Y’town voters again reject anti-fracking ballot issue

Six months after they said no to amending the Home Rule Charter to ban fracking in the city, Youngstown residents underscored that decision with an even stronger rejection in the Nov. 6 general election.

Yet, proponents of this unmitigated abuse of the electoral process aren’t willing to try their hand at some other self-aggrandizing ploy dressed up as public policy.

Consider this comment from Susie Beiersdorfer, a member of the Committee for the Community Bill of Rights, which backed the issue: “We’re not finished fighting the corporate state. We’re not finished exposing the corruption in campaigns with huge money pouring into this every time. We’ll continue to fight for our community.”

Let’s break down Beiersdorfer’s statement to get to the heart of what’s driving the advocates of this ill-conceived, unnecessary special-interest issue.

She contends that the anti-fracking campaign is about fighting the corporate state. Really?

It is noteworthy the main opposition to this charter amendment for the eight times it has been on the ballot – no, it isn’t a misprint: eight – has come from the Mahoning Valley Jobs and Growth Coalition. The coalition is made up of local businesses, labor organizations, elected and community leaders and economic development entities that are committed to rebuilding the city of Youngstown and its economy.

In a statement leading up to the Nov. 6 general election, the coalition warned that “out-of-state activists pushing the job-killing ‘Youngstown Drinking Water Protection Bill of Rights’ don’t care about the hardworking families in Youngstown and their jobs.”

Most residents obviously agree with the coalition’s assessment of the charter amendment. They also aren’t fooled by the grandiose name “Youngstown Drinking Water Protection Bill of Rights.”

As we noted before the May primary, opponents of fracking in the city were hoping that the lipstick they’ve put on the pig – the proposed charter amendment – will fool the voters.

In the 2013, 2014 primary and general elections and the 2015 and 2016 general elections, the charter amendment was called the “Community Bill of Rights.”

Scare tactics

After being rejected six times, the self-appointed paragons of environmental virtues decided to scare the people of Youngstown into thinking that they would be drinking poisonous water if they again rejected the charter amendment.

But putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it any less of a pig.

Here’s the bottom line: Out-of-state environmental activists have found easy marks in Susie Beiersdorfer and other members of the Committee for the Community Bill of Rights and so have chosen Youngstown to push their agenda.

Fortunately, residents are not taken in by the scare tactics.

As we’ve argued ad nauseam, fracking is not in the city of Youngstown’s future. There’s no oil and gas drilling, the drinking water isn’t bursting into flames because of the chemicals being pumped into the earth, and people’s lives aren’t in danger.

But what is dangerous are the ramifications of the charter amendment: Not only would fracking be banned, but so would activities in the city related to the extraction of fossil fuels.

In other words, jobs in the city tied to the drilling industry, including hundreds at Vallourec Star, would be threatened.

The other problem with the amendment is that the city would be hard-pressed to enforce the provisions. The Ohio Constitution gives the Department of Natural Resources exclusive authority to oversee the fracking process to extract oil and gas from beneath the earth’s surface.

The anti-frackers should be ashamed of themselves for scaring city residents into thinking that their drinking water is in danger of being poisoned.

It’s one thing to argue the merits of an issue by telling the truth. It’s another to lie in order to garner public support.

The so-called “Drinking Water Protection Bill of Rights” is a lie because it’s founded on the premise that oil and gas extraction through the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes and the like is in the city’s future. It isn’t.

Eight times the issue has been on the ballot in Youngstown, and eight times the voters have said no to the charter amendment.

It’s time for Beiersdorfer and her cohorts to concede defeat and turn their attention to other challenges confronting the city and the Mahoning Valley. For instance, they could help rehabilitate the homes of residents who can barely make ends meet.