How to Apply For Utility Assistance During the Pandemic in Ohio
Category: Neighborhood News
Top regulator’s exit raises questions about utility and fossil fuel influence
CRITICS QUESTION WHETHER THE FORMER OHIO UTILITY COMMISSION CHAIR SHOULD HAVE RECUSED HIMSELF MORE OFTEN TO AVOID ANY APPEARANCE OF BIAS.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join the Eye on Ohio free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps provide more public service reporting.
Concerns about the outsized influence of utility and fossil fuel interests have resurfaced as the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio begins steps to name a new commissioner after the sudden exit of Chair Sam Randazzo.
Randazzo resigned on Nov. 20 after an FBI team had searched his home and FirstEnergy released a mandatory quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report showed the company paid $4 million to an entity associated with Randazzo shortly before his appointment last year.
Now the Public Utilities Commission, or PUCO, has put out a call for applicants to fill the vacancy. Under Ohio law, a nominating council will review the applications and then nominate four candidates to the governor. Advocates have criticized the council, which only has one seat for a consumer advocate, as being too heavily tilted toward utility interests.
Continue readingUtility assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic
In the spring, when people were ordered to stay at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19, all Ohio utilities stopped disconnecting service for customers who lost their jobs or were working fewer hours and couldn’t pay.
Starting in July, those moratoriums started to be lifted. The last moratoriums – Cleveland Public Power and the Cleveland Water Department – are set to end on Dec. 1.
Navigating payment plans, financial assistance programs and emergency funds can be frustrating. Plus, many community service agencies that sign up for these programs are closed to the public, and most applications must be completed online or by phone.
Advocates at these agencies say it’s a good idea to get your documents ready when calling for help, including associated utility bills, recent paychecks, and documentation of loss of income or confirmation of unemployment.
By simply dialing three digits (2-1-1), greater Clevelanders can make one call to find or give help.
Ohio’s United Way 2-1-1 Help Center can answer specific questions about which program might be a good fit.
Continue readingRather than ‘flatten the curve’ it is time to ‘crush the curve’
This story was sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative, which is composed of 20-plus Northeast Ohio news outlets including Profile News Ohio and several other Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland member outlets.
by Rich Weiss and Julia Bejjani
The colder weather has brought with it the predicted spike in new coronavirus cases to the State of Ohio—and the rest of the world—as we all gather more closely, indoors.
In recent weeks, news about vaccine trial progress has brought hope to a coronavirus pandemic-weary global population—particularly those coping with the loss of family, friends, and colleagues to the lethal virus.
The fatigue of this pandemic, mixed with a seemingly insurmountable surge in new cases this fall, plus the hope of vaccines on the horizon, all together could lull us into relaxing our fight to contain coronavirus just as we reach our most dangerous levels of community spread.
Jade Khalife, MD, MPH, MSc., health systems practitioner and researcher for Lebanon’s Joint Health Systems Research project, is arguing that the time is now for Lebanon—and the world—to replicate a set of coronavirus containment policies, called, “crushing the curve,” which show better results than the more widely adopted “flattening the curve” policies.
After seven month legal battle, Eye on Ohio wins public records lawsuit over hospital capacity numbers
Court of Claims Rules that the Ohio Department of Health must disclose the number of beds and other equipment available
By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and Kathiann M. Kowalski
This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join the Eye on Ohio free mailing list as this helps them provide more public service reporting.
As the ongoing pandemic continues to surge, the Ohio Court of Claims ruled last week that the Department of Health must share public records with Eye on Ohio, showing the number of beds and ventilators available for COVID-19 patients at individual hospitals throughout the state.
The ruling comes seven months after Eye on Ohio initially sought the records.
“In times of crisis transparency is paramount,” said Rebekah Crawford, who has her Ph.D. in Health Communication, Relating & Organizing from Ohio University.
People want credibility and clear lines around what is known and what is uncertain. “When risk communicators are at their best,” Crawford said, “they remain credible by showing what is known and what is not known and by being clear about why we don’t know, and what we’re going to do to find out.”
When Eye on Ohio first requested records, at the end of March, the state had only about 2,200 confirmed cases and 55 deaths, according to the online Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. As of November 12, Ohio had approximately 274,500 confirmed cases, and about 5,700 people had died from the disease.
Continue readingHow the Neighborhood Media Foundation provides a collaborative blueprint for local journalism in Ohio
Republished with permission from the Center for Cooperative Media
by Will Fischer
It’s not easy running a local news outlet in the middle of a pandemic. For the Erie Chinese Journal, a Cleveland-based publication that serves Chinese communities in the Midwest, distribution became a major problem. People weren’t picking up newspapers like they usually did.
Fortunately, the journal belongs to the Neighborhood & Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland (NCMA-CLE), a collaborative of 14 local media outlets in Northeast Ohio. NCMA-CLE and its members share access to resources provided by the Neighborhood Media Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Rich Weiss to support small media producers.
Weiss saw that many of these small local publications were struggling with distribution during the pandemic, so he wrote and applied for a grant from the Facebook Journalism Project to help pay for new methods like direct mailing.
Continue readingFirstEnergy fights against disclosing more details about alleged HB 6 bribery cases
Case filings and delay of possible nuclear bailout combine to block Ohioans from learning more before voting.
This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join the Eye on Ohio free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy New Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
Consumer advocates, industry organizations and environmental groups continue efforts to learn more about claims that FirstEnergy and current or former subsidiaries may have financed an alleged $60-million conspiracy to make sure Ohio’s nuclear bailout bill became law and withstood a referendum attempt.
Yet opposition by FirstEnergy in two regulatory cases and in state court has combined with the legislative recess to prevent those groups and voters from learning more before Election Day.
Continue readingIn Memory of Cleveland’s Neighborhood News Owner Mike Psenicka
Statement of The Neighborhood and Community Media Association of Greater Cleveland
Neighborhood & Community Media Association (NCMA-CLE) was shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mike Psenicka, owner of our member outlet, The Neighborhood News.
As the third generation of Psenicka family ownership of The Neighborhood News, Psenicka changed the shape of the newspaper and brought color to its pages; as a founding member of NCMA-CLE, he changed our shape and brought color to our organization.
Continue readingChildcare owner works 18-hour days to keep her business afloat
This article provided to Neighborhood Media Foundation by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom, The Fuller Project. Please join Eye on Ohio’s free mailing list or the mailing list for the Fuller Project as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
By Rachel Dissell
CHESAPEAKE, Ohio — The children at Stephanie Geneseo’s home-based child care center dart around in astronaut helmets while they battle green googly-eyed COVID alien germs, using play to learn about hand washing in a pandemic that shows no signs of letting up.
“I want to make it fun so that it didn’t seem like something bad or weird to them,” Geneseo says. “We’ve done everything we can to make it as normal to their day as it could be,” she said in July after she reopened All Nestled Inn, her center in Chesapeake, Ohio.
The return to caring for children after a 10-week coronavirus shutdown was anything but normal for the 51-year-old, known as Mrs. Steffy to the families she serves.
Keeping her young charges healthy weighs on Geneseo as she works 18-hour days, watching children from early morning to midnight, to keep the business she spent 22 years building afloat.
Continue readingOhio regulators decline to force FirstEnergy to hire an independent auditor
The order agrees that spending should be open to review but first requires the company to review itself.
By Kathiann M. Kowalski
This article provided to Neighborhood Media through an investigative journalism collaboration with Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join Eye on Ohio’s free mailing list or the mailing list for the Energy News Network as this helps us provide more public service reporting.
Regulators are requiring FirstEnergy to show that its Ohio utility ratepayers didn’t foot the bill, “directly or indirectly,” for political or charitable spending in support of the state’s nuclear and coal bailout bill. Yet that order is much more lenient than the state’s official consumer advocate had sought.
Questions about possible improprieties arose after former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, was arrested on July 21. That case involves an alleged criminal conspiracy by him and others to pass House Bill 6 last year and then to defend it against a citizens’ referendum. The federal complaint and indictment allege that the defendants received approximately $60 million from “Company A” — apparently FirstEnergy — and its subsidiaries and affiliates.
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