Sharing Stirs Up Emotions

Building support for new ways of planning for and sharing the benefits of economic growth in Northeast Ohio will undoubtedly be very difficult. As comments on a region's newspapers message board highlight,  there are strong views on both sides of the issue of whether regional planning and revenue sharing makes sense for Northeast Ohio.

The Northeast Ohio Mayors and City Managers Association will vote on May 15 whether to advocate that the region pursue a system of regional planning and revenue sharing designed to accelerate economic growth. You can learn more about the effort at www.revenuestudy.org.

Rick Armon of the Akron Beacon Journal published a story today that looked at the effort. Here's part of the story:

The idea deserves to be studied, said Chuck Keiper, a Portage County commissioner and member of the Regional Economic Revenue Study group.

''For Northeast Ohio to be competitive, we have to think outside of our provincial boxes and we have to find ways to work together,'' Keiper said. ''To compete with Japan, China, Germany and others trying to clean our clocks, we're going to have to do it together.''

But getting out of those provincial boxes can be very challenging, as you can tell by reading some of the comments posted by the ABJ's online readers.

Here's one post:

This is a BAD idea.

We don't need regionalization, we need jobs in Northeast Ohio that pay more then hamburger flipping minimum type wages.

On the other side is this post:

Let's end this madness. The first step towards ending the rampant parochialism here in NE Ohio is for people to realize that suburbs are no more viable independent of their central cities than your arms and legs could survive without being connected to your torso and head.

What do you think?