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Treece: Retiring as a Millionaire 

By
Toledo Free Press
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Last week I came across a Facebook post that asked if retiring as a millionaire was possible. My generation tends to spend their money on “stuff” as opposed to saving for the future, so I was excited to see a 25 year old eager to save. I told him that it absolutely was possible. This week we shift our focus towards our younger readers who have an interest in putting their money to work for them, and how they can retire as millionaires.  

On paper, achieving the goal of $1 million is not difficult. If an individual contributed $20 per week for 50 years earning 10 percent on their money per year, they would have $1.3 million dollars at retirement. However sometimes it is difficult to find extra cash to put away, whether it is due to job loss or maybe a new home purchase. Fundamentally speaking, earning a million dollars by retirement if you are in your 20s is absolutely possible.  

There are a few areas in which I would like to provide some words of wisdom to our younger readers… 

  • Student Loans: DO NOT miss payments. Student loans can hurt your credit score and make it very difficult to obtain a loan down the road. Continue to make your scheduled payments and if you can prepay the loan, great. Do not drain your life savings to pay off the loan tomorrow though, if your savings accounts can earn you more than the interest rate on your loan, you might as well allow your money to keep working for you. 
  • Study your monthly expenses: Whether you keep track of your receipts or use a software program to enter your payments and purchases (I personally use Quicken), look at how much you are spending a month and compare it to what your income is. Take that difference and put at least half of it into some form of savings, whether it is an IRA, a personal investment account or the bank. 
  • Employer sponsored plans are for your benefit; take advantage of them: Most 401(k)/403(b) plans have some kind of matching program. That is FREE MONEY; not even the best investment advisor in the world can give you free money. Invest whatever amount it is that gets you the maximum matching benefit, then with the rest of your savings open up a non-qualified account (personal or joint investment account) or open a Roth IRA (you cannot be actively participating in a 401(k) and have a traditional IRA). An outside investment account will give you more freedom and flexibility in your investment choices and will not face the restrictions that your 401(k) plan does. 
  •  Find a good CPA: A good CPA will cost you about $200-$400 per tax year, but their ability to find you savings and deductions is astounding. They can do what Turbo Tax cannot; it is a worthwhile investment, plain and simple.  

Above all else, you need a goal. Saying “I want a lot of money” is not a goal, but rather “I want my accounts to be valued at over $1 million by the time I am 60” is a goal, a very obtainable one at that. It requires discipline but it can be done. Sometimes, you need some help getting there; do not be afraid to ask for help. There are professionals who take care of everything from your investments and savings to your mortgage and debt servicing (financial planners), and there are professionals like us at Treece Investments who manage your qualified and non-qualified accounts so that you do not have to spend time stressing over the markets. Do not hesitate to talk to these professionals. Most do not charge for a sit down, and sometimes $1 spent today can bring you $2 tomorrow.   

 

Ben Treece is a 2009 Graduate from the University of Miami (FL), BBA International Finance and Marketing. He is a partner with Treece Investment Advisory Corp (www.TreeceInvestments.com) and a stockbroker licensed with FINRA, working for Treece Financial Services Corp. The above information is the express opinion of Ben Treece and should not be construed as investment advice or used without outside verification. 

 

 

Toledo filmmaker raises funds through Kickstarter

By
Erin Holden
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Local filmmaker Steven Boatman will travel to Los Angeles this winter to work on a feature-length independent film following a recent successful Kickstarter campaign. 

Boatman and Los Angeles-based actor/writer/director Russ Russo recently reached their $20,000 goal for the project, raising $20,880 via the online crowd-sourced fundraising website. 

Boatman will serve as director of photography for the project, which will film cross country from LA to New Jersey starting in January. 

The 23-year-old Toledoan lost his hearing from bacterial meningitis at age 1 and was deaf for four years before receiving a cochlear implant at age 5. Boatman was homeschooled until enrolling at BGSU to study visual communication technology.  He left BGSU after three years to pursue filmmaking full time. 

Boatman’s skills grabbed the attention of Russo in July at the Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival in Lima, where Boatman’s five-minute narrative film “Mowing Through Misery,” a dark comedy about the frustrations of a man trying to mow his lawn, was screened. 

Boatman writes, directs, films, edits and acts in his films. He built most of his own equipment, including a dolly platform with metal pipe tracks, an 8-foot aluminum crane and a computer for video-editing.  

Russo, who often travels to film festivals across the country, said he was impressed by Boatman’s creativity and ingenuity. 

 “It’s as if one sense gave way to another sense, which was his eye. The camera was always moving, always presenting something and coming into the next scene. What he was doing was something on a studio level. It’s presented in a way that feels very much like a big Hollywood feel film,” Russo said. “I saw Steven’s film right at the end of the festival and I thought, ‘Wow I’m actually in the midst of writing something and that kind of filmmaking is what I picture.'” 

“Heat Wave” is a dark comedy that addresses modern day society, Generation Y friendship, moral decay, narcissism, self-discovery and more as two friends take a cross-country road trip. 

The film will include some up-and-coming actors, including Kiowa Gordon and Bronson Pelletier, who portray werewolves Embry and Jared in “The Twilight Saga”; Natasha Alam of “True Blood” and “Entourage”; Amanda Clayton from “John Carter”; Jessica Andres of “Liberator” and “Gossip Girl”; and more. 

Kristina Michelle, host of The Reel Show on the Reel TV Network, interviewed Boatman at The International Indie Gathering Film Festival in Hudson, Ohio, where he earned his first award for “Mowing Through Misery.” 

The interview will air online for two weeks at www.ReelTVNetwork.com, beginning Sept. 4 at 4 a.m., 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and 10 p.m. 

Between now and “Heat Wave,” Boatman plans to stay busy with other projects, including freelance videography and as a cinematographer for “Huntsmen,” a local web series project of director and writer Gerald Hill. The “Huntsmen” team is seeking to raise $1,500 before Sept. 22 to cover expenses. Production will begin in early September. 

Boatman’s father, Glen Boatman, who helps with filming when Steven is acting, said he is proud of his son’s opportunity to work on a feature-length film. 

“He’s doing very well. Fortunately he has me to bankroll him, but this is going to be big payback,” Glen said, laughing. “He’s getting started now.”

Retirement Guys: Facts about buying long-term care insurance

By
Mark Clair & Nolan Baker
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As the Retirement Guys, we talk to people all the time about their concerns as they approach and reach the retirement phase of life.

When asked about their biggest concern, the majority of the time the answer is “not having enough” or “outliving my money.”
It is a fact of life that we all have to figure out a way to support ourselves. It especially becomes concerning when we are reaching the latter phase of life, as our strength and energy begins to diminish.
I (Mark) had the opportunity recently to visit my daughter Caitlyn at Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids, Mich. She asked me to bring her a small desk that we had at our house toput in her room at the sorority house where she lives.
The desk came in two parts and I was able to get it into the back of my car with no problem.

My wife Lisa said, “You got that in there all by yourself?” Yep. It wasn’t that heavy and with a little extra effort I was able to get the job done.

For some reason, I thought of my late grandfather who lived into his mid-90s. I remember him sitting while people tended to his needs because he had reached a point of not being able to do much. I wondered to myself if I would get to that point someday, where I could not perform the fairly simple task of putting something in the back of my car.
Which brings us back to the concern many have of “not having enough.” Typically, it is the thought of some type of health crisis and worrying about needing long-term health care and how to pay for it.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, about 70 percent of people older than 65 will require some type of long-term care services during their lifetime.

Let’s look at how we can pay for it. There are basically three choices.
Pay for it out of your own money, buy insurance to help pay for it or rely on the government after you have used all of your own money.

Let’s focus for a moment on the idea of using insurance to pay for it. We ask folks all the time why they do not have this kind of insurance and the typical answers are “it is too expensive” or “we don’t want to pay for something that we might never use.”

The Retirement Guys believe in using insurance to do what we call “leveraging.” Using what we have to create something bigger — in this case, creating a pool of money to use for long-term care.
When you buy a traditional long-term care policy, there are several decisions to make. First, how long do you want it to pay? It is typical to buy a policy that pays for a specific period of time, like five years. The longer it pays, the higher the premium.
Next, how much do you want it to pay? You can pick a daily amount like $200 a day and try to guess how much care would cost and how much you can afford to pay out of your assets or income to make up the difference if your insurance policy does not cover it all.

There is also what is called an elimination period. This is kind of like a deductible. There are a certain number of days that pass before the policy benefits start to pay, say 30, 60 or 90 days.
An inflation rider can be added to your policy to try to keep up with the inflation of care costs. Typically, the benefits are increased by 5 percent per year so that the amount of benefits you purchase today will not be as insignificant in the future as health care costs go up.

To qualify for the policy to start paying, you typically must need help with two of what are called “activities of daily living (ADLs).” These are eating, bathing, dressing, transferring and continence.
Should you buy traditional long-term care insurance? Maybe, maybe not. You should definitely meet with a professional to analyze your situation. If you wait too long, health or age may exclude you from obtaining insurance. There are other creative ways and newer types of nontraditional long-term care insurance products that may help you address this issue.

You can go to www. retirementguysnetwork.com to get more information. Bottom line —
look into it right away.

Maumee Valley expands iPad program 

By
Toledo Free Press
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Maumee Valley Country Day School (MVCDS) students stream through hallways between classes  in chatty clusters, but their arms aren’t loaded with textbooks and their shoulders aren’t hoisting heavy backpacks. Many carry only a slim case containing their school-issued iPad. 

After the success of a pilot program with last year’s seventh- and eighth-graders, MVCDS expanded its one-to-one iPad initiative through 12th grade this school year. A classroom set of iPads was also added to each preschool through sixth-grade classroom. 

“We did a major investment of iPads this year,” said Melissa Kuhl, MVCDS’s director of marketing and communications. “Middle-schoolers had them last year and they were really our trial group. We soon learned they were teaching us how to use them. They were taking it that much further than we expected, which was great. We soon went in the Middle School to a whole cloud environment, where document-sharing was happening within the classroom from peer to peer as well as from student to teacher, so it was a really good collaborative experiment.” 

Many textbooks and required readings are downloaded directly to the devices and teachers and students alike are encouraged to explore and experiment with apps, Kuhl said.  

“It’s really teacher-driven, the app usage. We make recommendations, but we don’t really hold back what teachers find and use,” Kuhl said. “And the kids have ideas too. They’ll say, ‘Oh I’ve seen this app and it’s educational’ and we use it. So it’s working out really well.” 

MVCDS enrolls about 490 students: 200 in the Upper School, 80 in the Middle School and 210 in the Lower School. The $156,000 iPad initiative was paid for by the school. Tuition was not increased, but parents pay a technology fee that covers iPad insurance, Kuhl said. 

Middle school Spanish teacher Kelsy Grefe was part of last year’s pilot program and said she’s happy the school decided to expand the program. 

“I really see the value in an iPad education and I wouldn’t want to go back to the way it was before,” said Grefe, a 2003 MVCDS alumna. “It enables students to be more empowered and involved with their learning. The possibilities are pretty limitless.”  

Grefe’s students access  Spanish-English dictionaries with audio pronunciation aids, conjugation practice apps and more. They also created original illustrations for a story they wrote in Spanish, recorded themselves reading it, “published” the digital audio book online and then shared the story with younger students.  

Grefe’s first homework assignment was to explore the app store. 

“The kids are going to be innovative and teach you new things and show you apps you might not have thought of using,” Grefe said. “I picked up a few apps from the kids that way. It’s awesome they can be a part of it.” 

Grefe said some students will take photos of textbook pages they need to study or notes on the board rather than carrying home a textbook or taking notes on paper. They can also record audio of Grefe explaining a homework assignment or teaching a lesson. 

“Some people think it’s negative to put them in front of a screen all day, but they learn a lot and interact with each other,” Grefe said. “It’s not holding them back from being functional members of society. Society has evolved to this and we have to evolve with it. It’s normal to them. They are digital natives. In some ways I am too, but not in the same way they are.” 

Head of Upper School Gareth Griffith came to MVCDS from an independent school in his native Greensboro, N.C., which has had a one-to-one laptop program for 12 years. 

“As a classroom teacher, I can’t imagine teaching in an environment that doesn’t have that access to a broader world through an iPad or a laptop, that doesn’t have the capacity to collaborate with other students who are not necessarily in the room with you, that doesn’t have the capacity to create in multimedia as you can with an iPad,” Griffith said. “Having come from an environment where you could do that, I can’t imagine teaching in an environment that doesn’t, to go back to a pen and paper world.” 

Even the school’s youngest students can benefit  educationally from iPads, said Early Learning Center Director Heather Benson. 

The students used iPads to experiment with nature photography on a recent fieldtrip and teachers often use the devices to record students explaining a picture they drew or a story they wrote. 

“Instead of the old methodology, the low-tech methodology, in which the teacher would write under the student’s writing or picture what they said it was about, the student is telling in their own words,” Benson said. 

The iPads can also help monitor developmental progress, Benson said. 

An easel app, for example, records the strokes a child uses to draw a picture, allowing teachers to check if a child draws a line in one continuous stroke that crosses the mid-line or if they draw half from the right and half from the left. 

“Once the drawing is completed on a piece of paper, you can’t tell what came first or how the student drew the line, but the iPad can record exactly the strokes and movements a child made,” Benson said. “It’s a really handy tool to be able to show a parent a skill a particular child needed to develop.” 

Kuhl said the iPads are not used all the time or in every subject. 

“At school, we’re very careful to make sure it’s used at appropriate times. We say, ‘OK, it’s time to close the iPads. Put them away. We’re going to do this now,’ or ‘Pull out your iPads. We can use these for research in this area,'” Kuhl said. “We also coached parents on how to control screen time in the home environment, about using the iPads appropriately for homework or research as needed and then closing them. Many families already had them, so it wasn’t new technology we were introducing into their lives in the evenings.” 

Although collaboration is encouraged, cheating is not tolerated and almost nonexistent at MVCDS, Kuhl said. 

“On the cloud, everything is documented so you can tell who has made what modifications to documents. It’s tagged with their username, so you can see very easily who has contributed,” Kuhl said. “I have never once heard of any issues in the building. Students take their work very seriously. They are here to learn and we make learning really fun.”  

Embracing the new technology will help students in college as well as their future jobs, Griffith said. 

“This is a place that is truly thinking about preparing students for the 21st century, asking them to collaborate and network and create creatively in ways that their working world will require,” Griffith said. “It’s very exciting.” 

For more information, visit www.mvcds.org.  

Students, PRO team to construct accessible home

By
Brigitta Burks
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Professional remodelers and her fellow Southview students would get together to build Val Taylor and her family a house more accessible to her wheelchair. Photo courtesy Melissa Clark.

Seventeen-year-old Val Taylor lives in a little green house on Cason Avenue. The only door that Val’s 400-pound wheelchair fits through in her little green house is the front door. 

Her parents must carry her if she needs to leave the front room. The driveway that leads up to the house is unpaved and Val’s chair sometimes gets stuck in the muck. When Southview High School students observed their fellow classmate and her parents having difficulty getting her out the door and on the bus, they decided to do something about it. 

“I thought how cool that kids would even think about such a thing and notice a need in someone,” said Veronica, Val’s mom, a paraeducator. Val has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, asthma, glaucoma and other disorders.  

Southview students decided to use their annual fundraiser Dance for a Chance (D4AC) to help make the home more accessible for the Taylors. D4AC was started in 2004 and has raised more than $150,000 since then. Every year, students identify an issue in society and work to raise awareness for that cause through their fundraiser, where students are divided into four teams, compete in various contests and must be on their feet for 12 hours. On March 31, 300 students raised more than $30,000 for what they dubbed Project Haven (Home Accessibility for Val’s Exceptional Needs). 

But, the student body realized it couldn’t stop there and got the Professional Remodelers Organization (PRO) on board. The group, the largest, independent remodelers organization in the country, decided to help through its President’s Project, which connects remodelers to community projects. The President’s Project began in 2010 and PRO has been around for more than 40 years. 

“Originally, our plans were to add an addition to previous home,” said Rick Morel, PRO’s executive director. However, the group realized that wouldn’t work with the house’s poorly aged structure. 

“What we did was make a conscious decision that the best way of doing this was to knock down the existing structure and just build a new one,” Morel said. 

He added, “I don’t know how [the Taylor family does] it. I really don’t. I just don’t know how they’ve done it all these years. They don’t complain … they just keep getting after it. Those are the kind of people that you like to help.” 

A crowd gathered Sept. 5 at the Taylor house for a groundbreaking ceremony. Despite the rain, high school band members, baton-twirlers and cheerleaders showed up to support Val, who is known for her school spirit. 

Catie Sack and Logan Griesinger, both seniors, are part of the school’s ambassador committee involved with D4AC. Through the project, they got to know Val and realized she has many of the same interests as other teenage girls — Katy Perry, Britney Spears and nail polish. 

“Most of all, [the project] taught me even though there’s road bumps, there’s always a way to get around them,” Sack said after the ceremony. 

Some of those bumps included dealing with a mortgage on the property, Morel said. Metamora State Bank was able to lend a hand in that department and several other community groups have also come on board. Still, more material and cash donations are needed. Depending on materials provided, the new house could have a garage and deck for Val to watch the birds on. 

“People in Northwestern Ohio, generally speaking, have always been known as generous and we need a little bit more involvement to complete this project the way we’d like to,” Morel said. 

More labor is also needed. “Anybody that can pound a nail straight, I think we’d be open to that,” Morel said. 

PRO has some help from the construction class at Southview. “It’s very much hands on and that’s what they need. We’re acting as mentors and laborers at the same time,” Morel said. 

The new house will be 1,553 square feet up from 540 square feet. It will have an open layout, two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. 

Currently, Veronica and her husband Tom have to carry their daughter to the bathtub, which has become more difficult as Val has grown. The new bathroom will be ADA-compliant and eliminate the fear of dropping Val. 

“It will be the most wonderful thing that could happen,” Veronica said of the new bathroom. 

“We appreciate everything people have done and appreciate anything people could do. It would be a great opportunity to enrich our daughter’s life and improve her quality of life,” she added. 

The value of the project, with materials, temporary hotel housing and more, will exceed $150,000. The house is the largest President’s Project yet, said Milissa Clark, PRO’s marketing consultant. The project is set to take four to five weeks once construction begins. 

“It’s just been a very long road, but we will see this thing to the end. That’s what we do,” Clark said. 

The school also remains behind the Taylor family. 

“Val is one of our most deserving students at Southview High School,” said Principal David McMurray at the ceremony, adding that he is very proud of his students. 

To learn more, visit http://www.hireaprotoday.com/ or call (419) 471-0101. Donations can be made to the Professional Remodelers Organization Project Haven account at Metamora State Bank locations. 

Owens chosen for program to train baby boomers for jobs 

By
Toledo Free Press
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Owens Community College was among 10 academic institutions across the country selected to participate in the national Plus 50 Encore Completion Program designed to train baby boomers for new jobs over the next three years.  

The program, offered by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in cooperation with its members, will eventually include 100 colleges offering special training programs for students age 50 and older. Owens was the only institution in Ohio selected for a grant to fund its participation in the preliminary phase of the program.  

“Owens is honored to be chosen as one of the few community colleges in the country to participate in the Plus 50 Encore Completion Program,” said Michael Bankey, vice president of Workforce and Community Services at Owens.  

“We are expecting the official paperwork for the grant soon, but we already formed an advisory committee and are developing a timeline for the program,” he said. 

Bankey said Owens will begin formal planning for the program in September and expects to begin offering it to age 50-plus students next spring.  

“Education opens doors to endless career possibilities. The college looks forward to working with the American Association of Community Colleges and local organizations in developing an education program that meets the needs of baby boomers throughout the Northwest Ohio region,” Bankey said. 

Baby boomers have increasingly turned to community colleges for training for new careers. Since 2007, adults age 50 and older have struggled in a job market with record unemployment. Many find they must reinvent their careers and update their skills if they are going to get hired, according to the AACC. 

Careers in education, health care and social services appeal to baby boomers, who often show interest in civic engagement. 

Mary Sue Vickers, director for the Plus 50 Initiative at AACC, said the program expects to add an additional 89 colleges in 2012 and early 2013 that will help reach 10,000 baby boomer students by 2015.  

“Baby boomers are not like traditional college students. We find that colleges need to adapt how they operate to support their job training needs and educational success,” Vickers stated in a press release about the program.  

An independent evaluation of the Plus 50 Initiative found 89 percent of students agreed that college workforce training helped them acquire new job skills and 72 percent attributed finding a job to such training, according to the AACC. 

Since 2008, the Plus 50 Initiative has focused its efforts on training programs to get unemployed older adults back on the job. The AACC expects the 100 colleges will use the Plus 50 Encore Completion Program to build on the success of the initiative, Vickers said.   

In addition to grant funds, the participating colleges will have access to thousands of dollars in marketing materials such as tool kits and training webinars designed to make reaching out to age 50-plus students much easier.   

Bankey said Owens will benefit from the advice of other community colleges that have implemented programs for older students and understand their unique needs.  

The Plus 50 Encore Completion Program is funded with a $3.2 million grant to the AACC provided by Deerbrook Charitable Trust. The AACC is a national organization representing nearly 1,200 community, junior, and technical colleges in the U.S. 

The other institutions chosen for the first phase include Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, Black River Technical College in Arkansas, Broome Community College in New York, Lansing Community College in Michigan, Pitt Community College in North Carolina, San Jacinto Community College in Texas, Southside Virginia Community College, West Virginia University, John Wood Community College and Waubonsee Community College in Illinois.  

More information about the program at Owens will be available at a later date or interested seniors can visit http://plus50.aacc.nche.edu. 

 

Obama says Romney plan for economy ‘won’t work’

By
Brigitta Burks
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President Obama addresses the crowd on Labor Day 2012 at Scott High School in Toledo. Toledo Free Press photo by Joseph Herr.

President Barack Obama spent his Labor Day on Sept. 3 praising the auto rescue and union workers during a speech at Scott High School. 

About 3,100 people gathered to watch the president speak at the rally, which was part of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Labor Day Celebration. 

“I wanted to stop here in Toledo to spend this day with you. A day that belongs to the working men and women of America, teachers and factory workers, construction workers and students and families and small business owners and I know we’ve got some proud autoworkers in the house,” Obama told the cheering crowd. Obama has been to Ohio 11 times this year and visited Maumee in July. 

In a 30-minute speech, Obama played off remarks his opponent Mitt Romney made in Cincinnati on Sept. 1. “If you have a coach that is 0-23 million (unemployed or underemployed Americans), it’s time to get a new coach,” Romney had said. 

Obama said of Romney’s plans for the economy, which include tax cuts for millionaires, “Punt it away. It won’t work. It won’t win the game. You don’t need that coach. That’s a losing season.” 

In response to Obama’s Toledo stop, Amanda Henneberg, Romney Campaign spokesperson said in a statement, “Over 23 million people are struggling for work this Labor Day, and President Obama once again offered no new ideas for getting our economy back on track.  President Obama has a record of zero and 23 million, and it’s time to get a new coach.” 

Obama also spent time on the recent Republican National Convention (RNC). “I have to say it was something to see. Despite all the challenges that we face in this new century, we saw three straight days of an agenda out of the last century,” he said. 

The president addressed Gov. John Kasich’s speech at the RNC where Kasich touted Ohio’s job creation rate. 

“I guess that the theory was it’s all the governor’s doing, but I think we need to refresh his memory because a lot of those jobs are autoworker jobs,” Obama said. 

Without Obama’s auto rescue, GM and Chrysler would no longer exist, he said. Obama also reminded the crowd of Romney’s “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” stance, which would have lost 1 million jobs, he said. 

“In communities across the Midwest, it would have been another Great Depression,” he said. 

The president praised “working people” for helping create the cornerstones of the middle class like the 40-hour workweek, pensions, minimum wage and health care. 

“You made sacrifices, which is why I don’t understand why these folks have the nerve to talk about you like you’re some greedy special inertest that needs to be beaten down,” Obama said. 

Obama also briefly addressed making college more affordable, providing health care, creating renewable energy sources and bringing troops home from overseas. He noted Romney did not address the troops overseas during the RNC. 

Sen. Sherrod Brown, whom Obama called one of the best senators in the country, kicked off the rally. 

“You’re gonna hear a lot of things on this campaign,” said Brown, who faces Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel in November. “You’re gonna hear actors who talk to chairs” 

Brown said from 2000-2010, five million manufacturing jobs were lost. After 2010 and the auto rescue, 500,000 more manufacturing jobs were added, he said. 

“Now my opponent and President Obama’s opponent didn’t think we should do the auto rescue,” he said. 

After Brown, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who faces Sam Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber this fall, spoke to the exuberant group. Obama also called Kaptur one of the best members of Congress. 

“We are all so very grateful and proud, proud to be here today, to be voices for the working men and women of our country and world who demand expression, expression of their way of life, expression in the law of their rights as workers, to dignity in the law wherever they live in this country or on earth. It is an intergenerational struggle,” she said. 

She also praised Obama for the auto rescue, saying the auto industry is in the area’s DNA. 

Kaptur later compared voting Republican to putting your car in “R” or reverse while saying that “D” stands for drive and Democrat. 

Bob King, president of UAW, and Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, also spoke. Both encouraged voters to actively support Obama. 

“We remember on Labor Day who has stood behind us, who has supported us,” King said. 

“Just tell the truth about Mitt Romney and we’ll be alright,” Trumka added 

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told the crowd, full of union workers, that they were the backbone of the country. 

“[Obama] will never give up on you and I hope you don’t give up on him,” she said. 

Kenyetta Jones, who has worked at the GM Powertrain Plant for nearly 30 years, introduced the president. Jones was laid off in 2009, but returned to work 13 months later. 

During those months, she trained others so they would be prepared when jobs returned, she said, adding that she knew Obama would bring those jobs back. 

“We don’t sit around expecting handouts, but we expect our leaders to fight for us, and that’s exactly President Obama did,” Jones said. 

After the rally, Sue Paulus of Paulding, Ohio said her favorite part was Obama telling the crowd “don’t boo, vote” when the group decried the RNC. 

“It’s telling us not to sit on own hands,” she said. 

Sean Mack, a human resources worker out of Maumee, compared the RNC to Comedy Central. He has seen Obama speak several times and praised him, Kaptur and Brown. 

“Ohio’s not complete without them, that trio,” he said. 

Artist and student Remi Harrington came from Michigan to see the president speak. She accompanied her aunt, a UAW worker. Though Harrington said she understands why the speech was aimed at workers, she would have liked to see the president discuss more concerns that affect single black mothers, like herself. 

“Single motherhood is something that needs to be addressed,” she said. 

In a statement after the rally, Christopher Maloney, the Ohio spokesperson for the Romney for President campaign, said, “President Obama dubbed this trip the ‘Road to Charlotte’ but his policies have taken us on a road to declining incomes, higher unemployment and more uncertainty for Ohio middle class families. And in the face of a record of failure, President Obama and his surrogates refuse to offer no new solutions, just misleading attacks. Mitt Romney has the plan to do what President Obama can’t — create 12 million new jobs, increase take-home pay, and bring relief to the struggling middle class.” 

Before the rally, the president ate with three autoworkers at Rick’s City Diner and stayed at the Toledo Hilton the night before. After the rally, he visited Louisiana and was slated to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte on Sept. 6. 

At the end of his speech, he told the group, “If we win Toledo, we will win Ohio. If we win Ohio, we’ll win this election. If we win this election, we will finish what we started.” 

Letter to the editor, Sept. 9. 2012

By
Dock David Treece
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Remember Green Party’s Jill Stein

To the editor

In the excitement of President Barack Obama’s Labor Day weekend visit, a Labor Day message from another presidential candidate may have been overlooked.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein sent America’s unions a Labor Day message endorsing the AFL-CIO’s campaign for “an Economic Bill of Rights,” originally proposed by President Roosevelt in 1944. Her platform includes the following economic reforms:

— 25 million new green and public service jobs in federally supported, community controlled cooperatives and public work projects.

— Living wage.

—  Repeal of the Taft Hartley Act and laws against permanent striker replacements.

—  A constitutional right to vote and accurate vote counting.

—  Student debt forgiveness and tuition-free public education from preschool through graduate school.

The Green Party has always opposed trade deals like NAFTA and would only support trade agreements with strong workers’ rights protections. They also support union representation on company boards; labor buyouts of companies that are for sale and pensions for all workers. The Green Party takes no corporate money.

More can be found at www.jillstein.org and www.gp.org.

Taft-Hartley was passed by a Democratic Congress, and Democratic Congresses have defeated several pro-labor reforms since then. The Democrats take the labor vote for granted, knowing that working people usually want to vote against a Republican even if they don’t necessarily want to vote for the Democrat. Do we really like what the Democrats are delivering or are we supporting them out of fear?

When the media treats all candidates except the Democrat and Republican as if they don’t count, it is easy for voters to fall into this trap too. But as Stein points out, during the last 40 years, labor has spent more than $15 billion on the Democrats.

What if that $15 billion had been spent on a pro-labor third party or independent labor movement?

Jessica Weinberg

Toledo

Veterans Matter gets boost from ZZ Top

By
Brigitta Burks
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ZZ Top is throwing its clout and long beards behind Veterans Matter, a local nonprofit that aids unhoused veterans.

Veterans Matter provides rent deposits for veterans who are screened and aided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veterans Affairs Supported Housing Program (HUD-VASH). Most unhoused veterans don’t have the means to pay the deposit or first month’s rent upon moving into new homes, something required for HUD-VASH housing programs.

“This is such a beautiful, pure perfect program with 100 percent going to help people,” said Ken Leslie, founder of Veterans Matter and 1Matters.org, which also helps the unhoused.

ZZ Top will help with the nonprofit’s “60,000 Soldiers Housed” campaign, raising awareness for unhoused veterans. The campaign is named for the 60,000 unhoused veterans in the United States.

The group heard about the campaign through its publicist Bob Merlis, Leslie said.

“They happened to be in the area and things just evolved from there,” he added.

Merlis has known Leslie for a while and was eager to help when he was approached, he said.

“People who are in the armed forces risk their lives and they come back and are treated like dirt,” Merlis said.

Dusty Hill, who plays bass and sings for ZZ Top, made a video to support the “60,000 Soldiers Housed” campaign when the group was at a Michigan tour stop.

“It’s really disturbing that nowadays it has somehow become acceptable for American soldiers damaged by the physical or mental trauma of war to be abandoned, forgotten, and left homeless on the streets of our nation,” Hill said in a news release.

The band, known for hits like “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs,” will spread the word about unhoused veterans when it tours, Leslie said. He hopes this will inspire other cities to start programs like Veterans Matter.

The program started in February after a conversation between Leslie and Shawn Dowling, the coordinator of Healthcare for Homeless Veterans of the Ann Arbor VA Health System, about what was missing from housing programs. Leslie approached ProMedica for support and was granted $26,250 from the health care system’s Advocacy Fund.

Just 11 days after the project’s conception, a couple was able to move out of a shelter and into a home. Since February, Leslie said the nonprofit has helped 20 military families in 11 cities across the area.

“When we heard about [the program] we were most impressed. We appreciate that this program is not one of those feel-good virtual-fundraising-under-veterans’-names programs. They get in, get the job done and leave,” said Billy Gibbons, singer and guitarist for ZZ Top, in a news release. His band is set to release a new album, “La Futura,” in September.

“The entire band is behind this,” Leslie said of ZZ Top. “We view ourselves as a black ops mission helping soldiers down behind enemy lines.”

Visit www.veteransmatter.org.

Rathbun: One small step

By
Gary Rathbun
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I was saddened to read of the death of Neil Armstrong this past weekend. To me this man epitomized the very essence of America. He was a true American and exemplified the ideals that built this country and made us great.

Not long ago, my wife and I visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I was flooded with emotions actually seeing the rockets and capsules that I had models of as a kid in the ’60s. I remember fantasizing about space travel and wondering what it would be like to see the rings of Saturn or live on Mars. (To be honest, there are some days where I would rather live on Mars and I know there are days where other people wish I lived on Mars.)

I remember vividly when Armstrong stepped on the moon. My dad thought it was important for me to see that, so he allowed me to stay up on a school night to watch it.

The longer the day went on at the Kennedy Space Center, the more those heart-warming emotions that I associated with those memories faded, to be replaced with frustration and disappointment.

Where had the emotions of unlimited opportunity and greatness gone? We were canceling the space shuttle program as well as the big Ares rockets that would have taken astronauts back to the moon, as well as Mars and beyond.

Was I disappointed because I no longer had a chance of being an astronaut in my life, or was it because America had changed and being great and leading the world was no longer in our national character?

Unfortunately, I came to think that it was the latter. We have not had a man or woman on the moon since 1972! President Obama canceled the funding for the 2020 moon mission and has directed NASA to study global climate issues from space. I fail to see how this will  make America great.

Armstrong at the time, in an open letter to the president regarding this policy, said this is “devastating” and condemned the United States to “a long downhill slide to mediocrity.”

I tend to agree but on a much broader scale.

This attitude reflects the most basic problems we have in our country today. It is honorable to be poor and not achieve anything. Capitalism is a dirty word, as is producing something for a profit. It is evil to want to be an individual and create a better life for oneself instead of being part of the 99 percent and being mediocre and average.

Where is the attitude that we want to accomplish things “not because they are easy but because they are hard,” as President Kennedy said? When was the last time you were inspired by any of our leaders challenging us with a great task? Our leaders today challenge us with sacrificing ourselves for the sake of equality and fairness.

Greatness is being redefined. The word greatness is now associated with words like greed, egotism, and undeserved superiority. The “right stuff” is being replaced with the “same stuff.” 192 men volunteered to be part of the Apollo space program knowing they could be blown to bits on the launch pad, or left floating in space forever or maybe burned up trying to come back home. This was greatness; this was inspiring to me at age 10 and is still inspiring to me now.

Going into space to study global warming does nothing to inspire me or make me feel America is great. I personally don’t care if the rest of the world likes us or not, I do care if they respect us and are inspired by us. We all remember the kid in school whose goal it was to be liked by everybody and was liked by nobody. If we work to be great, the rest of the world will respect us; a few may be inspired by us to become great themselves.

Neil Armstrong was a true American hero and what he did to inspire many of us from that era is immeasurable. He will be missed; I hope that his greatness and, consequently, America’s greatness will not be forgotten.

Gary L. Rathbun is the president and CEO of Private Wealth Consultants, LTD.

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