Near the end of the Roman Empire people were distracted with bread and games in the Coliseum. This is the end of the American empire and our Columbus city and Franklin County leaders haven’t let us down.
Both your mayor and city council are dedicated to spending your tax dollars on women’s volleyball… instead of city services that might help you or your neighbor.
City Hall has already given $500,000 of your tax dollars to this women’s volleyball team; the county gave another $500,000. But the greedy want more money for entertainment that the working poor will never be able to afford.
The rich and powerful have already made the decision and now it’s time for your mayor and city council to fall in line and obey their true masters.
https://freepress.org/article/political-theater
Hasn’t Columbus Tried this Before?
Columbus has financially supported two women’s basketball teams in the past – both failed. The tax dollars used to support these two teams could have been spent on services to actually help people in need. That’s the problem with funding a sports team.
You don’t get any kind of return on your investment other than bragging rights and publicity. An investment in the lives of people will pay dividends over decades, but that kind of investment isn’t exciting. Columbus City Hall needs you to ignore how bad a job they are doing and a women’s volleyball team is exactly what they need.
- Columbus Quest (1996-98)
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/sports-and-leisure/sports-facilities-and-government-funding-overview
But don’t forget the four other men’s sports teams that have tried and failed with the support of your tax dollars.
- Columbus Horizon (1989-94) Men’s Basketball
- Columbus Thunderbolts (1991) Arena Football
- Ohio Glory (1992) World League of Football
- Columbus Destroyers (2004-2008) Arena Football
- Ohio Machine (2012-18) Men’s Lacrosse
The bottom line is that using public tax dollars to fund a private sports team doesn’t help the long-term health of a city. Emperor Ginther and City Council know this, but they believe in the stupidity of wasting our finite tax dollars.
Would investing more into helping our thousands of homeless living on the streets be a more ethical way to spend our tax revenue? Of course it would, but the billionaires who own these sports teams don’t care about the city. They have an ego that must be fed regardless of the void of empathy it symbolizes.
City Hall Worships Money.
The Columbus Foundation released a report on the socioeconomic health of your city in 2024 and the news wasn’t good.
About 12 percent of the city’s population was under the federal poverty level in 2022, which was $13,590 for an individual or $27,750 for a family of four. Around 27 percent of people from Columbus, or more than 555,000 people, were “low-income,” or earned less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
That’s the kind of information that should have set off alarm bells inside City Hall and the golf courses that Emperor Ginther resides. It didn’t.
More than a quarter of the people living (aka surviving) in Columbus were considered “low income.” Worse yet was the 12 percent that were living on $13,590 a year.
Could a member of City Council live in $13,590 a year? Not a chance.
In any other city with leaders who are ethical and have empathy such a report would be more than enough reason not to waste $500,000 on the pet project of any billionaire. Unfortunately, money is power in Columbus. The lives of the people mean nothing to City Hall.
The report also shows that Columbus has noticeable income disparity. Looking at the income gap between the top 20 percent and bottom 20 percent of incomes, Columbus ranked 15th among 23 cities. Top earners in Columbus made upwards of $148,000, while low earners made just $34,000 in 2022.
Empathy Not Required.
If you can’t lead, at least distract us from how little you care about Columbus.
That’s the strategy your gerrymandered City Council has adopted as they ignore the needs of the poor and continue to focus on the rich and wealthy.
The Columbus Fury might be a wonderful opportunity for women in sports, but it’s still a for-profit company owned by a billionaire. They know that the team won’t make money, but it’s a gift to politicians who need to distract us from our lives.
It’s a waste of our tax dollars and an insult to the working poor of Columbus whose needs are being ignored in favor of those of a billionaire.
What’s the Purpose of Having a City Council?
Nobody is asking that simple question.
Honestly, if Columbus City Council doesn’t exist to serve the needs of the people then why do we have one at all?
City Council should serve as a wall to push back against the whims of any mayor who lacks empathy or the ability to plan and organize.
City Council appears to spend their time at public events to get “photo opportunities” they can post to Facebook, but they don’t dare to spend any time sitting down to 1. Identify the major problems of the people, and 2. Create plans to solve those problems.
Public hearings and committees?
Sure, but they don’t even hold a weekly meeting to brainstorm new ideas or set deadlines. Can you imagine having a job where your supervisor doesn’t hold a weekly meeting to check the progress of tasks and projects? What about a job that has zero job description or any kind of yearly evaluation?
All decisions are made behind closed doors and in secret.
That’s your part-time City Council who march lock-step with a mayor whose only focus is to get re-elected.
Insanity is making the same mistake even though you know it won’t work.
Or is that stupidity?
Either way, these are the leaders who decide what is best for the future of Columbus. We need to elect better leaders.