COLUMBUS -- Here's one case where people will be getting on a real bus for Gov. John Kasich, not the figurative one he's discussed.
The Republican governor will take the apparently unprecedented step Tuesday of taking his second annual State of the State address 150 miles to the northeast. He will use Steubenville, a struggling steel town on the Ohio River, which in many ways has more in common with Pittsburgh than Columbus, to push job creation and related energy, education, and work force development policies.
Some lawmakers plan to board a bus for the trip. Others will carpool. Some will drive out the night before for a local reception but will pay mileage through their own campaign committees rather than bill taxpayers. A lawmaker from Toledo faces a one-way trip of more than 200 miles.
Some state officials, including the seven Ohio Supreme Court justices who are typically front and center for a State of the State speech, will be on the bench and not make the trip at all. Neither will many of the interest groups that typically wait in the wings to give their spin on what the governor said.
"If you want to find out where the problems are, you can't just sit in Columbus and go to the state treasury and count your money," Mr. Kasich said recently. "I'm just thrilled to be going to Steubenville. … That place has just been beaten down for so long. Some people in Ohio don't even know where it is."
Steubenville, which has seen its population fade along with the steel industry, is roughly 30 miles downriver from where Mr. Kasich grew up in McKees Rocks, Pa., just outside Pittsburgh. The largely Democratic Steubenville is part of the Steel City's media market, and many of its residents swear allegiance to the Steelers and Pirates rather than the Browns and Indians. As Mr. Kasich is fond of pointing out, it's the home of crooner Dean Martin.
Jefferson County's seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 9.9 percent towers over Ohio's average of 7.6 percent.
"Being able to go over there is consistent with what I've been trying to do for the last year," Mr. Kasich said. "I think that just staying here is not the right thing to do. It gives you a different perspective. What I'm most excited about? They're excited. If they're excited, that's really cool."
'Couple of surprises'
The governor expects to recap what he considers to be the accomplishments of his first year in office, eschewing a teleprompter as is his habit.
"There'll be a couple of surprises in there," he promised.
Mr. Kasich and his entourage plan to head east on Monday, stopping along the way to talk shale at Zane State College in Zanesville and then stop at an ice cream shop at historic Roscoe Village in Coshocton.
"It's all about jobs, and how education is tied to it, whether it's K-12, higher education, vocational education, or community colleges," said Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols. "The fact that we'll be at the highest-performing public school in the state, operating on complete bare bones, should be telling. We'll shine a light on that.
"We'll be in a part of the state that could see a significant economic recovery," he said.
State Sen. Lou Gentile (D., Steubenville), who did not get a warning from the governor's office before the announcement was made, said he's looking forward to showing off Steubenville's positive attributes. He will co-host a reception the night before the speech.
"However, it's also important what we're going to hear," he said. "Some of the policies the governor has pursued haven't all been good to the people of Steubenville and my district. I'm looking forward to an opportunity to showcase my hometown, but the message from the governor on his vision for the state and his policies remains to be seen.
"It's ironic that we've heard a lot about school choice and for-profit charter schools from the governor," Mr. Gentile said. "He's coming to a public school now."
Success despite cuts
The Steubenville City School District has seen success despite experiencing about $3.8 million in cuts under Mr. Kasich's first budget as one-time federal stimulus dollars dried up and the phase-out of replacement revenue from a pair of defunct business taxes was accelerated.
Mayor Domenick Mucci, Jr., a 20-year Democrat, will co-host the receptions the night before the speech as well as one soon after with administration and legislative officials.
"So many times we feel here in eastern Ohio that we've been left out and neglected," he said. "They tend to look out for the three C's -- Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. This is our golden opportunity to showcase our city."
Selecting the K-4 Wells Academy, with the highest elementary school test scores in the state, means that education will be a prime subject of the speech.
But don't expect Mr. Kasich to unveil the new K-12 school funding formula that he promised last year when he and the Republican-controlled General Assembly rejected reforms passed by his Democratic successor, Gov. Ted Strickland.
Mr. Kasich's administration has made it clear those aren't ready yet, and Republican legislators are instead talking about yet another round of public hearings on the subject.
Steubenville's West Pugliese Elementary School ranks second in the state, and East Garfield Elementary is 120th out of some 1,800 in the state, Superintendent Mike McVey is quick to note. These high-performers fly in the face of the general argument that poorer and central-city schools tend to struggle more than their wealthier counterparts.
Early education
"It's a system we put in place 12 to 13 years ago," Mr. McVey said. "We're a big believer in preschool education and early education, and we've put an emphasis on early childhood. All or our curriculum is the same at every school. The staff does a great job. They bought into the reforms, and it's been a good fit."
Some of the improvements coincided with a consolidation of the number of school buildings as population has dropped. But Steubenville has open enrollment and its successes have drawn students from the suburbs.
Steubenville schools' partnership with the four-year Franciscan University and the two-year Eastern Gateway Community College could also be highlighted as the Kasich administration places greater emphasis on future work force development.
Mr. Kasich's selection of an economically struggling eastern Ohio city also suggests that he wants to talk about one of his favorite subjects these days, efforts to build an industry around regional shale oil and natural gas exploration.
Much of the controversy has surrounded the practice of hydraulic "fracking," the use of water and chemicals under high pressure to fracture underground shale to release the fossil fuels within. A spotlight has been placed on the practice recently with earthquakes in the Youngstown area that are believed to be related to an injection well filled with largely out-of-state waste from oil and gas production, including fracking operations.
Oil, gas potential
The potential for a new oil and gas boom has Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia all trying to outdo one another with incentives to convince Shell Oil Co. to build its planned petroleum refinery on their side of the tri-state lines.
The state is still working on the regulatory, tax, and fee structure under which the industry would operate, but a left-leaning think tank, Innovation Ohio, last week called for Mr. Kasich to raise the state severance tax on such operations and emphasize local hiring.
Mr. Kasich has proposed reopening the state's two-year, $55.8 billion budget this spring. He has talked about further reducing -- if not eliminating -- Ohio's personal income tax, but the state's current budget seems to leave him little maneuvering room on that front.
As of the first half of the current fiscal year ending Dec. 31, state tax revenues were running just 0.9 percent above projections after a disappointing December. In recent months, the governor has talked more about using excess tax revenue to replenish the state's "rainy-day fund" emergency reserves.
Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com, or 614-221-0496.
First Published February 6, 2012, 5:15 a.m.
