Headlines
OH: Dem leaders protest plan to privatize Ohio Turnpike
FL: Controversial Lincoln Road outsourcing bid attacked again
UT: No liquor privatization this year
ALEC education ‘academy’ launches on island resort
News summaries
OH: Dem leaders protest plan to privatize Ohio Turnpike
Democratic elected officials from Northeast Ohio gathered in Youngstown for the first in a series of news conferences in opposition to Gov. John Kasich’s proposal to privatize the Ohio Turnpike to generate revenue for the state. The Democrats said the privatization proposal could result in higher tolls, a decline in turnpike maintenance and lower wages for turnpike workers…The creation of the Ohio Turnpike Commission, which operates the road, was authorized in 1949 by the Ohio Legislature, and the road opened in 1955. The commission, not the state, issued more than $326 million in revenue bonds to fund its construction, McNally said. “No state general-revenue funds have ever been appropriated by the state of Ohio to support the Ohio Turnpike,” McNally said. “The turnpike is funded by tolls, profits from concessions and other items sold in turnpike shops.” If the sale or lease of the turnpike were put out to bid, state Rep. Ronald Gerberry of Austintown, D-59th, said there’d be no way to prevent a foreign corporation or government from owning or leasing the 241-mile-long toll road, which traverses Northern Ohio, including Trumbull and Mahoning counties. A Spanish company leases the Indiana toll road, he noted. Youngstown Vindicator
FL: Controversial Lincoln Road outsourcing bid attacked again
Miami Beach commissioners could vote Wednesday to negotiate a no-bid contract that could be worth around $25 million for a private company to landscape and maintain the Lincoln Road mall for the next decade. The contract would go to a company managed by Robert Wennett, the developer of 1111 Lincoln Road, the stylish, Swiss-designed parking garage that has become the chic spot for parties and weddings. Wennett’s UIA Management maintains the new 1100 block of Lincoln Road, which he developed with millions of dollars in city funds, as part of a public/private partnership. The new deal would extend Wennett’s current contract, valued at $158,000 annually through the beginning of 2020, to cover the maintenance of the entire mall at a cost estimated around $3 million a year. Wennett’s management fee is 15 percent. In September, an anonymous letter alleged the proposal to have Wennett oversee the mall was an attempt to funnel millions of public dollars into the developer’s pockets. Commissioners turned the matter over to the State Attorney’s Office, which confirmed its open investigation in December…Nonetheless, Miami Beach’s largest public employee union has launched a scathing commercial on cable television, attacking Gonzalez and calling Wennett’s original contract a “Trojan Horse” crafted with the intention of him eventually running all of Lincoln Road. Miami Herald
UT: No liquor privatization this year
If it wasn’t clear already, Thursday it became official: There will be no attempt to privatize the state’s liquor operations in the 2012 Legislature….Several veteran lawmakers who have dealt with liquor control issues before told UtahPolicy that major changes won’t be happening this session in part because “all the traditional stakeholders” – as one put it – “in liquor control have not been brought together.” In legislative-speak that means leaders of the LDS Church, who historically have had a say in liquor control in Utah, have not been brought into the discussions – at least not to the extent as in the past. Thus without that traditional coalition, no major changes will occur. Utah Pulse
ALEC education ‘academy’ launches on island resort
Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an island resort off the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise. AFL-CIO