I say yes for issue 3 and no for issue 2. I’m not saying the issue 3 bill is perfect and it is indeed favoring pot growing monopolies, but banning pot decades ago was not written for the purpose intended either, but rather to stigmatize and control ethnic groups. Let’s make it legal already and iron out the kinks of the bill once it is on the books.

Issue 2 opposes monopolies in the state constitution. Some say it is also anti-pot.
Issue 3 would legalize both medical and recreational pot.

If you vote yes on Issue 2 and are in favor of yes for Issue 3, then voting yes on Issue 2 will supersede your yes vote for issue 3 because of the language in Issue 2.

“…You can’t talk about Issue 3 without thinking about Issue 2, the Ohio Initiated Monopolies Amendment. Most organizations that oppose the former support the latter, and vice versa. If approved, Issue 2, a bi-partisan measure put on the ballot by Ohio lawmakers, would require voters to approve two questions in back-to-back elections pertaining to initiatives establishing economic monopolies. Its language also says it will invalidate any initiatives voters approve on the Nov. 3 ballot that establish economic monopolies (read: Issue 3).

As a legislative proposal, Issue 2 would take effect prior to Issue 3, a voter-initiated proposal, says Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. And, because Issue 2 would take effect immediately, if both issues pass, the marijuana issue would be invalidated, Husted says..” – Weed The People: The Money, Influence & Turmoil Behind Issue 3, By Jill Moorhead
From the October 15, 2015 edition

http://www.columbusalive.com/content/stories/2015/10/15/weed-the-people-the-money-influence-and-turmoil-behind-issue-3.html

http://www.myfox28columbus.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Voter-Confusion-over-Issues-2-and-3-on-the-Ballot-220962.shtml#.Vif9Zbx12-Q

Convention Facilities Authority Wants Arena Tax Exempt
By MANDIE TRIMBLE • SEP 29, 2015

http://radio.wosu.org/post/convention-facilities-authority-wants-arena-tax-exempt#stream/0

Ohh hell no!  You didn’t want the casino but yet you still wanted and received the casino dollars that should have followed in it’s entirety the casino to support the community on the Westside-Hilltop that it moved to.  Now you state casino dollars aren’t enough to cover the costs and you want a permanent tax abatement?  Hell no!  The arena district is thriving with businesses and is a destination spot so since you can’t financially continue to operate Nationwide Arena you want to cause these businesses to suffer from higher taxes because of your ineptness?  Hell no!  You now are putting these other businesses in jeopardy and knowingly are playing on this for if you fail the local businesses around you may fail as well. Shame, shame, shame. The Convention Facilities Authority along with the City of Columbus should have better planned this including having had better discussions with the namesake of the arena, to secure that Nationwide Arena would have been financially secure way beyond the current administration and the current tax abatement that is going to expire. Another example of when you provide money to an organization or someone for free, you don’t stimulate them to better succeed with their business operation. Seems it may be about time to realize that although providing tax abatements to public arena’s because it provides a value-add to the community, may have proven after all to be a big FAIL for the value-add it intends to provide for that community. Another way needs to be explored.

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Article:

As property tax abatements near expiration, the publicly-owned Nationwide Arena faces a big bill. The arena’s owner, the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority, worries the tax bill will have a huge affect on its operation. The arena wants a permanent property tax exemption.

To hear Convention Facilities Authority director Don Brown tell it, Nationwide Arena faces a bleak financial future.

While he describes a “break even” state for the authority’s finances, there’s no money to make payments on either of its loans for the publicly-owned arena, and it only has about a third of the funds it needs for renovations and repairs. Now the authority faces a hefty property tax increase on the arena when current abatements expire.

“So we would face the prospect of not being able to continue operation,” Brown said.

The authority has enjoyed abatements which have reduced arena property taxes by 99 percent. Those soon go away, and the tax bill could increase to $4 million. When the city and county took ownership of the arena, casino tax money was supposed to cover costs.

But Brown said casino money, “Falls short of any additional taxes that might become the owner’s responsibility in future years.”

So the authority wants state lawmakers to exempt it from future property taxes, as it has for about a dozen other Ohio arenas.

Brown said the proposal is about parity, bringing it in line with the state’s other arenas. When asked, he did not directly say whether the exemption would be enough to meet all of the authority’s financial obligations.

“We’re mindful that we have the responsibility to make capital improvements over the next 25 to 30 years,” he said. “And as the owner, we have the responsibility to find the money, find the dollars, to meet those improvements.”

For skeptics of the 2012 arena deal it’s, ‘We told you so.’

“The reason they can’t operate the arena is because they’ve got one tenant, their biggest tenant that rents for free,” Jonathan Beard said.

Beard is referring to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Jackets pay no rent and collect all the ticket and concession revenue on game nights.

“That’s the only reason we’ve got this bad business decision being made,” he said.

The Columbus Compact Corporation president worries a property tax exemption will raise taxes for everyone else and leave public agencies with less money.

“That’s unfortunate. That’s a consequence of a bad decision where our elected officials overturned the will of the public,” Beard said. “You know, instead of going deeper in debt, we’re going to cut other city services, or other county services.”

Columbus City Schools could be affected by the proposed exemption. A complex revenue-sharing arrangement, which has given the district nearly $11 million since 2008, ends this year.

A district spokeswoman said school officials are exploring the impact on the district going forward.

The facilities authority and schools are trying to hash out a new deal.

The Convention and Facilities authority’s Brown hopes the Legislature will take action before the end of the year.
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Related:

Hollywood Casino opens in Columbus as the state’s largest casino gambling venue
By Thomas Ott, The Plain Dealer
Follow on Twitter
on October 08, 2012 at 4:09 PM, updated October 08, 2012 at 10:57 PM

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/10/hollywood_casino_opens_in_colu.html

“…The Columbus casino originally was to be built downtown in the city’s Arena District, according to the constitutional amendment. That angered a group of businesses led by The Dispatch Printing Co, which owns The Columbus Dispatch, and a deal was brokered to move the casino to the West Side…”

So my aging eyes, the new iOS9 upgrade making my iPhone5 sluggish, I went online to Apple and reserved a new Iphone 6S 128 GB and had an appointment to pick it up at yesterday. Drove there excitedly, saw the long line and thought nah not my line as I have a reservation! Well wrong there! The line was for people that had reserved appointments as well. Needless to say, 2 hour wait to get the iPhone. Not one of my more proud moments but I was there, wanted to get it done as I need to be able to use my phone at work for notes and reminders for the store throughout the day so I waited. I made the representative send a note of complaint that I didn’t appreciate making an appointment and then still having to wait in line. I stated that it should have been made clear on the website. I stated that my time is valuable and that is why I made an appointment. He said the appointment just reserves the phone. Jeez.

So while waiting in line, I chatted up some folk, one lady couldn’t wait and had to leave. One Apple rep came out and asked us our appointment times, which turns out was mixed with people with appointment times in 30 minutes increments after my appointment time. I commented to the lady if she was going to separate us into grass fed or grain fed beef. She looked shocked and confused. I said well you have us behind these crowd barriers herding us like cattle.

So I finally get inside the store and still had to wait another 15 minutes. I commented to others around me that this is where they have us wait around the merchandise enticing us for other items!

I looked and compared again between the iPhone6S and the iPhoneSPlus and decided was happy for just the iPhone6S as I can’t really hold the Plus in my hand well anyway and I already have an iPad. The only difference between the two phones is the bigger battery and the camera stabilization feature (optical instead of digital) in the camera of the later. I’m already happy with the excellent pictures the iPhone takes anyway so cool with that and for the battery that is a fallacy anyway stating that you can get one day battery life on the iPhone6S is a joke as no smartphone gives you that if you use the CPU processing on the device like I do – like a computer.

Finally up, get my phone. Realize I have to pay the tax of $65 because of Ohio law paying tax up front for the AT&T Zero Percent financing plan and of course the Tech21 case so that wiped out the cash in my pocket. THEN, I realize that I didn’t have my driver’s license must have fallen out on the seat of my car. So luckily they let me go back to my car to get that and didn’t have to wait in line again. So transaction complete aside from the fact that the second Apple guy didn’t know what he was doing.

Came home exhausted but excited for a new phone that I really didn’t have money for. LOL. Of course flawless install and restore backup from my old phone. Only thing not working right was the visual voicemail feature which I use extensively (apparently the new iOS9 install since it was a complete re-engineered software didn’t carry over that function automatically) but a passport reset on the voicemail feature of AT&T took care of that.

I’m sure you all tired reading this just as I was tired after my adventure yesterday. LOL.

In closing, anyone want to buy and excellent condition no scratches iPhone5 32 GB, with Tech21, case, battery pack case, car mount case?

Random thought of the day: So you spend your entire life advocating, practicing, and preaching the virtues of being ecology minded, to recycle, to protect the environment, to purchase eco-friendly products, just to watch our following younger generations not caring at all. Trash, waste, disposable is the norm for our convenience society of today. If you young-ins are going to be the successors of our planet and you don’t even care now, why should I? It’s not like I’m going to be around to enjoy it.

Kim Davis states that what hurts most is when people say God doesn’t love her but in the same discussion when asked of one gay couple who finally received their marriage license, that they now felt human. She states that dignity is not guaranteed in the constitution that it is something that you find within yourself. Seems both statements are relative to what you think of yourself and not what people think of you. Why should she care what other people think or state that God doesn’t love her, just like why should she care whether a couple upon receiving a marriage license feel that they are now human and have dignity. Hmmmm…….Weird connect and disconnect here. One’s beliefs are between themselves and their God. Dignity, the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect, has been afforded protection in our Constitution several times. Yes dignity is internal but inequality is not.

Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs answers the media questions about body cameras for our officers.
FaceBook: Columbus Division of Police
09/09/15
https://www.facebook.com/ColumbusPolice

If those body cameras come with extra feet as in more police presence and coverage for the Westside-Hilltop Columbus, then I’m all aboard. Until then this concern of being transparent is feather cover! Want transparency, start documenting incoming calls and the turnaround time of response time, the stats of calls that go unanswered because it was deemed unimportant based on other calls that came in at the same time. Also let’s bring in a formula to these stats to support the number of people that now do not even bother to call the police because of: “they don’t do anything anyway”, “they don’t respond anyway”, or told that they are too busy to send someone out. Let’s compare these new stats with the Columbus Division of Police forces metrics that state police officers numbers are placed-increased-decreased by precinct based upon a preset number of crime stats, population, or just plain power of advocacy for the community that the precinct is responsible. Let’s be honest and transparent about that. Body cameras have no value of crime deterrence with me until I can see more police presence and coverage of police officers in my area of the Westside-Hilltop area of Columbus. Then let’s tag these additional police officers with cameras. And I hope the media had the guts to speak up about this as they know of this issue.
[Update: 09/10/15] This will be an extremely costly venture especially with the data housing and data retention. Remember the City brought up data issue retention and server issues in sharing the public cameras data feeds with the community. The camera may be cheap but the data capture, retention, housing, personnel involved to monitor, and lastly the 24/7 server.

Do I favor the cameras – yes but not at a cost of having more police officers on the street.

Do I think this is a community relations/political ploy – yes

Do I think as a result of a community relations/political ploy that this has not been thoroughly thought out – yes

This is a haphazard not thought out ploy to save face and our Columbus City Council should be ashamed of themselves. Convince me that we will have the camera support as discussed above in our operating budget for a minimum of 5 years.

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

You as a human being, status holder, title, religious title, self proclaimed born again whatever, have no right to condemn me for my pursuit of happiness as afforded to me under the constitution of the United States of America based on YOUR religious beliefs. You have no right to judge me as that is between me and My God. My rights are protected as well as the fundamental understanding of separation of church and state. If you can’t do the job as an elected official to SERVE your community, then YOU should have respect enough for the people who have elected you to STEP down from your position based on your religious convictions or at least work with your superiors on a way to still serve the people based on the role of your position and upholding the law. I get and respect YOUR religious beliefs with YOUR God, but your battles with your religion and YOUR God are between you and YOUR God and should be of no interest or consequence to me. – SET II 09/09/15

Would have been better to just require a license with required facility monitoring by the government or 2rd party agency for all dog breeders especially the amatuar breeders. Additionally require papers on all dogs sold period not just pedigrees. Most dogs are already damaged from the puppy mills/breeders before they even hit the animal shelters or pet stores. Control at the source.

http://inhabitat.com/arizona-rules-all-dogs-and-cats-sold-in-pet-stores-must-come-from-shelters/

Arizona judge rules all dogs and cats sold in pet stores must come from shelters

Read more: Arizona judge rules all dogs and cats sold in pet stores must come from shelters
by Katie Medlock, 08/31/15

A federal judge in Phoenix, Arizona just ruled that all dogs and cats sold in pet stores must come from animal shelters or non-profit organizations. The ruling upholds an ordinance passed in 2013 that was challenged by a store called Puppies N’Love, which claimed it violates constitutionally-granted interstate commerce laws. Those in favor of doing away with puppy mills and encouraging pet owners to adopt or rescue companions see the decision as a great step forward.

Read more: Arizona judge rules all dogs and cats sold in pet stores must come from shelters | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building