Local
Celebrate Earth Month and
WGRN 94.1FM community radio's
6th year Earth Day birthday!
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. This is our second anniversary of cyber-salons!
Featuring:
Local WGRN producers and presentation of Outstanding Volunteer Award to WGRN engineer Eugene Beer
and
local environmental activists
Q & A included.
If you have any announcements for the
progressive community, contact us:
colsfreepress@gmail.com
The 88 East Broad Street Starbucks will vote on unionizing May 24th. Community members and Congressman Sherrod Brown have shown their support for the union drive as their management retaliates with an anti-union campaign and cutting hours.
“Even if other anti-union tactics are going to be played out, it’s so much more helpful to have that end goal in mind,” Ben Baldwin, an employee at this downtown Starbucks, said in response to getting a date for the union election from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Since the union drive began, Starbucks has launched its anti-union efforts at the location by cutting hours, conducting one-on-one anti-union meetings, and bringing in managers to sit in the cafe throughout the day.
Employees have noticed a large cut in hours since the union drive started, saying that they’re lower than during the lockdown even though business has increased, leaving some desperate to make ends meet. “We have people who can’t feed themselves,” said Jesse Perry, a worker at the location, “they want to punish us.”
To your surprise, perhaps, my answer is an emphatic, unqualified NO. In this Busting Myths column, I will be schematic, but I am prepared to expand my understanding of both city and state in response to readers’ questions. For background, I refer you to my essays on the city and state published in Columbus Free Press since September 2021, available on the website.
Is Columbus really a City: That’s capital “C” City as in legally established, organized, managed?
Despite ranking 14th in the United States and growing, Columbus has no identity or sense of itself as an urban place. It has no agreed-upon landmark(s). Consider the Columbus Dispatch’s amateur “historians’” flailing efforts. Being one of innumerable Columbuses or Columbias across the nation is only one indicator. Its media are well below average. And, it has no signature professional sports team or mascot. Brutus Buckeye and “Carmen, Ohio” don’t cut it.
Thursday, April 7, 7-9pm, Campbell Hall [Rm. 335], 1787 Neil Ave. [this event will also be occurring via Zoom]
Join us at 7pm on Thursday, April 7 for a presentation and discussion on the history of Ukraine!
This will be an “in-person” meeting in Campbell Hall [Rm. 335] on OSU’s campus; this event will also be occurring via Zoom.
Please use this Zoom link to join this event.
Hosted by Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists.
Thursday, April 7, 7-9pm, Campbell Hall [Rm. 335], 1787 Neil Ave. [this event will also be occurring via Zoom]
Join us at 7pm on Thursday, April 7 for a presentation and discussion on the history of Ukraine!
This will be an “in-person” meeting in Campbell Hall [Rm. 335] on OSU’s campus; this event will also be occurring via Zoom.
Please use this Zoom link to join this event.
Hosted by Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists.
To the lawmakers who would ban discussion of “controversial topics” in Ohio classrooms,
Ohioans see you. We see the unconstitutionality of HB327 and HB616 and how you are perfectly fine wasting money passing and later defending these restrictions on the freedom of speech. We see that you claim the banner of “pro-life” while you limit our children’s education, and you do this after loosening restrictions around guns, which are most definitely implements that often harm or take children’s lives.
Former Columbus Division of Police officer Andrew Mitchell shot and killed Donna Dalton (aka Castleberry) on the morning of August 23, 2018, shooting her three times. He was a 54-year-old vice cop. She was a 23-year-old sex worker. When he asked her for sex services and she quoted him a fee of $25, he attempted to arrest her. She then stabbed him in the hand with a knife.
The jury that was seated yesterday in his murder trial in Franklin County Common Pleas Court learned before the trial began that those facts are not in dispute.
They will not, however, learn that the City of Columbus settled a civil lawsuit brought by Dalton’s estate for over one million dollars in November of 2020.
They will also not learn that Mitchell is facing trial in September in Federal Court for kidnapping and rape of two other sex workers, witness intimidation, removing evidence, and lying to the FBI. At least two jurors were dismissed during the jury selection process for having knowledge of the charges in the Federal case.
Wednesday, April 6, 7pm, this on-line event requires advance registration
We have an impressive group of special guests joining us for this event, including Senator Nina Turner, who is running for Congress in Ohio’s 11th District, Judge Terri Jamison, candidate for Ohio Supreme Court, and Lucas Blower, who will discuss “Citizens Jury Ohio.”
We will also hear from Matt Marton and Justin Evaristo, co-hosts of the new radio show “The Ohio Advocate,” and Kathleen Caffrey will host a discussion on the “Art of Activism.”
In addition, we’ll have updates for you on “Medicare for All” as well as some special announcements. You won’t want to miss it!
RSVP for this event by using this link.
Hosted by Our Revolution Ohio and The Ohio Revolution.
Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and longtime community advocate who is strongly considering running for Mayor in 2023, states that, “It is long overdue that Mayor Ginther, Columbus City Council and our Franklin County Board of Commissioners join together and invest $120 million of city and county allocated federal American Rescue Plan funds towards affordable housing. Along with a matching $60 million investment by The Columbus Partnership and its 84 members, a desperately needed immediate infusion of a $180 million-dollar affordable housing investment can be realized. These funds could provide up to 5,000 affordable housing units for those wage earners at 60 percent AMI ($35,200) and less.”
At tonight’s Columbus City Council meeting, a total of $5.5 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds were voted on and approved for the YWCA, YMCA, Faith Mission, Maryhaven and Southeast Inc. This would leave a balance of about $44.7 million of the city’s current ARP funds along with another $93 million that is to arrive next month totaling $137 million in available funds.
