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The decision is now entirely up to Columbus Mayor Ginther. But, if the community’s response to the Police Chief auditions held at East High on November 21 was any indication, it is certain that Seattle Assist Police Chief was the clear preference of the over 400 people who gathered to hear their pitches.

The Acting (pro tem) Chief, Thomas Quinlan, who has 30 years in the Columbus Police Department wanted the public aware of his accomplishments for the last 286 days of his tenure of Acting Chief: “I know this community and how to build relationships with it. Now is not the time to change leadership.”

Assistant Police Chief Perry Tarrant, the only other candidate from Seattle, made it clear that he has been a change agent wherever he has served. “I know how to change systems and practices. The police have an obligation to be respectful of all cultures. The community’s voice is important and what gets done is to ‘deed’ those voices within the community.”

Tarrant bases his police work on three issues: inclusion, transparency and accountability. Tarrant, a black man, is the past president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

The nuclear industry's violent assault on democracy in Ohio has taken a surreal leap. It could seriously impact whether Donald Trump will carry this swing state—-and the nation—-in 2020.

Ohio's GOP secretary of state has now asked the Ohio Supreme Court NOT to provide a federal judge with answers about key procedural questions surrounding the state's referendum process.

The short-term issue is about a billion-dollar bailout for two nuke reactors and two coal burners.

Long-term it asks whether targeted violence perpetrated by paid thugs will now define our election process. And whether the public referendum will remain a workable part of our democracy.

The battle starts with House Bill 6, the now-infamous billion-dollar nuke bailout approved by the corrupt, gerrymandered Ohio legislature in late July.

HB6 forces all Ohio ratepayers to subsidize two crumbling nukes on Lake Erie, along with two decrepit coal burners, one of them in Indiana. It helps underwrite ten small solar farms, but undercuts much larger subsidies for other wind and solar facilities.

Maybe City Council’s Elizabeth Brown forgot the Columbus Partnership was paying close attention.

Or maybe, just maybe, she was being genuine and didn’t care what the Columbus Partnership thought. Mrs. Brown on Tuesday night said this to WOSU Public Radio about Yes We Can candidates Joe Motil, Tiffany White and Liliana Rivera Baiman:

“Our opponents in this election are not our opponents in the fight to move this city forward. We have work to do in the city of Columbus. It will take all of us, pushing forward together, to get it done. Together, we can deliver.”

As we can tell, Mrs. Brown not only extended an olive branch but perhaps an invitation to a Yes We Can candidate that they have earned a future appointed seat to City Council. Yes We Can (YWC) did win 1 of 3 votes on Tuesday.

What Mrs. Brown is truly thinking is hard to tell. The Freep has asked to speak with Sherrod Brown’s daughter but we have not heard back.

What we do know is City Council is besieged by special interests such as the Columbus Partnership, the corporate influence that insists on shaping Columbus “Their Way.”

Damon Krane has been involved in politics since age 16, starting in high school with a public access magazine Free Head. Since then, Krane has worked in grassroots politics against Ohio University administration, bigotry, and war, and in favor of student journalism, labor organizing, and tenant’s rights. It is this last issue which is the greatest in Athens, Ohio. Krane is now running for mayor of Athens.

Athens is a deeply divided city. 80% of residents live in rental housing while all city officeholders own homes, and several are landlords themselves. 80% of residents are under the age of 45, while all but one officeholder are over 45. According to an October 2, 2016 article in Athens News by Conor Morris, 30% of Athens County residents live in poverty, the top 20% of household incomes is 6.9 times greater than that of the bottom 20%, and women in Athens County earn a median income of $15,496, just over half of the average for men.

Let’s imagine that we’re buying a house for $100,000 with all pennies. That’s 10 million pennies. We begin saving them one at a time, picking up every penny we can. At the same time, another person wants the home and is taking action to stop our dream from coming true. They spend millions of pennies and every $10 they spend could prevent us from collecting one more penny. They enact new laws and another 2.5 million of our pennies no longer qualify. New lines on the map drawn by our opponent disqualify 10% of more of our pennies. Another 250 thousand cannot be used because they made poor spending choices previously. A quarter million pennies are ‘accidentally’ not counted. Our competitor uses media ads to boost their appeal and to falsely undermine ours. Finally, a foreign supporter of our opponent sways another 10% of our pennies away from us. 

A terrifying series of gestapo-style assaults, petition buying, bribery, mass media manipulation and systematic intimidation has disrupted the attempt of Ohio citizens to repeal a nearly billion-dollar bailout for two dangerously failing atomic reactors on Lake Erie.

The unprecedented assault threatens the referendum process in Ohio and across the nation.

It also threatens to keep on line two very old, dangerously decayed reactors where melt-downs and explosions could forever contaminate the Great Lakes region and more.

On Monday, October 21, petitioners with the anti-nuclear referendum fell 44,682 signatures short of the number needed to qualify for the November 2020 ballot to repeal the bailout.

Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts (OCAB), the anti-nuclear group, filed a preliminary injunction in US District Court to force Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to extend the length of time they had to collect signatures.

I can't help but speculate that none other than former Gov. John Kasich was behind the selection of Otterbein University as the site for the fourth Democratic Presidential Debate Oct. 15.

Columbus Business Firstreported that it was a cryptic call from CNN to Otterbein that started the process.

It would not be surprising if Johnny Nobody whispered in his new employer's ears that his hometown of Westerville would be perfect for the roasting of his archrival President Donald Trump.

Otterbein currently provides a studio from which Kasich does his commentator musings on CNN, so he owes the university one.

Kasich is still smarting from the whipping Trump gave him in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Johnny only carried Ohio and that only with the help of the endorsement of OSU football icon Urban Meyer.

He was on CNN, the debate sponsor, and MSNBC earlier Oct. 15 touting his new book about nothing anybody would pay to read. It should be titled: Nobody Writes About Nothing.

Johnny offered advice to candidates for president: just be yourself.

Bad advice. Most Republican voters did not like Johnny's self.

Columbus is booming. The unemployment rate is low, the economy is up. Central Ohio continues to attract new business and our designation as a Smart City means new innovations will be flowing in.

And yet, despite our growth, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Central Ohio jumped nearly seven percent in 2018.

That’s 1,807 people, the highest number recorded since 2007.

The obvious question is “why?” More jobs, more economic growth – why does this add up to more people without homes?

The reality is that unemployment isn’t the only cause of homelessness. In fact, 43 percent of people in Central Ohio’s homeless shelters are working. From housing costs to the structure of services, there are a host of factors that lead to and perpetuate a cycle of homelessness.

To date, some incredible organizations have taken steps to address these factors, including the Columbus Community Shelter Board. Founded in 1986, it was the first to create alignment among the homelessness service system and their model for support is still revered and used throughout the nation.

If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao – Sign the petition anyhow!

A billion dollars is on the line for energy companies – that’s why you’re seeing insane and somewhat hilarious commercials and receiving mailers warning you not to sign petitions because the Chinese Communists are “plotting to take over Ohio’s power grid.” Don’t be fooled. It’s not true. Here are the facts: FirstEnergy just received a billion-dollar monster of a welfare check from the Ohio legislature through House Bill 6 to support their decrepit and dangerous nukes and dirty coal plants (even one in Indiana). Opponents of the bailout (which should be anyone who believes in a clean environment and renewable energy) are trying to overturn HB6 with a petition drive – and that’s what has FirstEnergy quaking in its heavily subsidized boots. Thank the dark money from “Ohioans for Energy Security” for the ads. Not since the height of the Red Scare and perhaps the 1930s Reefer Madness campaign have we seen such blatant and laughable ads. What’s not funny is that Harold Chung was assaulted while petitioning against the bailout outside the Dublin library. People, really?

Impeachment finally under way

The long-delayed impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump are finally starting, but at present the focus is on a relatively minor crime - the Ukrane-Biden scandal. However, Trump has committed (and is still committing) major crimes, and these ought to be in the spotlight. Let us look at a few of them.

Let's look at his major crimes, rather than at minor ones