Busting Myths - The City that breaks its laws has a police force that refuses to enforce the city’s laws: The Columbus Way

Man waving

Part Two

Across the board, budgets and staffing are insufficient for the City to meet its legal obligations. As a result, the city is a dirty, physical wreck. Visitors who venture beyond the steroid-spewing The Arnold Classic in the Convention Center, within a few blocks of OSU’s football or basketball stadia, or venture into the city for an overpriced steak from the Memorial golf tournament almost universally comment on this.

But unable or unwilling to “see” their city or govern it, Council and mayor give away 100s of millions of dollars indiscriminately to special interests private and pseudo-public groups and individuals. They act as if a full proposal with specific plan, budget, timetable, and measures of accounting and accountability were themselves illegal, rather than the opposite.

“Fair Districts Ohio Huddle,” hosted by Common Cause Ohio

Details about event

Wednesday, November 16, 6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

Join us for our monthly huddle for all Fair Districts volunteers. Catch up on Fair Districts news, current actions, what’s next for our #fairmaps advocacy.

Joining us at this month’s Huddle will be Freda Levenson, Legal Director of ACLU Ohio, who will talk about the redistricting litigation currently before the Ohio Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. We’ll also have time to talk about the election.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Common Cause Ohio.

Facebook Event

For Lula’s Victory to Matter: A Proposal for a Unified Palestinian Foreign Policy

Palestinians and their supporters are justified in celebrating the election victory of the leftist presidential candidate, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brazil’s runoff elections on October 30. But Lula's victory is incomplete and could ultimately prove ineffectual if not followed by a concrete and centralized Palestinian strategy.

 

Lula has proven, throughout the years, to be a genuine friend of Palestine and Arab countries.

 

OMAR: Opera Review

Owing to my voyage aboard the cargo/cruiser Aranui from Tahiti to Pitcairn Island, I missed most presentations of Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’ Omar, but am very glad I was able to catch its last performance. Because – like LA Opera’s season opener, an updated version of Gaetano Donizetti’s 835 opera Lucia di Lammermoor – Omar is a highly innovative work that expands the operatic medium, in terms of theme, idiom and mode of expression.

This almost three-hour work, which world premiered earlier this year at the Spoleto Festival, located – appropriately enough – in Charleston, South Carolina, is based on the true story of Omar ibn Said, who was born 1770 in the imamate (theocratic state) of Futa Toro in what is now the West African nation of Senegal. Like Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, Said also wrote a narrative account of his life, and his 1831 autobiography, which I believe he originally wrote in Arabic, forms the basis for the story that librettist and co-composer Rhiannon Giddens adapt and relate in Omar.

“When Your Bank Account Determines Your Freedom,” hosted by ACLU of Ohio

Details about event

Tuesday, November 15, 7-8:30pm, Church and Community Development for All People, 946 Parsons Ave.

This event will be a night of storytelling, theater, listening, and learning. Learn how the current cash bail system could affect you or someone you care about and learn simple steps you can take to help reform it. Every day, thousands of Ohioans who have not been convicted of a crime are behind bars, not because of what they have done, but because of what they don’t have.

There is easy free parking just north of the building off of Stanley Ave. Light refreshments will be offered. As we enter COVID and flu season, please take precautions.

Hosted by ACLU of Ohio.

Facebook Event

ColumbusMediaInsiderPoliticalOutsider – Wipeout: Democrats’ Brand Sullied, Chair Walters Should Quit

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Ohio Democrats were wiped out in the Nov. 8 election. Let the excuse-making begin.

Democrats in the state of Ohio have become like Democrats in Delaware County, where I reside. When you can’t win and you can’t even get close to electing Democrats, hold nice social gatherings and create an elaborate committee structure to divert the blame from the party leaders.

The Ohio Democratic Party, what of it there is, has moved into full public relations mode to try and save the jobs of its chair Liz Walters and her underlings.

Chris Redfern, the chair a decade ago, traveled from county to county after the party was whipped (though not as badly as this year) with charts and maps of how progress was being made and how the victory was just around the corner, if only brother Redfern were kept on the job.

DeSantimonis Politicizations

“We’re Still Here, Watching You” Sidewalk Protest outside of Ohio Department of Education

Protect and Support Trans Youth

Monday, November 14, 6am; to Tuesday, November 15, 3pm, Ohio Department of Education, 25 S. Front St.

The Ohio State Board of Education’s Executive Committee has scheduled another meeting on the morning of November 14 to discuss, amend, and possibly vote to send to the larger committee for a vote the resolution supporting discrimination against transgender and gender-diverse kids. The vote might happen during the meeting on November 15. Details will follow as we get updated.

We will be out on the sidewalk again with sidewalk chalk, protest signs, and streaming the meetings; just to let the Committee Members know that we’re still here, and we’re going to keep being here. There will also be sitting in the meeting room and the overflow room. We can go in and out of the building if we need to stay warm; make sure to bring ID to enter the building.

There is no public testimony again during these meetings, but e-mail addresses and petitions can be found in the Honesty for Ohio Education posts that will be shared here.

Busting Myths - The City that breaks its laws has a police force that refuses to enforce the city’s laws: The Columbus Way

Harvey J Graff

Part One

Less than two months ago, pushed by two friends who read my essays, I published “Why I remain in Columbus despite Columbus. . . .” (Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Sept. 16, 2022). Events during the past month have me seriously reconsidering that judgement.

I voice my heightened doubts in this essay. The factors driving my self-reflections, in a few words, are: major officials of the City of Columbus, Ohio elected and appointed, knowingly violate the letter of the law and regularly mislead the city’s residents among the contents of their actions including City Council proposals and initiatives put to the public.

If that were not enough, the beleaguered Columbus Police Department (CPD), materially weakened by leading elected officials, and rudderless, does not enforce the law. Officers admit this to me, that is, when they don’t dismiss my documented complaints on false grounds.

Fundamentally, residents who don’t work for the City, or live in the Short North, have no rights in Columbus, Ohio.

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