The agreement would allow farmers to phase out some controversial livestock practices over time. It would also mandate the elimination of cock-fighting, crackdown on puppy mills and make it harder for Ohioans to import exotic animals. Wayne Pacelli of the United States Humane Society calls this agreement historic.

“I can’t think of a bigger legislative package in any state in the country in one fell swoop.” Says Pacelli.

Governor Strickland has been a backer of efforts by agriculture groups to stave off reforms from humane organizations. He says he’s also happy with this agreement.

“What we have concluded is something that is good for Ohio agriculture and will be good for animal welfare in our state.” Says Strickland.

Pacelli says his group had enough signatures to put the issue before voters this fall. And he says if the state and ag leaders don’t hold up to their end of the bargain and accomplish the goals by the end of this year those signatures could still be submitted to put the issue before voters.

Jo Ingles Ohio Public Radio

The creation of a 13-member board is supported by large farming interests including the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. They worry that if such a board is not established, animal rights groups – including the Humane Society of the United States – would force passage of regulations mandating more restrictive animal confinement standards. Those kinds of standards have already been implemented in a handful of other states. At a Columbus Metropolitan Club forum, farmer Brian Watkins defended Issue 2.

“The leading groups whose basic agenda is animal rights and animal advocacy came to Ohio and said ‘We’re going to do this in Ohio, too. We’re going to try to fundamentally change the way you do what you do.’ Issue 2 is our response.”

But some small farmers believe an Ohio Livestock Standards Board would amount to unwanted government intrusion. Farmer Joe Logan represented the Ohio Farmers Union at the debate.

“Why are we changing our constitution? There are a lot of reasonable people that believe that the constitution gives a broad philosophical base for our architecture of laws and rules and we should keep it safe for issues that deal broadly with the rights of the people of the state of Ohio and not for issues that narrow-in on narrow interests of a segment.”

Logan says the issue should be dealt with by the legislature, not by amending the constitution.

You’d think with Lojack, On-star and global positioning satellites, car thievery would be a dying industry. But experts say its not.

Thieves are out there ready to steal your car and disassemble it for parts.

It took less than 15 minutes for a “gang” of mechanics to strip the tires, the hood, the pick-up bed, doors, and grill from a 1984 Chevy truck. The mechanics were with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which represents more than a thousand car insurance companies.

The bureau’s Tom Zimmer says the older model Chevy is attractive to thieves because it has no computer or antitheft devices. And because parts for older cars and trucks are harder to come by and therefore more valuable.

“The sheet metal and wheels in total value are going to exceed the value of the whole vehicle,” Zimmer says. “The thief or the guy running the warehouse does not want to get caught with the total vehicle because it’s going to be identifiable and it’s going to be an arrest. He gets caught with the sheet metal, prove where it came from. It’s very very difficult.”

Nationally, 66 percent of stolen cars and trucks are recovered. But not before half of them have been stripped to varying degrees. Bureau CEO Joe Wehrle.

“When you can turn 100 percent profit there’s probably some incentive there,” Wehrle says. “And what we’re trying to demonstrate here is that they take them into garages somewhere and take them apart.”

The Insurance Bureau says the demonstration aimed to keep people on the lookout for chop shops.

The FBI says about 6,200 cars were stolen in Columbus last year.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau says the three most stolen cars in Ohio in 2006 were the ’93 Oldsmobile Cutlass, the ’94 Dodge Caravan and the ’93 Buick Century.

Secretary Connor spent most of his time explaining to Farm Bureau members why the new farm bill has been bottled up in the Senate. But later he told reporters that high food inflation – up from the usual 2 1/2 percent to around 4 1/2 percent this year – has more to do with the cost of packaging and shipping things which are tied to high crude oil prices.

“We’ve acknowledged that some of that 4 1/2 percent is the result of ethanol production in this country,” Connor says. “But we’ve also been quick to point out that it’s been grossly overstated in terms of its impact. Only about 20, 19 percent of our actual consumer food dollar goes to the producer themselves. And so when producers are seeing a higher price, understand that the fast majority of that price really isn’t relating to anything at the retail level.”

Since last year there’s been a dramatic drop in the profit margin for a gallon of ethanol. Plans for some refineries have been left on the drawing board. But Brent Porteus, a Coshocton County corn and livestock farmer and a Farm Bureau vice president says price fluctuations should be expected on the open market.

“It’s a big picture thing but we’re in a market situation now where we have significantly ramped up production and the price of corn is coming down as the market adjusts,” Porteus says. “You know the market will make all these things work over time it’s just as in any market you have to have these short term opportunities where prices need to move in one direction or another to bring the thing back into balance.”

Agriculture Secretary Connor says he still sees a lot of what he calls “upside potential” for ethanol, especially since a federal mandate for a 10 percent ethanol blend has not been reached.

“I continue to see strong potential for demand out there, says Sec. Connor. “We use about 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year in this country. We have a ten percent blend mandate associated with that. We’re still way short so I see tremendous demand potential just to get to that blend phase.”

Beyond the 10 percent blend, Detroit is producing more and more flexible fuel cars that run on 85 percent ethanol 15 percent gasoline, which should further solidify ethanol’s place in the Biofuels market.

City officials acknowledged that there were communications problems between the Fire Prevention Bureau and the Building Services Division – the city agencies that inspect construction projects. But an attorney hired by the city for a year-long review said she found very few instances where inspections by the fire prevention bureau were not performed.

“Of the 30 missed inspections, we found that five were done exactly as they were supposed to be done, and with 25 of them, there were some miscommunication issues that caused it either to be a “miss” or to appear as if it were a “miss.”

Public Safety Director Mitchell Brown says the city is working to improve communications between the two city departments. The payment of overtime to bureau inspectors had also been called into question. But Brown said the Columbus police had earlier found no criminal wrong-doing. It was instead, he said, a lack of clearly understood procedure.

“It’s important to note that we’ve had an evaluation whether or not there was any criminal wrongdoing. And we found there was none. Once we take a look at this report that Ms. Krivda has provided for us, we’ll review it. If there was any administrative wrongdoing we’ll deal with that.”

Independent investigator Pamela Krivda says she found no evidence of gender or race discrimination as alleged by the bureau’s battalion chief Yolanda Arnold. But Mitchell Brown acknowledged there were management difficulties within the Fire Prevention Bureau, partly due, he said, to to poor interpersonal communications.