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An anti-fracking charter-amendment proposal could be in front of Youngstown voters for a sixth time
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown Community Bill of Rights Committee submitted petitions with 2,489 signatures to get a charter-amendment proposal back on the ballot to ban fracking, injection wells and other shale-gas infrastructure in the city for a sixth time.
Most “voters want to keep our drinking water clean and want the right of local control over whether shale-gas infrastructure such as drilling, injection wells, pipelines, compressor stations, radioactive-waste streams can locate in our community,” said Susie Beiersdorfer, a committee member. “Who has the right to decide: the people in the community or drilling and waste-disposal corporations? Do the people have the right to self-govern to protect their health, safety and happiness or do the corporations have a right to profit no matter the cost to the people and the community?”
Similar proposals were rejected twice, in both 2013 and 2014, as well as in November 2015. The last attempt was the closest with the proposal losing by 2.5 percentage points.
If the proposal has the needed valid signatures, it will be on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.
It was given Monday to the city clerk. City council will vote, likely in the next two months, to forward the petitions to the Mahoning County Board of Elections. The board will check the signatures to determine how many are valid.
Committee members say they need at least 10 percent of the total votes in the last general election as has been the case in the past. That would be 1,259 valid signatures.
Law Director Martin Hume hasn’t determined if the percentage is 10 or 3. If it’s the latter, the charter-amendment proposal would need only 378 valid signatures.
Butch Taylor, business manager for the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 396 union that has led the opposition to this effort, said, “I don’t know what to say anymore. Everyone knows the issues. There’s more positive attributes than anything negative they can say. We need good-paying jobs with benefits.”
Also, Taylor said, the proposal wouldn’t be valid if approved because the Ohio Department of Natural Resources oversees fracking in the state.
Beiersdorfer disagrees, but said, “If nothing else, we’re an obstacle. We don’t want it here.”
If it fails again, expect to see it again, she said.
“We don’t lose until we quit,” Beiersdorfer said.
“This will protect Youngstown from the dangers of fracking and injection wells,” said Chris Khumprakop of Youngstown, one of about 20 people who came to support the ballot proposal.
Mayor John A. McNally, who doesn’t support the proposal, said, “We continue to believe the issues addressed in their petitions are wholly under the jurisdiction of the Ohio EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.”
It could be a November ballot filled with charter-amendment proposals for city voters.
In addition to this, an initiative to give part-time workers increased rights and as many as seven charter-amendment proposals from a McNally-appointed commission could be on the ballot.