Ohio
Gibberish vs. facts. Ohio senator would rather fight media than work for Ohioans.
Only ‘working’ around will of the people
“Ohio lawmakers work hard for $71K salaries they make,” March 28: State Sen. Steve Huffman attempted to answer facts with gibberish.
In his guest column, Huffman never disputes Thomas Suddes’ factual statement that 2023 was the least productive year for the Ohio General Assembly since the Eisenhower Administration.
He calls Suddes not “fair and fact based.” It is of note that Suddes not only used facts, but also praised the Assembly for writing a balanced budget and also mentioned that some people are members of the “less is better” group regarding political legislation.
Huffman mentions that legislators “are hardworking, have jobs outside the legislature and care very much about the state of Ohio, and the hardworking Ohioans living in their districts.”
More: Why paying Ohio lawmakers $140,000 plus a college football coach’s bonus could fix them
Senators didn’t pass legislation and more productive ones also hold outside jobs?
As for caring, why promote legislation in House Bill 68 so bigoted that even very conservative Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it? Why deny any care (not surgery, which was never a factor) to suicide-prone LGBTQ youth?
I do not speak for Suddes, though I do enjoy his work, but my guess is that he is saying that it is not simply that the GOP legislators in Ohio do little, it is that they also waste time on negative legislation.
Instead, Ohio legislators could be solving gerrymandering, repealing the FirstEnergy tax money giveaway, fixing school funding to comply with the DeRolph ruling 27 years ago, or passing common-sense gun safety legislation that the vast majority of Ohioans want.
After that, it would indeed be time for the Legislature to rest, and time also for them to stop thinking about doing the one thing they do like to work on — working around the will of the people regarding the constitutional amendment re-affirming Roe v. Wade in Ohio.
Greg Ward, Dublin
Our pockets are being picked
“Ohio lawmakers work hard for $71K salaries they make,” March 28: Senator Steve Huffman’s petulant attempt to bring down “the media” and journalist Thomas Suddes only served to illustrate Suddes’ point: Ohioans get precious little—“a lot of mouth”—to address their most serious concerns. It’s admirable that the General Assembly names parts of highways for fallen soldiers and designates various days on the calendar for awareness of specific medical conditions.Nevertheless, Huffman’s boasting about GOP “tax cuts” ignores that state tax cuts routinely roll downhill to residents of Ohio’s cities and townships. And his pride in giving center stage to culture war issues to interfere in parental rights regarding their transgender children is embarrassingly misplaced.
Thomas Suddes: Ohio lawmakers make at least $71,099 each. What do taxpayers get?
If Huffman and his Republican minions want to show how hard they’re working, they should immediately repeal House Bill 6, which continues to pick Ohioans’ pockets despite the GOP bribery scandal.
And then they might start really earning their salaries and obey multiple Ohio Supreme Court directives to develop a way to fund schools through some other method than property taxes that are driving senior citizens out of their homes.But since the GOP hasn’t lifted a finger to do so for 25 years, we can hardly expect them to get to work on that. It takes so little effort to whine about “the media” reporting facts.Steve Abbott, Columbus
What do you think? How to submit a letter to the editor for The Columbus Dispatch
World Central Kitchen tragedy wasn’t Biden’s fault
Re “He who controls the bullets,” March 5: In her letter to the editor, Susan McNally blames the Biden administration for the “bullets” in Gaza.
I, too, am a supporter of World Central Kitchen, but if they go into a war zone, where hostages are still being held and munitions are stacked in hospitals, they run a risk of their workers being in danger.
‘You are losing me, Joe.’ Biden controls the bullets. Must stop war.
President Joe Biden had nothing to do with this terrible accident. The Israel Defense Forces freely admitted that they made a mistake. But it’s a war zone, and WCK knows it.
Jose Andres, the founder of WCK, is wrong to say that the IDF targeted his workers.
And McNally is wrong to simplistically place blame on Biden.
Cindy Leland, Columbus
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
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It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
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