Local
Wednesday, July 13, 1:30pm, this event will be livestreamed on the PUCO YouTube channel.
Join us in watching and live tweeting the public meeting and help hold AEP and PJM accountable!
RSVP for this event by using this link.
PUCO Press Release
PUCO schedules power outage review for July 13
COLUMBUS, OHIO (June 29, 2022) The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) announced today that officials with AEP Ohio, AEP Transmission, and PJM Interconnection will appear before the Commission on July 13 to discuss this month’s electric power outages.
“The PUCO’s mission is to assure access to reliable utility services. Consistent with our mission, the PUCO will conduct a review of the outages, why and where the outages occurred, the impact on vulnerable populations, communication efforts, the decision-making surrounding the forced outages, the timeline of events, and what can be done to better protect or assist consumers in the future,” stated PUCO Chair Jenifer French.
My struggles to gain democratic legal rights and respect for residents in the “city” of Columbus continue. The three documents reprinted here below elaborate the themes of my recent essays. To expand the discussion to a larger public, I include them here.
First, I wrote to the City Council legislative aides, department heads, and City Attorneys with who I am in communication. They were silent for some weeks after I tripped on (illegal) broken pavement and fractured my right leg, and commented that the City’s failure to inspect and enforce its zoning codes makes the city as well as the large corporate property owner legally liable.
June 10, 2022
To my correspondents,
Today for the second time in two weeks that we lost electric power from AEP for multiple hours on a weekday morning. Never an explanation. [This is the week before AEP’s massive and unexplained failures. The City refuses to hold AEP accountable, leaving that to the state’s corruption-ridden PUCO]
This parallels Rumpke's sporadic performances without consequences and City Council’s insulting public clean-up by volunteers—who also pay taxes for public services--days.
Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and longtime community advocate who has been circulating petitions to run for mayor in the 2023 May primary election stated that, “City Council and Mayor Ginther have not spent one dime of the taxpayers federally allocated $187 million of American Rescue Plan funds to help address our city’s affordable housing crisis, but without a blink of the eye will shell out $900,000 to upgrade the Convention Center's ventilation system.”
This past June 17 was the fiftieth anniversary of the break in of the Watergate Hotel. A surfeit of books have been written about this sorry episode in American history; indeed, two new ones have been published in the last few months. However, Adam Henig’s Watergate’s Forgotten Hero, propitiously timed, is the first biography to explore the life of the unassuming security guard.
Two years of death and disease and no live music---I hardly recognize myself. Thus it was Comfest '22 gently re-immersed this battered, drifting soul into the mildly healing waters of outdoor song-and-jamfestival-born. Better that way, among the trees, our original friends.
The Park's Gazebo Stage was the site of the first band I've seen and heard since a town named Wuhan changed America and the world. Friday, June 24, I liked how my personal siege was lifted. First force to the rescue entered the freshly opened city gates: The Neal Show!
Neal Havener is every mother's delight: genteel, pleasant, kindly, warm, fuzzy, youthfully middle-aged. Many mellow bones connect in his slim countenance. His music very much like early Simon and Garfunkel--earnest, thoughtful, crafted with respectable chord changes to almost be proud of.
The July Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon had the theme “Roe v Wade and Supreme Court Decisions.”
Watch the salon video here.
Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery facilitated the salon, starting off with a photo of the Supreme Court falling down.
Mark introduced the first speaker Ted Glick, progressive activist and author of Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left's Resistance to the Vietnam War and 21st Century Revolution, Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation.
Ted believes that there are four significant US Supreme Court decisions we should be organizing around:
As many of you know, Edith Espinal and other Sanctuary leaders were targeted by ICE and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. Through community and legal action, Edith and the other leaders were able to get their fines rescinded. However, their freedom is still not guaranteed.
“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” – Winston Churchill, 1948
Americans recently spent the July 4th holiday celebrating their freedoms and inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness per the Declaration of Independence signed on that date in 1776. However, a recent Gallup poll found that at only 38 percent of respondents say they are "extremely proud" to be an American, down from the 55%. What happened?
For one, just five individuals two weeks earlier rescinded a Constitutional right that had been affirmed by a similar body 50 years earlier. With little forewarning other than subterfuge, this move that affected 64 million Americans landed like a gut punch.
Saturday, July 8, 2022, 7:00 PM
Zoom
Facebook event
Theme:
Roe V Wade and other Supreme Court decisions
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83906590837
Meeting ID: 839 06
Since we aren't getting together in person, we can gather for a couple hours on the second Saturday night of each month from 7-8:00pm Eastern Time on Zoom.
Featuring
Ted Glick, Beyond Extreme Climate
Mary Jane B., states rights and Dobbs
Felicia DeRosa, Equality Act
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colsfreepress@gmail.com
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