Maggie Thurber

Got any scrap metal around your house? Think you might be able to make a bit of money by selling it rather than just putting it in your trash?

If so, you better make sure to put on some clean clothes, comb your hair or put on a little bit of makeup when you load up and take it to your local scrap metal dealer — they’re going to take your picture.

At least, they will if some Ohio lawmakers get their way.

S.B. 193 was passed by the Ohio Senate in March and could see a vote in the House Commerce, Labor & Technology Committee as early as Wednesday. The bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Bill Seitz from Cincinnati, would not just required scrap metal dealers to take a photo of every person who sells or gives them an item, it would prohibit them from purchasing or accepting any item without the photo.

Considering that the law would require the photo from the seller before making the transaction, I don’t understand the redundancy of prohibiting the sale without the photo. But then, I’m not a state legislator.

Ohio law already requires dealers to keep a record of your name and address, along with a copy of your ID, when you sell certain items. Apparently, that’s just not enough information for the state, so they’ve added a photograph taken by the dealer as well.

But it’s not just you. The bill also adds plastic and wooden bulk merchandise containers—– like those used to transport items such as milk gallons — to the list of items requiring photographs when sold.

The only good news in this new law is that the dealer has to keep the record for 60 days instead of a year.

And if the dealer doesn’t immortalize your smiling face, he can be charged with a third degree misdemeanor, with up to 60 days in jail and up to $500 fine if convicted. And since this is an escalating misdemeanor, subsequent violations increase the penalties to a maximum of $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail.

All for failing to take a picture.

In his news release touting passage by the Senate, Seitz billed this new law as “protecting home owners” from scrap metal thieves.

“What is particularly offensive about scrap metal theft is the disproportionate cost of the property damage done by thieves in comparison to the value of the metal they steal,” Seitz said. “This legislation adds another tool for law enforcement officers to use to catch these criminals as well as hold scrap metal dealers accountable.”

Seitz noted an incident in his district in which a chiller unit that cost tens of thousands of dollars was irreparably damaged by thieves who obtained just a few hundred dollars worth of metal.

Seitz decided to introduce the bill when a local sheriff complained. Apparently he, and the other senators who voted in favor of the bill, believe the photos “could be used by law enforcement officials in their efforts to combat the theft of scrap metal in Ohio.”

But “could” is much different than “will,” so let’s bring a little common sense to the discussion.

How, exactly, will requiring a photo — on top of the existing requirement of name, address and ID — stop scrap metal thefts? If a photo ID isn’t enough, what good will requiring another photograph do?

Did anyone bother to estimate the cost of this new law? Most places of business will have a copier, but they won’t all have cameras, or the ability to print out the photograph or attach it to the purchase record.

What about all the people who aren’t thieves who just want to sell some scrap rather than pitch it? Did anyone think about the rights of the legal sellers? And I completely and totally reject the argument that if you’re not doing anything illegal, you don’t have anything to worry about.

Will this escalate into photographs for any item that can be stolen and sold? What about pawn brokers? They’re not currently required to take a photo … but perhaps I’ve just given some Ohio legislator another idea.

The bottom line is that this bill will do nothing to protect property owners. Thieves will continue to steal and if providing a photo ID in order to sell their stolen goods doesn’t help the police catch them after the fact, having a photograph of the individual won’t either.

Fewer people last month were actively looking for work in Kansas and thus weren’t counted as unemployed.

FAIRWAY — Kansas’ unemployment rate dropped a notch in April, but trend watchers aren’t cheering. The seemingly good news may actually indicate trouble for the state’s economy.

A jump in seasonal hiring for construction, retail and leisure industries — golf courses and water parks, for example — helped trim Kansas’ unemployment rate to 6.1 percent in April, the Kansas Department of Labor reported Friday. That’s down from 6.2 percent in March, and 6.7 percent in April 2011.

The rate fell for another reason, too.

Fewer people last month were actively looking for work in Kansas and thus weren’t counted as unemployed, said Tyler Tenbrink, a labor economist with the state labor department.

Nearly 3,000 workers among 1.5 million in the state’s civilian labor force dropped out of job market in April, and between 2,200 and 3,600 a month have similarly vanished since January.

“The statistics don’t tell us why,” Tenbrink, said. “We don’t know how many retired, moved out of state or just stopped looking for work.”

The most recent estimates of how many workers are in this group or are working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs don’t yet include April’s numbers. Based on the first quarter 2012 figures available, however, probably more than 174,000 Kansans, or 11 percent of the workforce, would take a full-time job, Tenbrink estimated.

The shrinking workforce is a disturbing omen for the state’s economy, said Ernie Goss, a Creighton University economist in Omaha who also watches Kansas economic trends.

Having fewer workers instead of more jobs “makes unemployment rates better for the wrong reason,” he said.

Unlike labor department statisticians who use month-end results to track Kansas’ performance, Goss seeks signs of how things might change in the future.

Each month, he and fellow economists at the Creighton Economic Forecasting Group, an analytical arm of Creighton’s business college, conduct two surveys — of business purchasing managers in cities and community bankers in small-town and rural areas — throughout the Midwest, asking for their view of economic conditions in their communities in the next three to six months.

The results are then converted into a 100-point index on which readings above 50 indicate expected growth or expansion, and readings below 50 indicate contraction or recession.

The latest numbers for Kansas and its labor market, released Thursday, are mixed, Goss said. The state’s overall index is a healthy 62.1, up from 49.1 in April. High land values in rural Kansas, farm income prospects and a drop in energy prices were big contributors to the change, he said.

But the state’s jobs indexes, which are a positive 60.5 in rural areas and 57.8 in population centers, both appear vulnerable, Goss said. Farm incomes rely heavily on crop production, and farmers and business owners in parts of Kansas still worry about the lingering dry weather. Future population center job prospects remain uncertain in the state’s aircraft manufacturing and food processing industries, Goss said.

“I think we’re going to be hitting a soft patch in the next six months,” Goss said.

Kansas’ mostly rural areas — outside Kansas City, Wichita, Topeka, Manhattan and Lawrence — generally have been better in soft patches than the population centers, said Jeremy Hill, director of Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research. Hill has been pulling new information together for the department’s next round of state and regional forecasts.

Farm incomes and land values haven’t fallen to the same job-wounding forces felt by the population centers, Hill said.

“And you’ve got a surprising amount of manufacturing out there, too, making machinery and farm equipment,” he said.

And job prospects are looking up even in Kansas’ hardest-hit population center, Topeka, where state and local government job cuts have been especially painful, Hill said. More than 2,000 Kansas state employees lost jobs in a 2011 downsizing in which Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback abolished three state agencies. Topeka’s city government and its schools also have either laid employees off or left jobs vacant to save money. 

Mars Inc.  however, is opening a major chocolate factory next year in Topeka, which is projected to add 200 jobs to that local economy.

AUSTIN — Texas Board of Architectural Examiners member Bert Mijares Jr. of El Paso didn’t like what he heard.

TBAE managing litigator Michael Shirk laid out the case Thursday afternoon against four architects doing work with the Corpus Christi Independent School District.

The case arose from a meeting last August when teams of architects made presentations to the CCISD trustees about the proposed middle school project.

For the entire story go to Texas Budget Source.

AUSTIN — Several school districts in Texas have reason to cheer the results of the election last week.

Consider the data that emerged from school bond issues on the ballot across the Lone Star state.

The following information was compiled by Joe F. Smith, who manages the website TexasISD.com.

• Total districts with propositions on May 12 ballot — 45
• Districts with at least one propositions approved — 37
• Percent of districts with approved propositions — 82.22 percent
• Total value of proposed propositions — $841,483,589
• Total value of approved propositions — $663,422,339
• Percent of value approved — 78.84 percent

For the entire story go to Texas Budget Source.

The newest panel of 11 state senators and 11 representatives met for the first time Thursday.

“Whether we accomplish anything at the end of this is really up to the members,” said State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.

A protester yells “Scott Walker, you suck” as Gov. Walker delivers a speech to honor fallen Wisconsin law enforcement officers outside the Capitol in Madison.

The Libertarian Party.

RICHMOND — A lawsuit to allow easier signature-gathering for the Libertarian Party could cause Virginia Republicans a big headache in November by putting a competitor on the ballot, especially because similar lawsuits have succeeded around the country during the past decade.

Several federal court rulings have invalidated restrictive state laws on signature-gathering, according to Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, which closely and sympathetically covers minor parties’ attempts to win ballot status across the nation.

Ruling in January against a lawsuit seeking to place several major Republican presidential candidates on the Virginia ballot — despite their failure to submit the required 10,000 signatures — U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney remarked that he thought the Virginia law forbidding out-of-staters to collect them was unconstitutional.

On Monday, the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit claiming the Virginia law is unfair to Libertarians because just two supporters of the party who live in Virginia are “consistently available” as paid professional circulators.

If either were to become sick or otherwise become unavailable, the lawsuit claims, the state’s Libertarian Party probably couldn’t make the ballot. In the past, it has relied on a combination of paid and volunteer circulators.

The number of signatures minor parties need for ballot access is also 10,000.

Successful petition drives often require paid signature collectors who do such work for a living. These professionals often travel from one state to another, depending on where the political action is and what they can earn. Virginia Libertarians want to have that option, and say they need it.

Given what’s expected to be a close presidential race in Virginia this year, the lawsuit on behalf of the party “is potentially no small matter,” said Mark Rozell, a specialist on Virginia politics at George Mason University in Fairfax.

Virginia is not only close, but potentially one of the closest states. Many political pundits expect that its vote, and those in a few other states such as Ohio and Florida, may well decide who is president. The race could come down to one state — as it did in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races.

People sympathetic to the Libertarian Party’s views tend to vote Republican if they have only two ballot choices, but may well vote Libertarian if they see that option on the ballot.

The Libertarian candidate is Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico who sought the GOP presidential nomination this year and was included in some of the early televised debates. He later left the Republicans for the Libertarians.

The Libertarians “draw more from Republicans than Democrats,” Rozell said. If the Virginia law is overturned, or set aside temporarily, “the GOP would definitely have most to lose.” Republican Party officials in Virginia could not be reached for comment Thursday or Friday.

Depending completely on volunteers for a major signature drive is hard, Winger said, because most people won’t ask dozens, or hundreds, of others for a favor when they have nothing to offer in return.

“The psychology of approaching strangers and asking them to do something for you — it’s kind of like hitchhiking,” Winger said.

The ACLU is seeking an injunction against the Virginia law as quickly as possible, since the deadline for obtaining the 10,000 signatures is Aug. 24. Judges are often willing to set aside challenged laws for the time being — meaning for months or sometimes years — if they’re persuaded the plaintiff is likely to win the case.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit suit because it hadn’t filed its response yet . But it will “vigorously defend” the law, said spokeswoman Caroline Gibson.

One of the most favorable court precedents for the Libertarians is a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in 1988, Meyer v . Grant. A unanimous court said a Colorado law forbidding ballot-measure proponents to use paid petition circulators was unconstitutional because it violated freedom of speech. In doing so, the justices used reasoning similar to the ACLU’s in its Virginia lawsuit to allow out-of-state people to help the Libertarians.

The court said the Colorado requirement limited “the number of voices who will convey (an organization’s) message” on behalf of a ballot measure “and, therefore, limits the size of the audience they can reach.”

Also, by making it less likely that an initiative would qualify for the ballot, the law cramped “their ability to make the (issue) the focus of statewide discussion.”

In 2008, the Libertarians got their presidential candidate, former Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, on the Virginia ballot. He received just one-third of 1 percent of the vote.

ALEXANDRIA — As construction of Phase 2 of the Silver Line Metro extension awaits approval from Loudoun County, parking for its two proposed stations has become a hot potato passed back and forth between two project partners, each looking for ways to lighten their bottom lines.

Parking is emerging as a major issue in the expansion of the Silver Line on the Metro system.

Loudoun agreed to explore paying for three parking garages at the proposed Route 606 and Route 772 stations, as part of the November memorandum of agreement to fund Phase 2, which costs $2.8 billion. The total project will cost $5.5 billion.

The agreement moved the cost of those garages off the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority’s balance sheet and into the county’s lap.

The agreement helped MWAA to shave $500 million off the Phase 2 price tag and freed Loudoun to pursue public-private partnerships with land developers who have an interest in the Phase 2 succeeding.

“Our board’s conditions on signing the memorandum were we would be willing to say we would use our best efforts, but we would only take it on if it wouldn’t affect our debt capacity or require local tax funding,” Ben Mays, deputy chief financial officer of Loudoun County’s Department of Management and Financial Services, said.

But no one knows how much the garages will cost.

Three environmental impact reports have been done on the project — prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transport and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — and with each adjustment the projected numbers of spaces have see-sawed:

For the Route 606 station, the number was 4,750 spots in 2002. Then the number dropped to 2,750 in 2004 and in a report released last week.

For the Route 772 station, parking numbers weren’t mentioned in the 2002 report. In 2004, 3,300 spaces were projected. In a report last week, the number dropped to 3,000.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority calculated in 2010 that it costs $25,000 to build a single space in a parking garage, meaning millions in costs to service the commuter demand.

To foot the bill for the garages, Loudoun is weighing public-private partnerships with land developers who have projects on the line.

One of those candidates could be Comstock Partners, a Reston-based real estate development company. Comstock recently partnered with Fairfax County to build a 2,300-space garage to service the Wiehle Avenue station on Phase 1 and also is building a 3 million-square-foot development stationed alongside the Route 772 station.

“We are strong supporters of Phase 2,” Comstock spokeswoman Maggie Parker said. “We have been zoned at Loudoun as a transit-oriented development for 10 years. We have been sitting patiently waiting, riding a tide, gladly paying our taxes, but looking forward to the arrival of the metro.”

Meanwhile, economic impact forecasts predict the Phase 2 will add 250,000 jobs and $269.5 million in revenue to Loudoun by 2040, according to a report by the Robert Charles Lesser Co.,, a Bethesda, Md.-based real estate advisory firm.

The demand Phase 2 is projected to create will be serviced by 4,939 parking spaces at the Route 606 and Route 772 stations, according to a report by Desman Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based parking design and consulting company.

That is not enough to pay for the costs of the line, said Rob Martin, a former Federal Transit Administration economist and current member of anti-rail group Loudoun Opt Out.

“With 5,000 parking spaces, you get 10,000 riders a day. You might get a little more than that,” he said. “They are not going to get any ridership to make it worthwhile. To spend all that money for 10,000 or 15,000 riders is laughable.”

Loudoun County will decide its involvement in Phase 2 by July 4.

HELENA — U.S. Sen. Jon Tester is working to distance himself from his party’s top elected official, telling the Missoulian newspaper that President Barack Obama has lost his way on jobs and the economy.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester is working to distance himself from his party's top elected official, telling the Missoulian newspaper that President Barack Obama has lost his way on jobs and the economy.

The newspaper doesn’t provide direct quotes, but in the May 18 story reporter Rob Chaney writes, ”In an interview at the Missoulian on Friday, the first-term senator from Big Sandy said Obama didn’t stay focused enough on stimulating jobs and the economy after the financial meltdown of 2008.”

It’s a smart, if also necessary, strategy for the Democratic senator, who’s locked in a tight contest for his U.S. Senate seat.

At last count, Obama held a dismal 34-percent approval rating among Montana voters, though his numbers are higher nationally. Across the country, about 48 percent approve of the job Obama’s doing, according to Real Clear Politics.

Montana State University political science professor David Parker tells Watchdog the key to the campaign might be how the incumbent’s opposition can link him to Obama.

Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, Tester’s opponent in the race, apparently knows this. In nearly every campaign communication sent out in the past few weeks, Rehberg press folks connect Tester to Obama on everything from health care to tax hikes.

“Tester voted for Obama’s job-killing taxes,” the most recent pro-Rehberg television ad says.

A right-leaning political action committee, Crossroads GPS, also loves linking Obama and Tester.

“In Washington, Tester’s way is Obama’s way,” the group, co-founded by former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove, said in its April 25 anti-Tester ad.

But the incumbent senator, a Democrat, isn’t backing away from Obama on every issue.

In the same Missoulian interview last week, Tester wouldn’t back away from his vote to support the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Act, Obama’s health care reform law and crowning first-term achievement.

Tester, in the Missoulian article, does admit that the bill doesn’t go far enough to control health care costs.

Aaron Murphy, Tester’s campaign spokesman, did not return a request for comment.

MADISON — In a statement on his campaign website Friday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett declared that the “outstanding” quality of life in Wisconsin “rests in large part on the sacrifices made each and every day by the dedicated men and women of our law-enforcement community.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was a no-show at this week's memorials for fallen law enforcement officers.

“While not enough can be done to appropriately recognize this commitment … let us come together today to express our supreme and unified appreciation for all that they do to keep Wisconsin a safe place in which to live, work, and raise a family,” Barrett wrote on the campaign site.

But while Barrett was inviting Wisconsinites to come together to recognize fallen police officers, the Democratic candidate in Wisconsin’s historic gubernatorial recall election was nowhere to be found at a Milwaukee memorial service this week. He also reportedly was not in attendance at Friday’s Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial Ceremony at the Capitol.

“It’s for the mayor to determine what he believes is the better thing to do or not,” said Michael Crivello, president of the Milwaukee Police Association, Local 21 IUPA AFL/CIO. “As the leader of this police association, representing 1,700 members, we would have welcomed him being there. In my opinion, it would have been better him being there.”

Barrett was scheduled to appear alongside his recall election foe, Republican Gov. Scott Walker, on Wednesday at Milwaukee’s law enforcement memorial ceremony, honoring the 61 police officers killed in the line of duty since the department’s 1855 inception.

Barrett begged out of the event. Instead, he attended a luncheon for retired United Auto Workers in Oshkosh, speaking to a room of about 50 union members, according to Newsradio 620 WTMJ in Milwaukee, which broke the story this week.

John Mercure, host of WTMJ’s Wisconsin’s Afternoon News, interviewed Barrett at an event Thursday, asking the mayor why he was not at the memorial service. Barrett said he was traveling the state, and that he could not remember where he was. He said he would get back to Mercure after consulting his schedule.

He did not, according to the radio host. Mercure said he tracked down Barrett’s travel schedule.

Wisconsin Reporter contacted Barrett’s campaign about the story, and a staff member said the mayor’s campaign manager would quickly call back.

He did not.

Barrett did not attend the statewide memorial Friday, honoring the 259 Wisconsin police officers killed in the line of duty since the state began keeping records.

Walker addressed the crowd, estimated in the hundreds, and state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and several state lawmakers were in attendance.

Craig Kolbeck, chairman of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial and an officer with the city of Algoma, said Barrett would not have been invited to the event, but he was welcome to attend.

Crivello said he has received text messages that expressed some concern that the mayor did not make the Milwaukee ceremony.

The union has endorsed Walker in the recall election, praising the governor’s unwavering support for safer communities.

The police association also has battled with Barrett during his eight years as mayor, criticizing the mayor for reduced staffing and what it described as Barrett’s unwillingness to work with police on issues.

Regardless, Crivello said Barrett would have been welcomed at the Milwaukee memorial.

“We wish we had his support; unfortunately we don’t,” the union chief said.

The recall campaign has been marked in part by a battle over law enforcement endorsements.

The Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the state’s largest police union, last month endorsed Barrett for governor, lauding the Barrett campaign’s “energetic, independent, and ethical approach in waging its bid to unseat Governor Scott Walker.”

Walker, the bane of public-sector unions, pushed Act 10, the bill — now law — that curbed collective bargaining for most unionized public employees. The exception, police officers and firefighters. Walker said he did not want to compromise public safety, while Democrats have called the exemption unfair.

James Palmer, the WPPA’s executive director, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Crivello said there’s no place for politics in remembering fallen officers.

“We would like to see either party hold police memorials separate from any political agenda,” the union official said.

Honoring the fallen

Hundreds of people gathered at the Capitol on Friday afternoon to honor law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty.

This year, the Law Enforcement Memorial Service honored two fallen police officers:

Craig Birkholz, 28 of Fond du Lac, who died on March 20, 2011. Birkholz was shot and killed while responding to a report of sexual assault.

Frederick Samp, who was shot and killed in 1935 while trying to arrest two men suspected of stealing an automobile.

Officials say Samp previously had been overlooked, not included in the memorial of about 260 fallen law enforcers.

“A law enforcement officer is … not what somebody becomes as an occupation, it’s what somebody becomes as a person …They become a law enforcement officer 24/7, whether they are on the clock or not,” said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.

Marathon County Sheriff’s Deputy and firefighter Jamison Kampmeyer also was honored at the ceremony. Kampmeyer died in March in a fire in Abbey Theater near Abbotsford.

The governor said Friday’s tribute was more than remembering the fallen.

“Today, we not only remember those names and the names of others who have been added to this memorial in the past, but we say thank you,” he said. “To renew our commitment and thanks to all those; whether you wear blue or brown, whether you wear grey or white, whether you’re in uniform or whether you wear a suit, all of you who are part of law enforcement in this state, for all of you and the family and friends that support you day in and day out, on behalf of a grateful state: I want to say thank you.”