Editorial Roundup: Ohio

Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:

Kent State must keep Fonda as May 4 speaker

Akron Beacon Journal

Feb. 22

Nearly 47 years after the last U.S. combat troops boarded a C-130 and departed Tan Son Nhut air base near Saigon, the Vietnam War continues to divide us.

Worse yet, we continue to use the Vietnam War and that turbulent time as another way to divide ourselves.

The latest example is the burgeoning controversy ignited by Kent State University’s selection of Jane Fonda as one of three keynote speakers for the school’s 50th commemoration of the May 4, 1970, shootings.

Almost certainly, the school knew Fonda, who will be paid $83,000, would be a controversial choice. Labeled “Hanoi Jane” after being photographed peering through the scope of an empty North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun while on a visit there in July 1972, the Academy Award-winning actress, now 82, has been persona non grata in right-wing circles ever since.

The announcement of her selection on Feb. 10 was met with the immediate and expected vitriol, with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose weighing in six days later. The Copley native tweeted and wrote a longer Facebook post, citing his 10 years of service in the military, asking Kent State to cancel Fonda’s appearance.

LaRose accused Fonda of “providing aid and comfort to the enemy and willfully serving as a propaganda tool,” calling her behavior “the very definition of treason.”

Conservatives like to accuse the left of using political correctness to prevent certain viewpoints from being heard on college campuses, and that charge is not without some merit. Even comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Maher have spoken out against it.

But the right, too, enforces its own form of rigid adherence to political correctness, drawing a red line at any perceived slight of the military or the police, which should always be respected for service and sacrifice but must never be elevated above deserved criticism.

And what both sides seem to have forgotten is that college campuses are exactly where young adults should be exposed to all views - within reasonable boundaries that most can agree on - as they learn and mature.

All of which makes Fonda an inspired choice to speak at Kent State this year.

For one thing, she has a long history of social activism, beginning as a young anti-war activist during the Vietnam era and continuing up to today as she protests against climate change. On the day of the Kent State shooting, Fonda learned of the tragedy while speaking before an assembly at the University of New Mexico on GI rights and issues.

Just as important is that Fonda recognized the mistake she made in allowing herself to be used in North Vietnamese propaganda - “It is possible it was a setup. I will never know,” she said - and has spent decades apologizing and atoning for it.

“Whenever possible I try to sit down with vets and talk with them, because I understand and it makes me sad,” Fonda told an audience in Frederick, Maryland, in 2015. “It hurts me and it will go to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers.”

In other words, she has grown. She has learned.

Kent State has it exactly right and, commendably, has not backed down from its decision. As the Advisory Committee said, the May 4 50th commemoration program is “emblematic of long-standing divisions in our country and the difficulty we have reconciling our differences.”

″… We remain mindful that Kent State occupies a special place among universities in America. We know firsthand the dire consequences of polarizing rhetoric and the positive outcomes that result when we work together to reconcile our differences through thoughtful reflection and productive discourse.”

We can not move forward together as a free society by silencing and shunning those with whom we might disagree.

Let Jane Fonda speak.

Online: https://bit.ly/32nKofu

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Step closer to last bite from hunger

The Canton Repository

Feb. 21

Delivering remarks Thursday at a special announcement in the effort to end hunger in our region, William Shivers summed up one of the many things that makes our community special.

“When we have a common cause and get behind it, we can do anything,” said Shivers, the president of Huntington National Bank’s Canton and Mahoning Valley regions and board chair of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank.

The “anything” we celebrate today: the fact more than $8.5 million of an $11.5 million capital campaign to build a new food warehouse in northeast Canton already has been secured through business, foundation and personal contributions.

“I told Dan early on, ‘Canton will be committed,’” Shivers said, referring to Dan Flowers, president and CEO of our region’s foodbank.

More than 70% of those early pledge dollars in the Growing for Good campaign came from eight “Leadership Investors” that gave at least $500,000 each: American Electric Power Foundation, FirstEnergy Foundation, The Hoover Foundation, The Jeffrey Fisher Family, The Keith D. Monda Family, The J.M. Smucker Co., Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton; and Stark Community Foundation.

With the $11.5 million, Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank will build a food warehouse on the site of the former Fishers Foods store on Cherry Avenue NE. The space, roughly 40,000 square feet, dramatically will increase foodbank storage capacity, allowing it to “reach further and feed more.”

The foodbank’s facility in Akron also will be expanded. Current space is maxed out, which has hindered the agency’s ability to continue to cut into food shortages in our area, where roughly 1 in 7 residents face “food insecurity” - not knowing where their next meal will come from.

“There is a long runway of available food, but we need the space to (process) it,” said Flowers, who called the partnership in Canton a “transformational project” being announced at an “historic occasion” on a “monumental day.”

Those big words reflect the level of cooperation and collaboration shown by the numerous parties involved in seeing the Growing for Good plan reach this point.

“To see the entire community rally around this idea, it’s a great thing,” said grocer Jeff Fisher, whose family first opened the Cherry Avenue store in 1954.

We join Fisher in being thankful the site will become “a strong community asset” and “not an old store sitting empty.”

Flowers said a Canton warehouse will save fuel and time for local pantries and other foodbank partners that travel to Akron for perishable and nonperishable goods. An additional “200 to 300 more hunger relief partners” could be helped because of the added infrastructure.

While we join Flowers in celebrating the partnerships, the fundraising tally and the greater potential for eradicating hunger, the finish line remains in the distance.

“We have a lot of momentum, but we’re not done yet,” Flowers said. “We hope the community will stand with us, lock arms and turn this dream into a reality.”

In a nation as wealthy as ours, where food is available in abundance, no person in Northeast Ohio - or anywhere - should experience hunger. We’ve shown if we get behind the effort, we can do anything.

Online: https://bit.ly/2TbdDy7

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Mayor Ginther charts a challenging path forward

The Columbus Dispatch

Feb. 23

Uncomfortable. Messy. Frustrating. Fearful. Angry. Even deadly.

Those negative attributes describe some of the ugly consequences of racial and economic disparity that Mayor Andrew J. Ginther rightfully called out in his recent State of the City address.

They weren’t the comments that grabbed the next day’s headlines, and they aren’t the sort of admissions that an elected official tends to make in a State-of-the-Anything speech, but they were the most important words he delivered.

The Dispatch commends Ginther for his willingness to name Columbus’ most vexing challenges - racism and discrimination - and to take responsibility for leading initiatives intended to create equity in place of disparity.

Certainly Columbus has made great strides worthy of celebration under Ginther’s watch. It has been recognized as the Midwest’s No. 1 metro area for hiring (and No. 2 in the nation), as a consistently great city for launching startups, as a best city to work in tech and as a city of opportunity for new college graduates. Columbus has become widely known in recent years for affordability, livability and, as a result, for fast population growth in a state that is otherwise losing residents.

Reelected in November without opposition, the second-term mayor could have used his address to bask in such honors, but Ginther wisely recognized there are “residents who see the accolades the city receives and wonder if that’s the same city they live in.”

While the nation grows more polarized than ever, Ginther has taken a welcome stand by declaring “as a city, we have the ability to unify, to close this divide.”

It is time for the rest of us - as individuals, corporations, nonprofits, faith communities - to identify where we can be most effective in helping to achieve the equity that Ginther calls the cornerstone of his administration.

And there is plenty of work to be done.

Infant mortality is a key metric that will determine success in reducing racial disparity in access to health care and affordable housing. Franklin County’s stubborn rates of babies dying in their first 12 months are still high, but it is shameful that African American babies are still twice as likely as white babies to die before their first birthday. More attention to the racism and discrimination that Ginther called out is needed to address this problem.

Online: https://bit.ly/2HQmhfU

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Should simply holding a cellphone be grounds for a traffic stop in Ohio?

The Plain Dealer

Feb. 22

Ohio drivers could be pulled over and cited for using — or just touching — any wireless device while driving under a new, bipartisan legislative proposal that would make distracted driving a primary offense.

Gov. Mike DeWine is a proponent of the “Hands-Free Ohio” plan, which resulted in part from a task force he convened as attorney general that found an alarming increase in vehicular deaths and crashes it partly attributed to distracted driving. Right now, distracted driving is a secondary offense in Ohio, meaning police are not able to stop someone under Ohio law just for that offense (although some municipal codes, such as those in Brooklyn and Lakewood, Ohio, already allow that).

Proposed Senate Bill 285 provides for a number of exceptions, including calling 911 or other emergency services; using a phone while outside the lane of travel; or using a hands-free or permanently installed device or watching GPS mapping data, provided that in no case is any part of a person touching the device. It also has professional exceptions, such as for single-swipe transactions, say by a Lyft or Uber driver; or wireless use while engaged in official public-service or emergency-utility duties; or for commercial truckers using their mobile data terminals.

After an “interim period” of about six months once the law were to take effect, it also mandates fines for distracted driving of $150 to start and at least $500 for a third offense.

The distracted driving task force noted that the roll of cellphones or other wireless devices in Ohio’s rising traffic fatalities is a little unclear, in part because of the lack of clear, verifiable evidence of cellphone use in many crashes.

A 2012 law made texting while driving illegal, but not a primary offense — although it made cellphone use by drivers under the age of 18 a primary offense. A 2018 law enhanced penalties for distracted driving but didn’t clearly define what constituted distracted driving, according to the task force, which recommended toughening penalties in a single, less vague law.

So, is SB 285 needed in Ohio? What are its downsides? Could it result in unnecessary stops by police? Our Editorial Board Roundtable offers some thoughts.

Thomas Suddes, editorial writer:

Holding a cellphone should certainly not be grounds for a traffic stop. Ohio lets anyone who can breathe display virtually any firearm she or he wishes. If a Glock doesn’t get you stopped, why should an iPhone?

Ted Diadiun, cleveland.com columnist:

I enjoy talking on the phone while I’m driving, even when I don’t have my earbuds with me. I don’t believe I’m distracted, but I’m not playing Pokemon or watching a ballgame. Hard to argue with a law that arms police with the ability to force irresponsible drivers to pay attention, though. I’ll put up with some inconvenience for that.

Victor Ruiz, editorial board member:

Distracted driving is a real problem; however, punishing someone for simply holding a cellphone is taking it too far. We need to look at this more closely, and even expand the definition to “roadside distractions.” In addition to cellphones, we need to include all billboards, orange barrels, and those flashing signs that warn us that distracted driving can kill us.

Lisa Garvin, editorial board member:

I’ve had my fill of idiot drivers looking anywhere but at the road ahead. Just about every day, a distracted driver wanders into my lane or makes other dangerous moves while staring at their phone. A pricey traffic ticket for just holding a mobile device? Yes, please. My life is more important than your text message.

Eric Foster, editorial board member:

Forgive me, but as a black man in America, I tend to not view giving police additional tools they can use to stop my car as a good thing. That said, laws like this aren’t even proven to be effective. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says, “It’s not clear that banning hand-held phone use and texting reduces crashes.” Boom.

Online: https://bit.ly/32qkdol

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