Local
In just a few words -- “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” -- George Orwell summed up why narratives about history can be crucial. And so, ever since the final helicopter liftoff from the U.S. Embassy’s roof in Saigon on April 30, 1975, the retrospective meaning of the Vietnam War has been a matter of intense dispute.
Free Press readers gathered Saturday evening, April 8, for a Cyber-Salon.
Mark Stansbery, Free Press Board member, started out the salon by introducing the two speakers, progressive candidates for the general election this fall in Central Ohio. Both speakers are also recipients of the Free Press Libby Award for community activism.
The first speaker was Joe Motil, who is running for Columbus mayor, the only opponent in the race is current mayor, Andy Ginther. Joe is a lifelong Columbus resident, 40 years active in city public policy, and a retired union worker.
Joe is running because he’s tired of the pay to play city politics that benefit developers. His campaign will focus on affordable housing, police reform, public transit, homelessness, neighborhood infrastructure, and government corruption.
Joe has lots of public policy proposals, including bond packages, raising the hotel tax, and having tax abated companies like Intel kick in to help create affordable housing. He proposes that the City should purchase land and build affordable housing.
WHAT: Oil and Gas Land Management Commission public hearing and business meeting
WHEN: Monday, April 10, at 10 a.m.
WHERE: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, 2045 Morse Road, Building E, 1st Floor Assembly Center, Columbus, OH 43229
The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission will hold a hearing on Monday, April 10, to hear public testimony on Draft Rule 155-1-01, which will create the process for granting oil and gas industry leases for fossil fuel extraction from Ohio public lands.
In attendance will be a group of dedicated Ohio citizens and users of Ohio state parks and forests to call out the oil and gas industry’s grab of our public lands.
Dear unrepresentative council member Rob Dorans,
May I give you a tour of Columbus or any other city in the US or the world? Have you ever been to a functional city with credible urban planners and traffic engineers? Do you know what an actual neighborhood is? Have you or another employee of the failing city, and city of Columbus studied cities, and their histories? NO!
You and your city flunkies, the paid agents of out-of-control tax abatements and TIFs with no accountability demonstrate your profound ignorance with your latest uninformed and dangerous “Where Do We Begin? Identifying Initial Focus Areas for Modernizing the City of Columbus’ Zoning Code.”
Look at the rhetoric and grammar itself. Can you translate any of this poor sloganeering into communicable English, let alone urban policy? Where does who begin what? Identifying initial focus areas? Modernizing? What do you mean? None of these terms speaks for itself. Do you or your scribal aides have any idea? Has anyone taken freshman composition, let alone urban planning?
Saturday, April 8, 7-8pm, this event will be occurring via Zoom
Get to know our local progressive candidates!
Speakers:
• Adrienne Hood, Columbus City Council candidate
• Joe Motil, Columbus Mayor candidate
A question-and-answer period will be included.
Please use this Zoom link to join this event.
Hosted by The Columbus Free Press.
City of Columbus mayoral candidate Joe Motil says, “Andy Ginther continues to spout off about crime numbers being down and how he is going to make Columbus, Ohio “the safest city in America” while he reduces the police force. At the same moment, five homicides occurred within a 48-hour period between this past Saturday evening and late Monday afternoon. To date, there have been 44 homicides in Columbus. On March 13th, the city of Columbus tragically recorded its 30th homicide of 2023. Since Ginther has been mayor, this is the second fastest time that Columbus has reached 30 homicides.”
RAPID 5’s “vision” to put parks and greenways within a mile-and-a-half of all Franklin County residents is arguably one of the most ambitious public-private development endeavors in the history of Central Ohio.
RAPID 5 stands for “Rivers and Parks Imagination Design” and has a “vision” – they refuse to call it “plans” – for all five of Central Ohio major waterways: the Big Darby, the Scioto River, the Olentangy River, Alum Creek and the Big Walnut.
Those behind RAPID 5 and on its board are some of the biggest policy makers and developers in the region: MORPC, Franklin County Metro Parks, Thrive Developers, Continental Real Estate Company (described as a full-service retail and hospitality developer), M/I Homes and City of Columbus, to name a few.
But so far, RAPID 5 has left one significant and extremely large public group out of its preliminary vision plans or draft reports – the pubic itself.
I submitted this “guest essay” to the New York Times following publication their fourth error-filled opinion essay about universities and the humanities in less than one month. Not surprisingly, they did not publish it. I turn to the Columbus Free Press because the issues are important to all of us.
I note that in late autumn 2021, under a new editor, the New York Times changed the name of its Opinion or Op-Ed essays since the 1890s, to Guest Essay. At the same time, they removed any mention of accuracy or factual from their criteria.
Thursday, April 6 at 7 PM on ZOOM
I invite you to a Columbus Area meeting of SPAN Ohio. It will be on ZOOM so you don't have to travel and can come as you are. You can actively participate, and I hope you will. Mark the date on your calendar!
Some agenda Items are:
The generating capacity of renewable energy in the U.S has surpassed coal for the first time in 2022.
The Energy Information Agency (EIA) has released data that shows that in 2022 for the first time renewable energy surpassed the generating capacity of coal on the U.S grid. This follows data in 2020 showing renewable energy surpassed nuclear energy as a generating source.
Currently wind and solar account for about 14 percent of the power that's on the grid. Hydro is at about six percent and the other forms such as geothermal and biofuels account for another three percent. The renewable share of the U.S grid is around 23 percent in generating capacity. Coal is currently down to about 20 percent and nuclear is down to about 18 percent. The number one generating source is natural gas at about 40 percent of the generating capacity on the grid. https://www.eia.gov/