Time Warner customers might lose CBS

Dec. 30, 2011, Coshocton Tribune

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Time Warner Cable customers might lose access to 10TV and the Ohio News Network if a deal is not reached by midnight Saturday.

Judy Barbao, spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable, said The Dispatch Broadcast Group, which owns the CBS affiliate and 24-hour news operation, asked for too much money in the new contract.

The contract initially expired in August, but the sides agreed to a four-month extension of the 2011 contract. This extension expires at the end of the year.

Local legislators’ work thus far

Dec. 27, 2011, Port Clinton News Herald

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Ohio’s legislative term is halfway up, so CentralOhio.com decided to check up on local lawmakers to see what they have accomplished in the past year.

Instead of just focusing on the biggest issue of 2011 — the state budget, CentralOhio.com asked them to dig a little deeper, to talk about their individual accomplishments both in sponsored legislation and committee work.

As follows are profiles of the area’s local lawmakers, and what they have done with their time in Columbus. 

Growth an opportunity for Ohio cattle industry

Dec. 23, 2011, Port Clinton News Herald

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Ohio might gain jobs by giving its cattle a first-class ticket to Turkey.

Demand for livestock is growing in developing nations. A group of lawmakers recently visited Turkey to gauge interest in shipping cattle from the Wilmington Airpark.

The air facility is in a unique location. It once belonged to DHL, a shipping company that shuttered its Wilmington operations in 2008 and signed the airpark over to the Clinton County Port Authority.

Since then, the port authority has sought to make use of the facility, said director Kevin Carver.

It has enough space to land large jets — the kind that would likely be used for shipping cattle, Carver said. It is about 10 miles west of Sabina, which houses one of six agricultural export inspection facilities in the country.

Ohio enacts tax break for college students receiving grants

Dec. 13, 2011, Lancaster Eagle Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

If an Ohio college student’s Pell Grant or Ohio College Opportunity Grant is applied toward room and board or a meal plan, it no longer is considered taxable income by the state.

Gov. John Kasich signed a bill Friday that will allow students to take an income tax deduction for these situations. There was no opposition in the Legislature, and it takes effect immediately so students can take advantage of it on their 2011 tax returns.

Rep. Tim Derickson, R-Oxford, sponsored the bill.

Schools buying .xxx domain names

Dec. 12, 2011, Port Clinton News Herald

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

As a red light district forms this year in cyberspace using new .xxx domain names, universities and other groups are mulling strategies for keeping their trademarks from becoming adult websites.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers allowed universities, businesses and other organizations with registered trademarks to have first dibs in October at buying .xxx addresses that contain their trademarks. On Tuesday, ICANN opened up sales to the general public.

The .xxx domain is intended identify pornography sites.

Working to enrich Pike County

Dec. 11, 2011, Chillicothe Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

PIKETON — When Andrea McDaniel gets home after a long day at the Pike County Career Technology Center, she sends her four kids to their rooms and enjoys 15 minutes of quiet as she switches roles from student to single mom.

There’s not a lot of quiet in her life.

McDaniel, 29, is ambitious, and doesn’t want her kids to grow up on public assistance the same way she did. These ambitions were delayed by a rough marriage, but now being on welfare allows her to go to school.

“I definitely want to at least go for my LPN, but I don’t know if I’m going to be satisfied with that,” she said.

But the Piketon woman also is hesitant. “Sometimes I think, gosh, even if I do have a GED, there’s no jobs here, so does it matter?”

Pike County has the highest unemployment rate in Ohio, now at 15 percent. It’s a Catch-22 for the career center, which trains people for jobs that might not come.

She makes too much to get help, but too little to live on

Dec. 9, 2011, Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Marilyn Allread is poor. Yet she makes too much money.

She’s taking out payday loans, and spent a month homeless, but she still earns too much to get any kind of public assistance. Recently she found out that she made $2 a month too much to keep her housing subsidy.

The public assistance programs don’t take into account the fact that a big chunk of her paycheck goes toward medical insurance to keep subpar coverage for her health problems.

Here’s the thing about Allread, who previously lived in Pataskala but recently found her way to Canal Winchester. The woman is determined. She wants to work. She wants to stand on her own two feet. But she’s come to realize, she does need a little bit of help.

Building understanding between poor, middle class

Dec. 8, 2011, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Fatina Evans grew up in a middle-class family on the poor side of a mid-sized Ohio city. Surrounded by poverty, her family followed the same unwritten rules regarding money: If you have it, you spend it, because stressful circumstances make it hard to plan beyond the present.

One day it clicked that her family could afford something nicer, so they moved to a nicer neighborhood. Once there, she said they realized a shift in social norms — people were more likely to save money and maybe refinance a mortgage when money ran short. Neighborly expectations were different, too, because people were more aware of the effect of neighborhood conditions on property values.

While the neighbors were accommodating, the Evans family ultimately decided to move back to their original neighborhood, where they were more comfortable.

Evans said poverty brings about a different code, which drives behaviors the middle class might not understand or even scorn.

11 vie for new congressional seat

Dec. 8, 2011, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Eleven people are eying the new congressional district that includes the southern part of Fairfield County.

However, the field could change.

Wednesday was the filing deadline for partisan congressional candidates looking to run in the 2012 primary election.

Under the maps passed this fall, Fairfield County is divided between congressional districts.

They lost everything

Dec. 7, 2011, Newark Advocate

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Ursula Harris was not the type of person you’d expect to meet at a homeless shelter.

At a first meeting, she sat in the corner of the Salvation Army shelter in Newark. She wore makeup, nice clothes and jewelry. She spoke confidently and was willing to be photographed.

Harris, her daughter and her grandkids found themselves at the shelter after they were evicted from their home in Pataskala. It was a nice home, and they lost everything.

This wasn’t the first time Harris fell on hard times — several years ago, she was foreclosed on after losing her job — but it was her first time homeless.

She had been in the shelter for less than a week, and she’ll be out soon, she said — and stronger for the experience.

Harris is a former financial broker. She worked for herself, and when the economy collapsed, so did her finances.

Multiple primaries causing confusion

Dec. 5, 2011, Port Clinton News Herald

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

Ohio congressional candidates don’t know what their districts will look like, or even when their primary will be, but the secretary of state is asking them to have petitions submitted by Wednesday.

The two primaries, one March 6 and the other June 12, stem from the battle over the once-a-decade redistricting process. However, there’s still talk in the House of Representatives of moving up the later primary.

“Having two primaries is not an ideal situation,” Shannon Boston, a spokeswoman for Ohio House Republicans, wrote in an email. “... But we only moved the primaries that are affected by the situation we find ourselves in with the potential congressional map referendum.”

Having two primaries presents a complication for the secretary of state’s office and uncertainty for candidates seeking congressional seats. Here are some questions and answers about the situation.

At Chillicothe food bank, demand keeps increasing

Dec. 4, 2011, Chillicothe Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

CHILLICOTHE — Space is cramped at the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There are two adjoining rooms, both about the size of a doctor’s office examination room, that hold the church’s clothing and food bank. There’s no waiting room.

Clients line the perimeter of the clothing room, some standing, some sitting cross-legged on the floor, waiting for their turn to go into the food bank.

When their names were called, the clients would go into the other small room with two volunteers.

Together they would pick food off the shelves — seldom more than an arm’s length away, and place it in a box sitting on a table in the middle of the room.

School an oasis for kids who are poor

Dec. 4, 2011, Chillicothe Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

CHILLICOTHE — There’s not much in the Huntington Local School District except farm land and residential area, so the district’s three buildings are more than just educational centers. They’re the hub of the community.

As the economy deteriorated, the schools have taken on a new role: social service agency.

When some students attend school, Superintendent Jerry Mowery said, it might be the only good part of their day. It might be the only place they feel safe. It might be the only time during the day they eat a balanced meal.

Food for hungry, help for jobless

Dec. 4, 2011, Chillicothe Gazette

By Jessica Alaimo

CentralOhio.com

CHILLICOTHE — There wasn’t a long wait to get a free lunch at the Carver Community Center, but after one long folding table was vacated, another group or family was ready to sit down.

On a sweltering summer day, a steady stream of people came through for a smoked sausage sandwich, a vegetable medley and peaches from a can. As the kitchen opened, head cook Cheryl Hitchens just had finished preparing 300 meals to send out to area summer youth programs.

As she showed off the kitchen, a volunteer interrupted. One of the schools needed five more.

The demand just grows, Hitchens said. On average, the center will serve about 3,000 meals each month to low-income people.

In western Pike County, people do what it takes

Dec. 4, 2011, Chillicothe Gazette

Story by Jessica Alaimo and photos by Heather Cory and Frank Robertson

CentralOhio.com

Brock Brewster’s truck dominated the single-lane road in western Pike County and rumbled over an extension cord.

This extension cord has been strung across this Latham road for two years. It powers the lights of a white-and-brown trailer, using the electricity from a home across the road. It’s the only source of electricity for the trailer’s owner, who said she uses it to power her lights. She uses a wood stove to stay warm.

Her property and her sister’s across the road are cluttered with stuff, but it is packed up and placed under blue tarps. There’s an order to the chaos, with items appearing sorted and walkways clear. Four big dogs and a puppy run around loose outside. “I have severe arthritis, which is why this place is such a mess,” said the owner, who wouldn’t give her name.

“I’ve driven over that extension cord a hundred times,” said Brewster, the principal at Western Local High School. “Those people probably don’t think a thing about running their home with an extension cord. ... They’re survivors. They get up every day and do what they’ve got to do.”

Surviving is tough in Pike County. The county has the state’s highest unemployment and poverty rates. Earlier this year, cabinet-maker Masco closed, putting 1,200 people out of work. The uranium enrichment plant that once held hope for 2,000 new jobs instead issued a notice that 450 pink slips might be coming.

Although the going is tough, nobody seems to be going anywhere.

“I was born here, my dad lived here, and I guess this is where I’ll die,” said the trailer owner. “I try to stay here in my own place, and let other people stay in theirs.”