Reality television came to Van Wert in 2014 when a show called “Vanilla Ice Goes Amish” featured a project at one of our county’s homes. For those who aren’t fans of early 1990s pop music, Vanilla Ice was a white rapper who made it big by swiping a bass-line from a Queen song and creating […]
POSTED: 02/07/15 at 6:32 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
It may have happened faster than any of them expected, but the members of the famous generation known as the Baby Boomers are starting to retire. With them goes inestimable expertise and decades of on-the-job experience. What follows them is an enormous demographic problem which is the subject of a book by Mark Lautman titled […]
POSTED: 01/12/15 at 8:39 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
Less than two weeks until Christmas. If you’re like me, you’re having to start thinking about what you might buy for people at 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve. I used to have to worry a lot more, but now I sleep easy, thanks to the miracle of gift certificates. Most people are better shoppers than […]
POSTED: 12/13/14 at 6:33 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
“We always did feel the same, we just started from a different point of view” – Bob Dylan. Changing things ain’t easy. The status quo doesn’t come to be without gathering inertia along the way. We, the Van Wert County Commissioners, set about charting a different course in economic development about a year ago. That […]
POSTED: 11/21/14 at 10:02 pm. FILED UNDER: Opinions
CEO/General Manager George Carter of Paulding Putnam Electric Cooperative says massive job loss, blackouts, and any chance of attracting manufacturing to the U.S., will be gone if the EPA shuts down more power plants. The EPA is seeking to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide coming from U.S. power plants in the name of combating […]
POSTED: 11/17/14 at 6:52 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
You’re out there. You left Van Wert County to pursue an education, maybe get a taste of the big city. You experienced frat life and the clubs and being young and reckless. You got a job and eventually met someone, got married and had a couple of kids. And you’ve figured out that, once the […]
POSTED: 11/15/14 at 6:51 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
While trouble abroad has typically led to greater pain at the pump, Americans have experienced relatively stable gas prices over the past few months despite foreign crises. With the national average price for regular gasoline down more than 10 cents from last month, today’s fuel prices are both a contradiction of the past four decades’ […]
POSTED: 09/03/14 at 10:48 pm. FILED UNDER: Opinions
The question remains, are we REALLY ready for the next big prospect to visit Van Wert? While the Van Wert community has very attractive physical assets to those who live, play and work here, do we have what it takes to attract a major corporation in the target industries of automotive, food processing, agriculture and […]
POSTED: 08/30/14 at 6:59 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
This summer, bipartisan study committees will be meeting to discuss two large problems our state is facing: opioid addiction and unemployment compensation debt. Hearings on these subjects will be held throughout the state this fall in August and September. This summer’s committees are named: Law Enforcement Perspectives on the Drug Epidemic & Its Impact on […]
POSTED: 07/30/14 at 5:59 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions
In a letter to his wife, Abigail, John Adams wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epoch, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance […]
POSTED: 07/04/14 at 12:54 am. FILED UNDER: Opinions