8/2/2019 Great Neighbors Keep Community Number One

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Anational business with

74 locationsin 10 states

may find itdifficult tobe

a concerned part of every communi-

ty butthats what Max& Ermas

does best.Their logo is Your

Hometown Favorite. I sat down

withSpringboro resident Peggy

Kolonaythe marketing director for

ourlocalMax & Ermas last week.

So,they have great burgers, great

food period,what else is there? Let

meshare a few things the store has

done inthe last six months. Back in

October they held a Trickor Eat

promotionthat helpedf ill 5 huge

boxes of food for theSpringboro

CommunityAssistance Center

(huge, giant, mega boxes). Have you

driven by on Saturday morning and

wondered why the parking lotwas

filled to capacity at 8:00 a.m.?The

staff and management team give

back to ourcommunity by offering

ournon profits; thearts, sports, can-

cer awareness, andmany othersan

allyou can eatpancake breakfast

withbacon, orange slices, coffee,milk,orange juice, butterand syrup

at their cost. Your group/clubpro-

vides the marketing, administration,

servers, andcleanup.I speak from

experience the Springboro Optimist

Club raisedover$1,500 forthe

Strings Programin ourschools on

Saturday, March10. It wasdelight-

ful, andtheiremployees made it soeasy totrainus and our effort was

excellent. Thisspring the restaurant

willbe donatingto one of our base-

ball leagues either T-Ball, Rag Ball

or SCBA. Last fall in conjunction

withSinclairColleges program

Project Read they managed to

collect over 700books that they pre-

sentedto schools in Northridge and

Fairborn.And who says its all work

and no play? Last year they assem-

bled a flash mob, worked outthe

lyrics, dance moves and hit the Rave

Theater Complex near themall to

surprise movie goerssinging and

dancing to Cookie Fever using the

soundtrackfrom Boogie Fever.

They were kicking off their freecookie Wednesdays. Wish I could

have been there I love flash mobs

with cookies.As seen in the picture

Max & Ermalove tohangout at

Christmasin Springboro. Theyll

even dance with youand pose for

pictures.This Saturday, theyll be at

the 12thAnnual Hometown Expo

ThatSpringThing at Springboro

High Schoola great opportunity to

getyour picture with this wonderful

couple andshare some cookies if

yourgood. Itstartsat 10 a.m.and

lasts till 4 p.m. Wait, theres more,

Max& Ermas is looking fortalent;

singers, jazz bands andmore to per-

formon theirpatiothis summer. Not

professional bandsbut students fromour schools. Call 748-9942 andask

for Peggy. This could be your first

gigand 20 years from now youll

tell everyonehow it allstarted at

Max& Ermas onelazy summer

night in2012. Goto Face Bookand

like: Max & Erma Springboro

There could be a cookiein your

future.

I am looking forward to Expo

2012, the biggest and grandest ever.

Great door prizes roughly 250 of

them, a grand prize of a 50 inch flat

screen HDTV delivered, installed

with a 5 year warranty plus 4 excel-

lentkids grandprizes. Dont forget to

register. Grand prize winners will be

announced at 4 p.m. on the PA sys-

tem in the commons. Ill be video

taping with our videographer from

MVCC all day. Are you ready to beonTV?See you Saturdayfrom10 till

4 at Springboro High School. Its all

freeexcept ifyouwant tobuya meal

from one of the 15 food vendors in

the commons and I know you will.

Temptationwill win.

I

leaveyou with a fewfun lexiphiles to

tweak yoursmile:

If you take your laptop computer

for a run you could.. jog your

memory (how many gig will you

jog?)

Police were called to a daycare

center where a three yearold was.

resisting a rest (how often does this

happen?)

Local Area Network in Australia

.the LAN down under (didnt they

do a song about this?)

When the smog lifts in LosAngeles ..U.C.L.A. (dont youjust

loveacronyms?)

When fish are in schools they

sometimes take debate (but how

many skip schoolall the time?)

mergewright@yahoo.com

OPINIONCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of

speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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EDITORIAL

Doug Skinner................................Editor

294-7000 Ext. 155

Merrilee Embs.............Managing Editor

(937) 372-4444 Ext. 126

CIRCULATION SALES & DIST.

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Covering Your Community

3120 Woodman Dr., Suite A, Kettering, OH 45420

This newspaper is environmentally friendly. Itis printed in recycled fibers and soy-based

inks, with the exception of some supplements.

It stopped even before it be-

gan. Gov. Kasichs proposal

to impose extraction taxes on

natural gas and oil in order to use

the proceeds to give Ohioans an in-

come tax rate cut was met with re-

sistance from the Ohio House.

The House stripped out the tax provision to the Governors re-

vised state budget. State Rep. Ron

Amstutz, R-Wooster, chairman of the

House Finance and Appropriations Com-

mittee, announced that the tax provi-

sions of the mid-biennium budget review

Kasich unveiled last week would be

stripped out of a bill to overhaul the state

budget.

Kasich rolled out his plan using high-

er taxes on oil and gas revenue from Ohios

shale energy to provide an across-the-

board income tax cut for residents.

Despite the provision being removed,

committee hearings began this week in the

Ohio House on

the educational,

regulatory and

governmental

reforms Kasich

wants, but the

bill to imple-

ment them willnot include Ka-

sichs tax pro-

posals under the Ohio House version. Ka-

sich wants to take advantage of Ohios

shale boom by taxing crude oil and nat-

ural gas liquids from fracked wells at 1.5

percent of gross receipts, eventually in-

creasing them to 4 percent. The rise

would depend on when each company has

recovered its start-up drilling costs. Dry

gas from fracked wells would be taxed at

1 percent.

According the Ohio Department of

Taxation, Ohio now charges a 20-cents-

per-barrel tax on crude oil, a 3-cents tax

per 10,000 cubic feet for dry gas, and no

tax for dry-gas liquids regardless of

how the well was drilled. Kasichs ad-

ministration estimates that shale drilling,

based on current prices, would generate

$4 billion for oil and gas companies next

year and $23.1 billion by 2016.

Regardless of the outcome between theOhio General Assembly and Gov. Kasich,

the energy boom in eastern Ohio is a huge

bonus for the states economy. The inter-

est of keeping the inertia of job creation

our state has been having needs to be the

most important factor for Gov. Kasich and

the state legislature.

N N N N N

Rob Scott is a Kettering resident and a

member of the Kettering City Council. He

is a practicing attorney at Oldham & Dei-

tering, LLC. Scott is the founder of the

Dayton Tea Party. He can be contacted at

rob@oldhamdeitering.com or www.gem-

citylaw.com.

COMMENTARY

By Rob

Scott

Times

Columnist

Gov. Kasich proposed frack tax; GOP legislature oppose it

COMMENTARY

By William H.

Wild

Times

Columnist

Byron C. Hall Jr. of Centerville should,

by all rights, be taking it easy so that

his physical afflictions can subside so

he can concentrate just on surviving with the

small joys and comforts that can accompany the

senior years. Many of us might, in similar cir-

cumstances, consider ourselves fully justified in

feeling sorry for ourselves.

But Byron Hall, if you only read what he

writes and never see him, is a vigorous, chal-

lenging and busy person full of energy, aspira-

tion and fond reflection on the wonderful people

who have brought joy and inspiration into his

life. The palsy that afflicts him never shakes his

intellect or faith.

He was a teacher for more than 30 years and

holds BS and MA degrees in physics. At various

stages in his career hes taught a lot of other sub-

jects as well, retiring in 2001 from SinclairCommunity College. Along the way he had vari-

ous articles published, but he was always think-

ing books. In 2002 that resulted in a modest vol-

ume entitled Personal Reflections of Eight

Interesting People. They were people from his

boyhood years, teachers, stimulators of thought

and finally stewards of the land and the life that

it supports.

One of those stewards with whom he devel-

oped an especially close relationship was

Elizabeth C. Smith, the owner of the 300-acre

Blandair Farm in Howard County, Md., now

completely surrounded by the town of Columbia.

The county wanted the farm as a regional park,

but Elizabeth Smith resisted in hopes the farm

could be held in trust for future generations to

see what a working down to earth farm was

like before utter modernity overwhelmed it.Byron Hall met Elizabeth Smith in 1969 and

over the next two decades-plus they agreed on a

plan to preserve Blandair. The Aullwood

Audubon Farm was one of their templates. The

plan was to form the Blandair Foundation to

manage it all. All the paperwork was in order by

the winter of 1997 and legal papers were to be

witnessed and signed on Monday morning,

February 17. But Elizabeth Smith suffered a

stroke on the 15th and died on the 16th.

The dream still lives, but Halls efforts to fol-

low Elizabeth Smiths wishes have resulted in

lengthy legal actions worthy of a Charles

Dickens novel. Howard County has possession

of the property after buying it for a low-ball

price. Relatives claimed the cash. Hall began

work in 2003 on To Save Her Dream: A mis-

sion of Duty, Friendship and Justice. Hes still

at it, and plans to have it available on Amazon

later this year, or maybe next.

The long quest for justice and understanding

is the likely source of his search for a philosoph-

ical base for the principles of liberty and the nat-

ural rights that our countrys founders took for

granted. So, off the presses came A Politics of

Freedom and an Ethics of Respect: Principles to

live by in Times of Peace, copyright 2011. I am

no expert, but I believe this passage from the

book says a lot about Byron Hall Jr.:

The fundamental principle of the ethics of

respect when applied to ones actions toward

ones self, challenges one to respect ones self as

a human, to develop the talents that are special

to him or her, and to feel good about ones self.

In the colloquial terms of today, this fundamen-

tal principle challenges you to be the best that

you can be. In classical philosophy this is

known as the ethics of self-perfection. In the

larger context, not only is this best for you, it is

best for the human species as well. The human

species has the maximum chance for survival if

all humans treat themselves as challenged by

this fundamental principle of ethics.

A man on a

mission duty,

friendship

and justice

As a 1984 University of

Dayton graduate, Ive

been attending basketball

games at UDArena formanyyears.

Ima Flyer seasonticket holderand

have attended every NCAA

Tournamentgameat UD since the

198os.

In all of that time,Ive neverexpe-

rienced what took place during an

NCAA first round game at UD

Arena onTuesday, March 13.You see, President Barack Obama

and United Kingdom Prime Minister

David Cameron took in the game

between Western Kentucky and

Mississippi Valley State.

Because of their visit, both arena

officials and government officials

had to takeseveral precautions.

Those with tickets were told to

arrive at the arena very early, so my

wife, Linda, and I got to the arena at

4:30 forthe 6:30 p.m. start.Thepark-

ing lot behind the arena, which we

usually use for UD games, was

closed because of the security. So

were several of the doors into the

arena.

We tookfoodto eat inthecar, andwe entered the arena at 5:30. While

there wasnt a very longline toget in

thedoor,securitywastight.Wehad to

walk through metal detectors. I dont

know why, but I set off the detector,

soa securitypersonhadto usea wand

on me. Fortunately, there was no

problem after that.

Everywhere we went in the arena,

there were security people, both

Secret Service people in suits and

police officers in uniform. Im sure

that there were other security people

who were in plain clothes so they

blended in with the crowd.

Just before the game was ready to

start, the crowd rose and the special

visitors appeared and took their seats

on one end of the basketball court.

Who would have thought that the

President would ever take in a game

at UDArena?

During the first time out of the

game, the national media had their

chance to get pictures.They ran onto

the court andpointedtheir cameras at

Obama. The game referees also took

the opportunity to run to the end of

the court to shake his hand.

Apparently, the plan was for the

groupto leaveat halftime, butObama

wasenjoyinghimselfso muchthat he

decided to stay until the end of the

game.

When the game ended and after

pictureswere taken, Obama wavedto

the crowd andhe was gone.

No matter what your political

views are, it was an honor to see the

President. It will be something I will

always remember.

Presidents visit to UD Arena is specialCOMMENTARY

By Doug Skinner

Editor

AP PhotoPresident Barack Obama and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron watch the

opening game of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 13 in Dayton.

Great neighbors keep community number one

MERGE WRIGHT

By Don Wrigh

t

Times

Columnist

Max and Erma