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The City of Columbus requires residential real estate developers to provide “affordable housing units” in exchange for tax abatements. But the City has not provided any records showing they actually collect this information from these developers showing they truly do rent to moderate income tenants – this according to a longtime Eastside affordable housing activist.
Tax abatements allow a developer or resident to forgo paying property taxes in exchange for bringing jobs or revitalization to a neighborhood. But because the Short North has been one of the hottest real estate markets in the region over the previous decade, the question is: has Columbus’s most prominent corridor needed such tax breaks? Nevertheless, in 2018 the Shorth North was designated a Community Reinvestment Area offering a 15-year, 100 percent tax abatement if projects include 10 percent affordable units. A recent Dispatch article called Columbus the “tax-abatement capital of Ohio.”
The following statements can be attributed all or in part to the Save Ohio Parks Steering Committee:
Save Ohio Parks is deeply saddened, but not surprised that the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission decided to allow fracking under our pristine and beloved state parks, wildlife areas, and public lands when four other states have already banned fracking and we are all living in the midst of an unprecedented climate catastrophe just beginning to unfold.
That this law could even be passed in Ohio speaks to the corruption in the Ohio Statehouse today and our federal government’s failing policies and laws that continue to enable an energy policy centered on corporate greed, not the needs of the people and the planet.
The reason these five individuals were appointed to this commission by Gov. Mike DeWine was for their support of the fossil fuel industry donations and dark money, despite extensive scientific evidence for the dangers of fracking to our environment and health.
The following statements can be attributed all or in part to the Save Ohio Parks Steering Committee:
Save Ohio Parks is deeply saddened, but not surprised that the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission decided to allow fracking under our pristine and beloved state parks, wildlife areas, and public lands when four other states have already banned fracking and we are all living in the midst of an unprecedented climate catastrophe just beginning to unfold.
That this law could even be passed in Ohio speaks to the corruption in the Ohio Statehouse today and our federal government’s failing policies and laws that continue to enable an energy policy centered on corporate greed, not the needs of the people and the planet.
The reason these five individuals were appointed to this commission by Gov. Mike DeWine was for their support of the fossil fuel industry donations and dark money, despite extensive scientific evidence for the dangers of fracking to our environment and health.
A meeting for the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to decide whether to approve or deny fracking for four Ohio state parks and wildlife areas will be held Wednesday, November 15, at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) office, 2045 Morse Road in Columbus.
Save Ohio Parks will host a press conference outside the ODNR building on a grassy area at 9:30 am, just before the 10:30 am meeting. The public is invited.
“The OGLMC has had almost a year to educate itself on the human health effects, environmental impacts and climate concerns that would likely affect citizens, Ohio state parks and the world should these fracking leases be granted,” said Randi Pokladnik, steering committee member of Save Ohio Parks.
“We and other environmental groups and citizens have inundated the commission with thousands of emails, citing research, peer-reviewed health studies and climate data associated with fracking. Now it’s up to them to do the right thing for Ohioans by denying leases to frack under our state parks and public lands,” Pokladnik said.
A meeting for the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to
decide to permit or deny fracking four Ohio state parks and wildlife areas
will be held Wednesday, November 15 at the Ohio Department of Natural
Resources (ODNR) office, 2045 Morse Road in Columbus.
Save Ohio Parks will host a press conference outside the ODNR building on a
grassy area at 9:30 a.m., just before the 10:30 a.m. meeting. The public is
invited.
"The OGLMC has had almost a year to educate itself on the human health
effects, environmental impacts and climate concerns that would likely affect
citizens, Ohio state parks and the world should these fracking leases be
granted," said Randi Pokladnik, steering committee member of Save Ohio
Parks. "We and other environmental groups and citizens have inundated the
commission with thousands of emails, citing research, peer-reviewed health
studies and climate data associated with fracking. Now it's up to them to do
the right thing for Ohioans by denying leases to frack under our state parks
and public lands."
The OGLMC, made up of five people appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine is tasked
A meeting for the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to
decide to permit or deny fracking four Ohio state parks and wildlife areas
will be held Wednesday, November 15 at the Ohio Department of Natural
Resources (ODNR) office, 2045 Morse Road in Columbus.
Save Ohio Parks will host a press conference outside the ODNR building on a
grassy area at 9:30 a.m., just before the 10:30 a.m. meeting. The public is
invited.
"The OGLMC has had almost a year to educate itself on the human health
effects, environmental impacts and climate concerns that would likely affect
citizens, Ohio state parks and the world should these fracking leases be
granted," said Randi Pokladnik, steering committee member of Save Ohio
Parks. "We and other environmental groups and citizens have inundated the
commission with thousands of emails, citing research, peer-reviewed health
studies and climate data associated with fracking. Now it's up to them to do
the right thing for Ohioans by denying leases to frack under our state parks
and public lands."
The OGLMC, made up of five people appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine is tasked
Andrew Ginther’s 2023 campaign for mayor seems to be driven almost entirely by developers and architects, whose campaign donations make up 48 percent of the $1 million the campaign has received this year. In total, Ginther received $485,609.69 from developers and architects just this year.
Included in the donations to the Ginther campaign is $13,700 from M/I Homes PAC, the political wing of M/I Homes of Central Ohio LLC, who own almost 700 properties in the county according to the auditor’s website, and $15,000 from Smoot Construction, a company that regularly receives contracts from the city and earned a place in Ginther’s 2020 State of the City Address.
When it comes to Columbus’s new district system for City Council, Eastside activist Jonathan Beard pulls no punches.
“I started calling this ‘Columbabama.’ This is repackaged 1950’s Jim Crow,” he says. “These fake districts were Shannon Hardin’s effort to confuse the ballot, claim responsiveness to an issue, and preserve white money and white voters’ influence over who represents Black folk in Columbus.”
In 2016, Beard unsuccessfully tried to bring true representative districts to Columbus. His non-profit Everyday People For Positive Change spent $13,000 while the City spent over $1 million to distort and then defeat the citizen-initiated vote.
“Our proposal simply sought to enlarge the size of council and bring real council districts to the city. Columbus is the only big city in America to retain an all-at-large election system,” he says.
More than 150 gathered at the Statehouse Thursday evening, October 12, to rally for Palestinian rights as violence continues to murder the people of the eastern Mediterranean.
Organized by students and residents alike (all of whom will remain anonymous due to right-wing efforts to discredit and ruin people fighting for human rights), the people gathered to voice their anger not just at the Israel government’s continued use of violence to justify their occupation of Palestine, but hope for a better future.
It was worth the long wait this past Saturday morning at Trinity Baptist Church on the Eastside for those with way too many guns on their hands. The City was buying any gun a citizen had to offer – even 3D printed guns, which are illegal – with no questions asked. Some of these same citizens walked away with hundreds, and in some cases, thousands-of-dollars’ worth of gift cards from the City.
“It took me about three hours to get to where the police were,” said a source who did want to offer his name for publication. He lives outside Columbus and walked away $2,000 richer. “I went right to the gun store and bought some more guns.”
The City was offering up to $750 per gun, and the source told us he was able to get a gift card for a 3D printed gun. He had not printed and assembled the gun just for this buyback, but it’s certainly possible other sellers had done so. The City bought 344 guns for $136,600.
Before the buyback Mayor Andrew Ginther touted its potential for success.
“This will be one of our biggest buybacks ever,” he told NBC4.