Frackfree Gathers Enough Signatures for 3rd Vote
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Youngstown Community Bill of Rights Committee reports its members have surpassed their goal of collecting enough signatures on petitions to add a charter amendment to the May municipal ballot. The signatures will now go through the required legal processes to certify a ballot question, said committee spokeswoman Susie Beiersdorfer.
If certified, it would be the third time the group has placed up for vote a charter amendment that would ban hydraulic fracturing in the city of Youngstown.
“With our strong showing at the polls last time and our powerful base of almost 5,000 Youngstown voters who voted ‘yes’ for the Community Bill of Rights Charter Amendment in November 2013, we fully expect to win this time,” said Beiersdorfer.
“We only needed 6% more ‘yes’ votes and we would have won last November. Especially as the nation is watching the West Virginia drinking water tragedy related to the coal industry unfold, and they see the shocking inadequacy and failure of state regulatory oversight and its disastrous results, the local community is increasingly concerned about the safety of our drinking water source, and rightly so,” Beiersdorfer continued. “We need local self-governance that affirms our inherent rights to local control to protect public health, safety, and well-being”
Frackfree Mahoning Valley, the Youngstown-based Frackfree America National Coalition and members of the committee also announced they will conduct a public town-hall style meeting Feb. 28. The event is titled “Man-made Earthquakes, Toxic Fracking Waste Injection Wells, Open Fracking Waste Impoundment Pits, and What a Community Bill of Rights Means for Communities: Finding Common Ground, not Shaky Ground.” It will take place 7-9 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown, 1105 Elm St.
The townhall will include a screening of some brief films, a brief presentation by geologist Ray Beiersdorfer, Ph.D., professor of geology at Youngstown State University, and open discussion where attendees can ask questions, voice their concerns, share information and offer solutions.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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