Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following is a presentation of FCB Faith.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Keeping America First with Bishop John T. Coats
and Reverend Jeff jimmisad on FCB Faith.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to Keeping America First, and we're happy to have
today with us our dynamite co host, Bishop John T.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Coats. John, how are you today, man?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing great. Is always good to be in good company.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yes, yes, And we're here in this great state of
Ohio and we have a dynamite guest with us today,
none other than Lorraine County Commissioner David Moore.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
David, glad to have you here today.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You're gonna tell us about all the great things that
are happening on the on the north coast.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Well, thank you. I appreciate you having me so so, David.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Commissioner Moore, could you tell us a little bit about
yourself and tell what's happening there in the great County
of Lorraine, OHI.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Oh Loraene County is like is almost through a renaissance
right now with a lot of changes going on.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Like the rest of the country, what we.
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Got going on right now is well, first of all,
I'm not a politician, even though I'm an elected official,
Loraen County has something very unique going on right now.
After eighty years of one party rule, we have three
Republicans that are in office, but really we're not even
political party types. What we really have are three businessmen
that are not career politicians. And so we've taken a
(01:34):
new look at how to market our county. And marketing
is extremely key when you're trying to let people, the media,
the newspapers, like the you know the old saying, if
it bleeds, it leads marthing is all talking about the
positives of our county. You know, Loraene County is a
great place to live, work and play. And so you know,
by reaching out to organizations like yours, that we can
(01:57):
help promote our county, tell you what's going on in
our county and all the great things that are happening here,
especially with jobs and housing and affordable living.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
I think.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
It's just a very unique thing happening out here in
the ninth largest county in the state of Ohio. So
it's kind of a kind of an exciting time. So
I don't know how you want me to segue, but
we got so much going on here. We're really you know, right,
how much you want me to talk about.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
But Bishop Coats has always been excited about enhancing the
lives of Ohio citizens.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
What are some of the things that we can.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Take advantage of that citizens all over Ohio can take
advantage of.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Oh, well, before I go into all the great things
that are happening for maybe for weekend or day trips
and getaways, one of the unique things that we've done
in Lorraine County that's kind of put us on the
national spotlight is I was I did something foolish and
Ranford Commissioner twenty four years ago and one okay, I
do it one term I thought, I'm not doing that again. Well,
(03:02):
you know, my children were grown. I decided to run again.
And the same issues that they had twenty five years
ago we're still having, which is transportation helping our communities
that have issues that can't even afford a car. You know,
you know you can maybe get you might have a car,
Can you afford the insurance, can you afford the gas?
And so our transportation system here has been antiquated. The
(03:26):
fixed route was set up where it take you two
hours to get picked up. So you go to buy groceries,
it takes you two hours to get back home. It
was a failed system that they did every year, year
and year out. So with technology, because I tried to
fix this twenty five years ago. Now with technology today,
we now have a system called Via and that system
(03:50):
is almost like a public transportation like lift an uber,
but it's not where they go all over. They basically
have routes set up, usually within a block or two
of your home, and you can call them up look
on your app and you can see that vehicle.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Oh wow, they're ten minutes from my home.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
And what we're doing is we found out instead of
to our weights, people are having ten minute weights and
now we've increased ridership from almost to like thirty thousand
a month.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
We I mean, we were in our.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Market like you let's say you have New York, Chicago, Atlanta,
Detroit where they have or even Cleveland where they have
these transportation systems for the big urban areas, but in
the mid size communities like ours. You know, we have
a Laria Lorraine and those are the two communities we
experimented with and it's a pilot program. We we just
(04:41):
couldn't get the support of the county to get the
funding to have a very successful fixed route system. So
right now, what you're looking at is when the mayor
of Lorraine went to Washington, c and they did a
transportation discussion, he raised his hand and he said, we're
doing it in Loraine County.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And what's beautif.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
About having Like I'll go back to the politics, is
you know we have three business guys that are running
the county commissioner's office. You know in each county you
have three commissioners and their job is more of the
budget authority. Well, the two largest cities here are Democrat mayors.
But guess what, we all have the same goal what's
best for our community. And that's why we all get along.
(05:22):
Because once you're in office, you put you you are
a public servant to all. And so I think when
everybody's on the same page about providing I would say services.
And we're all three business owners, which is our goal
is customer service. That's how we approach government. Our goal
is to provide a fiscal budget, make sure everybody, all
(05:46):
the elected officials, because we're in charge of their money,
make sure they're spending up properly. But then how do
we provide a better service to those in need? That
really need it, and I'm really proud of VIA and
that's something I think that you're going to hear a
lot more on a national basis that we kind of
piloted here in Lorraine County.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
So I'm very proud of that.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
And by doing so, by connecting our two largest cities,
the other communities are looking to participate, and we're asking
them to participate financially. If you really believe that this
is something that's good for your community, how much can
you participate? Because I'm all about partnerships, And by doing that,
it gets buying from everybody financially, because it's like anything else.
(06:29):
We got everybody addicted to the service. Now we have
to pay for it. And with the grant that we
got from NOWAKA, which is federal dollars for the pilot program,
I see a success that we can continually use our
grant funds from ODOP and from other federal agencies as
the poster child of how you can make a mid
(06:50):
size communities like ours successful with public transportation, which segues
into all this other stuff we have going on in
our county.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
We have brought in the.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Cabella's National team championship for Walleye Fishing Us downtown Lorraine.
That was last year and that was a huge, huge success.
So we're now working to see can we get you
here on an annual basis. They were so happy with
the services that we had to provide here. Our community
came together and started to actually volunteered to feed over
seven hundred fishermen. Now it was providing food, providing just
(07:26):
so much that we just rolled out the red carpet
and so by.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Doing that, other things are happening.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
We have other organizations like the we have an air
show that's coming. We've had air shows in the past,
but we can't compete with the money that Cleveland has,
but we're gonna have a mid size one in which
we can have. We had I think last year close
to I think maybe seven or eight thousand people show
up because we co mingled a car show and an
air show with live bands and so the more and
(07:54):
this all and that money is being is being used
from a bed tax that taxes used to promote Lorraine County,
and so we're using that money to market ourselves. I know,
I irritate a lot of people in Cleveland because we
did this whole thing with the eclipse last year. Well,
you got to stir the pot in marketing and get recognized.
So we had this billboard out says, you know, this
(08:15):
is where you're going to see one hundred percent of
that total eclipse. Well, actually, you know, we got tons
of press on TV in Cleveland because they were all
talking about Lorraine County being the center of totality.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Well, that's what we're promoting, the center of totality.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
But somehow calls us sir, and that's about That's what
marketing is all about, is getting people to talk about issues,
to talk about the positives and the negatives. But you
get people in conversations and it really puts us on
the front page to say here's where we're at. That's
a great place to live, eat and play.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, the weather's getting warmer, Commissioner more, the weather's getting warmer,
and you know, I'm looking forward to a trip to
the North coast this summer. With your your interesting perspective,
having been able to see the then and the now
and through a business lens, what would you say have
(09:08):
been the most significant economic growth and development highlights of
Lorraine County within the last time ten years.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Well, I would be kind of hard to say ten
years now, the city of Lorraine, they spend a lot
of money on their downtown, promoting the waterfront. In the meantime,
they came up with this outdoor concert series and that
has probably been the most successful activity. That's bringing in
probably averaging six to ten thousand people on a Friday
or Saturday night. So it's a great outdoor event and
(09:41):
we bring in people from within about an hour an
hour and a half around us, if you know, just
for a day in a restaurants. We know, and we
have the technology today to know based on cell phones
and I forget the name of it, where they gather
your data when you're in the area. It's big Brother watching, right,
and they know where you're eating, know where's restaurants are busy.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
We actually had downtown Lorraine.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
The restaurants there ran out of food, so they started
calling saying, hey, let us know what these concerts are
going on.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So what we're doing now is we've partnered with.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Them as a county help them extend that out instead
of summer, to extend out even longer, to promote other
activities like boat shows and things.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Such as that.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Now economically, though, what we see happening because we have
a lot of land. We have Lake Erie, we have
the water, and we have sewers that go all the
way down to our airport. We are now we now
have one of the largest megasites in the Midwest. We
have about twelve hundred acres under our control. In order
to bring in companies like chip companies and all that
(10:43):
stuff that we started working on that three years ago.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Well, now with what's going on on a national.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
Basis, whatever the words you want to call it, with
the terrif fights and everything else going on, the bottom
line is we've already laid that foundation to say we're here,
we're business friendly, we want jobs, we have affordable housing,
and we want you to come here. So that's kind
of the biggest thing you see is the downtown entertainment
that's coming. We have a race we have actually like
(11:08):
a midd Ohio racetrack coming along the waterfront. We have
one for golf carts. And these are not just how
we grew up golf carts. These are golf carts that
go sixty to seventy miles an hour. This is where people,
the twelve to fourteen year old kids start to train
for professional racing. I didn't realize this even existed, and
so we have that coming we, like I said, with
(11:29):
the economic development coming that kind of the synergies with
our Lorraine County Community College. Twenty five years ago. I
partnered with the college when I was here on a
new concept. It was called Glide, an incubator for new businesses,
and this new thing come out. This is I know
this is two thousand and one, but it was called
the Internet, okay, and that was starting to develop. Well,
(11:49):
we developed at a community college almost like an education
system for tomorrow's economy. Well, tomorrow's economy is here today.
Because of that, the big ten U of m Michigan,
I mean University Michigan comes here. All the big ten
colleges come to Lorraine County Community College for the training
(12:10):
because we have the technology that the today's workforce wants.
And you can get in fact, in high school. If
you go to high school in Orange County, you have
the ability to get educated in high school graduate with
some of the partnerships with our college, and you can
actually walk out of high school with a fifty five
thousand dollars year job. Which is cool because when I
(12:30):
was in high school in the seventies, it was all
you could go to high school in Flint, Michigan, graduate
and get a great paying job at General Motors. Those
when I graduated in nineteen eighty, those days were gone.
So it's great to see that resurgence in a different
kind of economy, a different kind of manufacturing, and you
can get the same education here in Lorraine County in
(12:52):
high school to get you those good paying jobs. So
I'm really excited about we have so many plates spending.
I call it going on that. I think Lorraine County
is going to be on the cutting edge and more
of a I would say a beacon of hope to
tell people this is how you can do it if
you all put your politics aside and do what's right
(13:14):
for your community.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
If you can do that, I think you can.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Get a lot more done than everybody being worried about politics.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Be worried.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
You should be worried about customer service. What can we
provide for those that need it? And how do we
open the doors for others to come in here? Because
the more jobs you get, the more people are working,
and the more houses will be built. I mean, it's
just a dominal effect of positive energy that's here right now.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Did I answer the question because sometimes.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Sir, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Well,
this was very informative, and Commissioner More, we just want
you to come back and you shared some great information
with our audience. And I'll tell you one thing. It
really lifts up, sheds a light on the Lorraine County
and just the neighboring all of the cities and so
(14:00):
forthunate that are in Lorraine County. And I'll tell you
it's a it's it really makes people want to look
at Lorraine County as a place to live and business, visit.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Come out and visit.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
You know, we got a lot going on this summer,
a lot of fun, a lot of activities, and I'm
really excited it's going to be an interesting two years.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Again, thank you, Commissioner More.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
For being thank you both. Thank you both.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Correct, but you are the president of the county, Commissioner.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
No, no, it's it's it's uh. You have a president,
vice president, a member. It's just three of us. It's
all have equal votes. It doesn't.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, So keep up the good work that you're doing. Again,
thank you, and Bishop Coach again, thank you.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Thank you Bishop, thank you Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I have Walleye on my mind.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
While eye Campitalill, come on up.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
All right, we're gonna do some fishing there this summer.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
That's okay, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
All right again, thank you to our audience. And let's
remember to keep fighting a good fight. And let's do
all that we can to make our communities better and
keep our state better our communities, and of course keep
America first.