Local
MONDAY, MAY 23, 2022, 4 TO 6 PM
Little Turtle Way between Longrifle Road and Blue Jacket Road
This is your invitation to witness firsthand the site of the iconic mounded, grand boulevard being leveled! Come early to see the excavation on the 2 mounds underway now.
Little Turtle residents will rally in the Little Turtle community Monday, May 23, 4 to 6PM, to show their unity to Columbus and to the Columbus City Council members of its great displeasure with the demise of the community’s grand boulevard, a 50-year piece of Columbus history, and now the roadway’s resultant traffic congestion. The boulevard mounds are being leveled and the mature trees removed.
On behalf of the residents, we are inviting you to come out to see and document the boulevard’s destruction, as a piece of Columbus history is being erased, as well as the end of Little Turtle’s moniker as a “hidden gem.” You, as well as the taxpayers of Columbus, need to see how $6 million of our tax dollars are being spent on a roadway not wanted or needed by the residents and the disgraceful demise of beautiful greenspace and mature trees. We will not go quietly into the night.
In early March, employees of the Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University came together to form Wex Workers United in an effort to collectively establish a union at their workplace. These employees are advocating for a fair and equitable workplace, the right to negotiate for wages and benefits and to have a voice in important workplace issues such as safety. They are demanding dignity and respect on the job.
While having received the Wexner employees’ petition, with signatures from an overwhelming majority of employees, the Co Interim Directors Megan Cavanaugh and Kelly Stevelt, as well as OSU President Kristina M. Johnson, PhD, and Melissa L. Gilliam, MD, MPH Executive Vice President and Provost, have remained unmoved and disinterested in addressing employee concerns. Wex Workers United is demanding that the Ohio State University and its leadership respect the employees who are organizing by either voluntarily recognizing the employee union or by putting forward a consent agreement calling for a free and fair union election.
Please sign and share this petition to support AFSCME Council 8 and the brave Wex workers organizing for a union.
Remember Rep. Jean Schmidt's terrible abortion ban bill? They're still moving it forward.
The Ohio House Government Oversight Committee has scheduled the second hearing on House Bill 598, the abortion "trigger" ban. Why do we call it a trigger ban? Because it will ban all abortions in Ohio, but it won't go into effect right away, it has to be triggered by certain conditions, those include the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Roe v. Wade decision.
Over half of young trans people have contemplated suicide. Now up to a third of us could lose the care that’s been proven to prevent it.
In states across the country, small-minded lawmakers are pushing cruel, vicious new bills targeting transgender children.
These bills threaten to ban everything from medical care to even acknowledging the existence of trans people in the classroom. Many threaten parents and medical providers with prosecution. And all of them put the lives of young trans people at risk.
If these laws had been passed when I was transitioning, I might not be alive today.
As a trans student in middle school, I was dehumanized. I endured harassment, abuse, and physical violence for which I was the one punished. Even worse, my school responded to my coming out with harmful new policies.
For example, I was banned from the bathrooms. Instead of using the girls’ room near my classrooms, I had to go down two flights of stairs, across an open courtyard, into another school building, and all the way to the end of another building to use the nurse’s office bathroom.
Thursday, May 19, 12noon-1pm, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, 345 S. High St.
For nearly 18 months now, the family of Casey Goodson, Jr. has had to fight for accountability for his murder. While this fight has long focused on Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Meade (@convictmeade), the fight also requires accountability from the government agency that enabled a sheriff’s deputy with a violent history to take Casey’s life.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office hired, trained, and enabled a violent deputy who eventually took the life of Casey Goodson, Jr. Following Casey’s murder, they never fired Jason Meade or took any official action against him. They instead allowed him to retire and keep his pension, funded by taxpayer dollars.
Eventually, Meade was indicted for murder, but only after the prosecutor’s office delayed that indictment by waiting six months to appoint special prosecutors. Gary Tyack’s office ran on a platform of police reform and thus far that promise has not only gone unfulfilled, but they have decided to stand with Jason Meade to the detriment of this family and this community.
Wednesday, May 18, 12noon, Ohio Statehouse
H.B. 434 — The “Advanced Nuclear Technology Helping Energize Mankind (ANTHEM) Act” — is another radioactive taxpayer boondoggle that has passed the Ohio House and has moved on to the Ohio Senate! They haven’t even revoked H.B. 6 yet, and not one of the conspirators in H.B. 6 has gone to jail, but this is an even bigger swindle.
One company stands to benefit — eGeneration, of Cleveland — and the floodgate will be open for others. This is Corporate Welfare! H.B. 434 will create an unaccountable nuclear agency with no responsibility to the public.
The agency will be buried in the notoriously secretive JobsOhio nonprofit corporation, excused from public accessibility under the Open Records Act, the Sunshine Act, and Ohio’s ethics laws; will have no budget limits on use of taxpayer funds; provides no financial protections for the public from accidents or spills; is vague about radioactive waste handling and disposal, and many other important aspects.
Speakers: Pat Marida, Ohio Sierra Club’s Nuclear Free Committee; Terry Lodge, Attorney; and others.
In my post-election column, I stated that Nan Whaley, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, had 1 chance out of 10 of defeating incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine in the general election Nov. 8.
It might be worse than that. Morning Consult recently reported that DeWine has an astounding +28 percent approval rating, the tenth best among governors in the country. This reflects what I wrote, that DeWine is very popular with Democrats and Independents. Enough so as to overcome the fact that only 48 percent, less than half of the Republicans who voted in the primary, picked DeWine.
Tuesday, May 17, 6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration
Join us to figure out how to do your part in helping us fight anti-voter legislation in the state while also calling for the repeal of the “collaboration ban” to protect election officials. This will be an extensive training on how to write a letter to the editor (LTE) to your local newspaper.
RSVP for this event by using this link.
Hosted by ACLU of Ohio.
A major hazardous byproduct of oil and gas operations, called “brine,” poses a pressing problem because of its long-term radioactivity and the extreme volumes produced each year.
Billions of gallons of this waste have been injected into Class II injection wells throughout Ohio and millions of gallons have been spread on Ohio roads as a deicer and dust suppressant.
Several activist groups in Ohio have been working to educate the public and elected officials about the dangers of spreading oil and gas waste brine and to ban this practice for the benefit of current and future generations, and nature.
Each year in Ohio, several billion gallons of a substance, called “brine”, is produced from oil and gas wells. This byproduct, euphemistically called “brine,” is actually toxic and radioactive waste. While it is true that it has a high concentration of salt, it is well known that oil and gas brine contains heavy metals including Cadmium, Arsenic, and Lead, and dangerous compounds such as Benzene.