a Findlay resident for nearly 50 years, having attended St. Michaels and Findlay City Schools some years ago. My family roots were planted in Findlay by my parents, who taught in Findlay City Schools and served in other community organizations. I have strong personal commitments to Findlay through my wife Shirley, our children, many friends who have touched our lives over the years and my law practice.

Our founders envisioned a government that works best when balanced by competing voices, a government that works through checks and balances. I want to bring a voice of balance to Findlay City Council. I have helped with successful petitions and referenda for issues important to Findlay citizens and businesses. These represent a voice for the people of our community. I have also seen how some local officials abuse their authority at substantial cost to local taxpayers. By my experience and professional background, I hope to bring a balance that makes our city work harder and better in serving the people of Findlay.

2. What are the most important priorities that you feel need to be set, should you win in November?

Our City must preserve essential police and fire services for our citizens while balancing continuing budget constraints. The new state budget threatens to cut local funding by 25% in fiscal 2012 and 50% the next year. These cuts will have the most severe impact on our most venerable citizens. I believe the answer is in asking neighbors to look out for one another. A city of neighbors looking out for one another is a better place to live and for business. This is a time when we must ask – what can we do for our City and our neighbors.

We must continue to address flood mitigation in an open and deliberate manner. Each step must be open to and invite substantial public input. We need answers that allow us to responsibly plan the future for our neighbors and businesses. I support a comprehensive remediation plan that incorporates engineering recommendations, residential properties purchased and converted to a mid-town park area while protecting downtown business property.

We must embrace our future together as a City of neighbors.

3. Of those priorities, what would you recommend we do – as a community – to address them?

As a City of neighbors blending individual and business interests, I believe we must address economic, public service, flood mitigation and other issues with open disclosures and discussion.

Our City Council must engage in the full public disclosure and discussion of alternatives to address our priorities to assure we are acting as stewards of the public trust in a local government of the people, by the people, for the people. We must invite public input and participation in our efforts to seek and selecting solutions.

Members of our Findlay City Council must seek to identify issues and provide clear recommendations with tangible results, including costs. Each part must be conducted with sufficient notice and at a time that is convenient and open to the public.

We must constantly ask what we can do for for our neighbors. If we try to help our neighbors, we, as a city, are all better for it. I believe this will strengthen every part of our community for people and business.

Tough Decisions

The use of budgetary devices created, in part, through newly identified “tax cuts” termed “tough decisions” that practically effect politically ideological goals is a fraud on each Ohio citizen. While some may praise spending cuts justified by a plea of excuses premised on previously unspoken discomforts about seniority, pay and negotiating relationships of public employees; lost is the fact public employees and union workers are taxpayers, many pay property taxes, and their services define the character of our community and state.

In economic terms, public employees and union workers are vital consumers supportive of local business. The money each worker is paid goes to local stores or pay for services through a repeated re-invested necessary to support our local economy. The destabilization of the economic base supported by public employees and union workers during this time of severe economic recession and high unemployment is patently irresponsible. A long term economic recovery must be built on a foundation that supports the absolute necessity to provide the highest quality of education in our schools, providing essential services for the protection of citizens and guaranty quality workers for growth.

None of the statements issued by newly appointed politicos include a commitment that their tough decisions will result in the better education of Ohio school students, nor assure better police or fire protection. In their extended litany of excuses, our politicos identify no specific economic benefit for their actions. If they claim their difficult decisions will result in jobs, then what jobs, when, where and how much economic gain will result. They make no promise that local income, sales or property taxes will not be increased to compensate for “touch decisions” made in Columbus. All these “touch decisions” appear to create is a suspension of critical analysis and the probative examination of actions and consequences expected of well founded decision making.

The state of Ohio needs long term corporate and individual tax policies that provide education at the highest level; seriously address a broad range of jobs; expand business opportunities and award achievement. These goals cannot be leveraged against rights and benefits taken from public employees and working people. With the exception of the present state administration, public servants understand pay freezes, accepting reduces benefits, longer hours of commitment and the importance of the service each provides to make Ohio a better place.

Before the State of Ohio adopts the business policies proposed, including sale or long term lease of assets owned by Ohio citizens by buzz word jargon, we need to remember that bad business judgment resulted in the bankruptcy of John Kasich’s former employer. The State of Ohio cannot afford to a Wall Street type bail out of risks that results in private profit at public cost. Ohio citizens must demand that public resources that return tax money such as state liquor sales or oil and gas harvested at state parks be strictly accounted and paid to public accounts, supporting pubic service and re-investment in Ohio. We need to ask, what will be the result of these “tough decisions.”

Government That . . .

Often it appears that political and economic discussions consist in the adoption of a primary premise which becomes a conclusion. Logic and facts, although claimed as primary, are cleansed into a reformed conclusion supportive of the assumed premise. Why, because in a juxtaposition of words, it just sounds good. It is the conclusion of a conclusion and thus, must be correct.

This is compounded when the greater part of popular discussion cannot be separated from punditry. There is a subtle seduction through which we tend to simply accept statements that have been repeated so many times that fiction gains acceptance as fact. Then again, such fictitious facts can become the conclusion of a conclusion and thus, must be correct.

Take for example the belief attributed to Thomas Jefferson that government is best which governs least. The fact is, while this idea may be in line with Jefferson’s opinions, no such statement is found in his writings. The real source may be Henry David Thoreau in 1849 or an 1837 editorial in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.

Unfortunately, what John Quincy Adams called the Jefferson-Madison partnership was in purpose a limitation of “evil” federal authority over states in 1790-1791. The Jefferson-Madison limitation upon “a government that governs least” reflects the view that by limiting federal over state sovereignty the subjugation of individuals whose enslaved labor was necessary to preserve the plantation economy in tidewater Virginia and southern states could be maintained.

Then “big government” intervention threatened to end slavery. We know this because in 1790, Ben Franklin was a prominent signatory on a Quaker petition that urged Congress to question the slave trade and slavery in America. In the first open debate over slavery in the US history, Madison led the floor fight in the House to block any extension of federal authority and preserved the slave trade by strict interpretation of the Constitution and any extension of federal authority over slavery.

Today, the argument over “big government” intervention is used in many forms. The real question is whether and how American citizens are subjugated by such argument. Lost is a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

John F. Kostyo

Editorial Endorsements and Fraud

At one time the editorial boards of major newspapers included accomplished and broadly experienced journalists. The editorial staffs of respected national newspapers still include individuals who have earned advanced academic degrees, with honors, from nationally recognized colleges and universities or those who, by their recognized knowledge or skills or experience, can contribute probative analytic insights.

Most of the individuals who serve on major newspaper editorial boards have international experience in business, academics or other areas in addition to journalism. Many have taught or teach in a particular academic area at one or more major universities. On a periodic basis and in the interest of editorial credibility, the newspapers publish the full backgrounds of their editorial boards, including all academic accomplishments, noted research, articles and awards. There is particular interest in the continued review of these credentials as a necessary basis to support the editorials, analysis of issues and political endorsements.

Collectively, a credible editorial board is able to take the very best from its editors and substantially advance insights through editorial opinion. These individuals are able to draw upon their business experiences, advanced academic credentials, their journalistic experiences or practical accomplishment to critically endorse candidates or analyze complex issues. Without such credentials, readers must ask why an editorial statement should seriously considered.

The actual fact is, as the number of newspapers has declined, there has been an equal or even greater decline in the level of editorial merit that may or even should be attributed to surviving papers.

As the number of newspapers have declined, the merit of their editorial endorsements appears to have suffered most even as the papers rely on the pretense that such endorsements have serious merit. Such pretense, without critical review, is a form of self serving deception, a level of deception that appears to increase exponentially with declining newspaper circulations. The smaller the newspaper, the lesser accomplished its editorial staff or board and less credible any analysis or endorsement made. Moreover, if the history of past endorsements falls into a particularly noted or establish pattern, readers must question whether the writing is an endorsement or free political advertising in the pretense of opinion.

In the evolution of news writing and editorial analysis, newspaper readers must ask themselves whether the editorial staff of the paper and the editorial as written is anything more than a re-statement of political campaign statements. My review of recent endorsements made in many of the smaller papers throughout northwestern Ohio reveals little more than an anemic shuffling of campaign literature. Substantial questions about the support of past economic policies that provided tax incentives to export manufacturing jobs; undermine small business interests; trade investment of Ohio employee pension funds for personal bonuses; failures to disclose sources of funds or flat out lies made in campaign literature are not addressed. Is it possible that editorial boards simply believe that in an age of internet efficiency this information is not readily available? If so, the intentional or inadvertent absence or failure to address these questions is a critical flaw in the merit of editorial endorsements. I do not believe an endorsement should be a rubber stamp.

It is also well recognized that many regional or city newspapers have a particular political bias. Some have sought to step away from past political references. For example, in 1976 “The Republican Courier” of Findlay, Ohio sought to become “The Courier” in a showing of non-partisan independence. The showing is in all practical purposes a fraud when the paper has not found a way to balance the evaluation of political issues or candidates. Perhaps its editorial board is congenitally unable to do anything else – but then, a sub-literate rubber stamp should not be called an endorsement. Editorial integrity should demand more but then editorial integrity does not appear the purpose of such endorsements in the first place.

Slaying the Jabberwock

In Democracy in America (Bk. II, Ch. 16: 1840), Alexis de Tocqueville addresses "How American Democracy has Modified the English Language" by allowing the play of words with multiple meanings to become common conduits of ambiguity. The insight is that American politicos play on the commonality of literary ignorance by using abstract verbalizations in substitution for words with real meaning. The consequence, according to de Tocqueville, is the creation of a verbal mythology in political language or speech that while appealing to the rank and file citizen is substantively meaningless.

Most pertinent is the now familiar formula followed by The Courier "Letter to the Editor" contributors who trace the flow of concepts from gullets, liberal legislators, arrogance, burgeoning government, spending programs, unfulfilled promises, ignoring the mandates of the Constitution and "the people." The collective combination seeks a self- fulfilling fantasy of awakened truth while having the substantive equivalence to that found in Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."

Perhaps it is time to unseath our vorpal blades and once again slay the Jabberwock. In the engagement, it must be recognized that literal substance entails specific reference not vague rhetorical conclusions. The purpose is to invite meaningful discussion based on the citation of actual data, factual references that can be verified and exchanged so that each side of the discussion has a vested interest in reaching valid conclusions. Agree or not, we should be able to find common facts, common information and then determine how we are to find results.

If credible reference is made to electoral analysis, then meaningful discussion requires specific engagement of probative statistical data. Where writers may be deficient in comparative statistical analysis as apparent from recent submissions, there are numerous sources that can provide substantive explanations. Summary conclusions of key political events may only be seen as a disservice to credible discussion.

The United States Constitution serves as the instrument through which the institutions of our government are founded and our individual rights established and sustained. Reference made to particular powers or provisions bypassed or ignored within a constitutional context but without specification of the particular powers or provisions bypassed or ignored is meaningless punditry. References combined with the potential of unidentified ominous possibilities leaves much to the fanatical whims of undiscerning readers.

The United States Constitution contains specific articles, sections and even noted clauses. Meaningful discussion of powers or provisions in the Constitution requires citation. In this way, readers may note the concerns referred with trepidation equal to the insights of the writer; otherwise, we are simply left underwhelmed in the throes of exuberant verbosity.

I suggest that we can actually find and cite cases decided by the United States Supreme Court or published decisions of inferior courts. The fact that these are published means that we can read them. If there is to be a citation to a case, then we can refer to the case, read it and even find enlightening commentary. What we cannot do is to just cite the holding of a case without being forced to defend the holding. It is all to easy to suggest that cases have historic meaning but when subjected to critical review, the actual holding must be distinguished. I can at least say that when I attended law school at The Franklin Thomas Backus School of Law at Case Western Reserve University, we did study the United States Constitution, we used the Constitution and cases as precedent for an understanding of the Constitution and case law Constitutional history.

When reference is made to how Constitutional Law is taught, my suggestion is to dive into the two volumes of American Constitutional Law by Laurence H. Tribe. It may take a few cups of tea to absorb - I prefer that exacting blend of Darjeeling, India and Ceylon from Davison Newman & Co. deposited in Boston Harbour on December 16, 1773 or again on March 7, 1774.

My point here is to invite a step beyond the continued Dog-whistle profundity all too often found in this part of The Courier and similar publications in this area.

Jim Jordan - You Lie!

As those of us who are greeted each morning with The Courier, we are never surprised to see the absurd statements of our putative U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan. Jim was at it again in Bluffton on Wednesday. This was reported in The Courier in the Thursday, November 12, 2009 edition. I suggest that at some point this swill must stop, unfortunately, area newspaper reporters do not have the fortitude to ask questions or think. Let me provide a little response.

We know that the United States must fully embrace a health care system that provides care for health, seeks to prevent illness and rewards practices for good health. We must also embrace health care as a moral imperative and duty to each American.

Mr. Jordan's views of health care are based on self-serving myths and his fulfillment of a do nothing political agenda. His statement that it is a moral question sounds good, but has no basis in fact or any morality associated with humanity. With reference to his defense of Joe Wilson, Jim Jordan is the person who is not being straightforward with his constituents.

It is now an established fact that nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published on September 17, 2009 by the American Journal of Public Health. The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. Call this whatever you want, it is a moral statement.

Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease. An increase in the number of uninsured and an eroding medical safety net for the disadvantaged likely explain the substantial increase in the number of deaths, as the uninsured are more likely to go without needed care. Another factor contributing to the widening gap in the risk of death between those who have insurance and those who do not is the improved quality of care for those who can get it. The study found a 40 percent increased risk of death among the uninsured.

Steffie Woolhandler, study co-author, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a primary care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance, noted: “Historically, every other developed nation has achieved universal health care through some form of nonprofit national health insurance. Our failure to do so means that all Americans pay higher health care costs, and 45,000 pay with their lives.”

Jim Jordan lives in a world of delusion. The United States now ranks 31st in life expectancy according to the latest World Health Organization figures. This puts us up with Kuwait and Chile. The United States is 37th in infant mortality and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the United States is 2 1/2 times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden. An American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland. This is a moral wrong and travesty in human terms.

I suggest that we can use common sense to provide universal health care through a nonprofit national health plan. We can participate in a system that rewards good health practices, that cares for health. A system where each of us can allow the physician or medical provider of their choice to see a comprehensive – on line - medical record. This alone would dramatically reduce unnecessary tests, missed prescriptions, conflicting diagnosis and decrease medical malpractice claims without demanding the forfeiture of patient’s rights. We may not be told that our doctor is “out of network” or that the procedure is considered “optional” without a separate medical opinion that must be covered by the patient.

How much can we save? I suggest that the savings alone will pay for the system. The final fact is that for those Americans below the age of 65, health care may be questionable, for those over 65, health care improves dramatically – why – think about it. Yes, the answer is a government run health care system – that appears to care for health. Why should we have to wait until we are 65 years old before entitlement to that care? We need politics beyond scare tactics and patriotically worded answers beyond tea bags.

American health care is a moral issue that when placed in the lives of people, we “the people” do know better. Jim Jordan – You Lie.

Respectfully, John F. Kostyo

No Excuse

It is a great new day for the United States, for the American People and for recognition that we have resumed a role of leadership in our world. Yes, this is in recognition that Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

With an invitation that you read Paul Krugman’s article in today’s New York Times entitled “The Uneducated American” we may expect to face again a question where American school students will be able to watch their President receive and deliver a Nobel Peace Prize address. Perhaps there will be another opportunity for local students to “op-out.”

Perhaps it is also time for schools to look for new educators and principals and superintendents. Is there little wonder why there may be consideration that those in favor of public education feel compelled to “op-out” of supporting schools that no longer support education?

This time, there is no excuse.