Columbus officials should wear body cameras
I read Columbus City Council will hold a hearing on a police body camera upgrade.
More: Columbus City Council to set aside $4 million to update police body, other cameras
Maybe the old ones could be issued to the mayor, city council and their staffs and they all be required to wear them anytime they meet with a developer or a lobbyist.
Jerome R. Schindler, Columbus
LaRose following Putin’s playbook
Some political leaders believe it is appropriate to lie about and outrageously disparage their opponents when things are not going the way those leaders want. Take Vladimir Putin and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
More: Capitol Insider: Frank LaRose takes on Maureen O’Connor and court’s ‘liberal majority’
Putin attacks his Russian citizens who oppose his war on Ukraine as “scum and traitors” who should be spit out “like a gnat.”
LaRose attacks those who had the temerity to successfully challenge proposed legislative maps which the Ohio Supreme Court indeed ruled do violate the Ohio Constitution.
He asserts that those who challenge the maps are intending to confuse voters and postpone primary elections.
He claims that their motive “is entirely political, and the strategy is being bankrolled by out-of-state special interests ultimately seeking court-ordered gerrymandering for partisan advantage.”
While Putin’s language is certainly more graphic, he and LaRose follow the same playbook. Their approach is that when people disagree with you, it must be because they have some agenda that is contrary to the public interest.
Putin and LaRose have no tolerance for the possibility that their actions as elected leaders are the root of the problem.
Marvin Resnik, Bexley
More: How to submit a letter to the editor for The Columbus Dispatch
Stephens wrong. Fossil fuels causes environmental degradation
Ohio oil and gas lobbyists must be sporting huge grins following the March 17 column by Rep. Jason Stephens (“Biden administration’s ‘risky’ energy policies need to change“) which totally misses the mark.
More: Biden’s energy policies jack up inflation. Local energy sources a smarter choice.| Opinion
If Stephens wants homegrown energy and independence, here are a few suggestions:
1) Restore the energy efficiency and renewable energy standards that were discarded by the legislature in House Bill 6 in favor of a statewide tax to subsidize the corrupt FirstEnergy’s nukes and two coal plants;
More: Investigators: FirstEnergy bankrolled alleged Ohio bribery scheme
2) Repeal the legislatively created barriers to wind and solar development, through laws that require wind turbines be located further from a home than a fracking facility and that allow counties to override a Power Siting Board decision approving landowners’ rights to construct solar on their property.
More: Important local input or unnecessary roadblock? Bill headed to DeWine adds hurdle for wind, solar
Energy efficiency is cheaper than any other source; it reduces consumption and saves customers money by better insulating buildings and using more efficient appliances.
Renewable energy is clean, homegrown and competitive with, if not cheaper than natural gas and oil, according to Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy Study.
The fossil fuels that Stephens is touting cause environmental degradation and contribute to global warming.
At least weekly, there is news about the human suffering and high economic cost of an event caused by global warming.
More: Our view: $4 gas prices yet another reason lawmakers should get onboard Amtrak’s plan
As chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Stephens should give fair consideration to clean energy options that can supply Ohio with the power it needs at lower costs and less risk to human and planet health.
Janine Migden-Ostrander, Columbus
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Letters: Mayor should wear body camera. LaRose sounds a lot like Putin
