Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:
New Bexley rent rule makes a statement about diversity and inclusion
The Columbus Dispatch
Oct. 20
As central Ohio struggles with a persistent shortage of affordable housing, it’s good to note how far we’ve come from high-rise government projects of decades past that too often weren’t good places to live and only perpetuated poverty.
An encouraging example of this is Bexley City Council’s recent vote prohibiting landlords from rejecting someone as a tenant based solely on what income he or she would use to pay the rent. At issue are the federal vouchers that some low-income families are given for housing. Under new language in the suburb’s fair-housing code, such vouchers are expressly included in the definition of “lawful income.”
Policy makers generally recognize now that allowing people greater choice in where they can live increases the likelihood that they can work their way out of poverty, and Bexley’s new language affords that choice. “In communities that have added protection, people have the opportunity to access more and better housing,” said housing advocate Amy Klaben, who urged Bexley officials to consider the change.
Whether this actually will open up Bexley apartments to many low-income families is debatable; it remains a relatively high-income area, with a median house price of nearly $400,000 and rents starting at $850 per month.
It wasn’t surprising that the Columbus Apartment Association opposes the measure with its general counsel, Dimitri Hatzifotinos, saying it won’t likely work. He said the same thing about a recent Franklin County appeals court decision holding that landlords must appear in court for eviction cases to proceed.
Regarding the Bexley policy, however, his reasoning is repugnant. Hatzifotinos suggested the rule could drive up rents because landlords might raise them beyond what a federal voucher could cover, just to avoid having to accept those renters - seemingly confirming the sort of exclusion and racism the rule seeks to ban.
We hope that Bexley landlords aren’t quite that intent on discrimination and that the new guidelines will help Bexley, and any other cities that follow its lead, gain some of the diversity that makes communities stronger.
Well. It seems that income inequality is rampant even among the fraction-of-1%. Try not to cry too ugly as you consider that, while the world’s billionaires are all pretty much cleaning up during the coronavirus pandemic, some aren’t doing nearly as well as the top.
It didn’t used to be this way; in the past decade, according to a report by the Swiss bank UBS and PwC, “steady growth and buoyant asset prices lifted billionaire wealth in all sectors.” In the past two years, however, an income gap has widened between titans of technology, health care and industry - “Innovator billionaires” - and regular old billionaires whose fortunes come from entertainment, financial services and real estate.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the pandemic is expected to deepen the income inequality that truly hurts - that leaves millions of people without adequate health care or education to get ahead.
The report speculated that super-billionaires may be “at a turning point” where they turn more attention to using their fortunes for good. If so, here’s a suggestion: convert a modest fraction of profits and wealth into significantly higher wages at the bottom of the ladder and see how quickly society’s seemingly toughest problems start to magically disappear.
Online: https://bit.ly/3ki5Smi
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Water protection
The Toledo Blade
Oct. 20
A decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to roll back clean water protections is bad policy joined with bad science.
By changing the Clean Water Act’s definition of “the waters of the United States,” the EPA has jeopardized the quality of the very waters the agency is charged with protecting. Congress should amend the act to void the changes and codify a meaningful definition of protected waters based on science.
Many smaller water sources are excluded from EPA jurisdiction by the new rule, which keeps federal protection for only four types of waters: seas and navigable rivers and lakes; tributaries to those rivers; some ponds and reservoirs, and wetlands (provided they are adjacent to other waters under federal protection). The new rule strips protections for groundwater, intermittent creeks and rivers - which provide much of the water for western states after rain or snow - and most small tributaries.
It also cuts protection for many smaller lakes and ponds that aren’t considered navigable. Notably, large-scale irrigation canals - a major source of chemical and biological contaminants according to the EPA - would no longer be subject to federal protections.
The EPA’s own science advisory board opposed the changes as a rejection of recognized science. The board said in a commentary that the changes “… are proposed without a fully supportable scientific basis, while potentially introducing 8 substantial new risks to human and environmental health.”
The board was ignored.
If the new EPA definition incorporated in The Navigable Waters Protection Rule stands, dumping of pesticides and other noxious substances would be allowed to foul many wetlands and streams. Groundwater would also lose protections.
The new definition fails to recognize that smaller streams, wetlands, and groundwater eventually flow into larger waters - endangering the lakes and rivers that remain protected. Those lakes and rivers provide drinking water to millions of Americans.
Trading clean water for political payback is disturbing, and this decision is a clear case of political payback to the President’s supporters. The new definition made its debut at a meeting of the National Association of Home Builders. Developers, ranchers, farmers, and oil and gas companies all supported trashing the existing definitions.
Helping the economy was one reason the administration gave for the changes. The economy is doing fine, as President Trump has reminded us often.
In the long run, a strong economy is dependent on the availability of clean water.
Presidents often reward their election supporters via policy choices and political appointments, but jeopardizing clean water goes too far.
Some of the regulations being discarded were implemented during the presidency of Barack Obama, but others go back decades. Because the 1972 Clean Water Act does not define “the waters of the United States,” the definition has been determined by regulation.
While a few wealthy states such as California have the ability to enforce regulations to maintain water safety, most states simply can’t afford to protect their waters.
The EPA cannot be permitted to ignore established science. Congress should act to rectify a policy endangering the health of the nation’s waters.
Online: https://bit.ly/3jl59iF
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At KBI plant, sizing up solutions
The Sandusky Register
Oct. 19
We’re hopeful about a proposal to invest $19.3 million to rebuild and reconstruct the massive factory at Hayes and Perkins Avenue, the former KBI bearing manufacturing.
Its original name - going back more than 75 years - was New Departure and for a long, long time it was a General Motors plant, one of the giant automaker’s most efficient and valued factories. By the time of its demise in 2017, GM had been long gone for many years (although it remained its largest customer) and it was not near the great industrial marvel it had been previously.
But it still employed local people just as it had done of generations, for decades, helping build the American middle class and the American dreams for families across the region.
The factory’s sheer size - 1.3 million square feet - has made it difficult to market for a new manufacturer to come in, but this plan, announced at a Perkins Schools board meeting, aims to remedy the size problem. It includes sub-dividing the buildings, adding access and transportation areas and environmental cleanup. The fact the owners went to the school board, seeking approval for a tax abatement to offset some of the investment, might mean this plan is moving forward.
We hope it is, and it does. An empty factory - even if it is the size of 22 football fields - does not generate tax revenue or benefit the schools, in any event. But a new factory, or two in the space once occupied by the great American automaker and the Ohio workforce that helped make it great, could one day. And in the meantime, a formerly idled factory hires a workforce and here at home, manufacturing is in our blood.
We’re looking forward to keeping a keen eye and reporting more as this develops.
Online: https://bit.ly/3dJrLbs
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Now is time to make a plan for vaccines
The Marietta Times
Oct. 20
We Americans, collectively, were not ready for the coronavirus epidemic. We ought to be ready for the recovery.
It will begin when a vaccine against COVID-19 becomes available. Though a timeline for that is uncertain, it appears safe, effective vaccines will be available early next year. Understandably, it will take longer than that for the protection to be accessible by most people.
At first, vaccines will have to go to those most in need of them. The list includes health care workers, first responders - and nursing home residents.
Federal health officials have begun developing a plan to distribute vaccines to nursing homes as quickly and efficiently as possible, according to The Associated Press.
But, the AP noted, “Such a vaccine is not yet available, and that led to skepticism from some long-term care experts.”
There is no sense in that. Where is the need for skepticism in planning for WHATEVER vaccine is eventually developed?
Indeed, no one is certain yet what formulas will be used for COVID-19 vaccines. Once effective ones are developed, it will take time for the Food and Drug Administration to approve their production and distribution.
But at some point, that all will happen. Not having a distribution plan in place will delay getting protection to nursing home residents even more.
Federal officials reportedly are considering a plan whereby staff from the CVS and Walgreens drug store chains would deliver vaccines to nursing homes and administer them to residents. Whether that is the best method of handling the program may be a matter for discussion.
That is precisely the point, however. Now, not weeks from now, is the time to be hashing out disagreements over how to produce, distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccines to Americans.
Had we listened to those who for years have warned we were unprepared for a major epidemic, lives could have been saved. Not might, but WOULD have been saved.
Let’s not make the same mistake regarding vaccines.
Online: https://bit.ly/3khSz59
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Action needed to fix wrongs at Ohio State
The Warren Tribune Chronicle
Oct. 20
When an institution has a decadeslong pattern of covering up or failing to acknowledge abuse by one of its own, it is necessary for both the well-being of the victims and of that institution to do everything possible to set the situation right.
We see the degree to which institutions ranging from the Catholic Church to Penn State University have worked to restore trust and make amends.
Ohio State University, on the other hand, still has work to do. An investigation conducted by a law firm hired by OSU concluded the university knew about and failed to act on decades of sexual abuse of student athletes by former team doctor Richard Strauss.
The more than 200 plaintiffs in lawsuits filed against the university are right to ask for help from the NCAA and the Big Ten athletic conference - and not just because they are seeking greater monetary compensation. “I think it’s time for them to step up and protect the athletes, both of yesterday and of today,” said Mike Murphy, a former pole vaulter who says he was abused by Strauss in the late 1980s.
While there is some argument to be made that the difference for Ohio State is that Strauss is deceased and never was convicted of a crime, it bears repeating the law firm the university hired agrees with the plaintiffs that some OSU officials knew what was happening and did not stop it.
As one plaintiff put it, corrective measures should be great enough to ensure such a thing never happens again at Ohio State. If it takes outside help to make that happen, so be it.
Online: https://bit.ly/31u3IIW
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