News archive

Controversy, Controversy,  Controversy

We made the newspaper again today.  For those of you that might not know the City hired retired State Senator and former judge Neal Zimmers to lobby for Huber Heights in Columbus.  I think a chronological posting of email messages is a good way for you to understand all contention of the lunch meeting at TJ Chumps.
 
From: Neal Zimmers
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 4:31 PM
To: McMasters, Tom
Subject:…

Anatomy of a Newspaper Article

One of the interesting parts about being in politics is the interaction with the media.  It is always important to realized that somehow the reporter will have to squeeze what you provide into a very short space.  I thought I would provide you a non-controversial interaction so you get an idea of the translation process.  The interactions that took place for an article published today (Monday Jan

School Board opening Huber Heights City Schools - apply ASAP

Update:  Information available on the Huber Heights City School Website about the application process being used to fill the vacant School Board seat:

http://www.huberheightscityschools.org/News/1274#sthash.xl8VCZvE.dpbs

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm having the hardest time finding information on the Huber

Goodbye 2015, hello 2016

This past week saw the last official business of the 2015 council and next week Tuesday the 2016 council will conduct its first work session.  Last week's Special Council meeting was much more chaotic than I expected or desired.  I expect there to be more chaos than desired Tuesday just because there will be a lot of changes not only do we have three new council members but we also will be going to the work session format.

Music Center profit loss discussion - this is fun.

The latest discussion on the financial impact the Music Center has on the City budget can be found on the city website and starts 1 hour 5 minutes and 11 seconds into the video (1:05:11).  The latest figures are posted below.  The video to the left starts at about 1:19:25.  This time was chosen because of my remark stating that debating the numbers is fun.  My view is that being able to

Carriage Trails Supplement Discussion during the Committee of the W…

Last week during the Committee of the Whole meeting there was a good discussion concerning the supplements the City provides to the Carriage Trails development.  To date there have been 16 amendments to the original development agreement.  These amendments get discussed as each of the phases of the development get sold out and so far cover 600 of the planned 1200 houses for that area.  The…

Model airplanes / Drones

I think it is because I was a test pilot for the X-45 and a safety officer for Global Hawk and Predator and I've also belong to a model aircraft club that I have a different idea of UAV than what we see in the news.  Most of the drones we see in the news are really just more sophisticated model airplanes and we would be a lot safer if people realized this and operated them as if they thought…

Cookies with Santa - Christmas Concert.

I received these two Huber Heights Christmas announcements for Thursday Dec 3rd Cookies with Santa at the Athletic Foundation and Sunday Dec 6th Christmas Concert at the Eichelberger Amphitheater.


A reminder of the annual Huber Heights Athletic Foundation "Cookies with Santa" event for 2015!


The event will be held this Thursday, December 3, 2015, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Huber Heights Athletic

What does The Impact Group do for the City?

Last week during the Council meeting we had a couple of interesting items that I'm planning on writing about.  Council authorized the continuation of the contract with The Impact Group (discussion starts at 1:06:50 into the video).  This was a bad decision and I'm going to write more about that.  Also, there was an expectation that council would waive the 2nd and 3rd reading of a finance…

Brandt Pike revitalization, Bike paths and Roundabouts

The City currently has a Request for Proposals out to companies that want to bid on helping to develop a plan for revitalizing the Brandt Pike Corridor.  The bids are due Dec 3rd so if you know of a company that does this kind of work have them look at the proposal criteria.
 
One idea that I heard from a resident awhile ago was to try and make the interior residential neighborhoods between…

Election is over.  

New page has will turned.

Now that the election is over I'm looking forward to the next two years.  I know I've been lax in posting to the Mayor's blog this last couple years.  It is my intention to going back to writing at least weekly.  I'm hoping these next couple years many of the articles I write will have a positive tone and others will explore the pros and cons of different ways to approach how the city does…

DDN article concerning staff at General Council Meetings

I suggested months ago that we stop asking all of staff to come to Council meetings if it was preventing them from preparing written reports prior to committee meetings. Today, days before the election that request was twisted into an article from the DDN. http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/…/huber-heights-cha…/npB3R/

Below you can see the example of what staff needs to be protected from.  If…

Letter to Ward 6 residents

Ward 6 Letter endorsing Richard Stan


Ward 6 endorsement letter back page


Here is the letter from the Fire Fighters Local 2926.  After the letter I put links to the interview videos so you can

Fire Station support - yes - but I've never supported the 2025 plan

I did a quick search of this site to see what I wrote concerning the proposed fire station / fire house:

This first post predates the 2025 plan so you can see I've always been against the promise to lock the city into just providing current levels of services.  On April 6, 2014 I wrote:

How about Police and Fire services?  Is it really realistic to ask for a levy that does no more than…

Recent videos from Local 2926 interviews

The original post is  below and also the original controversial video.  Watching the full interviews are more informative so if you are time limited skip the write-up and the first video and watch the full interviews first.  They can be found below the first video. 

Original with updates ————–
The Executive Committee of Local 2926 invited the candidates to speak to their members.  They video…

Housing to Youth

I was looking at the procedures to start an llc and found this interesting in the context of all the questions about Concept 1.  I wonder if they have the referenced letter and if they do why they didn't provide it.  It certainly would have helped their credibility. 

Some of the reasons to add an attachment would be in the following situations:
* The business name you have selected is already in

I'm always looking for your input to help me improve the discussion

 This week I've been following comments to a DDN article about the construction of the Fire Station.  It would be more beneficial to me if more of these discussions helped me do my job. For instance if you fast forward to 1:25:10 of the administration committee video you will see that I asserted that we had not passed a budget for the Fire Station. This is wrong. We passed a budget on Sept 14, 2

$17 million or $8.5 million council chooses $8.5

There was a decent discussion on the subject of the Carriage Trails Supplement last Council meeting.  I recommend watching the video on the City's Website. Putting the bottom line up front; if the City didn't supplement the building of Carriage Trails it would likely net $17.4 million dollars over the next 21 years.  If council keeps supplementing the development the most it can net is $8.5…

Election message for the residents of Huber Heights

For three years prior to being elected and in the two years since being elected I've asked current council members to adopt standard practices like going out and bidding major contracts, adding a means for us to recover our costs if a contractor fails to perform and requiring a conflict of interest statement for a businessman like Mr. Conaway that is being paid both by the City and by the…

2040 Long Range Transportation Plan

Subject:        Public Participation Meetings to be held regarding the 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan Update. 
Dayton, OH - The Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission (MVRPC) will hold a series of Public Participation Meetings regarding the 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan Update as follows: 
 

  • Tuesday, October 20, 2015 
Troy-Miami County Public Library – Multipurpose Room
419 W. Ma

Ed Lyons - Thank you council for a billion dollars!

Thank you council for giving us a billion dollars, "that's billion with a b".  This was Ed Lyons showing his understanding of economic development at the announcement of "The Heights" development project just before he was elected to council.

Not all browsers show the embedded video.  If you can't see the preview view it directly from YouTube 


 
If Ed Lyons, Jan Vargo, Karen Kaleps or Lu…

Ed Lyons - Thank you council for a billion dollars!

Thank you council for giving us a billion dollars, "that's billion with a b".  This was Ed Lyons showing his understanding of economic development at the announcement of "The Heights" development project just before he was elected to council. 


 
If Ed Lyons, Jan Vargo, Karen Kaleps or Lu Dale were capable of understanding what it takes to produce economic development they would have…

There are reasons I like Richard Stan for Ward 6 Council Representa…

Ed Lyons has been useless in helping me do my job of making sure the public understands the decisions Council makes on behalf of the City.  I just came upon this article by Richard Stan that makes me believe things could be much better next year.
 

From the desk of Richard Stan:

Rebuttal to Ed Lyon’s Speech to the League of Women Voters on Thursday, Oct 1.

My honorable opponent, Ed Lyons, spoke…

Update  15  Oct  –  Another $579,000 wasted by Council

There was a decent discussion on this subject.  I recommend watching the video on the City's Website.  The discussion starts at 58 minutes and 48 seconds.  I thought I would  produce a table below based on the numbers provided to show how much would be collected if the developer were to sell 30 houses per year and the city netted $53,000 per house (we don't provide any supplement) versus…

Update $651,651 (not $1 Million) dollar deficit in City Budget

6 Oct 2015
Tonight we had an administration committee meeting and further discussed the 2016 budget.  Let me first say it has always been my objective to have informative discussion at committee and general council meetings.  When I am successful there will be many times when we will start with preliminary numbers and facts and they will be honed as we get deeper into the discussion.  So a…

Concept One Academy - new application to be discussed at Public Wor…

Tuesday at the Public Works Committee meeting there will be a discussion on the application for a major zoning change for the old Lamendola School Property.  A company called Concept 1 Academy desires to house up to thirty-two 16 - 18 year old males.
 
The read ahead within the agenda found on the city web site contains:
 
Staff Report, Minutes of the Planning Commission Hearing, Decision Record,…

Committee of the Whole - 7 of 8 council members did not attend

Facebook is alive with a discussion about the Committee of the Whole meeting 7 of the 8 council members did not attend. 
 
Here is a little background; there was a Public Works Committee meeting scheduled for 4:30 followed by a Administration Committee meeting at 6:00 pm.  Thursday July 16 at 5 pm we got notification that the Admin Committee meeting was cancelled due to a lack of agenda items.  Thursday night I called a Committee of the Whole meeting and notification went out on…

Family Disc Golf Day August 9th

I have been talking about a Disc Golf event since the beginning of the summer with a couple of different concepts. With the help of the Parks and Recreation Board and DDGA this idea of a introductory Family Disc Day emerged. For more information; direct registration or to volunteer to help go to Family Disc Golf Day in Huber Heights.  

Last week I took Irvin out to play disc golf for the first

Give $15,000 to Developers or $4,000 to longtime residents.  How sh…

This article is another attempt by me to get council to compel staff to compute real numbers that justify giving the developer of Carriage Trails $15,000 per house in financial aid.  I bring this up because Tuesday night council decided not to give a widowed retiree and long time property tax paying resident a $4,000 supplement to help her fix the lateral that connects to the sewer on the other side of Harshmanville…

City to buy nearly "free" land and Lamandola vote likely Monday

Two interesting items on the agenda for the Council Meeting Jun 22, 2015.
 
The Lamandola property zoning issue will probably be voted on tomorrow.  At least it should be voted on.
 
I personally don't believe they will be opening an official school.  With that I don't believe that Planned Public is the proper zoning if they  believe they qualify for that zoning based on their business being a school.  However, the dilemma is what would be the proper…