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Category: Neighborhood News

HB 6 costs go well beyond claimed harm to public trust

Ohio Statehouse
(Photo curtesy of Eye on Ohio)

Here’s what’s at stake as Ohio lawmakers debate whether and how to repeal the bailout law at the heart of an alleged $60 million conspiracy case.

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.

A bill to repeal Ohio’s nuclear bailout law has languished for more than a month so far, and signs suggest that House leadership may be angling to defer or stop such efforts as Election Day draws near. Lawmakers filed repeal bills soon after the arrest of former speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) and others in July. 

Starting in January, House Bill 6 will require ratepayers to pay approximately $1 billion over the course of six years for subsidies that FirstEnergy had sought for two Ohio nuclear plants. Yet more is at stake, even beyond the $7 average increase in monthly energy spending that some advocates forecast as a result of the law.

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Upset by politics driving COVID-19 policy, Ohioans say they want fact-based leadership

Graphic by Cameron Peters, Kent State University
Graphic by Cameron Peters, Kent State University

By Justin Dennis

Mahoning Matters

They came from all corners of Ohio, all walks of life, and they’re all trying to cope with the coronavirus pandemic in many of the same ways — more face-time with family; experimenting in the kitchen; finally cleaning out that old, junked garage.

They shared many of the same concerns about the vast unknown that still lies ahead for Ohioans and the nation as a whole, while taking heart in the small gestures of everyday humanity that now shine brighter along that darkened horizon.

Your Voice Ohio, a journalism collaborative of more than 50 news outlets across the state, brought those more than two-dozen Ohioans together for a series of virtual roundtable discussions hosted in early August. The topic was COVID-19 because that’s what Ohioans said in a statewide poll in July is by far their biggest concern. The media collaborative wanted to know how the pandemic was affecting their lives, how they’re coping and how they envision the path ahead.

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Why did 77 Ohio prisoners die of COVID-19, but just 10 PA inmates?

Outside Pickaway Correctional Institution. (Photo Credit Eye on Ohio)

A look at how overcrowding and poor design contributed to two of the worst national outbreaks

By Cid Standifer and Brie Zeltner

This article was provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join our free mailing list as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

For the first two months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., Ohio’s response set an example. Thanks to an early shutdown order, the state’s per-capita deaths from the virus as of late April were less than half of those in neighboring Pennsylvania, a state with similar demographics.

But inside the two states’ prison systems, it was a different story. 

By late April , the death rate from COVID-19 in Ohio prisons was 22 per 100,000, a rate more than 4 ½ times the overall Ohio rate and nearly twice the national rate. 

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Erie Chinese Journal Distributes Newspapers by Mail Thanks to a Facebook Journalism Project Grant

Annie Ying Pu direct-mailed copies of the Erie Chinese Journal Saturday as part of a Facebook Journalism Project grant to ensure local Chinese American readers can safely access the Mandarin/English print paper during the COVID-19 pandemic (Photo courtesy of Erie Chinese Journal).

Back in May, The Erie Chinese Journal was one of just 144 local U.S. news organizations—one of only four in all of Ohio—to be a recipient of a Facebook Journalism Project COVID-19 Local News Relief Grant.

The Facebook Journalism Project grant helped save the 18-year-old paper from impending pandemic disaster, and now—right on-schedule—Anne Ying Pu, Publisher of the Chinese community newspaper (headquartered in Cleveland), was able to resume and increase direct-mail home delivery copies of The Erie Chinese Journal print edition through the U.S. Post Office this Saturday.  By having the paper mailed directly to readership mailboxes, these readers now receive information by and for their own community, in their own language, but without having to leave their homes during the pandemic.

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Your Voice Ohio-Bliss Institute Poll Results

Ohio Voters for Biden Worry about Coronavirus; those for Trump Worry about the Economy

by Liz Skalka

The Blade

A new poll that shows President Donald Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio also reveals that Mr. Biden’s “strong” supporters here outnumber Mr. Trump’s, a snapshot of the state less than 100 days from an election that will determine whether Ohio continues its unmatched swing-state streak.

The poll also revealed the issues motivating each candidates’ backers: Mr. Biden’s identified coronavirus as their top concern, while Mr. Trump’s said it was the economy in a year defined by a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and a reckoning over racial justice.

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The new landscape for local news

NCMA-CLE member outlets hold roundtable discussions with local news-makers like Mayor Frank Jackson, here pictured at a December 13 small media conference on the new location for the Cleveland Police Department headquarters building (photo by Neighborhood Media).

By R.T. Andrews

Republished from The Real Deal Press

If you are going to be scooped on your own story, it’s likely best when a friend does it.

There is so much happening of grisly consequence these days — from the health, economic and civic ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the absolutely horrendous response thereto by so many of our leaders on every level; to what has quickly shaped up to the largest public corruption scheme in Ohio history; to the quiet federal invasion of our city; to the ongoing crises in city administration; to the sense of possibility that exists in this moment of racial recalibration — we might be forgiven for failing to report on a couple of matters right in our backyard.

The first of these neighborhood items is captured in this piece by Jay Miller, longtime Crain’s reporter, and one of a dwindling core of Cleveland journalists possessed of institutional memory. The local daily newspaper, the Plain Dealer, died unceremoniously a few months ago, intentionally deprived by its absentee owner over several years of the resources it needed to sustain and reinvent itself. For the moment, its shell is being inhabited by cleveland.com, a digital news site that currently uses the PD nameplate to imply a false continuity with a bygone era. [It’s reminiscent of when the Modell Browns slunk off to Baltimore; the NFL team’s records and colors stayed behind, but the replacement squad that arrived a few years later still bears no resemblance to the original.] Continue reading

HB 6 repeal would address only part of Ohio lawmakers’ recent actions to slow renewables

Streetlight on the Scioto (photo courtesy of Eye on Ohio)

HB 6 repeal would address only part of Ohio lawmakers’ recent actions to slow renewables

But a complete repeal is needed as a minimum to undo the bill’s gutting of the clean energy standards, advocates say.

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 our free mailing list or the mailing list for Energy News as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

Both Republican and Democratic Ohio lawmakers are pushing to repeal the state’s nuclear bailout bill after this week’s release of a federal criminal complaint against House Speaker Larry Householder and others. Clean energy advocates say that would be a start, but more is needed to address eight years of lawmakers’ actions to slow the growth of renewables in the state.

The complaint alleges a $60 million bribery and conspiracy scheme that led to the passage of House Bill 6 last summer, followed by the defeat of a referendum effort to give voters a say on the bill. Amounts involved are about 20 times more than amounts that could be tracked through public documents.

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A Call With My Parents:

Part II

Mom, Dad, and Walter (photo courtesy of Walter Checefsky)

A Call With My Parents: Part II (republished from The Tremonster)

by Bruce Checefsky

            I worried about visiting my parents for the Memorial Day weekend because of COVID19. I hadn’t seen them since last December. They live in northeastern Pennsylvania.   We weighed the risks, watched the weather forecast carefully so any visit would remain strictly outdoors. I rented a hotel for two nights nearby in a renovated 1930s train station. A few days before driving the seven hours east to visit, I still had my doubts. I was uncomfortable knowing that I might have been exposed to the virus and not know it. Both my parents are 89-years old and their health is what you might expect at that age.

            I phoned dad to ask him what he thought.

            “I have old A.G.E,” he said with humor uniquely his own. “Whatever you decide is fine.”

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Behind the Story of CMSD’s John Marshall Drive-Through Graduation Solution

by The West Park Times & Neighborhood Media

It is difficult to find an aspect of life that has not changed in the face of the current COVID-19 outbreak.  For that reason, it could have been easy to overlook the one small step Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s (CMSD) John Marshall IT High School graduates took in June—to them, it’s a giant leap for mankind.  After digging deeper, we found it was a giant leap for both CMSD and Toledo Public Schools (TPS), too.

This summer, The West Park Times published a three-part series (funded by the new local media collaborative, “NEO SOJO”) on graduation innovations from Cleveland high schools.

But in an interview with CMSD CEO Eric Gordon just before the graduation ceremony for John Marshall IT, he spoke to the seriousness with which his team took COVID-19 containment planning for Cleveland’s students and their families.

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Lead tests for children plummet in Cleveland; advocates worry about long-term fallout

This story is provided by ideastream as part of special community coverage of COVID-19 and funded by Third Federal Foundation and University Settlement.

By Rachel Dissell

CLEVELAND, Ohio — State shutdown orders meant to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus have created a double-whammy of lead poisoning risk for young children in Cleveland. 

Many of these children are spending more time in homes with potential lead hazards, and fewer are getting tested to see if they’ve been exposed to the toxin. 

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