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Welcome to THE FIX

 

Dear clients and friends,

We are excited to welcome you to the relaunch of THE FIX, our bi-monthly newsletter highlighting trends and legal information that impact you and your business.

For new readers, welcome! We hope you find this communication actionable and enjoyable to read. Expect to receive THE FIX twice a month, and when legal news breaks that may impact your business, we’ll be sure to let you know via our FastLaw email alerts.

As always, we want to know what you think. Drop us a line or shoot us a note and let us know how we can continue to help you and your business.

Thank you,

Alex and Lou

THE FOUNDER’S FIX

What Can You Control . . .

Alex Gertsburg, Co-Managing Partner

Stoicism has received a ton of Silicon Valley and entrepreneurial press in recent years. I confess I drank the kool-aid years ago myself. It is an excellent philosophy for entrepreneurs and leaders, who battle daily with incessantly competing interests, big wins and massive losses, constant effort, and frequent failures.

The shortest description: focus on what you can control, ignore the rest. But there’s so much more. Stoicism is a blueprint for mental toughness, emotional and physical resilience, gratitude and perspective.

Ryan Holiday, who writes extensively on stoicism, just published a great list called “50 (Short) Rules for Life From the Stoics.” It gets a strong recommendation from us.

Here’s an excerpt from his book, The Obstacle Is The Way:

“We must try:

  • To be objective
  • To control emotions and keep an even keel
  • To choose to see the good in a situation
  • To steady our nerves
  • To ignore what disturbs or limits others
  • To place things in perspective
  • To revert to the present moment
  • To focus on what can be controlled

Everything we do matters— whether it’s making smoothies while you save up money or studying for the bar— even after you already achieved the success you sought. Everything is a chance to do and be your best. Only self-absorbed assholes think they are too good for whatever their current station requires.”

For further reading, check out A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by Prof. William B. Irvine from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. This book is probably one of the best I’ve ever read, especially Chapter 21 (Stoicism Reconsidered).

THE LEGAL FIX

You May Qualify for Property Tax Relief

-Steve Gill, Partner, Sleggs, Danzinger & Gill Co., LPA.; Connie Powall, Partner, Gertsburg Licata

As anticipated, Ohio recently passed S.B. 57 into law that may provide a finite group of property owners with property tax relief due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here are the highlights:

1. The potential tax relief will relate to Tax Year 2020 (payable 2021) with the filing of a special “Covid Complaint”.

2. The “Covid Complaint” can request a valuation date of October 1, 2020 (instead of the standard January 1, 2020 valuation date) for Tax Year 2020.  This allows Boards of Revision to consider the negative impact the pandemic had on the value of a property that began after the  January 1, 2020 valuation date.

3.  The deadline to file a “Covid Complaint” is August 25, 2021.

4. Importantly, the “Covid Complaint” must allege with particularity how the pandemic and related stay-at-home orders caused the reduction in the value of the property.  The Complaint cannot merely allege a general decline in economic or market conditions.

We believe that this new law will mostly impact the hospitality industry, food service industry and certain retail locations where economic performance was hit the hardest due to the negative effects of the pandemic.

For more information about this new law and the impact on your property, please contact us via the form below and we will contact you shortly.

CEO CONFIDENTIAL

New Pod Alert!

We are very excited to announce the upcoming launch of CEO Confidential, hosted by our very own Alex Gertsburg. Each week, Alex chats with CEOs and founders about the business experiences that challenged them as leaders and the “do-overs” they wish they could have again. These are candid conversations about the good, the bad, the ugly, and the inspiring moments unique to the CEO experience.

You don’t want to miss the launch episode next week with Lee Stacey of McGowan Allied Specialty Insurance who weaves a very funny mystery story involving a peculiar situation with a rogue employee!

Make sure you sign up below to receive the launch notification and never miss an episode!

G&L NEWS

Congratulations Victor and Connie!

This week, firm partners Connie Powall, Esq. and Victor A. Mazacapa, III, Esq. celebrated 30 years since they began practicing law. Both are an invaluable part of the G&L team and congratulate them both on reaching this career milestone!

 

THE RANDOM FIX

Humans and Machines . . .

I recently watched Machines on Netflix and can’t stop thinking about it.  It’s Rahul Jain’s documentary about a textile factory in southern India.  It’s hypnotic and compelling and moves you through a torrent of emotions from empathy to gratitude to “holy crap.”  Here’s the description from IMDB:

Director Rahul Jain presents an intimate, observant portrayal of the rhythm of life and work in a gigantic textile factory in Gujarat, India. Moving through the corridors and bowels of the enormous and disorientating structure, the camera takes the viewer on a journey to a place of dehumanizing physical labor and intense hardship, provoking cause for thought about persistent pre-industrial working conditions and the huge divide between first world and developing countries. Since the 1960s the area of Sachin in western India has undergone unprecedented, unregulated industrialization, exemplified in its numerous textile factories. MACHINES portraits only one of these factories, while at the same time representing the thousands of labourers working, living and suffering in an environment they can’t escape without unity. With strong visual language, memorable images and carefully selected interviews of the workers themselves, Jain tells a story of inequality and oppression, humans and machines.

Two thumbs way up from me. Great film. – Alex

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