It's all about being a good neighbor and doing the right thing. Earlier this week, Salem City Council passed an emergency ordinance agreeing to provide Beloit with fire and EMS dispatching services beginning Aug. 1.
Last Saturday, Green Township trustees voted unanimously to contract with Beaver Township for dispatching services for Green Township's fire department.
Communities such as Green Township and Beloit had to act quickly because Med-Corp., a Toledo-based dispatching service, recently stopped dispatching for some townships and villages in western Mahoning County. Obviously a single day couldn't pass without dispatching. That's something most of us never pause to think about until emergency services are needed.
The Salem-Beloit connection will be a five-year contract at $450 per month. Beloit council member Jim Dyke said the city did indeed come in lowest among three dispatching services contacted. Beloit averages between 360 fire and EMS calls yearly. So that works out to maybe an additional one or so a day for the Salem dispatchers - certainly no big imposition on the city. Beloit will pay for additional needed equipment. So that is of no cost to the city. Granted it is somewhat ironic that this occurs not long after the topic of eliminating city dispatchers was broached. Which bordered on absurd in the first place considering pending 911 implementation with Salem keyed as one of the five county answering points.
Salem and Green Township should be commended for coming to the aid of a neighbor. Their offers to help certainly won't compromise services already provided to their respective residents; a few bucks will come into the coffers; and, most importantly, it sends a message of community-to-community good will which is always welcome.
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It isn't realistic to expect that anyone who may come into contact with children could be - or should be - subjected to background checks. But those working in certain jobs should be checked to avoid placing youngsters in contact with those who have criminal records of offenses against children.
Ohio law requires some background checks but doesn't enforce the rules well, if at all, an investigation by The Columbus Dispatch revealed. And background check laws sometimes defy logic.
Operators of day camps for children are required to provide the state with background information on employees. But The Dispatch found that at least one-third of the camps in Ohio have not completed employee background checks. No system of collecting fines from camp operators who do not comply has been devised.
But The Dispatch uncovered an even more serious gap in the law. It seems that operators of camps where children stay overnight are not required to submit background check information on their employees.
That's absurd - and it makes one wonder what other dangerous lapses occurred in writing and approving background check laws.
State legislators should take another look at the statutes - not with the intent of imposing draconian, unenforceable new rules but with that of closing loopholes and outright gaps. Stiff penalties need to be imposed - not just written into the law, but implemented - against those who fail to comply with background check information.
Any employee of a business or volunteer for an organization who falsifies background information should be subjected to hefty fines and, perhaps, time in jail.
It is impossible to construct a failsafe shield protecting all our children from those who would victimize them. Some steps can be taken, however - and clearly, Ohio needs to fine-tune its laws for that purpose.
Like most other states, Ohio has taken its share of battering as the nation's economy struggles with challenges ranging from high gasoline prices to the "subprime mortgage crisis."
Here in the Ohio Valley, where the steel industry remains under siege, we are all too familiar with the trials and travails of a changing economy.
But as Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland pointed out in a speech a few days ago in Cleveland, the Buckeye State's economy rests on a strong foundation. The potential for continued growth exists.
Strickland and other state leaders are well aware that government has a two-pronged responsibility in encouraging growth. First, the state's business tax climate needs to be appealing.
As the governor pointed out, changes now being implemented in business taxes should make Ohio more attractive in that regard. And a $1.57 billion economic stimulus program will help.
But the other side of the coin involves state regulations that businesses often view as unnecessarily burdensome. Strickland and the General Assembly hope to make progress there, too.
In February, the governor issued an executive order, "Implementing Common Sense Business Regulation," that was intended to provide a blueprint for reform.
It detailed various steps needed to ensure that, while Ohioans' interests are protected, businesses do not suffer from needless paperwork and expenses to comply with state regulations. Legislators followed up by passing a bill, later signed into law, that should make life easier for small business owners. It requires that state agencies waive fines or other penalties for "paperwork violations" committed by small businesses, when they are first offenses.
That's a good start - but much more remains to be done. Strickland and reform-minded legislators face a fearsome adversary: the state bureaucracy.
A section of Strickland's executive order in February hit the problem squarely on the head. "Proposed rules should focus on achieving outcomes rather than the process used to achieve compliance," the governor wrote in that order. But "the process" is precisely why many bureaucratic rules exist. Ohioans simply cannot afford for that mindset to persist among state regulators.
If the state is to be made more attractive to businesses, change will have to be pushed by both Strickland and legislators.
