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Why wasn’t this already happening with rail safety?

It is disturbing how often major disasters in this country bring to light the lack of common sense safety regulations for the industries involved. Though it has been months since the Norfolk Southern train derailment outside East Palestine, Ohio, federal regulators are still trying to use the incident to improve rail safety. Among the latest ideas is a rule proposed Wednesday that would require all railroads to immediately send the details of everything aboard their trains to every emergency responder within 10 miles, as soon as the railroad becomes aware of an accident. It begs the ...

Legislators thumb noses at Ohioans over openness

State senators don’t seem to be worried about appearances as they sneak into their version of the Ohio budget a provision that specifies the OneOhio Recovery Foundation is not a state entity — and therefore is exempt from complying with public records requests, according to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal. Just last month the Ohio Supreme Court ordered OneOhio to comply with a request for its records, after it tried to avoid doing so. Justices understood the foundation set up to distribute money that local and state government entities are receiving from opioid settlements was ...

Parents, not just educators, should do the heavy lifting’

Members of older generations talk a good game about how ill-prepared for “the real world” our younger generations are … until they are reminded who was responsible for raising those in the younger generations. Parents and guardians must remember they are responsible for more than keeping children alive for 18 years. It’s not up to the school system or — perish the thought — their friends to teach them how to use common sense and exercise personal responsibility while navigating this society we are creating for them. An upsetting reminder of that parental responsibility ...

Fair redistricting maps are needed

Though they are still working on the state budget, and an unusually important August special election is rapidly approaching, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman is looking ahead to lawmakers’ return to work on redistricting for Statehouse maps. Huffman told the Ohio Capital Journal he thought that might happen in September. Ohio’s Supreme Court declared both the U.S. Congressional district and Statehouse maps drawn up in 2022 to be unconstitutional, and the Ohio Redistricting Commission threw up its hands and refused to do its job. Among reasons they seemed to want to delay the work ...

With passage law would improve history for our kids

Most Ohioans are proud slavery has been banned in the state since the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. For that reason, we don’t give much thought to what might still be lurking in our lawbooks. But Ohio is still among more than a dozen states (and the U.S. Constitution) that includes language creating an exception. Here, “involuntary servitude” is still legal if it is used as a punishment for a crime. There is, finally, momentum to change that and now is a great time to promote it given that yesterday was Juneteenth — commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African ...

Juneteenth should be celebrated and also used as a teaching lesson

Though it has been 158 years since the first celebration of what became Juneteenth — June 19, 1865, after the order was read to inform Black slaves in Galveston, Texas, that they had been freed — too many still fail to understand the need not only to observe such a holiday, but to learn from it. “This is the event our ancestors recognize as African American Independence Day,” reads the Juneteenth Ohio website. “The first act of freedom African Americans cherished as the opportunity to reunite with family members and to be self-determined as a people.” Juneteenth Ohio ...