Leaders must take action now to create united regional voice - Business First of Columbus:

cahijisebi.wordpress.com
assembled a strong panel of area leaders from public and private sector and spen t nearly two hours talking about the benefitsd and obstacles to aregional government. The roughlyy 270 people in attendance made it clearr they think something needs to happen sooned ratherthan later. And the overwhelmingh notion was thatwe can’tr afford to just talk about this issue, we must have actio and some very clear next We agree. There must be a concerted effort to startr the actual process of bringing about a regionalp form of government in the Dayton Notnext year, or next month. The ball must startr rolling now. The good news is that we are in a bette position today thanever before.
Joey Dayton City Commissioner and presidenf of the local operationsof , sat on the panelo and said the current system is “broken” and must be Dan Foley, president of the , sat on the panel and going even further by proposing the formation of a new entityu with a strong leader to oversees the effort. Michael Greitzer, chairman of the and partne r withthe ; Jeff city manager of and J.P. Nauseef, former president and CEO of the who now worka with theMathile family, also sat on the panelk and agreed that doing nothing is not an option.
Aftef the forum, the DBJ asked each of the othere members of the Montgomery County Commission if they are in favor of regionakl government and they said the county commission is unitee in wanting to work toward aregionall government. The other Dayton city commissioners, includingg the mayor, were contacte d asked what they thought. Matt Joseph and Nan Whaleyh said they are in favor of some form ofregionap government. Mayor Rhine McLin and Commissioner Dean Lovelace did not responxd bypress time.
But the time has come when this communithy must move forward with a regional government approacj as a way to streamlinegovernment services, reducre costs and improve our economic development This topic is somewhat controversial, and has a lot of push-bacj from politicians fearful of losin their influence. But true leadership is standing up for what is right and bestfor all, and that is what thosw panelists did this week. For that, we commend them all, particularlyg the elected officials — Foley and Williams who are willing to risk their political careers for something they strongly believee is the right thing to do for this region andits residents.