OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: In the 60s, Bob Dylan sang about the metaphorical "hard rain" that was going to fall in poetic response to the tumbling, trying tumult of the time.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, both as a candidate for the job and during the 14 months in the job, has said solving Ohio’s education puzzle – constitutional funding for primary and secondary education and taming the lions of higher education that have produced a college education in Ohio more expensive than others -- will be the central issue in his first-term, one that will define whether he has been a success or not.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: What do Ohioans facing home foreclosure and Shakespeare’s legendary Prince of Denmark have in common? Both hope a dream can help them escape “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

For the growing tide of Ohioans facing home foreclosure “to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub” could be one way to keep their American Dream of owning a home alive long enough for circumstances to change sufficiently to allow them to tell the wolf of foreclosure that prowls outside their door today to go away.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland Friday appointed Cheryl Roberto to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO).

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: In the week since Ohio Governor Ted Strickland gave his dazzling but dubious State of the State speech last Wednesday about his plans to create new jobs and commandeer control of the state’s education system, supporters and critics of the proposed $1.7 bond package have been busy working to give it liftoff or shoot it down before takeoff.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: After one year in office, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland used his State of the State speech Wednesday to readjust the state’s sails, hoping to generate enough wind power through a new jobs program, increased investment in infrastructure and the reorganization of primary and secondary education that will give high school seniors a leg up on college to steer the ship of state to calmer seas and more prosperous shores.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Ohio Governor Ted Strickland will soon be sent names of candidates to fill the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) post set to expire in April.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: With Ohio staggering at the back of the pack of states in important categories like job loss and rising poverty, and with the wolf of recession roaming close by, it was only a matter of time before Governor Ted Strickland reacted to projections that his two-year state budget could be as much as $1.9 billion in the red by mid 2009.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: The story ONB broke last week about the sudden and strange disappearance of Linda O’Connor from her high-profile, high-paying perch atop policy program at the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS)only grows more intriguing and mysterious with time.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: The label “battleground state” generally refers to a state whose Electoral College votes can make or break a race for the White House. Ohio, the nation’s 7th largest state with 20 such votes, has been so designated in previous election cycles and is predicted to again defend that title this year.

This year the moniker "battleground state" may more aptly describe the breakout of intra-state battles taking shape over the budget, voting systems and energy. These battles are creating fissures between Republicans, who still rule the roost at the legislature and office of auditor, and Democrats, who for the first time in 16 years control the executive branch and offices of attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state.

OhioNews Bureau ONB COLUMBUS: People involved with Ohio’s workforce development programs are puzzled by the sudden, mysterious turn of the year disappearance of a high-placed, high-profile, high-paid deputy director for the Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS). She was touted as one of Governor Strickland’s big hires. Someone who would establish an effective state workforce development operation. Where in the world is Linda O'Connor? She’s definitely not with Carmen San Diego. But where is she?

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: News report Friday suggest that Indiana is ready to join a regional, eight-state compact designed to prevent water-challenged states like Georgia or Alabama or others from siphoning off fresh water from the Great Lakes, which waterphiles say hold about 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water.

Ohio Treasury Cordray Launches SaveNOW to Change Citizens’ Savings Habits

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: With winter winds blowing a chill across Ohio, and the prospect by many reputable economists that the next recession is waiting in the wings to make its cameo appearance, bringing with it more financial heartache to a state that has yet to recover the last recession of 2001, the timely announcement by Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray that he’ll plunk down $25 million in state investment dollars to help Ohioans save more and earn higher interests rates on their savings, is a warm breeze in an otherwise frosty environment.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Wind and snow are cooling off Ohio, as is the specter of an oncoming recession, that could further chill the state’s already ailing economy.

With light snow flakes falling as if they were blown off the canvass of a Norman Rockwell painting, the message Ohio Governor Ted Strickland offered today as a strategy to bolster the budget from the hungry jaws of economic recession probably didn’t warm the cockles of the hearts of state employees, many of whom could be offered early retirement buyouts to get them off the payroll.

OhioNews Bureau

UPATED

ONB COLUMBUS: On the same day Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner convened a gathering of reporters to further defend her decision from mid-December to force a costly wholesale change in equipment, process and locations for all voters come the November elections, the OhioNews Bureau learned a key staffer central to her controversial EVEREST study was no longer in his position, and also failed to respond to offers of help from voting system, rights experts.

Seeing the opposition starting to mobilizing against her calls for big, radical voting changes, Brunner is counter punching by launching a PR listening tour in the form of a series of town-hall meetings around Ohio, where citizens can make their voice heard on her decisions to change voting in Cuyahoga County as early as March and for everyone else by November, when record-setting voter turnout is expected as America decides which presidential candidate will bring the kind of change the country is crying for.