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Ohio should keep a good thing going

Long after Gov. John Kasich leaves Ohio’s highest elected executive office, we hope a tradition he started in Steubenville in 2012 will continue: The taking of the State of the State Address on the road.

Kasich started this custom in 2012 at Steubenville High School. Last year he gave his State of the State Address from the restored Peoples Bank Theatre right here in Marietta.

This year he’s planning to deliver the message about his final proposed state budget in what most Ohioans consider a happy place: Sandusky, home of Cedar Point amusement park. The community is celebrating its bicentennial this year, making it a good time for some statewide attention.

With the permission of the General Assembly, the speech will take place April 4 at the restored Sandusky State Theater.

The idea is that it gives the leadership from the state capitol an opportunity to come to parts of the state they might not otherwise visit and to give residents of the areas that host the annual speech a chance to see, on their own turf, their state leaders.

Yes, it costs money to take the show on the road.

But we think it’s a concept that works for the state, and, in an era of instantaneous communications, doesn’t harm the governing process one bit. And, the cost of these sessions would not fulfill any major projects in the state budget.

It doesn’t detract from any critiques of the governor’s state budget proposal, which could cut income taxes, hurt vocational school funding and keep the Medicaid expansion intact.

It does, however, make for a chance to hear firsthand to the citizenry what the state’s leaders are thinking.

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