News

Ohioans were horrified to hear news stories about the spill of toxic material into the Ohio River from a West Virginia coal company. Some of our neighbors to the southeast still cannot drink their water. What most Ohioans have not heard about is the intentional dumping of 20,000 gallons of radioactive and toxic fracking waste water into Ohio’s Mahoning River. Three tanker trucks full of so-called “brine” were deliberately pumped into a storm drain leading into the Mahoning on Thursday, January 31, 2013. More than a year later, it is still not clear exactly what chemicals the illegally disposed of waste contained. The presence of radioactivity in the fracking waste could potentially keep Ohioans from drinking water in areas near the Mahoning River for thousands of years. Documents obtained by the Free Press indicate that the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) may be misleading the public regarding the severity of the illegal dumping.

Have you ever asked somebody: ‘Why doesn’t the Columbus Zoo have giraffes?’ Adam Felts bets you have. Because he’s heard from more than a few of you. “We hear it all the time,” said Felts, who is one of the zoo’s curators. “It’s ridiculous how often we get that question.” Fortunately for local enthusiasts of the tallest land mammal, their giraffeless nightmare is almost at an end. On Friday the zoo officially unveiled the name of its newest exhibit, set to open some time in May. And it will feature all the giraffes you can handle. The zoo’s newest exhibit, “Heart of Africa” will contain more than a hundred new animals from a dozen different species. The list includes zebras, ostrich, gazelles, storks, cranes, guineafowl, kudu, vervets and wildebeests. Since last summer Felts and his staff have been busy bringing the new collection of animals to Dublin from zoos all over the country, as well as the wild. “Heart of Africa” will be broken into several individual exhibits, including a “Watering Hole” where different animals will be rotated through at different times of the day. But the star attractions will undoubtedly be eleven giraffes.

An across-the-board cut in rates favored by Governor John Kasich may allow low-income Ohioans to buy a slice of pizza a year, on average. Those in the middle could purchase a cheap pizza maker, while the state’s most affluent taxpayers could use their cut to go on a round-trip for two to Italy, with money left over to pay the hotel bill and buy some real Italian pizza. Policy Matters Ohio previously noted that Senate Bill 210, a measure heard this week in Senate committee that would provide a 4 percent rate reduction, on average would provide enough for low-income Ohioans to buy a cheap cup of coffee each year. Reducing rates to get the top rate below 5 percent would allow low-income Ohioans to go to Starbucks once a year and get a Grande Medium Roast. These are the conclusions of an analysis done for Policy Matters Ohio by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C.-based research group that has a sophisticated model of the tax system. The top income-tax rate after the full phase-in of cuts approved last year will be 5.333 percent, down from the previous 5.925 percent and from 7.5 percent a decade ago.

According to Ohio State professor Dr. Brad Bushman, who’s been studying the influence of media violence on behavior for over 25 years, playing violent video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto may not trigger someone into a gun-toting murderous rampage, but you are more likely to blow a loud horn into someone’s ear, pour hot sauce down their throat or ignore someone who’s dying on the side of the road after being run over by a car.   There’s no definitive link showing violent video games such as “first-person shooters,” which indirectly place you behind a very realistic gun so you can be rewarded for killing very realistic human beings, cause shooting rampages, says Bushman. Mostly because there’s no ethical way to run experiments, you can’t “randomly assign people to play violent video games and then give them guns to see what they do with them,” he told the Free Press.   There is definitive evidence, however, based on hundreds of studies, says  Bushman, that shows playing violent video games, even for a few days in a row, increases aggressive thoughts, makes you more angry and also drains you of empathy.

The Near East Side Area Commission met on February 6, 2014 in part to approve zoning variances for a new 40-unit apartment development planned for 122 South Parsons Avenue. The meeting was punctuated by repeated interruptions by the Commission Chair, Kathleen Bailey, and the Zoning Committee Chair, Anne Ross-Womack, during the time allotted for citizens’ comments on the proposal. Ambiguities between the zoning variance application and corresponding Franklin County property tax records left unanswered questions as to who stands to gain from the proposed development and who actually owns the land. During citizens’ comments, all the citizens who spoke were opposed to the proposal. The proposal was brought to the Commission by Michael Woods, who owns Woods Development Company, to build the housing units in several split unit town homes on the property. The rent on the units has a reported price point between $1200 and $2000 for each two bedroom unit – a rate higher than other rents in the area.

Despite an on-going legal battle with the city of Columbus, Juneteenth Ohio 2014 will go on as planned, though in a new location.   Following a long run at Franklin Park, festival organizer Mustafaa Shabazz says this year's festival will take place at Genoa Park at 303 W. Broad St. in downtown Columbus. The change of venue means other changes will have to be made.   “It will be a gated event,” Shabazz said. “Everyone will be searched in order to provide a safe and secure event. Junetenth Ohio has always been a family friendly event. We will plan the event in a way that everyone will enjoy three days of music, food and family fun. What we do know is that Franklin Park was the perfect place to celebrate Juneteenth Ohio. The open park attracted people planning their family reunions, picnics, renewing marriage vowels, naming ceremonies for the babies. The park was perfect in the celebratory sense that people became reacquainted to the area for the past 23 years.”   Columbus Police shut down Juneteenth 2013 after two days after an 11-year-old boy was shot.

In 1973 six black men filed a class action lawsuit in the US District Court, Southern District, Eastern division, against Columbus city officials for racial discrimination in the hiring of firefighters. The city was found guilty of employing practices that “established prima facia showing of racially adverse impact by city officials employment practices for firefighters.” Knowing the trajectory of our history allows us to conclude that there were several barriers to the recruitment and hiring of African Americans as firefighters and the court based its findings on easiest observable obstacles to African American employment in the fire department. What they didn’t, or couldn’t, account for – in a document based on constitutional precepts- are the systemic obstacles that retard our progress: low high school graduation rates, low family employment and higher dishonorable military discharges.

Thanks to a “Progressive,” a well-connected Democratic attorney and four lockstep election officials, the citizens of Columbus remain stuck paying off four rich Columbus families for the Nationwide Arena debt and Columbus City elections will not be as open to independent candidates as it could be with public financing. At a Monday, February 3 hearing, the Franklin County Board of Elections voted 4-0 to keep two petitions off the ballot that could have rescinded the Arena bailout and provided publicly funded Columbus elections. A century ago, the Progressive Era was coming to an end. But its legacy of citizen initiatives lived on for another century. In the period from 1901 to 1914 there was a tremendous push for municipal reform. At the heart of it were city and state charters that allowed people the right to vote on major public policy issues by initiating an ordinance, a law or a constitutional amendment. In 1914, Columbus adopted a new charter that gave its citizens the right to initiate and legislate their own policies and take on what were often corrupt municipal political machines. That Progressive Era democratic legacy is now over.

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) is the largest charter school in the state of Ohio. The online school is easily the largest charter school in Ohio and would be ranked as the 12th largest school district in the state. ECOT received over $88 million in state funding for the 2012-13 school year and funding is expected to jump to over $92 million this school year. On the latest report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education, ECOT continues to rank below all of the 8 large urban schools that are often-criticized by legislators and in the media for their “sub-par” performance. For graduation rate, a key indicator for the long-term success of a school/district, ECOT’s 4-year graduation rate is a paltry 35.3 percent, while their 5-year graduation rate of 37.8 percent, which is only slightly higher, was still over 25 percentage points worse than the lowest urban school district, Cleveland, which checked in at 63.3 percent.

Not many citizens of Columbus are aware that if the police think you report too many crimes – or complain about them – Columbus’ finest will put you on a “list” and simply ignore your complaints. The history of how a whistleblower or concerned citizen becomes a “chronic complainer,” blacklisted by the Columbus Police, is well-documented in public records. Take for example Bernadine Kennedy Kent, the woman who initiated the federal investigation into vendor theft and fraud in the Columbus City Schools system. At the same time Kent was acting as a whistleblower and igniting a federal investigation into the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funds, she was being blacklisted by the Columbus Police. How to become a chronic complainer Kent, a former Columbus City Schools vice principal, runs the nonprofit advocacy group PASS – Parent Advocates for Students in School. In 2006, Kent filed complaints with Columbus Police against the Columbus City Schools for theft and fraud in NCLB funds. When this did not yield results, Kent provided information to the FBI that launched an investigation into the Columbus School’s tutoring program.