‘We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment,’ Springfield native John Legend

Editor’s note: Springfield native John Legend, an international acclaimed performer, took to social media Sept. 12 to address backlash against Haitian immigrants promoted by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Middletown. His statement is below.

My name is John Legend, and I was born as John. R Stevens from a place called Springfield, Ohio. Springfield, Ohio — you may have heard of Springfield, Ohio, this week.

In fact, if you watch the debate, we were discussed by our presidential candidates, including a very special, interesting man named Donald J. Trump.

Now, Springfield has had a large influx of Haitian immigrants who come to our city.

Now, our city had been shrinking for decades. We didn’t have enough jobs. We didn’t have enough opportunity so people left and went somewhere else.

SPRINGFIELD DAD: My son wasn’t murdered. Stop using Aiden Clark’s death to vomit hate about immigrants.

So, when I was there, we had upwards of 75,000 people and in the last five years we were down to like 60,000 people. 

But of late, during the Biden administration, there have been more jobs that opened up. More manufacturing jobs, more plants, factories that needed employees and were ready to hire people.

So, we had a lot of job opportunities, and we didn’t have enough people in our town of 60,000 people to fill those jobs.

And during the same time, there has been upheaval and turmoil in Haiti. The federal government granted visas and immigration status to a certain number of Haitian immigrants so they could come to our country legally.

Our demand in Springfield for additional labor met up with the supply of additional Haitian immigrants and here we are.

We had about 15,000 or so immigrants move to my town of 60,000.You might say, wow, that’s a lot of people for a town that only had 60,000 before. That’s a 25% increase.

That is correct.

So you might imagine there are some challenges with integrating a new population.

Springfield officials: ‘ Springfield officials: ‘No credible reports’ of crime by Haitian migrants in Ohio

No ‘roasted Fluffy.’ Haitians aren’t eating cats in Springfield. Vance is a liar.

New language, new culture, new dietary preferences. All kinds of reasons why there might be growing pains.

Making sure there are enough services to accommodate the new, larger population that might need bilingual service providers, etc. etc.

So, there are plenty of reasons why this might be a challenge for my hometown.

But the bottom line is these people came to Springfield because there were jobs for them and they were willing to work. 

They wanted to live the American dream, just like your German ancestors, your Irish ancestors, your Italian ancestors, your Jewish ancestors. Your Jamaican ancestors, your  Polish ancestors –  all these ancestors who moved to this country.

Maybe not speaking the language that everyone else spoke.

Maybe not eating the same foods.

Maybe having to adjust.

Maybe having to integrate.

But all coming because they saw opportunity for themselves and their families in the American dream.

And they came here to do that.

Letters to the Editor: JD Vance’s cat fascination is a distraction

 Some facts about immigrants. They usually do very well here.

They are hard working.

They are ambitious.

They commit less crime than native born Americans, and they will assimilate and integrate in time, but it takes time.So I think all of us need to have the same kind of grace that we would want our ancestors to have when they moved here with our Haitian brothers and sisters.

Nobody’s eating cats.

Nobody’s eating dogs.

We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment.

How about we love one another? I grew up in the Christian tradition we said to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and treat strangers as though they might be Christ.

So, how about we adopt that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving to our communities and don’t spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them.

John R. Stevens from Springfield signing off.

It appears that Ohio State quarterback Will Howard’s performance during a 56-0 win over Western Michigan isn’t good enough to put him on everyone’s radar.

In CBS’ Tom Fornelli’s latest QB Power Rankings, Howard wasn’t placed within the top 15. Meanwhile, a pair of former Buckeyes, Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, and Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord, found themselves at one and seven on the list, respectively.

Nobody should act like a pair of Mid-American Conference (MAC) schools are the toughest opponents in the country. But Will Howard did look exceptional in three of the four halves in those two games. 

Howard was included in Fornelli’s preseason rankings, where he seeded eighth on the list. The downside from Howard is limited thus far and certainly not enough to bump him outside the honorable mentions.

Meanwhile, Quinn Ewers was placed in the top spot on the list, leaping over Georgia’s Carson Beck. It appears Fornelli values a good performance against a ranked opponent. Ewers dominated Michigan in their 31-12 win. The Texas native threw for 246 yards and three touchdowns without turning the ball over. 

The real surprise on this list comes in the form of Kyle McCord. He looked exceptional in Orange’s first two games, but it’s not the same résumé as Ewers. He beat up on a MAC school himself in a 38-26 win over the Ohio Bobcats. He also led Syracuse to their first win against a ranked opponent since 2022 by taking down Georgia Tech 31-28. 

Georgia Tech was hardly considered a top-25 team. After upsetting an overrated Florida State team, it appeared customary that the Yellow Jackets cracked the list. 

The stats look great for McCord, with back-to-back four touchdown games and throwing for more than 350 yards in both contests. However, it can’t be ignored that the quarterback has averaged 42.5 pass attempts per game. That comes in 15.5 more than Howard this season.

With Ohio State on a bye this week, Howard’s next chance to crack the list will be following the Buckeyes game against Marshall on September 21st.

Rotunda Rumblings

The heart of it all: In forty-nine states, abortion was the top-searched political topic during Tuesday night’s presidential candidate debate. But Ohioans had their own queries. As Andrew Tobias writes, Buckeye State residents’ top search topic was immigration, which likely was prompted by debate viewers scratching their heads after former president Donald Trump falsely asserted that migrants there are eating people’s cats and dogs.

Father’s plea: The father of an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a 2023 school bus crash denounced “morally bankrupt” Republican politicians for using his son’s death for political gain and begged them to stop using his son as “a political tool,” Sabrina Eaton writes. Speaking at a Tuesday night Springfield City Commission meeting, Nathan Clark said he wished the crash that killed his son, Aiden, had been caused by a 60-year-old white man instead of a Haitian immigrant because then “the incessant group of hate spewing people would leave us alone.” “They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis, and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members,” Clark said. “However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”

Place your bets? New Ohio Senate legislation would legalize online casino gambling, or iGaming, allowing each of the state’s four casinos and seven racinos to set up websites and apps that offer online poker, slots and other games. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, Senate Bill 312 seeks to make Ohio the ninth U.S. state to legalize iGaming, though its chances of passage are still unclear.

Gold standard: Ohio’s Frank LaRose was one of six secretaries of state from across the country who traveled to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday for a House Administration Committee hearing about November’s election. “You can make elections both convenient and secure,” the Columbus Republican told the committee. “We can make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. That’s what we’ve done in Ohio. That’s one of the reasons why we’re nationally recognized as a gold standard for elections administration.”

Pick up the case pace: LaRose’s office has asked Attorney General Dave Yost to take over hundreds of cases of suspected election-law violations, as county prosecutors so far have only filed charges against 12 of the 633 people LaRose’s office referred to them. “We don’t necessarily expect all 633 referrals to lead to criminal charges, but only 12 out of 633 shows a second set of eyes might be needed here to determine whether prosecution of these crimes is justified,” wrote Hun Yi, director of investigations for the Ohio secretary of state’s public integrity division, in a letter to Yost quoted in a release. The release didn’t say how many of the 12 criminal cases that have been filed resulted in convictions.

Master’s of none: False assertions about Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bernie Moreno’s academic resume have popped up in multiple places over the past 13 years. As Marty Schladen of the Ohio Capital Journal reports, Moreno’s November 2011 application to open a Florida car dealership stated incorrectly that he held an MBA from the University of Michigan, as did Moreno’s Cleveland Foundation website bio when he first joined the foundation’s board in 2014. A 2018 Cleveland State University bio, as well as the website of a Moreno-owned Mercedes-Benz dealership in North Olmsted, asserted he earned multiple degrees from Michigan. A spokeswoman for Moreno (who holds a single bachelor’s degree in business from That School Up North) blamed the dealership application claim on an unnamed staffer and said Moreno never told the Cleveland Foundation he held an MBA.

$50 million and counting: The Ohio Division of Cannabis Control reported another $10.6 million in recreational sales for the week of Aug. 25 through Saturday, the beginning of the Labor Day holiday weekend. In all $54.6 million in product has been sold to adult-use customers. Since sales began Aug. 6, 689,034 receipts have been rung up at dispensaries.

Full Disclosure

Five things we learned from the Jan. 2, 2024 ethics disclosure filed by Bradley Lacko of Amherst, the Republican nominee for Ohio House District 53, about his 2023 finances:

1. Lacko made $53,000 in gross income last year from working as a truck driver.

2. At some point in 2023, Lacko owed more than $1,000 to Firelands Federal Credit Union and 7 17 Credit Union.

3. He’s a trustee for the Lorain County Farm Bureau.

4. His only listed investment worth more than $1,000 was an Ohio deferred compensation retirement account.

5. He owned two properties in Lorain County (legislative candidates aren’t required to list their personal residence or property used for personal recreation).

On The Move

The National Council of Teachers of English announced Honesty for Ohio Education, a coalition that is fighting ring-wing influences in education, will receive its National Intellectual Freedom Award honorable mention at a ceremony during its annual convention in Boston on Nov. 23.

Straight From The Source

“The Republican candidate for president’s remarks about Haitian — meaning Black — immigrants in Ohio were barbaric, bombastic and beneath the dignity of someone aspiring to hold the highest office in the land. People are struggling, but these outrageous and racist lies are an insult to our Ohio communities — including the ones I represent here in Congress.”

– U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, a Warrensville Heights Democrat, denouncing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants to Ohio during a Wednesday U.S. House Agriculture Committee hearing.

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