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Archive for Political
28 June 2004 at 7.44 pm · Filed under City life, Political
I just witnessed Columbus City Council pass ordinance 1095-2004, which bans smoking in all public places. Businesses permitting violations of the law are subject to a $150 fine per offense. It takes effect in 90 days.
I went with Marc, which was quite a thrill, since he seems to know everyone in city government. We sat in the front row of the balcony, where a restless, wheezing, crusty crowd of lovelies wore matching T-shirts reading “KEEP OUR BUTTS INSIDE.” The stagnant environment up there only reinforced my desire for cleaner air.
After what seemed like not too much boring utility stuff, the ordinance came up for discussion. Charleta Tavares was barely two or three minutes into the reading when a man ten feet away from me on the balcony raised his hand. “I have a question!” he yelled. Then he started a shouting match with President Habash. Pretty soon a beefy policeman came by to talk with him. This got rather a lot of my attention, but I think I got the gist of what Tavares was saying.
They added a number of amendments to the proposed ordinance, which were asked for by the Council members, including an exemption for private clubs. Marc and I were a little confused about that, because the ordinance was sold as a worker safety issue, and we thought that was a pretty significant loophole. It turns out this refers to non-profit clubs only.
I can’t bore you with all the details, but I will share some highlights. When Tavares announced that private collections of ashtrays would be allowed in public places, the audience troublemaker, apparently confused, yelled, “This is bullshit!” and “You gonna have to take me out of here!” Which, sadly, the comely policeman had to do.
When Sensenbrenner voted no, he got a weary round of applause from the “butts” people, who knew they were going to lose. When it was announced that the amendment passed five to one, there was a serious cheer from the audience, including, er, yours truly, who couldn’t help jumping to his feet like it was some kind of awesome play.
On the way out, we got into an argument with a guy who had been at the meeting speaking on how the Near East Side was getting short shrift. “Black men get killed a lot more often by guns than smoking, but you don’t hear about that. It’s hypocrisy.” I couldn’t help pointing out that smoking and shooting people are now both illegal. Then he said it was hypocritical that we still allow smoking in private homes. “I agree! Let’s ban that, too!” I taunted. “Bring it on!” (I was embarrassed to have appropriated a John Kerry slogan, but I hear it so often.)
And finally, as we left the building, we marched through a cloud of secondhand smoke spitefully produced by the ordinance’s opponents. Marc cutely began hacking up a storm. Unfortunately, the only retort they could come up with is unprintable here (but George W. Bush used it on the campaign trail in 2000).
As we walked past the man from the Libertarian Party, who did not offer us a bumper sticker, and past the signs reading “Hitler / Stalin / Charleta Tavares”, I couldn’t help getting deep whiffs of the sweet smell of democracy and the sharp scent of common sense. I hope I witnessed lasting history and, if you’ll allow it, felt the healthy winds of change in my city.
(Excitingly, the City’s web site on the ordinance was already updated with the correct vote count by the time I got home.)
24 June 2004 at 1.51 pm · Filed under City life, Political
I just read in the Dispatch that COTA has chosen not to go to the November ballot for more money. Ron Barnes is quoted as saying, “Let’s become efficient before we even talk about the levy.” This sounds good, and I’ve already been saying that if I had to vote on it today, I would oppose giving COTA any more money. That really hurts me to say, because I very strongly believe in the cities and in public transportation. But I have little confidence in the management today. They may say they need more money to do a better job, but there are plenty of free things they could be doing and they’re not.
Another letter from a COTA employee criticizing the management appeared this week in the paper also. I’ve been looking for a response to either letter, which I definitely welcome.
Also this week, one of my friends pointed out that not all of the maps were removed from the downtown bus shelters. Some stops, in fact, still have maps from 1998. That’s even worse than no map at all.
I feel bad, because I want this agency to succeed, so I’m uncomfortable being critical, but at the same time, I can’t very well just say that more money will solve everything.
19 June 2004 at 11.33 am · Filed under City life, Political
Sometimes complaining isn’t only fun, it actually could get a little attention. I read a column by a man who had been on a COTA citizens’ advisory committee, who was disillusioned by the closing of the committee, and also by his view of COTA’s apparent perception of itself as an agency that provides useful transportation only to the poor and the disabled, ignoring hundreds of thousands of average people.
So I wrote a letter to the editor in response, and today the Dispatch printed it, at the top of the page, next to a cute little picture of a bus I think they drew just for me! They did only a tiny bit of editing. For my out-of-town readers, here is the edited version:
I couldn’t agree more with Michael Meckler’s recent Forum column in The Dispatch about the failure of the Central Ohio Transit Authority to see the full potential of its service.
In 2000, COTA announced its new Commuter Check program, which let employees receive part of their pay as tax-free transit vouchers. It’s a great deal for employees, employers and COTA. But in four years, COTA has not managed to bring the program to Nationwide, where I work Downtown with 7,000 other employees.
Nationwide, Downtown’s largest employer, told me it was too expensive to participate. COTA should be stepping up and covering some of the cost if that’s what it takes to attract this kind of ridership, but you don’t see this kind of initiative on the part of COTA.
Recently, Nationwide announced it would move 480 suburban employees Downtown. COTA should be at the suburban location every day, forcing bus schedules into the hands of anyone who walks by. This is a golden chance for them to easily target hundreds of new commuters, many of whom will have no idea where to park. The agency should be getting them on board from the very start, and offer anybody moving Downtown free rides for a month.
But COTA doesn’t seem to care about attracting new riders.
- Most buses seem to carry schedules for a route other than the one you’re on, or no schedules at all.
- Its Web site, even after a much-trumpeted redesign, is still awkward and hard to use. Try following its advice and typing “Broad and High” into the trip planner. You’ll get a list of 44 different choices; Broad and High is 11th on the list. And they finally added maps of all routes only recently.
- They ripped out the maps from all of the Downtown bus stops years ago and replaced them with useless, broken digital displays.
I know that some people, against all odds, do take the initiative to track down maps and schedules, find their bus stop and become regular riders. But it’s too rare. More often, I hear stories like Meckler’s, that he tried to stick with it for years but finally gave up.
COTA is like a cult in reverse: Nobody can come in and everybody leaves.
3 December 2003 at 6.18 pm · Filed under City life, Political
As if we didn’t have it bad enough, what with permanent war, the soured economy, secret trials being conducted on American soil, and John Ashcroft swearing he didn’t go through my library books, now we have a new threat. I mean I’m already terrified to take the elevator at work every day, I’m opening my mail with salad tongs*, and now I have to worry about my family and me being shot at as we go about our daily lives.
Yes, the 270 shooter is on the loose. And I thought making my cute 670 T-shirt would be the highway news of the year. I think it will turn out to be some local yahoo, nobody important, some skinny white boy. If he has any flair for the dramatic, he’ll move down to I-275 for a day or two and try his luck there. Nothing like a roving, statewide shooting spree. To get better press, this shooter wouldn’t even have to kill anyone (else).
On Saturday, the story had already made Washington, D.C., local news, and is now a national event. I don’t tell you the news here, so I’m not going to talk about the details. I want to make a couple of points.
First of all, I couldn’t have asked for a better situation than this one to highlight the impact of the Statehouse Republicans’ push for Ohio residents to get the right to carry concealed weapons. If you didn’t know, certain House members have been pushing a bill for months to allow most anyone who can get a permit to be able to carry a gun in a pocket or a purse, and countless patriotic Americans have openly paraded their weapons around the Statehouse and the governor’s mansion to show the folly of the current law. And I fully agree with them. By passing this new bill and putting more guns on the street, we will definitely reduce gun crimes. After all, if criminals don’t know who has a gun, then they don’t know whom they can safely attack. And if the drivers of those 11 motor vehicles had been driving around with loaded guns, they would have been able to roll down their windows, steer and aim at 70mph, shoot back at that sniper, and kill him dead. And poor Gail Knisley would be alive today.
Secondly, a co-worker of mine told me today that Wal-Mart has stopped selling a violent video game in response to this string of shootings. I looked it up and it’s true — out of respect for the dead, the good old Wal-Mart on US 23 (25 miles away) has pulled Grand Theft Auto: Vice City from its shelves. I guess this is the least they could do since the game features simulated shootings and carjackings. Still for sale at Wal-Marts nationwide: guns.
* I stole this line from a Tina Fey interview in the New Yorker. :)
17 February 2003 at 6.33 pm · Filed under City life, Political
Today was the first day back to work and school for anyone affected by the big snowstorm. I just got back from San Francisco, where they don’t have snowstorms, they have whiny “peace rallies.” (It’s just a different kind of disaster.)
OK, I am trivializing war here, but can’t help it. The Left Coast has never been my favorite locale for its radical positions on… everything.
Speaking of positions, I hope in-town readers manage to pick up a copy of The Other Paper this week and catch my letter to the editor on the new 315 ramps. The paper has done two major stories on the spat caused by city engineers who say the state has done an unsafe design for new ramps that provide better accessibility to OSU Hospitals. Somebody else wrote in to say there shouldn’t be new ramps, there should be better transit. I say (in a rather amusing manner, I might add), that in an emergency I’d rather take an ambulance than a bus.
My other comment for today is on the “level three snow emergencies” that have been declared around the state. I realize driving in some areas is to be avoided right now. But can the state, by the level three emergency, legitimately make driving illegal? Under the policy (and I don’t know if it’s in a statute), counties can declare level 3, making driving on public highways entirely illegal (except in some cases of emergencies). I have several problems with this law.
1) The law obliges a driver to get the information about the emergency in some way, but doesn’t specify how. Usually you hear about it on the radio or TV. So can the law require someone to own and operate a radio? The law can’t even require a man to read and write.
2) What if you are out driving when it’s still level 2, and then level 3 is declared? There is no exemption for heading home. You’re breaking the law through no fault (or perhaps knowledge) of your own.
3) Under this policy, you can be ticketed for driving. Isn’t it pretty dangerous to pull someone over, demand to know if it’s a driving emergency, and then issue a ticket? In this kind of weather, pulling over can easily put you in the ditch.
4) Some police, knowing all of the above, may be reluctant to actually enforce the law. This could lead to uneven enforcement. And if that happens, the whole rule of law is weakened.
Finally, to round out this driving-related posting (and because I have been quiet for so long), I would like to have a rare link on my site, to a BBC news article on London’s congestion charging scheme. The government there has implemented a new requirement that any vehicle driving in central London between 7am and 6.30pm has to pay five pounds. Taxis are exempt and local residents can pay only 50p. To enforce the measure, there’s a big network of fixed and mobile cameras that read license plates at the entry points and at key intersections within the city. If you don’t pay, the fines are much higher. They say the point is to cause drivers to pay the actual cost of causing congestion; the fees go toward transportation improvements. I’ve been following this plan for a while, and if you’re curious, there is a great deal of British news and government information. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
5 November 2002 at 8.29 pm · Filed under Political
Chris Matthews: Congressman Bob Barr, let’s talk about Republicans in these toss-up races, how is it that Republicans are picking up these seats so well these days?
Bob Barr (R-GA): Well, I think the big news is Republicans are starting to pay attention to the local politics in the area and I want to say something that Tip O’Neill once said, and he didn’t say it as a Democrat, he said it as a political leader and that is all politics is local and the Republicans are learning to pay attention to what is going on locally.
Matthews: Congressman, let’s try it with one word.
Barr: Local.
5 November 2002 at 7.01 pm · Filed under Political
You just missed it on CNN: George McGovern telling Alan Simpson that since Mondale and Lautenberg are back, maybe THEY should also run for office again. And Simpson goes, “Hey, we’re tanned and toned, ready to go!”
5 July 2002 at 11.54 am · Filed under Political
July 4th has come and gone. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. As always, different people celebrate it in different ways: my brother celebrated it with foreigners in a basement club in Sydney, my friend Amy near the wildfire zones of Colorado anguished that there would be no fireworks, and the rest of my family, of course, did absolutely nothing. (At least, if they did, I wasn’t invited.)
For my part, I spent July 3rd (the traditional fireworks date in Columbus) right where I want to be, sitting on the curb on Broad Street by Veteran’s Memorial. As I explained to my odd band of co-celebrators, the lights twinkle and reflect in the glass of the Huntington building across the river. In years past, the police strung up sawhorses and depended on the good order of citizens not to go onto the bridge, since it could be dangerous to stand there. This year, there were chain link fences holding us back and a rumor that the bomb squad would have to sweep the bridge before we could cross it.
So, times have changed, and I find myself uncomfortably in a sober minority of people who take our new reality very seriously. In the last year, I’ve heard many people make tasteless jokes about terrorism, which I just can’t laugh at — because it’s real. I guess, as at funerals and in war, people have to break the tension in one way or another, but some things hit too close to home to say. I call for dignity.
I hope you enjoyed your holiday. The rest of the weekend stretches out ahead…
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