When we were driving from Englewood to Indianapolis on I70 this past weekend to go to the NSCAA, we passed under a big sign at the state border that welcomed us to Ohio (I know, we were leaving, but that isn’t the point). On the sign, it has our red-white-blue Ohio logo, our state slogan and the name of the Governor and Lt. Governor. In November, we elected a new Governor, who was inaugurated the first week of January.
The sign had a small sign over the old Governor’s name and had the new Governor’s name printed on it. I counted 56 days between the election and the inauguration, which I think is probably enough time to order new signs. But, apparently not because there were these pieces of duct tape on the signs with the new folks printed on it.
All of this says one or more of the following:
- We didn’t plan in advance for a change in leadership
- We didn’t care enough to make new signs
- We didn’t want to spend the money on a new sign to change just one part of it.
- Hey, the new guy is going to be out of office in four years anyway and we’ll just have to make a new sign.
- Some other facet of bureaucracy that makes no sense.
Regardless of the reason, the message delivered to every motorist passing under those signs — subconsciously or otherwise — is Welcome to Ohio, the Duct Tape State.
Our advice: Don’t create systems that you can’t maintain properly. And when you make a system and want to keep it, don’t try to manage changes on the cheap. It will just look like you put a piece of duct tape on your event.
If you are living in Ohio, or even just care about this issue, and want to write Gov. Ted Strickland, his address is: Governor’s Office, Riffe Center, 77 South High Street, Columbus, OH 43215. (I couldn’t find an email address on the contact page of www.ohio.gov, which is a blog entry for another day.) If you just want your name added to the letter TourneyCentral will write, just offer feedback.