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Thrive Companies is cleaning up brownfields and building mixed-used developments in Columbus like no other developer in the city’s history. They’ve completed more brownfield projects than any developer in Ohio, transforming Italian Village, Grandview, Franklinton, and Weinland Park. A massive Thrive development visible from 670 West, for instance, is emerging in Italian Village at the former stie of the Jeffrey Mining Company.

“Thrive Companies remediates forgotten land in Columbus, creating intentional communities from previously inactivated spaces,” states their website.

Thrive’s history in Columbus goes back decades and is currently led by third generation Mark and Eric Wagenbrenner. According to the news site Construction Today, “In the early 2000s, Mark and Eric Wagenbrenner sought to pursue their own path, and launched Wagenbrenner Development (renamed Thrive Companies). Together, the brothers decided to strategically tackle large, complex brownfield projects, and they quickly amassed a sizeable land position in the Columbus market.”

Our Green Grassroots Emergency Election Protection show begins with a deep dive into the curse of atomic power that continues to plague our planet and species.

We start with MARY BETH BRANGAN and JIM HEDDLE of the Environmental Options Network, who tell us about their spectacular new documentary “The San Onofre Syndrome,” due to be released in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 8, with virtual availability on October 15.

The film documents the magnificent citizens movement that against all odds shut units 2 & 3 at San Onofre, only to see the company and the regulators leave multiple tons of radioactive waste lying on the beach, within mere yards of the high tide line.

In Franklin County, there have been 56,714 evictions filed since 2020. In 2022 there were 2,311 foreclosure-related filings. More and more residents are unhoused. The Auditors property reappraisals and property taxes are coming due and their numbers are soaring.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther has given out well over $600 million in tax abatements since he became mayor. Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that should have gone to Columbus City Schools went into the bank accounts of corporate Columbus, developers, and others. And the burden to make up for those who don’t pay their fair share of property taxes has been placed on those who can least afford to for too long.

Ginther’s policy of giving out tax abatements in return for campaign contributions has been escalating our affordable crisis for years. It is forcing low-moderate income homeowners and seniors out of their homes. Landlords who once provided truly affordable housing are raising rents where tax abated new developments are being constructed in gentrifying neighborhoods. This forces more and more people to move and find affordable housing that doesn’t exist. 

What we witness on the video footage released is more evidence of murder, a lack of urgency in providing trained medical care to a clearly pregnant and wounded woman, and a concerted effort to shield Officer Connor Grubb from accountability and criminal charges.

In the footage, you hear Officer Grubb repeatedly state “she tried to run me over” to other officers on the scene, as justification for killing Ta’Kiya, before a sheriff’s deputy informs him that he’ll get a lawyer for him and to stop talking. What is clear from the video is that she did not try and run him over, she turned the wheel as far away from him as possible before the vehicle began to slowly move forward and to the right, and Grubb had every opportunity to follow departmental policy and take evasive action instead of discharging his firearm into Ta’Kiya’s chest.

Ta’Kiya Young’s death was a terrible mix of poor decisions, bad timing, and a lack of de-escalation training. But the bottom line is, Kroger is a $100 billion corporate monster – just ask their store employees – and shoplifting should never mean pulling a gun on a young mother and her unborn baby, let alone killing both.  

The K9 attack in Circleville in one massive way mirrors Ta’Kiya’s death. The Free Press has heard from several law enforcement sources that the Ohio state troopers who pulled over Jadarrius Rose approached his semi with guns drawn. This was a mistake, these same law enforcement sources told us.

In this post-George Floyd world-on-edge, some younger African Americans panic in the presence of law enforcement. But as Cynthia Brown of the Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity (OCEQI) has repeatedly told us, Ohio law enforcement lacks the skills to help change a life, and because of this, they instead take a life.

Following a few months’ summer hibernation, after the super-majority Ohio legislative Republicans refused to include his anti-educational and unconstitutional SB83 in its 6000-page budget bill, right-wing State Senator from rural Kirtland, Jerry Cirino is back with a new vengeance, intellectual complications, and dishonesty.

Recipient of three degrees from vocational Lake Erie College including an honorary PhD from an institution that does not award doctoral degrees, Cirino is a challenged individual with no memory, limited literacy, and no understanding of higher education, American history, or either state or US Constitution. Undisturbed by calls from a colleague in the State House to “teach both sides of the Holocaust” and home schooling a 1930s German Nazi (not neo-Nazi) school curriculum, he fantasizes universities—especially public universities—that do not and have never existed. Cirino is an active threat to all 18-28 year olds. And to all residents of the state of Ohio.

Ta’Kiya Young – an unarmed 21-year-old pregnant woman – was shot and killed by local law enforcement for allegedly shoplifting. What many may not be aware of is that Kroger corporate – averaging $30 billion in annual profit since 2020 – has forgone shoplifting charges for several years now, and if caught by store security, those caught are asked to leave and never come back.

Curbing increasing gun violence, police-involved shootings, and shoplifting, has no good solution no matter how hard the community tries. But one thing we have learned from relatives of those killed by local law enforcement is that police shootings give our young people this attitude – “If the police can do it, then I can do it.”

But there may be an answer to police-involved shootings, but the GOP-besieged state government won’t allow this potential solution be approved for a statewide vote and thus decided by citizens themselves.

It’s been a long circuitous journey. From 2011 to 2016, the word “medical” prefaced all submitted, rejected, or certified marijuana-related ballot initiatives in Ohio. All were proposed as constitutional amendments. Then, in March 2020, during the pandemic, the concept of regulating marijuana like alcohol emerged in an amendment that the Ohio Attorney General (OAG) rejected. A year and a half later in August 2021, the OAG did certify the Act to Control and Regulate Adult Use Cannabis (a resubmission) for signature gathering as – for the very first time – a citizen initiated statute. That meant game on for adult use cannabis in Ohio.

On July 25th I screened for the endorsement of the Columbus Firefighters Union Local 67. For nearly one hour, I discussed how I would address the most important issues facing Columbus citizens and what I would do to support Columbus firefighters and emergency medical service professionals.

This past Friday I received a letter from Local 67 President Steven Stein stating in part that “On behalf of the Columbus Fire Fighters Union Local 67 Executive Board and membership, I am sorry to announce we have chosen not to endorse any candidate for City of Columbus Mayor. The Screening Committee has come to the decision that both candidates have been, and we hope continue to be, friends of Local 67.”

On Wednesday, August 16, reportedly at 8:56 am, a multiple alarm fire erupted in a large student rental house at 1996 Iuka Ave in the heart of fraternity row in the historic residentially zoned University District. Ten student renters were evacuated safely by the fire department as towering flames spread more than 10 feet above the third floor of the old house. They are without their overpriced housing just days before classes begin.

Not at all surprisingly, given the fact as I recently reported, the City of Columbus Zoning (Anti)-Enforcement Department, The Ohio State University, and the absentee property owners have colluded secretly and illegally not to enforce zoning laws and conduct regular inspections, two smoke detectors did not operate. The fire men on site informed me that the cause was electrical failure.