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Fracking opponents continue to target city of Youngstown, won’t take no for an answer
On the side
I received an email the other day from PR & Company, a San Francisco-based public relations firm, pitching a “Justice for All?” report by the Women Donors Network’s Reflective Democracy Campaign about the lack of diversity among prosecutors.
The first line read: “Ohio is one of 15 states where all elected prosecutor positions are held by white men.”
I repeated it on my Twitter feed with no plans to write anything more. Then something interesting happened. A number of my astute Twitter followers – including state Auditor Dave Yost and state Rep. Emily Sykes – let me know about various female elected county prosecutors in Ohio. From their count, 12 of the state’s 88 county prosecutors are women. It became a game to find more female prosecutors and numerous people were quite good at it.
After discovering the mistake, I emailed PR & Co. to alert the firm.
The response, sent to several journalists, read: “Please disregard the pitch you received within the last hour regarding the Justice for All? report. You accidentally received a regional note that was meant to be sent to media in states that do not have female or African American elected prosecutors. Please disregard the note and we regret any confusion it may have caused.” It ended with, “Apologies for the error.”
How much is too much?
When it comes to the anti-fracking charter amendment in Youngstown, Mayor John A. McNally says the city charter and the state constitution don’t address a limit.
Supporters of the fracking ban say they’re collecting signatures to put it on the ballot for a fifth time in November. It failed twice in 2013 and two more times last year.
Voters for Ballot Integrity, a group organized to fight the anti-fracking proposal, disagrees with McNally that the proposal can be on the ballot yet again.
The organization contends a Feb. 17 decision by the Ohio Supreme Court means the proposal to ban fracking in the city cannot be considered by city voters.
The decision states that Ohio’s home-rule amendment doesn’t grant local governments the authority to regulate oil and gas operations in their limits, and that all of those decisions rest with the state. The state agency that oversees fracking is the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
McNally disagrees with the group’s interpretation of the court decision. Also, Mark Munroe, the chairman of the Mahoning County Board of Elections, said the court decision likely doesn’t apply to Youngstown.
When it comes to the legality of Youngstown charter issues, the decision primarily rests with the city law director. It can also be considered by the county prosecutor and the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.
I doubt anything is going to get this removed from the ballot if the group organizing the effort gets the needed amount of valid signatures.
Some of the Ballot Integrity group likely feel the same way as they are urging people not to sign the petitions to get the amendment on the ballot.
This “new” group is essentially made up of the same union officials who opposed this issue in the past under the name Mahoning Valley Coalition for Job Growth.
Why are they so concerned about what Bill Padisak, president of the Mahoning-Trumbull AFL-CIO Labor Council, called “a small group of radical activists?” I don’t know.
The proposal lost by 15.7 percentage points in November 2014. It lost by 8.3 percentage points in May 2014, 9.7 percentage points in November 2013, and by 13.7 percentage points in May 2013.
Also, show me where fracking is occurring in Youngstown.
The potential certainly exists, but the expected shale boom for the region has yet to occur.
That lack of a boom from the Marcellus and Utica Shales led Vallourec Star, which spent $1.1 billion to expand its operations in Youngstown, to announce Thursday that it was laying off 60 to 80 of its employees as part of its plan to eliminate 2,000 workers worldwide.
Unenforceable
Even if the Youngstown anti-fracking ballot initiative were to pass, it’s not enforceable.
Yes, there would almost certainly be legal action filed if voters finally approve the ballot initiative. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing. At least it would resolve the issue.
“It would be how you put the issue to bed once and for all,” McNally said. “But the voters of the city are [trying to put] it to bed by repeatedly rejecting it.”
Backers of the proposal have said they’ll keep putting the measure in front of city voters until it passes.
Based on the results, that’s likely to be a very long time.
A note on a different topic: I often write a wrap-up to my time at the annual Austintown Fourth of July parade. But not enough happened to merit a column.
It’s always a fun time, but this was the first parade without either of my daughters, who are now 21 and 18, and past their prime as young candy grabbers.
My wife and I got showered with mini-Tootsie Rolls from the Austintown trustees – something that always startles the people around us.
Also, Andrea Paventi, an Austintown trustee candidate, is a candy genius. She gave me a bag filled with my favorites, including some that I’ve never listed such as Good ‘N Plenty.