Editorial

The Columbus Police Department (CPD) is out of control. And, they are getting away with murder. Within recent years, the CPD has shown excessive and lethal force which has left several citizens dead or wounded.  Among the dead are Tyree King, Jaron Thomas, Henry Green, Donna Dalton – all victims of excessive force and brutality.

To add insult to bleeding injury all offending officers (except for one) were not charged and were returned to the force. The CPD has refused to charge their officers and they are the only entity that is allowed to review their action other than a grand jury if they kill someone.

Columbus Mayor Andy Ginther, fearing CPD or Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) backlash, has ceded his power and oversight to the police alone. Likewise, City Council is too busy counting its kickbacks from downtown developers shows little concern over excessive force by the police. There is no willingness to demand accountability from offending officers. Citizen efforts demanding justice and responsible law enforcement leadership have been ignored or papered over.

At the February 27th gathering of the Columbus Metropolitan Club, Columbus Partnership President and CEO Alex Fischer proclaimed: "The world of professional sports will be writing [sic] and studying what the Save The Crew movement did in Columbus for decades." If you have the stomach for self-aggrandizement, you can listen to the clip here. 

If the multi-billion dollar world of big-time professional sports (ie/the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB) actually does stop to take notice of the legitimate Save the Crew success story in the future, they might be very interested in the revelation in Friday's Dispatch ("Multi-million dollar redo of current Crew stadium to sports park questioned," March 8, 2019) that the Ohio Expositions Commission board (who control the land under and around Crew stadium) was not consulted or even contacted before the media blitz in December announcing plans for the future development of the area. 

Friday, March 8, on International Women's Day, Governor Mike DeWine released his administration’s’ Home Visitation Pilot Program after receiving recommendations from the Governor’s Advisory Committee, which suggested to invest an additional $50 million to expand programming.

A mass organization can’t make it without members and volunteers doing a tremendous amount of work. There is no way that any level of dues collection or number of self-sufficiency schemes can ever substitute for all of the work needed to build large organizations. At the same, it’s almost impossible to be sustainable without some staff.

Recently, I was in Ireland for the first-time visiting tenant support and action groups in Dublin, Limerick, and Galway. Their work over the years had been amazing. The support groups had done great work in eviction defense. At different times the groups had been able to come together, particularly in Dublin, to rally thousands against government cutbacks or mass evictions in private and social housing with all the work done by volunteers and activists.

Sometimes you just have to speak your mind.

Rant #1. The Cleveland Clinic and fake news. It is well known that the vaunted Cleveland Clinic derides medical marijuana. Dr. Paul Terpeluk, Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Employee Health Services, recently penned a news release attesting to “better alternatives.” The release aimed to explain why the Clinic bars its physicians from recommending cannabis under the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program (OMMCP), the regulatory body created by HB 523 to oversee medical cannabis cultivation, processing, distribution and sales in Ohio. Fair enough. Under the law, local jurisdictions, including hospitals, can establish their own policies, particularly on their premises.

That’s the real news. The fake news involved a widely circulated social media post entitled, “Cleveland Clinic MMJ Policy in a nut shell – Call the Cops!” That probably got your heart pumping! The problem? It’s fiction.

I am responding to recent publicity about this byproduct of oil/gas drilling, AquaSalina being used by the Ohio Department Of Transportation (ODOT) on our roads.

Unfortunately, I have a history with this product and this company. In 2012 I was sued by the maker of AquaSalina in a $1 Million SLAPP lawsuit for trying to warn my city and community members that this product was potentially dangerous to us and the environment. At the time, I didn’t have access to the product to test it myself. But, after learning about the oil/gas drilling process and the hazardous byproducts it generates, I used common sense to deduce that this solution could not be good. There are radioactive elements at the 4,000–5,000 foot depth of the wells drilled in my community. Basic physics tells us that when you force chemicals, sand and water down at high pressure, radioactive stuff is going to come back up along with what you pushed down. I wish many of the lawyers, judges and electeds involved in my case had also used deductive reasoning.

We believe it is time for every citizen and elected official to show up and find the courage to face the climate emergency. We urge you to seize this moment and stand with all of us by supporting the Green New Deal resolution.

The recent reports from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United States Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCS) confirm what our 2016 Democratic Party Platform had already declared - we are in a climate emergency and an urgent and immediate response is required. What is hopeful about these particular reports is that we have finally shifted from the abstraction of long-term timelines. They call for an emergency response now. This is the decade that matters.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY12) and our allies in the Sunrise Movement and The Climate Mobilization are leading the way forward with calls for real, bold, truthful action on climate; to turn away from gradualism. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has proposed a resolution calling for a new Select Committee for a Green New Deal.

February is the month that is set aside for Black/African American history. For twenty-eight days people who live in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland and Canada will be indoctrinated with information and facts about known and unknown Black/African American people who have contributed to either their race, society or America. When I googled it, I learned that it also began as a way to remember important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. 

The word indoctrinate means to teach a person or group of people to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. Some synonyms for indoctrinate are brainwash, re-educate, persuade, convince, condition, discipline and mold. Diaspora is the dispersion of any people from their original homeland. In this case the Africans that were dispersed into America as slaves. 

Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther declared in the annual State Of The City address "The state of our city is strong." He touted development projects across the city such as the One Linden Plan, a master plan for Hilltop, the opening of the Franklin Jubilee Market last May, a new police substation to be built near the Lazelle Woods Community Center, and "record resources" being spent to pave the city. 

The mayor painted a picture of growth and prosperity borrowing from Experience Columbus' statistics that visitors spent 7 billion in Columbus in 2017, and he referenced the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission estimate that over "40,000 people moved to the region in 2018."

In his speech, he announced a plan to invest $3.8 million in 2019 to build new affordable homes and keep them affordable through a land trust in areas around Columbus including in Franklinton and on the South Side. "If mobility is the great equalizer of the 20th century, let us leverage it," he said. 

Columbus s-CREW-ed

“Save the Crew” fanatics are cheering and celebrating that the soccer team is “saved” and staying in Columbus. Their website touts the wonderful “bright new stadium” to be located to the west of the Arena District. But at what cost is this victory?

The original Crew stadium cost $28.5 million, opening in 1999. History-making in its design – as the first soccer-specific stadium built in the United States – its capacity was listed at 19,968 seats last year. Average attendance was 12,447 for the 2018 season, lowest among Major League Soccer (MLS) teams.  After taxpayers refused to build a hockey arena and a soccer stadium with public money, billionaire Lamar Hunt had footed the bill for the original Crew stadium.