Thursday, April 8, 2010

Ohio's House GOP isn't taking this lightly.

Companies are leaving Ohio. That's a fact. And Ohio's GOP leaders want to know what the Governor is doing about it.

If anything.

On Tuesday I detailed the efforts of GOP Ohio State Representative Terry Boose to obtain information from Governor Strickland and his Department of Development regarding the departure of a major company from Lorain County.

In a letter to Strickland's ODOD, Boose states:
In consideration of Ohio’s rampant job loss, I respectfully ask that you present to me the following information:

1. The date on which ODOD first learned that TeleTech Holdings, Inc. was looking to relocate;
2. The date on which ODOD first proactively reached out to TeleTech Holdings, Inc.; and,
3. The specific incentives that were included in the package to TeleTech Holdings, Inc.
All are fair questions. By thoroughly answering these questions, we'll know what efforts were made by Strickland's team to keep TeleTech in Ohio.

As we all know by now, Strickland's track record isn't too great. Just ask the thousands of former employees of NCR in Dayton.

But it seems these instances are just some of what is becoming a despicable trend of failures emanating from the Ohio Department of Development.

State Rep. Peter Beck made a similar request as Boose not too long ago. Unfortunately, it seems Strickland failed to make an adequate effort to prevent the departure of another company from Beck's district.

And Beck isn't taking this failure sitting down.

In response to a letter from the Department of Development, Beck states the following:
I would like to thank you for providing me with the letter to Warner Chilcott’s CEO that you wrote dated March 26th 2010 addressing your disappointment with the company’s closing of its Mason offices.

However, there are still some additional questions that have gone unanswered. I have asked, on several occasions, what preemptive steps you took to ensure that the jobs at Warner Chilcott were fought for? It appears that your March 26th letter was the first contact you made with the company since the March 17th announcement [of the company's departure] in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Was this in fact your only outreach to Warner Chilcott nine days after the company announced it was vacating the state of Ohio?

I have asked what you, as the chief leader of the state of Ohio, would suggest the steps be to fix our tax code to retain jobs in Ohio. I have heard no answer or response from you on this issue. Furthermore, when was your office aware that P&G sold the business to Warner Chilcott, and was this acquisition seen as “job retention” or “job creation,” in your opinion?
Lisa Patt-McDaniel, the head of the Governor's Department of Development, is one of the several members of the Governor's cabinet that was never sent to the Senate for approval.

It's my hope that the State Senate will make sure that Patt-McDaniel answers for the failures of her Department to even make an honest effort to keep Ohio businesses where they belong - in Ohio.

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