Local
Immigrant Mauritanians in the US like to debate what Ohio city has the largest Mauritanian community in the US, and while Columbus won out not too long ago, a growing number are calling Cincinnati home.
Nevertheless, Mauritanians are still being deported back to Mauritania – a northwest African nation once ruled by colonial France – with a Moorish government that has been arresting, torturing, and extorting Black Mauritanians for decades, all state-sponsored human rights abuses, and the reason they’ve settled in the US in the first place.
This new video from FWD.US exposes the apartheid state in Mauritania. Several Ohioans are featured in the piece.
Thursday, August 25, 5:30pm, Gemüt Biergarten, 734 Oak St.
Join the Central Ohio Worker Center for our summer happy hour. Bask in some solidarity, have a drink, eat a hot pretzel, stand on tables and yell about unions, whatever it takes!
Hosted by Central Ohio Worker Center / Centro de Trabajadores de Central Ohio.
On August 17, 2022, Columbus Dispatch announced that “Some parents who want to find an alternative to current public and private schools are looking at something called ‘classical education.’”
Those few words are both misleading and revealing. No evidence is presented about any parents “looking,” other than the founders/promoters of the foundling retail—private—franchises of Columbus Classical Academy and Heart of Ohio Classical Academy. Is the name meant to evoke –or be confused with—Columbus’ highest-ranked private school, the Columbus Academy, another common marketing ploy?
More compelling, “something called ‘classical education’” misrepresents and exaggerates the relationship of this new marketing campaign to either “classical” or “education.”
Wednesday, August 24, 2022, 12:00 – 1:00 PM
While it’s important for you to recycle, it’s also important to Recycle Right. By taking just a few minutes to recycle the right way, you help reduce pollution, contribute to cleaner water, conserve limited natural resources, support our economy, and reduce central Ohio’s reliance on landfills. SWACO is here to help you recycle right, answer common recycling questions, and provide the necessary tools and resources you need to make recycling right convenient for your household. Register here.
Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and 37-year community advocate who is circulating petitions to run for mayor in the 2023 May primary election states that, “As a [former] school board member, president of City Council and mayor, Andy Ginther’s decades-long practice of handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in tax abatements to corporate Columbus and luxury real estate developers has defunded public education to the point where CEA members have said enough is enough. If those on the receiving end of tax abatements and TIFs paid their fair share of property taxes, a bargaining agreement between the CEA and School Board would have been settled by now.”
Motil continues, “The CEA’s decision to strike has been a longtime coming. Ginther, City Council and School Board members for too long have sacrificed much-needed property tax revenue and the educational needs of our city’s public schools and children, to fill the bank accounts of developers and provide corporate welfare to our city’s wealthiest and most 'beloved' companies.”
Dennis Kucinich on Pulling the Plug on FirstEnergy Corporation
Tuesday, August 23, 2022, 7:00 PM
Columbus teachers are now on strike. In an overwhelming showing of solidarity and determination, 94 percent of members of the Columbus Education Association (CEA), the union that represents over 4,500 teachers and staff of Columbus City schools, voted in favor of a strike during a dramatic mass meeting of CEA members held Sunday night. Thus, after many months of failed negotiations with the Columbus Board of Education, the strike officially commenced at 12:01 AM on Monday, August 22. This is the first time teachers in Columbus City Schools have gone on strike since 1975.
Monday, August 22, 2022, 7:00 PM
For over 25 years schools have been struggling with an unconstitutional funding formula. Columbus students deserve a world class education, safe and healthy schools, and well-paid teachers who create learning environments where all students can thrive.
At the federal, state, and local level there are challenges and opportunities to fully and fairly fund our schools that we can build power collectively to win.
For the first time since 1975, Columbus City School (CCS) teachers over the weekend voted to strike and now the entire nation is paying attention.
On CNN this morning, its bottom-of-the-screen news ticker is telling the story of how Columbus – considered one of the last American-boom towns with Intel poised to invest billions into the region – can’t provide all of its students air conditioning, among other head-scratching short comings for Ohio’s largest school district.
On Day 1 of the strike teachers were picketing out in front of the Columbus school’s admin buildings at 3700 S. High Street, among many other locations.
Overnight, teachers and supporters took to Reddit and other online platforms seeking solidarity and action from the public.
There is truth in the old saying that “you can’t sue City Hall”—especially with any likelihood of either winning more than your costs or winning at all. That’s what attorneys who I’ve consulted tell me. This is true despite the fact that the “mayor,” City administrators and senior staff, City-appointed commission members, and City Councilors blend an exceptional combination of ignorance or dismissal/neglect of city, county, state, and federal laws.
Of course, they follow the lead of the State of Ohio where the Governor owns stock in corporations in which the State invests, the Lieutenant Governor accepts a paid position on a private-for profit Board of Trustees (rationalizing it as “educational” [but to whom?]); and the Attorney General and Secretary of State regularly express ignorance of State laws, State Constitution, and federal Constitution. So too do Republican senator and representatives especially but not only with collusion with corrupt firms like First Energy.