Our 2019 Initiative
Our Fourth Initiative Began in 2019
At ComFest 2019, we began our latest initiative to get our Columbus Community Bill of Rights language on the 2020 Columbus ballot. This is an amendment to the Columbus city charter, that will protect our water, soil, and air resources in the city from contamination that results from oil and gas wastes that contain highly toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radionuclides being disposed of within the city.
Our state government prioritizes protecting oil and gas industry profits over creating safeguards for our resources that affect our health. It is up to us to create our own protections for our own community.
You can read our charter initiative by clicking HERE
Nature Led Us on a New course
Since we suspended gathering signatures on March 14th, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have asked for cooperation from Columbus City Council to keep our initiative alive. Our small army of volunteers was well on the way as we gathered close to 9,000 signatures, which are extremely valuable to the democratic rights and process of the residents of Columbus. Since the city charter was updated in 2014, Columbus has become the only city in the state of Ohio to impose a deadline on citizen initiative signature-gathering. We have asked the city government to either modify, extend, or rescind the 365-day deadline, or abide by city charter language and place our charter amendment on the ballot themselves.
City Council has arbitrarily refused our request.
You can read our Press Release from May 11th, 2020 by clicking HERE
6/19/2020 – Court shoots Down Our Plea for
protective law
CCBOR’s 4th initiative comes to a contentious end as city government puts blame on group’s refusal to gather signatures during COVID-19
- CCBORfiled suit against the City of Columbus requesting a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (TRO/PI) against the city’s one-year signature deadline for citizen initiatives.
- Judge Graham, of the Ohio Southern District Federal Court, held a telephone hearing regarding our lawsuit with the city’s legal team and ours.
- CCBOR submitted petitions, having collected almost 9,000 signatures during our 9 months of campaigning, to the city clerk of Columbus on June 18th just prior to our one-year deadline because the judge had not yet ruled on our request for a TRO/PI.
- Judge Graham denied our motion for a TRO/PI to toll our one-year deadline due to COVID-19 disruptions of our democratic initiative process in the city.
- Franklin County Board of Elections reported that we collected 6,420 valid signatures from 8,911 total. Although short of the required amount of signatures, this gave us an exemplary validation rate of 72% for our hard work!!
What we gleaned from Judge Graham’s call with legal teams and his decision (from Bill Lyons’ notes on the call):
According to the Columbus City Attorney’s office:
- Our proposal “does not belong in a city’s charter.”
The charter is the constitution for the City of Columbus, and of course the people have the authority to propose changes to the charter through a vote of the people. Also, is the city attorney saying the people do NOT have the right to clean water, air and soil? Because that is what the amendment is all about.
- Because protests have been happening almost nonstop at the statehouse since Dr. Amy Acton first started issuing statewide health orders, and since the state and the city did not interfere with first amendment protected activity, we could have circulated our petition.
In other words, we should have been willing to risk our health and the public’s health for our constitutional democratic right of initiative even though it was the governor himself who said “people should not have to choose between their health and their democratic rights!”
We were simply asking the city and the court to let us make up the time we missed due to COVID-19, and finish the three months we lost when it is safe again to do in-person signature gathering. The state had no problem halting the primary election, extending deadlines to file taxes, renew driver’s licenses, renew dog licenses, … but for democracy by the people, no exceptions can be made. The city and the court have now for the 4th time kept the voters of Columbus silenced with their decision. All Columbus voters need to ask why the government is so afraid to let them have a voice in protecting their water, air and community, when no one else is protecting it?
CCBOR decided that it was unsafe to circulate in public during the COVID-19 pandemic for both volunteers and the public at large, and consider this decision by the Federal Court, which is supported by the city, an unjust and outrageous punishment for our responsible decision. In order for participatory democracy to thrive in Columbus, the City of Columbus must rescind their arbitrary and distinctive one-year signature gathering deadline for local citizen-based initiatives.
Watch GrassRootsOhio, where Carolyn Harding interviewed Bill Lyons, CCBOR organizer and OHCRN board president, and Tish O’Dell, Ohio CELDF community aorganizer on 6/19/2020, immediately after it was known that the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio stood with our local electeds in dishonoring the purpose of our lawsuit, and refusing to allow participatory democracy to flourish in Columbus.
7/7/2020 – Governor DeWine mandates wearing of masks in public in 7 Ohio counties, including Franklin
On July 7th according to WKYC-TV, “DeWine said that any county under the order will be required to wear masks or face coverings during the following circumstances:
- When they are in any indoor location that is not a residence.
- When they are outdoors and unable to consistently maintain a distance of six feet or more from individuals who are not members of their household.
- When they are waiting for, riding, driving, or operating public transportation, a taxi, a private care service, or a ride-sharing vehicle.”
At CCBOR, we are asking why the courts and city have told us it was safe to meet face-to-face with thousands of residents, when the pandemic is so dangerous that people must wear face masks, and maintain a physical distance of six feet, even outdoors? Why are we and our democratic rights being punished for following public health guidelines put forth by the government? City officials and the court are blatantly being hypocritical and using the COVID health crisis as a justification to strip us of our democratic right to direct democracy guaranteed under both the Ohio Constitution and the Columbus Charter. Time to call them out for suppressing our chance to vote on protecting our water and environment.
Call and email these Columbus electeds today and let them know you see and understand the hypocrisy of their actions. The people aren’t fooled and they won’t take it anymore.
- City Attorney Zach Klein —- PH: 614-645-7385 email: cityattorney@columbus.gov
- City council directory: https://www.columbus.gov/council/Directory/
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The Latest Update
4/16/2021 – U.S. District Court dismisses our plea to allow extension of petition during the pandemic
Lake Erie Bill of Rights Gives Us Hope
In 2019, Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing the Lake Erie Bill of Rights charter amendment (LEBOR) to the Toledo, Ohio city charter to appear on their local voting ballot. It was famously passed and now is fighting to protect Toledo residents from polluters to their city water whose source is Lake Erie.
This supreme court precedent gives us great hope that the Columbus Community Bill of Rights charter amendment will be on the ballot, when we get our 2020 charter amendment to the Franklin County Board of Elections for the voters of Columbus to have access to.
After the LEBOR was passed in 2019, the Ohio Legislature inserted a clause into the state budget bill attacking rights-of-nature.
You can click HERE to read CCBOR’s Bill Lyons’ testimony before the Ohio house finance committee, opposing the amendment to the bill.
The city of Toledo is currently fighting for the law, where a plaintiff who filed against the city is being represented by Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease. This is the same law firm that 2018 Franklin County Board of Elections spokesperson, Brad Sinnott, is a partner with. Mr. Sinnott was instrumental in the BOE’s decision to refuse to allow the Columbus Community Bill of Rights to appear on the November 2018 Columbus city ballot.
Please click HERE to learn how you can help Columbus enact or initiative!