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Ohio: Elections board doesn’t certify county charter petitions

nationalcrn

From the July 11, 2017 article:


MEDINA TWP. — The Medina County Board of Elections on Monday did not certify petitions with 6,494 signatures of registered voters supporting the placement of a county charter form of government on the Nov. 7 ballot.


The board voted 3-to-1 against the initiative, citing advice from Mike Lyons, an attorney with the civil division of the Medina County Prosecutor’s Office.


Lyons spoke for about 20 minutes at the 75-minute meeting, saying the initiative was “defective.”


When elections board chair Pam Miller brought the motion to a vote, John Welker was the only “yes.”


Miller joined Sharon Ray and Larry Cray in voting against approving certification of the ballot issue. If the majority had voted in favor, a report then would have been sent to the county commissioners for that board to approve or reject the issue. (…)


AND a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pity the Nation;

“Pity The Nation”


Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them. Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced, and whose bigots haunt the airwaves. Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture. Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own. Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed. Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away. My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”


~Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is the co-founder of the iconic City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Born in 1919, he still goes to work every day. He wrote this poem in 2007. It is as prescient today as it was then.

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