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On Thursday, April 3rd, 2014, IMPACT Community Action is holding a Poverty Summit, as part of its recognition of the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty.
IMPACT is in a unique position to hold this Poverty Summit, since the organization’s roots date to the early days of the War on Poverty. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 – the cornerstone of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s vision for ending poverty in the U.S. – established community action agencies as a core element. Community action agencies are alive and well after half a century in the state of Ohio, with 50 different organizations – including IMPACT – members of the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies.
There are those who wrongly claim that the War on Poverty was a failure, wasting millions and millions of tax-payer dollars. There are those who claim that community action agencies benefited only those working for them and not the citizens of their communities. The reality is that the War on Poverty had a profound impact on reducing the extent of poverty in this country – from 19.0% when it started in 1964 to 12.1% only five years later. During that same time, the child poverty rate dropped by half.
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Olde Town East residents rally against a proposed luxury apartment complex at 122 South Parsons Avenue.
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Earlier this week, the Columbus Coalition for Responsive Government filed new petitions seeking a campaign finance reform law for Columbus elections for Mayor and City Council.
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At the March 5, 2014 Local Governmental Officials Conference, Ohio’s State Auditor David Yost recognized Carolyn Smith, the Internal Auditor of the Columbus City Schools, as a “Taxpayer Hero.”
Auditor Yost said of Smith and the other awardee (Heather Winchell, formerly of the Fairfield County Clerk of Courts Office) “these two heroes took personal risks for the public good … by sticking their necks out they helped shine the light on two huge fraud cases, and I am proud to present them with Taxpayer Hero Awards.”
Carolyn Smith was the key public servant who unveiled the District’s nearly 10 year attendance and data scrubbing scheme, through which the District and its individual schools manipulated data to make them appear as though they were performing better than they were.
The issue came to Smith’s attention when a school social worker, informed Smith that record changing was going on that was resulting in delinquency cases being thrown out of court and students from getting their diplomas.
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Yes, Columbus, thereis a Columbus Police Department ChronicComplainers List. After publishing aJanuary 30, 2014 cover story “Are you on the Columbus Police’s secret blacklist?” the Columbus Free Press has obtained a copy of a so-called “Caller Watch List”through a public records request. This list, along with other documents, raises new concerns surrounding the police department’s controversial inaction on phone calls from certain Columbus residents.
Two people listed, James A. Whitaker, Jr. and Bernadine Kennedy Kent, wrote an email to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien claiming they were unfairly included on the Caller Watch List. Their previous work as whistleblowers has provided evidence that led to the felony conviction of a vendor in the Columbus City School’s tutoring scandal.
The Free Press obtained the email trail including Whitaker and Kent’s email to O’Brien, and then another email that appears to be from O’Brien to Jeff S. Furbee, Chief Police Legal Advisor for City Attorney Richard Pfeiffer.
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Over 20 years ago, a handful of farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida started meeting in a borrowed room of a local church. They gathered to discuss the routine conditions they experienced in the fields: sub-poverty wages, wage theft, sexual harassment and, in the most extreme cases, modern-day slavery. That conversation was the seed of what was to become the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).
Now two decades later, Columbus has become the focal point of a national struggle for farmworker justice. Of the top five fast food chains in the country -- McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s -- Ohio-based Wendy’s is the lone holdout still refusing the workers’ demands. In response, a community group of people of faith, students, organized labor and food justice advocates have come together under the banner of Ohio Fair Food to pressure Wendy’s to respond to farmworkers in their supply chain.
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A recent Reddit discussion framed an interesting dilemma: should members of a cooperative grocery store (in this case the Clintonville Community Market) remain loyal to their co-op or try to save money at the larger chain stores like the new Lucky's Market or Whole Foods? Full disclosure: I was one of the founders of the Clintonville Community Market, as was Simply Living, and I serve as a board member and interim director of Simply Living. As Chair of the Support Our Local Economy (SOLE) Coalition, I offer a "Localist" perspective that may help re-frame the dilemma posed in the Reddit discussion.
First-- Why do we have all these nonlocal chain stores? Not just grocery stores, but pharmacies, restaurants, hotels and big box stores for office supplies, hardware, clothing, appliances, books, media and computers - pretty much every sector of the retail economy, which is 70 percent of our total economy? Just 50 years ago, all these retail businesses were locally owned, and today each sector is dominated by chain stores.
What happened? It's no accident that the past 50 years have seen Ohio and the rust belt states lose half of our manufacturing base.
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"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Dissatisfied with the Boy Scouts of America's new policy permitting openly gay boy scouts, a new Christian alternative, called Trail Life, emerged in 2013 and began a public relations blitzkrieg this past week. The group, which already has more than 100 chartered troops, has materials and rules but no uniforms as of yet. The press offensive played up the group's values and growth and garnered write-ups in the San Jose Mercury News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and MSNBC, among others. The mainstream press was happy to print photos of young “trailblazers” giving what appears to be a Nazi-style salute without criticism, but did not seem eager to research the background of the group's leaders and their connections.
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The FBI may have you on a terrorist list. Have you been to see “Gasland” or attended a zoning meeting on fracking?
The Columbus Free Press obtained a July 23, 2013 FBI's Philadelphia Joint Terrorism Task Force report on “Environmental Extremists.” The FBI and the Pennsylvania State Patrol coauthored the report that lumps virtually all activists engaged in protests against fracking for natural gas together as potential violent terrorists. The report includes photos of protests and protestors in Ohio along with photos of low grade black powder pipe bombs found unarmed and undetonated near natural gas drilling operations in rural Pennsylvania.
Madeline ffitch, of Millfield, Ohio, was arrested for blockading an entrance way to a fracking wastewater injection well site on June 26, 2012. She was arrested while locked to two 50-gallon cement filled drums, effectively shutting down the well site.
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More than 50 residents and business owners packed a Board of Zoning Adjustments hearing on Tuesday night February 25th group seeking seven different zoning variances needed to build an upscale forty unit apartment complex at 122 Parsons avenue. The hearing was the last green light needed by the development group to push the project forward over a groundswell of opposition from within the neighborhood.
The hearing began with the lead developer, Michael Woods of Woods Development Group, being asked to name his actual partners in the project, not just their corporate identities. The identities of the owners of the interlocking maze of development companies caused the Board Chairman to recuse himself and leave the hearing room at once. The chairman claimed he did business with one of the owners, Brian Higgins, and could not legally be involved.