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Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > December > 03 > Entry
Locals present Christmas list to Sen. Voinovich
Living in Cleveland and working in Washington D.C., U.S. Sen. George Voinovich doesn’t make it to Butler County much, his aide admits.
But the Ohio senator will hear the concerns of county leaders and everyday folks after a public meeting Tuesday, Dec. 2, with his district director, Nan Kohnen Cahall.
Hamilton officials, two county commissioners, the county engineer and a couple residents attended. Their concerns were far-ranging, but Cahall said she will present them all to Voinovich Friday, Dec. 5.
How could the federal government make your life better?
Pleas made Tuesday include one from Hamilton Economic Development Specialist Chris Xeil Lyons for the federal government to renew a program that allows the city to allocate up to $12 million in federal tax incentives every year.
This helps the city attract small businesses as it tries to renew itself, Lyons said. But the program expires in 2009.
Cahall said Voinovich sympathizes with they city’s efforts to help small business. “In this economy, anybody who employs anybody is an important person today,” she said.
But, she cautioned, Voinovich is a “deficit hawk.”
“He looks at everything very critically (asking) how much it costs,” she said.
County Engineer Gregory Wilkens asked for the senator’s support streamlining the approval process for road projects. He said the yearlong review process for major projects could neuter President-election Barack Obama’s idea of stimulating the economy with infrastructure investment.
“I’m looking at projects that need to get done, but we’re not in the process and I can’t get through that process in the time that it will be a benefit (to the economy),” he said.
Mike and Mary Lou Schuler, a retired couple from Hamilton, were the only residents to attend. They asked only that lawmakers put aside partisan bickering and their own aspirations and focus on the country’s tenuous situation.
“We don’t need them to start running for president right now,” Mary Lou Schuler said. “We feel in this day and age, when it’s so bad…they’ve got to work together.”
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