LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

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  • How we will report the 2022 November 8 Mid-Term Election results

    How we will report the 2022 November 8 Mid-Term Election results

    Loveland, Ohio – On the night of the 2022 November 8 Mid-Term Election, Loveland Magazine will begin tabulating the local results we feel are of most interest to our Loveland Area readers.

    As usual, we will probably be at the calculator and election board websites late into the night, and into the early morning if results come in slowly.

    When readers awake on Wednesday morning we want to give you as complete a picture of the results as possible in an easy-to-read format.

    Below is our preliminary spreadsheet of how our report will look.

    If you see corrections that need to be made or races or issues we have left out, please do let us know. You can send your comments to editor@lovelandmagazine.com.

    NOTE: We will publish our results as soon as the three counties Loveland is in, Clermont, Hamilton, and Warren report their “Unofficial” counts and when 100% of precinct votes have been tabulated by each county BOE.

    2022-Loveland-Area-Mid-term-Election-Results-Full-PageDownload
  • Daylight Savings Time ends Sunday

    Daylight Savings Time ends Sunday


    On Sunday, November 6, at 2 AM clocks are turned backward 1 hour to
    Sunday, 1 AM and local standard time.

    Sunrise and sunset will be about 1 hour earlier on Nov 6 than the day before. There will be more light in the morning.

    Also called Fall Back and Winter Time.

  • J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan make final appeal to voters from townhall stage

    J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan make final appeal to voters from townhall stage

    J.D. Vance answering questions on stage at a FOX townhall in Columbus. (photo by Nick Evans)

    BY: NICK EVANS – Ohio Capital Journal

    In a Fox News townhall one week from election day, Ohio’s U.S. Senate candidates tackled questions from the audience and moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum about energy, the border, abortion, the Paul Pelosi attack, and more.

    The event takes the place of the third debate both campaigns have said they wanted but couldn’t ever agree to schedule. The nominees staked out a bit of new ground and clarified some existing positions. But in general, the forum offered a chance for Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan to make one final broad appeal to voters.

    Tim Ryan

    The townhall format gave each candidate roughly equal time on stage and Ryan got the first crack. The first question came from a Deerfield woman in the audience named Beverley. She pressed Ryan asking him to “look me in the face” and explain how clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce inflation.

    In a blunt show of honesty, he told her he couldn’t.

    Ryan argued as he has previously, for addressing short term inflation through a tax cut. But he went on to defend the broader legislation, too. He argued those subsidies are helping encourage private investment in vehicle, battery and solar manufacturing around the state.

    “I want Ohio to be the manufacturing powerhouse of the world,” Ryan argued. “If it’s not us, it’s China. So we have to go all in on these products of the future. But where I think I’m different as a Democrat, I think we go all in on natural gas.”

    Most notably, though, Ryan broke with the state party and offered his support for Issue 1. The measure demands judges consider public safety when setting the dollar amount for bail. They can already consider public safety for other conditions, but the state supreme court earlier this year ruled it’s unconstitutional to jack up cash bail in an effort to keep defendants in jail. State law already allows prosecutors to argue for holding dangerous defendants without the opportunity for bail.

    Familiar rhetoric from Ryan on avoiding “stupid fights” and restoring Roe v. Wade got strong responses. Sparring with the moderators on the latter, Ryan refused to place a hard cut off on performing the procedure when a mother’s life is in danger. Ignoring the state’s six-week abortion ban currently on hold, Martha MacCallum pressed him on why the 22 weeks Ohio women currently have isn’t enough. (Ohio’s six-week abortion ban is temporarily on hold by a Hamilton County judge while a lawsuit against it proceeds.)

    “If there’s a medical problem, you don’t know that until the end,” Ryan argued back. “And here, the point is, this is America. This is a country built on freedom, right? And this is the largest governmental overreach into the private lives of individual citizens in the history of our lifetime.”

    “I thought my friends on the other side were, like, against big government, against invasion into the private lives of people,” he added.

    In addition to his lines on bipartisanship and abortion, Ryan got a good response to the idea of legalizing marijuana. He didn’t get as far with his argument that investing in border security is necessary, but a wall isn’t always practical and is often too easily circumvented.

    Ryan’s biggest negative reaction came to questions about the Jan. 6 insurrection. He acknowledged that his past comments about needing to “confront” and “kill” the MAGA movement were poorly phrased.

    “Kill the movement,” Ryan clarified to Baier. “And maybe that wasn’t a great choice of words. Absolutely confront and absolutely stop the extremist movement happening.”

    But a moment later Ryan faced a chorus of jeers when he described 140 Capitol Police officers getting injured during the insurrection and one of them getting killed.

    “We’ve all seen the tape,” Ryan said.

    J.D. Vance

    Vance took the stage next. And from the boisterous applause as he walked out to the lighter cross examination from the moderators, it’s pretty safe to say he got the friendlier draw.

    To blunt Ryan’s attacks that Vance is an “extremist,” he opened with a couple of olive branches. He offered that Democrats were right to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices.

    “We absolutely have to work together,” Vance said of governing with a Democratic president. “That’s one of the things Tim talks a lot about, working together. But when Republicans win the majority as I think we do, we have to act like we have the majority, we have to do things not just talk about doing things.”

    Vance argued “opening the pipelines and opening up our energy industry” would bring prices down “pretty immediately.” Energy experts meanwhile contend increasing domestic production would have a limited impact when the price of commodities like oil are determined by a global market.

    In terms of immigration, a top issue for Vance, he got a strong response from saying he’d back Arkansas Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton’s RAISE Act. He explained that measure would prioritize immigrants based on skills rather than familial connections.

    “I think the immigration policy in the United States should be about what skills and what attributes do you bring to the table,” he said.

    “You let people into your country based on merit, not on who they know,” he added.

    Vance once again expressed confidence in the integrity of upcoming election and even said he’d support “the guy who wins” even though they’ll disagree on big issues.

    He explicitly condemned the attack of Nancy Pelosi’s husband as “disgusting” after Ryan suggested he’d been silent on it. Vance pushed back that he’d condemned it from the outset and that “the effort to turn this into a political issue is actually a real problem here.” In the next breath he went on to argue the attacker is an illegal alien.

    “My view very simply is that we need to deport violent illegal aliens, ok?” he said.

    He argued the attack — by a man claiming Nancy Pelosi is the “leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party”— is not reflective of Republicans. It’s reflective of people living in the country illegally.

    Asked directly whether he ban abortion in Ohio and nationally, Vance said, “Look, I’m pro-life, I am pro-life.”

    He went to argue 90% of abortion policy should be set at the state level. But he explained his support for a “minimum national standard” that would ensure we’re not “aborting babies who can feel pain who are fully formed.”

    Vance has expressed support for South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham’s 15 week federal abortion ban. Describing the provision as a minimum standard though is misleading. It would limit any state from allowing abortion after 15 weeks, but states would be allowed to set more stringent restrictions.

    Vance’s claims that a fetus is “fully formed” or can “feel pain” are similarly dubious. Fetal viability is generally considered to be about 23 or 24 weeks. An American Medical Association policy brief contends “the preponderance of evidence” shows even a 20-week fetus is unable to feel pain, and cites a study putting that benchmark closer to 29 or 30 weeks.

    Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.

  • Doctors call on DeWine to answer questions about abortion laws

    Doctors call on DeWine to answer questions about abortion laws

    BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Days after Gov. Mike DeWine said the medical community will be consulted as Ohio considers future abortion legislation, a group of more than 1,400 doctors implored him to answer questions about a law he’s already signed.

    The Ohio medical community has said that to date, DeWine and Republican lawmakers have shown little interest in what doctors have to say when it comes to abortion. Then, late last week, DeWine seemed to reinforce that impression, declining to respond to a list of nine questions that Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights sent him and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Nan Whaley.

    The group was formed in the wake of the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court Decision overturning the right to an abortion under Roe v Wade. In Ohio and nationally, medical groups said that decision ignores the health care aspects of abortion.

    DeWine’s non-response is unacceptable, said Lauren Beene, a Cleveland-area pediatrician and a director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights.

    “These are very important questions that people need to know his stance on because … this can have a lot of implications on a person’s health and their ability to get medical care,” she said, explaining that Ohio’s abortion restrictions can discourage doctors from living here — or even women worried about having the full range of medical options. 

    “If you have somebody who’s running for governor who can’t or won’t answer the question of whether or not he supports a bill that would make all abortion illegal except in the most dire of circumstances,” Beene said, “from a medical perspective (that) doesn’t really make any sense. What does that even mean? It’s not good at all.”

    She was referring to proposed legislation that would go even further than Senate Bill 23, a law DeWine signed in 2019 and which took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24. 

    SB 23 outlaws almost all abortions after about five or six weeks of pregnancy and it doesn’t make exceptions for victims of rape and incest. It makes some exceptions to protect the life and health of mothers, but doctors have complained that they’re vague and practitioners are reluctant to risk felony charges for running afoul of them.

    Several doctors interviewed by the Capital Journal have said they repeatedly tried to warn DeWine and the legislature of the hazards of SB 23 before it was passed and signed in 2019, but they were ignored. Then, shortly after enforcement began in the summertime, many of the things they warned of came to pass.

    Just a week into enforcement, an Indianapolis doctor reported that she aborted the pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape victim from Columbus who couldn’t get one under the Ohio law DeWine had signed. In the following weeks, Ohio doctors told of having to call lawyers first as patients’ lives were fading in front of them — and even then being terrified of the consequences while performing lifesaving terminations.

    Then, in sworn affidavits, doctors and other workers at Ohio abortion clinics reported other horrors under SB 23. They included two more rape victims under 18 who couldn’t get abortions in Ohio; two cancer patients who couldn’t get the abortions they needed to start chemotherapy; and three women whose fetuses had severe abnormalities or other conditions that made a successful pregnancy impossible. Even so, they, too, couldn’t get abortions in Ohio. 

    SB 23 was in force for 11 weeks before a Cincinnati judge temporarily paused it. 

    Now DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost are in court trying to get the stay lifted. But through it all, DeWine has refused to say whether he thinks it’s a good thing that SB 23 makes women and girls have their rapists’ babies — nor has he said much about women facing the medical problems described in the abortion clinics’ affidavits.

    DeWine has refused to debate Whaley, but last week in a joint appearance with her before the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board, he gave his most extensive recent comments about abortion in Ohio.

    DeWine said policymakers will listen to the medical community as further abortion restrictions are considered. However, he only did so after seeming to repeat Yost’s false assertion that under SB 23, a 10-year-old can get an abortion based on her age alone. 

    The law mentions no age at which a rape victim is too young to be forced to have that baby. And several obstetricians told the Capital Journal that while pregnancy in a 10-year-old is riskier than the average pregnancy, that’s also the case for the obese, diabetics, older mothers — and women with a host of other conditions that SB 23 makes no exceptions for.

    But in the future, DeWine said, medical experts will be heard.

    “As we go through debates and discussions, my belief would be that that 10-year-old would have been able to have an abortion in Ohio because of that,” DeWine told Whaley and the editorial board, referring apparently to SB 23’s health exceptions. “If I’m wrong — if I was wrong — and we’re going to hear more from medical professionals, then these are the things that we’ll need to work out, that the legislature will work out as it debates this bill.”

    Despite being asked twice by Whaley, DeWine didn’t answer whether he agreed with the provision in SB 23 forcing such young girls to have their rapist’s babies. DeWine also hasn’t said whether he agrees with the law’s requirement that victims of rape and incest must carry their pregnancies to term regardless of their age.

    In their written questions, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights asked the governor to state his position on proposals that would go even further, including House Bill 704 “that would declare a fertilized egg, a single cell, to be legally the same as a human being.” 

    DeWine didn’t respond. When asked about the doctors’ questions, DeWine Press Secretary Dan Tierney on Tuesday said in an email, “The Governor has no additional comments beyond his previous statements at this time.”

    For Beene, one of the directors of the doctors’ group, DeWine’s silence is telling.

    “We have doctors in all specialties all across the state,” she said. “And if we have questions and he won’t answer them, what does that say to the public? For us as physicians, we’re very frustrated with him not wanting to answer.”  

    Follow Marty Schladen on Twitter.

  • Marcia Neumann: Reason to vote no on school operating levy

    Marcia Neumann: Reason to vote no on school operating levy

    by Marcia Neumann

    Marcia Neumann resides within the school district and the City of Loveland limits in Hamilton County.

    2022-Loveland-Magazine-Levy-LetterDownload
  • [Video] The Works Pizza slices ribbon under new ownership

    [Video] The Works Pizza slices ribbon under new ownership

    Loveland, Ohio – Last Friday the Little Miami River Chamber Alliance and the Clermont County Chamber of Commerce celebrated with a ribbon-cutting for Lance Sizemore, the new owner of The Works Brick Oven Pizza in Loveland’s Historic District. The restaurant is best known for its brick wood-fired pizza oven, the historic building it is located in, and a Pullman Passenger Train Car. The restaurant was founded by Scott and Jamie Gordon almost 19-years-ago.

    Scott and Jamie both grew up in Loveland and of course, always held Loveland close to their hearts as they both attended school in Loveland as well. The Gordon’s first came across The Works Pizza building in high school while working on building their “Class Float,” but never imagined that they would eventually be opening a very successful restaurant within the same building. The Gordon’s will remain owners of the building.

    What is now The Works Pizza was built in 1905 and was used as a water-filling station for steam locomotives. Years later the building was home to both the Fire Station and Public Works.

    The Works Pizza is home to the Chime Bells that you can hear ring beautifully throughout Loveland, and “The Crusader,” a 1921 Pullman Passenger Train Car that Scott Gordon managed to find in Gettysburg, PA. The Crusader has since been remodeled so that it could seat up to 36 people, as the car can be rented out for events and parties.

    Pizza, Beer, and History…The Works Pizza has it all! – Scott Gordon in 2021.

    Cassie interviews Works Pizza owner Scott Gordon about his business
  • Heating Assistance Available

    Heating Assistance Available

    Clermont County, Ohio – The Ohio Department of Development and Clermont Senior Services want to remind senior citizens in Ohio that assistance is available to help with their home energy bills. The Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) helps Ohioans at or below 175 percent of the federal poverty guidelines pay their heating bills.

    Applied directly to the customer’s utility or bulk fuel bill, the benefit can help manage heating costs. Senior citizens may go to their local Area Agency on Aging office for help with assembling the required documents and completing their HEAP application.

    Senior citizens may also visit www.energyhelp.ohio.gov to apply online or to download a copy of the application.

    When applying, individuals need to have copies of the following documents:
    • Most recent utility bills
    • A list of all household members (including birth dates and Social Security numbers)
    • Proof of income for the past 30 days for all household members (12 months for certain income types)
    • Proof of U.S. citizenship or legal residency for all household members
    • Proof of disability (if applicable)

    HEAP benefits are applied to an individual’s energy bill after January 1st. Applications for the HEAP program must be received by May 31, 2023.

    For more information or assistance with applying for a HEAP benefit, contact Clermont Senior Services at 513-724-1255

    To be connected to your local Energy Assistance provider, call (800) 282-0880 (hearing impaired clients may dial 711 for assistance) or visit www.energyhelp.ohio.gov.

  • Ohio, other states sitting on huge piles of money, new report says

    Ohio, other states sitting on huge piles of money, new report says

    BY: MARTY SCHLADEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    Ohio has enough in its rainy day fund to operate the state government for 35 days on that money and nothing else. If you factor in the money it has in other unexpended balances, the number of days grows to 73, according to a report released last week by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

    It’s part of a trend in which states are sitting on reserves that are at or near record levels after states got unprecedented federal assistance during the coronavirus pandemic while their revenue collections didn’t drop off as much as they feared. In 21 states — including Ohio — collections even exceeded pre-pandemic growth.

    Governments aren’t banks and their basic role isn’t to sit on huge reserves of taxpayer money. But today’s big reserves might come in handy in the not-too-distant future. Government data released Thursday said that gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 2.6% in the second quarter, but experts warned that other signs of a coming recession loom.

    As anyone who watched government finance during the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 knows, in such circumstances tax collections can plummet, leaving state and local governments to face excruciating choices for years.

    “States use reserves and balances to manage budgetary uncertainty, including revenue forecasting errors, budget gaps during economic downturns, and other unforeseen emergencies, such as natural disasters,” the Pew report said. “This financial cushion can soften the need for spending cuts or tax increases when states need to balance their budgets.”

    In addition, large cash reserves can give states and local governments better credit ratings, allowing them to float bonds and otherwise borrow at better rates. 

    “For example, Fitch Ratings upgraded Michigan’s credit rating in July 2022, citing the state’s buildup of reserve levels as part of its rationale,” the report said.

    However, the amounts states are sitting on can be eye-popping. For purposes of comparison, Pew expresses them in terms of the number of days states can operate solely on their reserves. Those amounts range from 350 days for Wyoming to 12 for Illinois.

    At 71 days, Ohio comes in a little below the 50-state median of 89 days.

    In dollar amounts, Ohio is estimated to have $5.5 billion in reserves for 2022. That’s far in excess of any year since at least 2000 except for last year, when reserves totaled $7.4 billion, according to the Pew report.

    And those amounts don’t count unexpended federal coronavirus dollars to the states. This summer, Governing Magazine reported that at the end of 2021, states had spent just 27% of those funds. 

    In August, Cleveland.com reported that Ohio had spent nearly two-thirds of its $5.4 billion in American Rescue Plan funds, primarily repaying an unemployment loan, on law enforcement and sewer grants, and on incentives for the Intel chip plant.

    Meanwhile, other pressing needs only partially have been met. 

    Ohio’s foodbanks say they’re desperate for supplies and infrastructure. In May they requested $50 million in emergency funding and have made an overall request of more than $100 million to also upgrade their infrastructure.

    So far all they’ve gotten from the state is $15 million in coronavirus funds that Gov. Mike DeWine announced earlier this month.

    Follow Marty Schladen on Twitter.

  • Moving Halloween to Saturdays

    Moving Halloween to Saturdays

    by David Miller

    Let’s return ‘All Hallows’ Eve to the Church where it belongs and has meaning, “witch” is not about candy, costumes, and ghouls. It’s religious to honor the “saints” who have gone to heaven, not hell.

    The religious holiday has always belonged to them anyway.

    The secular Halloween is a 2000-year-old pagan festival that celebrated Summer’s end by believing the dead could walk among us.

    We 2022 pagans and heathens celebrate Halloween by walking like the dead or otherwise scaring little innocent children ghoulishly and then ease our guilt by rewarding them with sugary or chocolatey treats. And, it works because we in turn allow our children to enter a fantasy world of costume play by going house to house begging to be scared and being rewarded for it.

    All Hallows’ Eve, the religious event, is always on October 31, and November 1 is All Saints Day.

    Halloween (Trick or Treat) is “officially” declared by local governments between certain hours each year on October 31, and six out of seven years the day is either on a work or school day or when the next morning is either a work or school day. They choose dangerous dark hours when children should not be walking the streets in hard-to-see costumes many of “witch” are hard to see out of.

    Celebrating Halloween on the last Saturday of October would allow the traditional parades through subdivisions. And, let children and pets “trick or treat” in other neighborhoods, begging between the hours of 4-6 PM. It would allow the backyard unveiling of the bucket contents around a bonfire complete with hotdogs and smores.

    Then when the children pass out from exhaustion and their sugar highs, the adults can continue partying late into the night acquiring the hangover every pagan will have in the morning. The difference is that the next day is not a school or a work day. The non-heathens will still be in good shape to attend church in the morning.

    Saturday Halloweens would allow trick-or-treating to begin in the daylight hours, eliminating the need for costume safety alterations and flashlights.

    It eliminates the stress of hastily heading home from school and work preparing or buying dinner, doing homework, and preparing school lunches. Who needs cranky children and their parents?

    Gets children off the street before most drivers begin drinking.

    A developmental disability friendlier day.

    You can throw more elaborate neighborhood parties.

    Halloween deserves its own full-blown witching day brewed with more family fun.

    An interesting fact is that Halloween began in this country when folks went door to door asking for prayers. Let’s make this year the day we go door to door praying that “Halloween Saturday” becomes a new tradition by urging our local governments to wake up from the dead. And since Election Day follows so soon, treat them with a “NO” vote if they don’t agree.

  • “Sensory Friendly Halloween Costume Tips & Tricks”

    “Sensory Friendly Halloween Costume Tips & Tricks”

    From Cassie Mattia and the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities…

    With Trick-or-Treat right around the corner we thought it would be the perfect time to release a “Sensory Friendly Halloween Costume Tips & Tricks” Guide so that your child or loved one can enjoy the big night comfortably! Trick-or-Treating can be full of sensory triggers so making sure you take the time to prepare in advance with your child or loved one will ensure a night full of Halloween fun!

    We included where you can find sensory and adaptive friendly costumes too! All you have to do is go to the businesses’ websites that we included and in the search engine type in “adaptive costumes!”