The Hollywood Casino in Toledo will open in just over a week, but developers will be giving the media a preview of the $320 million casino on Monday.

The casino in Toledo is located just south of the city’s downtown and will be in direct competition with three casinos just an hour’s drive to the north in Detroit.

Hollywood Casino Toledo will feature 2,000 slot machines along with a grand buffet and a steakhouse overlooking the Maumee River.

Toledo officials project the casino will bring in about $3 million in tax revenue to the city this year.

Ohio’s first casino opened a week ago in downtown Cleveland and has drawn big crowds.

Dinin’ Hall is a mobile truck food hub in Franklinton. Food trucks park in a lot next to an old warehouse-turned artist colony on West Rich Street. Diners can get their food and go or they can sit in a part of the building converted into a café.  It’s a little hard to find but little red signs that look like bulls-eyes show the way.

Artists Make Room

Owner and founder Eliza Ho found the spot because her husband , architect Tim Lai has a design studio in the brick building in which toilets and sinks once were manufactured.

Ho, her husband and two children often enjoyed eating at local food trucks but found the experience awkward.

“It’s quite chaotic in terms of the transaction, in terms of waiting and then with two kids around and they run around and you try and keep an eye on them trying to keep them safe. So we feel like there might be something we can do from a designer standpoint to improve the situation.”

Stable Location

The result?  A stable location, with off-street parking and an enclosed eating area.

“We came up with the idea to partner with different food vendors trucks and carts and then we designed the interior space to provide an interior cafe situation. Customers they can still buy their food from the vendors and then they can bring the food inside to enjoy the food and sit down.”

At Dinin’ Hall two food trucks rotate in and out each week. It’s open from 11 am to 2 pm . On this day, Laura Lee owner of a food truck called Ajumama prepares  Korean fare. The 31-year old has a degree in hospitality management from Kent State and a Culinary Arts degree from the Arts Institute of Phoenix. Open for only a couple of weeks, Lee says Dinin’ Hall will help Ajumama to develop a following.

“It allows us to say we’re going to be at this location for this day. You can come down and see us. There’s parking. There’s a place to sit down whether it’s raining or not. I really love the idea of food pods all over Columbus and I really want to be a big supporter of them because it’s good for us.”

While Lee’s truck is a natural outgrowth of her education and culinary interests, a food cart operated by vendor Julie Clark has a very different origin and goal.

Clark is a lawyer and the head of DOMA International an organization designed to help victims of human trafficking. As part of the effort to give the survivors jobs and teach them job skills Clark started ‘freedom ala carte’.

“We do slow roasted meats, a lot of crisp and green veggies. We do as much local as we can. We have a partnership with Local Matters. Some gardening has been happening with the ladies as well. So it’s just been a really fun launch for our food cart this year.”

After placing their order, diners can move inside to the 1300 square foot Dinin’ Hall where the food is brought to them. Poised to launch his own food truck specializing in mini burgers, Brian Thornton ate lunch and checked out the facility.

“I love it. I absolutely love it. I think it’s in a wonderful neighborhood. I think it’ll draw people from downtown and give up a place to set our food trucks up.”

Competition For Brick and Mortar Restaurants

At Dinin’ Hall, food truck operators pay a negotiable fee and percentage of their sales to Eliza Ho. While the food trucks could steal some customers from nearby brick and mortar restaurants with higher operating costs, Franklinton restaurant owners appear to welcome the competition.

Michael Pappas, owns Tommy’s Diner on West Broad Street.

“This area needs more everything. Not just restaurants but anything to get more attraction to this part of the city to get more people to come to this part of the city, I’m all for.”

But Florintine Restaurant manager Peter Penzone remains somewhat skeptical that Dinin’ Hall will start the ball rolling on Franklinton redevelopment.

“Yes and no. It’s trickling in. But I’ve been hearing those things for years.”

A second food truck hub recently opened in the parking lot of the Zauber Brewery Company at 1300 Norton Avenue near Grandview.

Ben Johnson from the state Department of Job and Family Services says the unemployment rate ticked down from 7.5 to 7.4 percent, but the state lost about 3,400 jobs.

“One is a payroll survey of businesses; it showed fewer people on the payroll. One is a household survey where people are called at home; it actually showed more people working. Sometimes the surveys don’t return the same result.”

The jobs report says trade,transportation, and utilities employers shed about 4,700 jobs in April. Other sectors losing jobs included leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, and financial activities.

Governments added about 2,900 jobs in April, while professional and business added 1,900 and education and health services increased by about 1,500 jobs.

Republican State Treasurer and U.S. Senate Candidate Josh Mandel lambasted Democratic Senator U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown for that ad, saying Ohioans are sick of the negative tone.

“I was at a transmission shop yesterday in Muskingum County,” Mandel says, “and this guy comes up to me, was working on one of the trucks in this transmission shop, and he says ‘hey, I’ve been watching these ads on t.v.’ And I said ‘What do you think?’ And he said ‘I see that you are running all positive ads. You have blue collar roots. And I see this other guy is running all negative ads. Why is that?’ And I said ‘His only path to victory is to tear me down.’

But there are plenty of anti-Brown on television sets around the state.

That ad is sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a group that has endorsed Mandel. The chamber doesn’t have to reveal its donors, and Mandel has tried to downplay any association with the chamber or any other group running negative ads.

“All we can control our own campaign and in what we can control, we are running a positive, upbeat, vibrant campaign and we are talking about my positive vision for the country,” Mandel says.

Sherrod Brown’s campaign insists otherwise.

“Josh Mandel lies a lot,” says campaign spokesman Justin Borasky.

“And when he tries to say his campaign has been 100 percent positive, it’s simply not true. 6 point 5 million dollars in negative attack ads by his friends. And he’s been launching negative, ridiculous attack ads against Sherrod from day one.”

Barasky says an independent fact checking organization, Politifact, has found many of Mandel’s claims to be patently false.

Barasky says Brown won’t have as many outside groups doing messages on his behalf.

“Not nearly as much. Right now the third party spending gap in this race is 6.5 million dollars for Josh Mandel to about 750 thousand dollars on Sherrod Brown’s end. So while there will be some third party spending on each side, it far outweighs anything that will be on our end.”

But it’s hard to know how much money will be spent on behalf of either of the candidates. By law, candidates are not allowed to be part of those third party efforts. And large amounts of cash can be injected fairly quickly into any of these outside spending groups …without the public knowing how much is being spent or who is spending it. And the accuracy of third party ads is an issue too. Many of the ads that have been fact checked so far by fact checking organizations have been found to be untrue or only partially true.

U.S. Attorney Carter Stewart filed an embezzlement count against 57-year-old Carl Shye, Jr. in U.S. District Court on Thursday.

Shye was treasurer for former charter, or community, schools in Columbus, Youngstown and Dayton. Under Ohio law, such schools operate independently of any school district but under contract with a sponsoring entity.

State Auditor David Yost said he first spotted a pattern involving Shye from state audits. The auditor’s office issued more than $1 million in 62 findings for recovery against Shye over a decade.

Shye’s arraignment is June 21.

The settlement resolves resolve claims that Skechers overstated weight-loss benefits in advertisements for its so-called rocker-bottom athletic shoes.

Here’s one of those advertisements.

Under the settlement, Skechers will allocate up to $40 million for consumers who purchased the shoes.

Republican state Sen. Bill Seitz cast his yes vote after reciting the lyrics of the 1960s sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies,” saying shale gas drilling will turn poor Ohioans into “modern-day Jed Clampetts.”

Supporters say it balances the environment and commerce by expanding reporting.

Critics say the proposal is meaningless because it would only require annual reporting and would not require companies to disclose what chemicals they use to fracture shale rock to free trapped oil and natural gas.

Click the play button above to hear more reaction from supporters and critics of the proposed rules.

On the one hand, the decision is bad news for Grove City. It closes a longtime attraction, with employees and visitors who support local businesses.   But there is an upside.  The move leaves Grove City with a wealth of opportunities for growth. What should replace the racetrack you ask? Let’s consider at a few options.

How About A Park?

First up: a park.  Not just any park, but a multi-component park complete with paved walking paths, basketball and tennis courts, a dog-park, and playgrounds of swing-sets. Such area would benefit the community as it could be a central recreational zone in an otherwise unwelcoming area of commercial warehouses.

Yet, Grove City already has excellent recreation options such as the Big Splash waterpark  and the flower and herb gardens at Gantz Park.  So a new park might just be redundant.

A Mall?

Second idea: a mall.  Grove City residents now have to  drive to Easton, Tuttle, or Eastland malls for holiday shopping and Sbarro Pizza.  Building a mall on the Beulah Park site to a mall would provide more shopping options to the city’s residents, as well as give individuals in Morrow and Pickaway counties a closer shopping destination.

Yet, a downside to this plan is location. For a mall to succeed, it needs to be really close to a major highway. Beulah Park is a least five to 10 minutes from I-71 and the 270-loop.  Not nearly convenient enough for mall shoppers, or mall developers.
A New Grove City Downtown

A third possibility is to resurrect  the old Lumberyard Project  with its plan to build condominiums, restaurants, and shops in the heart of Grove City.  While the Stringtown Road has become the shopping hub for southern Columbus, development in the Grove City’s older, west-side remains largely stagnant.

Grove City should maximize the potential of its historic downtown area.

It already has several restaurants, a bakery, live theater, as well as a farmers market, a wine festival, and a summer concert series. Adding condos would attract young adults looking for a small town feel with large town job prospects.  And adding a few more  locally-owned restaurants and shops would appeal to people wanting to avoid the Applebees on Stringtown.  We’ve seen similar success with areas such as Westerville and Gahanna; why not also count Grove City in the mix?

These ideas are only the beginning.   Regardless of whether you think a park is useful or condos are over-rated, it is clear that gambling isn’t leaving Grove City; instead, city officials are throwing the dice to see what development program sticks.  And I, for one, am chomping at the bit to see what happens next.

Shares fell sharply this morning on the news that sales at established stores, a key indicator of a retailer’s health, slid five percent in the first quarter of the year. That’s the first time in two years that sales have decreased at existing Abercrombie stores.

Abercrombie reported income of just $3 million in income in the first quarter, compared with $28 million a year earlier.

But maybe most importantly, the quarterly report lowered the sales forecast for the rest of the year.

In a statement, Abercrombie chairman and CEO Mike Jeffries pointed to what he called a challenging market in Europe, and said despite the Wednesday report executives are largely satisfied with first quarter performance.

Discover Financial Services announced it will open the data center in 2013, not far from an operation center it now runs in New Albany, where 1,500 employees now work.

Gov. John Kasich says the competition for the facility was fierce, and he was worried Ohio would lose the project to Arizona or South Carolina.

“Not just that, but we would have lost people, too. We wouldn’t have lost (all Discover jobs, but we would have lost people,” Kasich says.

The state is offering Discover a tax credit worth a little more than $4 million, and the city is offering property and other tax breaks.

The company will lease the building from the city of Columbus and Franklin County.