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Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and longtime voice of everyday people states, “Our affordable housing crisis is worsening by the day. So why is the city and county still sitting on millions of taxpayer dollars of our American Recue Plan (ARP) money when it should be being utilized to address this crisis?
A public hearing was held by the Franklin County Commissioners to hear comments on how the ARP funds should be spent clear back in July of 2021. Motil testified that the county and city of Columbus should allocate $60 million each of their ARP funds and that the Columbus Partnership should match it. He said "...and it was clear from the majority of those who testified at the county public hearing that ARP dollars should be allocated towards affordable housing.”
Motil points out that, “last month elected officials of St. Paul Minnesota and Ramsey county pooled together $74 million of their ARP funding for “deeply affordable housing” needs for those with incomes of 30 percent Average Median Income (AMI). What are our city and county elected officials waiting for?”
Joe Motil, former Columbus City Council candidate and longtime voice of everyday people states, “Our affordable housing crisis is worsening by the day. So why is the city and county still sitting on millions of taxpayer dollars of our American Recue Plan (ARP) money when it should be being utilized to address this crisis?
A public hearing was held by the Franklin County Commissioners to hear comments on how the ARP funds should be spent clear back in July of 2021. I testified that the county and city of Columbus should allocate $60 million each of their ARP funds and that the Columbus Partnership should match it. And it was clear from the majority of those who testified at the county public hearing that ARP dollars should be allocated towards affordable housing.”
Motil points out that, “last month elected officials of St. Paul Minnesota and Ramsey county pooled together $74 million of their ARP funding for “deeply affordable housing” needs for those with incomes of 30 percent Average Median Income (AMI). What are our city and county elected officials waiting for?”
In the weeks following the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, there were countless editorials, think pieces and discussions in the media about whether or not American democracy was “dead.” From Fareed Zakaria on CNN to Ann Fisher on WOSU, news personalities and politicos alike tried to address the question, with answers ranging from “no, but it does need attention,” to “it’s basically on life support,” to “I don’t know how to answer that!” Strangely enough, no one offered a hearty “hell yeah, it’s dead,” which makes me think that no one really knows the answer. But this is understandable. After all, it must be hard for political commentators to admit that the American experiment –– once a robust representative democratic republic with grand ideals at its core –– is in fact, finally dead.
Like many a Midwest metropolis, Columbus has a multitude of evangelical, Jesus-is-my-savior churches and if he’s not yours, you are going to hell because “Hell is Real,” as the sign says.
There’s Rod Parsley’s World Harvest mega-church in Canal Winchester, which the Free Press has heard purchases used cars for struggling single mothers if they were to convert. There’s the youth-focused Vineyard, which has multiple campuses around Central Ohio including a new church in Grandview. And the head-scratching Xenos, which recently changed its name to “Dwell,” the cultish church that sure-as-hell seems to prey on Ohio State campus kids.
These churches and their pop-rock bands promote, for the most part, a loving Christianity. Rock City Church, for instance, with its shiny and modern-ish locations in Hilliard and the Short North, has partnered with 30 Ohio prisons helping inmates.
But when tough times assail the flock, like a pandemic and a Democrat in the Oval Office, evangelical pastors begin to seriously push apocalyptic evangelicalism.
Wednesday, January 26, 7pm, this on-line event requires advance registration
Socialist Alternative leader and Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant has won a fourth election: a winter special face-off against a racist, right-wing recall backed by big business. What can we learn from this victory? How can we apply these lessons from Kshama’s successful independent working-class politics?
RSVP for this event by clicking “Going” on this “Facebook event” page.
Hosted by Socialist Alternative Cincinnati and Columbus Socialist Alternative.
Facebook Event
The drama currently unfolding in which the Biden Administration is doing everything it can to provoke a war with Russia over Ukraine is possibly the most frightening foreign policy misadventure since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1967 Lyndon Johnson attempt to sink the USS Liberty and blame it on Egypt, either of which could have gone nuclear. I can well recall the Robert Heinlein sci-fi book The Puppet Masters, later made into a movie, which described how alien-slugs, arriving by way of a flying saucer landing in Iowa, invaded the earth and parasitically attached themselves to the central nervous systems of humans and became able to completely control their minds. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And the tale gets really scary in geopolitical terms when some Secret Service Agents are “occupied” by the invaders and they are thereby poised to capture the President of the United States. I would point out that the movie came out when Bill Clinton was president, which should have provoked some concerns about whether it was fact or fiction.
If students cannot rely on their university to pay them a living wage and provide good working conditions, what do they do? This is the question many student workers are asking themselves at Ohio State University (OSU). While tuition, housing, food, and transportation costs continue to rise, wages for student workers employed by OSU remain stagnant. It is apparent to them that it is time to fight back.
On Friday January 21st, in collaboration with student workers, Students for a Democratic Society at Ohio State (SDSOSU) and Young Democratic Socialists at Ohio State (YDSOSU) held a protest to raise demands towards the university that student workers desperately need. They included a $15-an-hour minimum wage, free parking for student workers, paid sick leave, holiday pay, more frequent and higher raises, and higher work hour limits for international and DACA (a federal program to protect immigrant youth from deportation) students.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada — This morning, Toronto supporters of the Wet’suwet’en land defense struggle against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline set up construction sites at the Toronto homes of TC Energy Board Chair Siim Vanaselja and Royal Bank of Canada Executive Doug Guzman. The supporters also flyered the neighborhood with photos of the two men with signs warning, “Your neighbour is pushing the Coastal Gaslink pipeline through Wet’suwet’en Territory at gunpoint.”
Rachel Small, Canada Organizer for World BEYOND War, said, “Today supporters took action to bring the message home to Siim Vanaselja and Doug Guzman, two men leading companies that are orchestrating, funding, and profiting off of the violent colonial invasion of unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. The decisions they make are directly linked to the militarized violence that the RCMP has carried out on Wet’suwet’en people over the past several months to shove through the Coastal Gaslink pipeline at gunpoint.”
No War in Ukraine! Nothing is worth risking war, much less nuclear war. No side wants war in Ukraine, and certainly not the people of Ukraine. Someone must find the courage to push back against the momentum toward war, and lead the way toward cooperation and disarmament.
We are alarmed by the increasing tensions between the nuclear-armed governments of the U.S. (and its NATO allies) and Russia and are extremely concerned about what seems to be the increasing likelihood of war.
We must raise our voices. Add your name and comments to the petition. Share it with others to sign. Then help us forward it to your elected officials.