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Party of Ohio Main Page
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Weekly Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. I, No. 10 -- July 7, 2001
(This newsletter distributed to 2,954)
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F E A T U R E D I
N T H I S I S S U E
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1) STEVE STEEL FOR SCHOOL BOARD IN TOLEDO
2) DEMONSTRATION AGAINST EXXONMOBIL
JULY 11
3) PORTAGE GREENS: TIF IS TAX ABATEMENT
4) SUPREME COURT MENTIONS
GREEN PARTY IN OPINION
5) GREENS GAIN PARTISAN MAYOR IN PENNSYLVANIA
6)
OIL WARS IN SOUTH AMERICA
7) BUSH'S WAR ON CHILDREN
8) GREEN PARTY GROWTH
PLAN
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1) STEVE STEEL FOR SCHOOL BOARD IN TOLEDO
***************************************************
The Steel for School Board Campaign Headquarters at
2223 Lagrange Street in
Toledo is up and running --
just in time for this weekend's Polish Festival!
If
you are attending the Festival, be sure to stop by
and get a "Steel for
School Board" T-shirt to wear.
The campaign also has yard signs, campaign
literature
and buttons, and petitions if you haven't already
signed one.
The headquarters will be open on Sat.,
July 7 and Sun., July 8 just blocks
from the Festival
from noon until evening with music, cold drinks, and
fun. Be sure to stop by!
Steel
for School Board
PO Box 784
Toledo, OH 43697-0784
Steel4TPS@hotmail.com
***************************************************
2) DEMONSTRATION AGAINST EXXON MOBIL JULY 11
***************************************************
There will be an informational picket in front of
the Exxon gas station at
the corner of Neil and Lane
Avenues in Columbus from 12:00 Noon to 1:00 on
Wed.,
July 11 to protest the ExxonMobil Corporation's
environmental and
human rights records. This demon-
stration is being held in conjunction with
similar
events in over 150 cities in 15 countries as part of
an International
Day of Action and is sponsored
nationally by GreenPeace, the Association of
State
Green Parties, the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and
the Environment,
and the Public Interest Research
Groups (PIRG) and is being coordinated by
the Seattle
based lobby, Pressurepoint.
ExxonMobil
was a major contributor to the Bush cam-
paign and lobbied the White House
to reject the
Kyoto Protocol environmental accord. ExxonMobil has
also
been a leading advocate of drilling in the Arc-
tic Wildlife Refuge and is
currently a defendant in
a lawsuit alleging direct support for illegal militia
activity aimed at quelling protests over environ-
mentally destructive drilling
operations in the Aceh
province in Indonesia. In addition, ExxonMobil con-
tinues to promote fossil fuel dependency while invest-
ing nothing in research
and development of renewable
energy sources.
For
more information contact Evan Davis at 614-267-4743,
614-397-6985 or evan@iwaynet.net.
***************************************************
3) PORTAGE GREENS: TIF IS TAX ABATEMENT
***************************************************
As mentioned last week, the Greens in Portage County
are working with a local
coalition to prevent the
City of Kent from aiding the developer, Tara Group,
from constructing a shopping center adjacent to the
Kent Bog, an extremely
sensitive environment on the
south end of the city.
At
issue is whether the city of Kent will approve a
Tax Increment Financing (TIF)
program that would pay
for the infrastructure development that the Tara Group
has demanded. Tax abatements are not allowed on the
property because of a
1990 ballot initiative in Kent.
In
our last issue, the wording on the position of the
Greens in Portage County
was ambiguous. The Greens do
consider TIFs to be tax abatements while the
City of
Kent maintains that they are not. TIFs push costs
that the developer
would otherwise incur, in this
case for road and water infrastructure, onto
the
tax payers. The TIF issue in Kent is corporate wel-
fare in the amount
of $4,000,000.
On
July 5, Greens and others marched on City Hall in
Kent to protest funding
for the proposed 55-acre
shopping complex.
For
some very interesting information on the over-
abundance of retail facilities
in northeastern Ohio
in the NOACA study quoted during the July 5th rally
in Kent, visit:
http://planning.co.cuyahoga.oh.us/retail
For
a 6-minute public radio report on this issue in
Kent aired July 6 on WKSU
throughout northeastern
Ohio which includes a segment from Green Party can-
didate for Kent City Council, Patricia Fridrich, go to:
http://www.wksu.org/cgi-bin/raplay?news01_07_06__07_33_29.ra
(Note:
You will need RealPlayer to hear the above
clip. If you don't already have
it, you can download
a free copy of "RealPlayer 8 Basic" by following
the
link in the middle of the page at
http://www.real.com/player.)
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4) SUPREME COURT MENTIONS GREEN PARTY IN OPINION
***************************************************
Ballot Access News (7/1/01) reports the following:
"On
June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that
the First Amendment does not
protect the right of
parties to decide for themselves, how much of their
own money to spend on the campaigns of their own can-
didates (if the party
and the candidate coordinate
strategy). FEC vs. Colorado Republican Federal
Cam-
paign Committee 00-191. . . . The decision upheld a
1974 law, limiting
party spending to 7 cents per voter
in Senate elections. . . .
"The
majority opinion did not mention minor parties,
but the dissent said, 'If
the Green Party were to
receive a donation from an industry that pollutes,
would the Green Party necessarily become, through no
choice of its own, an
instrument of the polluters.'
This is the first time any Supreme Court Justice
has
mentioned the Green Party in an opinion."
To
visit Ballot Access News, go to:
http://www.ballot-access.org/
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5) GREENS GAIN PARTISAN MAYOR IN PENNSYLVANIA
***************************************************
In June, the Mayor of St. Marys, Pennsylvania, Jerry
Marshall, changed his
registration from "Democrat"
to "Green" and expects to
run for reelection this
year as the Green candidate.
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6) OIL WARS IN SOUTH AMERICA
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Oil Wars: Examining a new battleground in the South
American drug battle.
http://audio.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2001/07/06/oil.rm?altplay=oil.rm
You
will need RealPlayer to hear the above clip. If
you don't already have it,
you can download a free
copy of "RealPlayer 8 Basic" by following
the link in
the middle of the page at http://www.real.com/player.
***************************************************
7) BUSH'S WAR ON CHILDREN
***************************************************
"Bush's War on Children," an article in this week's
Alternet, by
Jonathan Rowe and Gary Ruskin (Commer-
cial Alert's executive director), is
available at:
http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=11134
-------------------------
Ralph Nader founded Commercial Alert in 1998 to keep
the commercial culture
within its proper sphere, and
to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental
integrity and democracy.
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8) GREEN PARTY GROWTH PLAN
***************************************************
Review the growth plan for the Association of State
Green Parties at:
http://www.greenpartyus.org/plan.html
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Green Party of Ohio
PO Box 851, Kent OH 44240
Email: secretary@ohiogreens.org
Web: http://www.ohiogreens.org