John Ridder, Libertarian Candidate in St. Paris is Published

John has started an organization in St. Paris, Ohio that aims to raise funds equal to the funds given to Champaign county for infrastructure imporvements so that the meager federal dollars sent to the rurual county can be shipped back with a 'thanks, but no thanks' note attached. Below is John's published letter in the Urbana newspaper.

Stimulus Transportation Funds

By John Ridder, Libertarian Candidate for St. Paris Township trustee

The name of our group is OUT-CAST: Ohio United Taxpayers Campaigning Against Stimulus & TARP.

We believe the stimulus and TARP programs are a terrible idea, but since both happened in spite of taxpayer opposition, we demand the goals of both be achieved. Our mission is to raise local funds to eliminate the need to accept the $49,700 transportation stimulus money designated to Champaign County, Ohio and demand more equitable funding from state and federal government. If you share our sense of outrage that less than $50,000 came back to Champaign County out of hundreds of billions of stimulus money (our tax dollars) being spent to “create or save” jobs, that our representative government is failing to represent us, we ask for your support to help us send that message to Columbus and Washington. Donations to this cause may be made at Peoples Savings Bank in Urbana (both 10 Monument Square and 618 Scioto St.) to OUT-CAST. Ideally, if each adult in Champaign County gives $1.25, we will reach our goal. Our group’s intent is communicate two main points to the State of Ohio and the U.S. federal government by rejecting the $49,700 transportation stimulus money in full view of the massmedia

1. The amount of stimulus transportation dollars designated by the State of Ohio for Champaign County is completely inequitable in relation to the $774,000,000 sent back to Ohio from Washington to be used for “shovel ready” transportation projects. This discrimination at the hands of our State government is not new. Champaign County, Ohio is the larger of two remaining counties in Ohio without a limited access highway passing through it. The structure of the non-elected TRAC (The Transportation Review Advisory Council) makes it a tool of Ohio’s metro areas and its supposedly “fair” criteria in choosing what transportation projects get funded, forever delegates Champaign County to “third world” status in Ohio.

2. The benefit of these so-called transit stimulus dollars…one handicap van, some maintenance dollars for oil changes, and a pressure washer, hardly justify the mortgaging of the future of Champaign County’s children.

Mr. President, Governor Strickland, please show us how this is good for our community. If Champaign County is any example of how these “shovel ready” transportation projects are being funded Mr. President, your plan is going to fail.

Champaign County has had a “shovel ready” highway project ready for over 50 years, the U.S. Route 68 Bypass. The County Engineer is sitting on a $2 million earmark for this project and the local community has $1 million set aside in matching dollars. Rights of ways are secured, environmental impact studies (EAS) were done (though the foot dragging by the State of Ohio and bureaucratic rules, which could be waived, seem to point to doing a third EAS).

President Obama, Governor Strickland, if you have any sense of equity, you will not waste another transportation dollar on sound barriers along highways and railroads, fancy decorated artwork in the concrete on bridges, or other non-pavement capital expenses until every Ohio county has a proper divided highway connecting it with its communities of interest. Prove you want to create or save jobs here in Champaign County.
John Ridder of rural St.Paris is organizer of OUT-CAST.