This morning, workers at the Westerville Starbucks, 533 South State Street, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a union election to join the Starbucks Workers United movement that’s currently sweeping the country. The store is the second in Columbus behind four locations in Cleveland and one that filed this week in Cincinnati, becoming the seventh in Ohio and pushing well over 200 nationwide.

Workers at the Westerville Starbucks wrote a letter to Starbucks CEO saying that “the company has now deemed it too expensive to provide adequate coverage for us to properly serve the community we love,” echoing a sentiment streaming out from locations from across the country.

On April 11, 2022, the B.R.E.A.D. (Building Respect, Equality and Dignity) organization held its third rally in support of affordable housing at the Washington Gladden Social Justice Park. The action called for the city of Columbus and county of Franklin to set up over $100 million in housing funds to help build more housing options that would be available for families with less than $150,000 of annual income. The action was a dress rehearsal for the May 10, 2022 Nehemiah Action at the Ohio Expo Center, 6 p.m., where the 2022 BREAD campaigns for a city identification program, fair housing, group violence intervention, and environmental justice will be presented to city and county elected officials by over 3,000 BREAD members. 

Tuesday, April 12, 7pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

Join Jewish Voice for Peace Central Ohio in person or online for a screening of “The Wanted 18.” Through a clever mix of animation and interviews, “The Wanted 18” recreates an astonishing true story: the Israeli army’s pursuit of 18 cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared “a threat to the national security of Israel.” Consequently, the dairy is forced to go underground with the Israeli army in relentless pursuit. This documentary is an enchanting, inspirational tribute to the ingenuity and power of grassroots activism and self-determination.75 minutes.

“In-person” location: Northwood-High Building, 2231 N. High St., Rm. 100

Free parking is available in the “R” spaces — “R” for “Rardin Clinic” — behind the building.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace Central Ohio.

A Hilliard City Council member aligned with “America First” is now linked to a serious. privacy breach of Hilliard students.

When the vice president of Hilliard’s City Council, Republican Omar Tarazi, recently requested all disciplinary records of Hilliard City School students over the previous five years, he was accidentally also sent the students’ identities, roughly 4,200 names, a serious privacy violation to say the least.

Especially when you consider the data was copied to school board members and that Councilmember Tarazi admitted to forwarding the data to “a number of others who were similarly interested in looking at the data,” as he told the Columbus Dispatch. Hilliard is increasingly becoming one of Central Ohio’s most diverse suburbs.

One serious question is, did Tarazi send the data to politically like-minded friends (some MAGA?), and did these friends then do the same?

Watch salon video

The inspiration for the April 2022 salon was Earth Month and WGRN 94.1 community radio’s Earth Day birthday celebration. Mark Stansbery facilitated the salon, first pointing out how back in 1970, Free Press folks helped start the first Earth Day in Columbus and have continually been at the forefront advocating for environmental issues.

Suzanne Patzer briefly reiterated the history of WGRN, which began in 2016 around Earth Day as an environmentally-focused, women-oriented, all-volunteer community radio station. Most of WGRN’s programming was put together by former Program Director Victoria Parks. Tim Chavez, WGRN programmer and scheduler, spoke about the diversity of WGRN’s current programming as a Pacifica affiliate with Democracy Now, the Thom Hartmann Show; the many national programs, and local producers.