Political Notes from

Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.

Blockquotes indicate that a part of the text was a verbatim quote from the source article.

: More Ohio Medicaid fraud

More information regarding the Medicaid fraud in Ohio.

: HATCo

Nobody is being served adequately by healthcare in Akron, Summa Health’s new leader said Thursday.

In spite of efforts to provide good service from hospitals across the region, patients still have to jump through hoops to get insurance preauthorization, and they may not know how much their care will cost.

The Health Assurance Transformation Company, known as HATCo, looked at hospitals in five markets to find a test lab for improving the healthcare experience, Daryl Tol said at an Akron Roundtable event. Summa rose to the top because of its paired insurance company and because it would present a challenge, he said.

: Unify Akron's housing recommendations

Dozens of locals met for months to figure out ways Akron residents can enjoy better access to safe, affordable and well-kept homes. On Thursday, their recommendations were passed on to city officials.

: West Side Leader's neighborhood watch

Maggie DeMellier's reporting on recent police reports in the West Akron area.

: Hardesty Park shooting

A man was shot in the leg at Hardesty Park. The suspect, as of yesterday, was still on the loose.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Akron Police Department Detective Bureau at 330-375-2490 (or 330-375-2Tip).

: Tulsi Gabbard resigning

Tulsi Gabbard said on Friday she is resigning from her job as President Donald ​Trump's director of national intelligence, saying her husband had been ‌diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and that she was stepping away from her role to help him.

Gabbard advised Trump of her intention to ​step down during an Oval Office meeting on Friday, ​Fox News Digital reported earlier. The resignation is effective June ⁠30, it said.

: US troop deployment to Poland

President Trump recently pulled 5,000 troops from Germany, and will be sending 5,000 to Poland as a show of support. Poland's foreign minister Radosław Sikorski thanked him for the announcement.

: Maria Dearaujo acquitted

Maria Dearaujo was acquitted on charges for voting in 2018 as a non-citizen.

She's lived in the US legally since 1993. In 2005, at a BMV, the employee gave her a voter registration form with "yes" pre-selected to whether she's a citizen. She did not vote though. In 2015, when she went to update vehicle registration, the clerk that time told her that she, in fact, can vote. Afterwards, she voted in the 2016 primary and general elections and the 2018 general election. She didn't vote again until 2024, but this time as a naturalized US citizen.

: Trump and elections

Somehow, despite his falling approval ratings, Trump was able to get enough people in the low voter turnouts to select his personal preferences over the more preferable candidates.

: Ohio medicaid fraud

Multiple people have been charged for Medicaid fraud totaling over half a million dollars. They billed medicaid for services that never took place.

: School refused doctor's note

Iliana Holbrook, who has a genetic condition causing muscle tissue weakness, was denied being able to have a backpack with her in her senior year of high school, despite having a doctor's note. As a result, the school had her graduate five months early as opposed to providing reasonable accommodation.

Because of her diagnoses, her doctor strongly recommended she use the backpack. The district said she should just carry them by hand or use a tote bag, both of which were physically impossible.

In order for her to be able to still take part in the graduation ceremony, the school forced her family to drop their (justified) due process case, but according to the article, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission had accepted to take up her case instead.

: Massie defeated

Unfortunately, Thomas Massie lost in the primary election.

: Ramaswamy and Medicaid fraud

Ramaswamy said he’ll bring in $3.1 billion by asking the federal government to allow Ohio to keep 65 cents of every dollar of Medicaid fraud found, instead of 35 cents now. He said that money will go to providing co-pay assistance, reducing health insurance premiums and increasing health savings accounts. He said fraud is driving up the costs of health care for not only Medicaid recipients, but for those who aren't in the program as well.

: Governor candidates on execution

For months, Ohio's major gubernatorial candidates managed to dance around the main issues facing Ohioans, but they went on the record with reporter Jeremy Pelzer on one of the most consequential questions a governor can face: Should the state execute its prisoners?

Ramaswamy said that it's appropriate in the "most egregious cases" where there is absolute certainty about facts. Acton's comment did not reveal any personal stances.

: UA's new polymer labs

The Polymer Industry Cluster has received nearly $100 million in grants to fund research and development projects, as well as workforce development and other investments. Friday, Bounce Innovation Hub also announced that it is taking applications for the second round of its Synthe6 Materials Accelerator, a 12-month program designed to support polymer commercialization. The program is open to Ohio businesses or those willing to relocate to the state.

The plans can be viewed on pages 2-4 of the document from the Akron City Planning Commission's Meeting of . Unfortunately for those who like historic buildings, some will be getting destroyed for this plan.

: Hit and run driver arrested

A Twinsburg man was arrested after a hit-and-run crash left a 50-year-old man dead in Conneaut on Sunday morning.

He was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, operating a vehicle while under the influence of a drug of abuse and fleeing the scene of an accident, according to the release. He is currently being held in the Conneaut Municipal Jail. awaiting his initial appearance in court.

: Interstate 77 construction

A key Interstate 77 interchange northeast of Akron will be closed through early because of work to widen the highway. The Ohio Department of Transportation said that beginning with Monday's closing, both the northbound exit ramp to Ghent Road and the ramp from Ghent Road to I-77 will be closed.

: South Akron shootings

A 40-year-old man was shot and killed at the intersection of Marcy Street and Cole Avenue. A 36-year-old woman was also shot in the area, but her injuries were believed to be non-life-threatening.

: Coventry Crossing plane crash

A small plane crashed into a house in Akron's Coventry Crossing allotment, killing the people on board. The residents were unharmed.

: Waste transfer station closing

Akron and WM (formerly Waste Management) have agreed to close the waste transfer station on Fountain Street. A new one will be built on East Archwood Avenue instead.

: Akron road resurfacing

[Akron] plans to resurface 47 miles of pavement -- $6.5 million is budgeted for this year's program, as well as an additional $1.85 million for the concrete pavement rehabilitation program.

: Governor candidates on education

The future of public education in Ohio looks different depending on who wins the governor's race. While Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton wants to fully fund public education so districts can improve, Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said schools need to deliver results first. On , schools asked voters for more money. While many existing levies were renewed, across the board the majority of tax increase levies failed. Those districts face hard decisions.

: Akron Children's Hospital wins Notre Dame college campus

Akron Children's Hospital's winning bid for Notre Dame College's campus came in at $8 million, according to court records filed on Monday. The expanding hospital system bested the city of South Euclid's bid by $100,000.

Notre Dame College closed in due to declining enrollment and foreclosure proceedings after the college defaulted on $20 million in bonds. $17.8 million in debt remains. It was founded in as an all-female Catholic liberal arts institution and became co-ed in .

: Bartender shot over birthday party attendee limit

Dean Kerkesner, the 70-year-old owner of an Akron bar in North Hill (on North Main Street) was shot because some bar attendees got into an argument about "the number of people who would be let in" to the bar.

Shootings at Akron bars recently seem to just have been getting worse in recent time.

: Arlington Street car crash

A woman crashed her car into a police car for an officer who was heading to an emergency call at Tarson Terrace. According to police, the woman was ejected from the car. The officers were also injured when she crashed into them. Thankfully, though, none of the injuries were life-threatening.

She made a left-hand turn in front of the police cruiser, and was not wearing a seat belt. It is extremely rare to get ejected from a vehicle like that if your seat belt is worn.

Police Lt. Michael Murphy said the following when addressing the misinformation (and disinformation) being spread on-line: "We are aware of misinformation that began circulating on social media regarding the injuries and condition of those involved. At this time, no one involved in the crash has died and all injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening."

: Ramaswamy vs Acton

Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, this year's major-party nominees for Ohio governor, have entered the general-election campaign going on offense against each other, attacking each other in ads, speeches, and a variety of other ways. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, the campaign features nearly every major ingredient for a negative race, from well-funded candidates to a competitive match-up. But besides the specter of having to endure six more months of mudslinging, a fiercely negative race could undermine promises made by both candidates to reach across the aisle if elected.

: Ohio Attorney General

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has chosen Public Safety Director Andy Wilson to replace Attorney General Dave Yost.

: Trials for Jamar Franklin's murder begins

The trial for the three men accused in the deadly shooting of an Akron man at Tasty Carry Out in is set to begin Monday.

: Twinsburg school levy failed

More than 60% of voters rejected Twinsburg City School District's Issue 4 levy in Tuesday's primary election, leaving district leaders weighing potential cuts and searching for long-term solutions to mounting financial challenges.

: SNAP EBT card theft protection

Beginning , a new fraud protection feature will be added to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) EBT cards, including Summer EBT/Sun Bucks cards, to help protect benefits from theft, according to the Summit County Executive's Office.

: ODOT highway ramp closing

The Ohio Department of Transportation has scheduled highway ramp closings for drainage repairs over the next several days at three locations in Akron.

: Summit county levies

An overview of [levy] outcomes, based on unofficial final results from the Summit County Board of Elections.

: Summit mall shooting

Summit Mall in Fairlawn was shut down temporarily by police on due to gun shots at the mall. Reportedly, a 17 year old male made two shots into the air as his response in an altercation with other teens at the mall. Thankfully, no injuries were reported.

: AG Dave Yost resigned

Ohio's Attorney General Dave Yost has submitted his resignation to Governor DeWine, effective . He will be joining the Alliance Defending Freedom as its Vice President of Strategic Research and Innovation.

: Illegal gambling investigation

The Akron Police department, in partnership with the Ohio Casino Control Commission, got search warrants for 141 East York Street and 283 East Tallmadge Avenue, at which 27 slot machines were seized or disabled as a part of an illegal gambling investigation.

An undisclosed amount of money was also seized from both locations. The investigation is still ongoing.

: Northside Marketplace payment issues

A longtime vendor at Akron's Northside Marketplace pulled all of his products from the space, citing ongoing issues with payments and a lack of communication from management.

: Noisy Oyster pub shooting

One man was killed and another injured in a shooting at an Akron bar Monday. The victim in the shooting was identified as Eric Schaffer, 31, of Cuyahoga Falls, according to a report released Tuesday by the Summit County Medical Examiner.

: Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy has won the Republican primary election.

You get what you vote for. Hopefully the end results are not too bad!

: AI data centers

Summit County currently has seven data centers within its borders. So far, the local versions of these increasingly controversial facilities that can use massive amounts of water and power have largely avoided the spotlight.

So that you don't need to read the entire article that's a bit bloated with unnecessary information, the article lists:

If you count Ark Data Centers building 1 and 2 as a single place it is technically just six in total. Both Ark buildings are right next to each other. Of course Viking Data Centers is the "cryptocurrency" and "AI" data center. I really hope these are not all (or even mostly) AI data centers though. I don't know much about these places apart from the fact that Involta did not answer my telephone calls in 2023 about server colocation.

I used to want to run a data center years ago (around - or so), but its focus would have been just normal server hosting. Things like your everyday oce.nextoh.org and fencepost.gnu.org type shared shell computers. My plans would didn't exactly allow for the energy waste that the cryptocurrency and AI data centers use either for that matter. Not having a plan on how to power the place is a part of the reason why I abandoned the ideas.

AI/cryptocurrency data centers are some of those things that nobody who even remotely tolerates the place that he/she lives at should want to have at said place.

: Barberton Wolf Creek Dam upgrades

The city of Barberton received a $7.7 million award to rehabilitate the 100-year-old Wolf Creek Dam to reduce the threat of flooding and protect the city's drinking water, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced .

FEMA called the current structure "high-hazard."

: Freedom BLOC housing campaigns

Freedom BLOC (Black Led Organizing Collaborative) has announced two ballot initiatives to both prohibit application, screening, and background check fees, along with disregarding prospective tenants due to their criminal history (excluding sex offenders and arsonists.)

Attorney and Freedom BLOC volunteer Imokhai Okolo said that these initiatives "would only apply to housing not funded by federal dollars."

: Jacquelyn Ferguson identified

The Akron Police Department's Accident Reconstruction Unit had identified Jacquelyn D. Ferguson as the driver in a hit and run crash that lead to the death of Richard Williams.

: Summit County building sale

Summit County Council discussed a real estate purchase agreement with the Summit County Land Reutilization Corp. (Land Bank) for the sale of Parcel No. 0209872 located at 2525 State Road in Cuyahoga Falls.

: Vivek wants to shut down universities

If Vivek Ramaswamy considers your university to be "subpar", he'll just have the university get shut down. Good luck getting anything for all that time you spent on a degree, and even better luck getting all of your money back for the absolutely nothing you will be getting in return!

: Copley Police Chief Michael Mier retiring

The police chief of Copley Township has submitted his retirement notice that will take effect on the 1st of June.

He had been with the Copley Police Department since 1999.

: Heather Hill no longer qualified for Governor

The running mate of a long-shot Republican candidate for governor apparently ended their campaign by resigning from the race.

From the Ohio Secretary of State on X:

Stuart Moats submitted to our office today a withdrawal of candidacy for the office of lieutenant governor as part of the Heather Hill / Stuart Moats joint candidacy for governor and lieutenant governor.

Absent a valid lieutenant governor candidate, Ms. Hill no longer qualifies to receive votes for the office of governor.

Ohio's 88 county boards of elections have been notified that any votes for Heather Hill / Stuart Moats will not be counted, and each board must also provide notice.

Vote for Casey Putsch anyways!

: Sruthi Chandran's DPL Bits

(A short) Bits from the new DPL.

: Barberton school levy

Barberton City Schools is asking voters to approve an operating levy tax to address its estimated $11 million operating budget shortfall.

: Akron Downtown

Business owners in Downtown want to see a revival of Akron's Downtown. That would be great to have!

Mayor Shammas Malik announced almost a week ago that there are 110 events planned for this summer, "built by Akron, for Akron, shaped directly by community feedback calling for more variety, more local talent, and more family-friendly experiences. The result: a summer that hits every note."

: Akron Beacon Journal letters

Basically: one guy defends crime by blaming all of Akron's problems on police, the United Church of Christ continues to be heretical with fake bible translations and a lack of respect for Jesus's actual messages, and a Fairlawn resident says what we're all noticing about Trump.

: William Judge's behavior

Barberton City Council leadership acknowledged during a work session that Mayor William Judge's behavior on the job led the council to take steps toward his potential removal.

: Hyundai body camera footage released

The Akron Police Department has released the body camera video from when a car software issue caused the power-seat to collapse on a 2-year-old girl who was sitting in it. Her death prompted Hyundai to recall over 68,000 vehicles.

This is yet another reason why I think cars and car owners could be so much better off without computers and software in them.

My condolences go to the family of the girl. May her soul, and the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God: rest in peace.

: Akron Children's Golisano Campus

Akron Children's Hospital will name its main campus the Akron Children's Golisano Campus after philanthropist Tom Golisano announced a $50 million gift to the hospital system.

According to the hospital, this is the largest unrestricted donation they've gotten from anyone. Summa sure could have used more people like this.

: Additional AGPLv3 term stance

FSF clarifies its stance on AGPLv3 additional terms.

As stated by Krzysztof Siewicz, the Licensing and Compliance Manager for the Free Software Foundation:

You cannot use the GNU (A)GPL to take software freedom away.

From OnlyOffice: "If the Euro-Office team believes our approach conflicts with the AGPLv3 license, we invite them to submit an official request to FSF (Free Software Foundation) for review. Let the respected open-source community evaluate the situation and provide a decision. If FSF determines that our license and project align with AGPLv3, we will continue as an open-source initiative. However, if the decision goes against us, we are ready to consider other options." Does that last part mean they'll happily become proprietary if the FSF doesn't agree fully with them?

: Trump social media

A deal to end the Iran war seemed close. Then Trump started posting on social media.

: Trump gas prices

Trump team's gas prices rhetoric has become a fiasco.

: Heather tries to drop running mate

Because of a dispute, Heather Hill tried to drop her running mate.

Of course there are far better choices though.

: Innerbelt

Akron is one step closer to transforming the Innerbelt.

: Tara Mosley Weems

Tara Mosley Weems:

The United States does not automatically become safer because a president decides to involve us more deeply in a foreign conflict. Military escalation is not a press release, it is a policy decision with real consequences. It affects troop deployments, military readiness, federal spending, oil markets and most importantly, American families.

: Fran Wilson's council vacancy legislation defeated

Akron's Ward 1 Councilmember Fran Wilson introduced legislation several weeks ago addressing when a vacancy occurs in the city council, to put the city's existing process into writing. With a vote of 5:6, the legislation was defeated.

Wilson said that the legislation was to put the city's current procedures into writing, but Ward 3 Councilman Margo Sommerville said it would be best to not make changes while the council is trying to fill a vacancy. If nothing was changing, what would the problem have been?

: Bill Judge

The Barberton City Council has voted to begin proceedings to remove their current mayor, Bill Judge, with a "no confidence" resolution over how he handled a personnel matter involving a domestic violence incident.

: Mozilla vs Microsoft Copi(a)lot

Mozilla argued that Microsoft's design choices - particularly those that link the Windows experience tightly to Edge and Copilot - undermine genuine user control.

: FOP Lodge 139 fundraiser

The Summit County Deputies F.O.P. Lodge No. 139 will host its annual basketball game fundraiser at Green High School, 1474 Boettler Road.

Good opportunity for those in and around Akron/Green to support our area's law enforcement!

: Summit County voting changes

Akronites who live in Cuyahoga Falls (4-A) and Fairlawn (4-A, 5-A, and 6-A) have had their voting locations moved.

: Internet Archive Blocked by New York Times

Looks like I have been living under a rock. As published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

But in recent months The New York Times began blocking the Archive from crawling its website, using technical measures that go beyond the web's traditional robots.txt rules. That risks cutting off a record that historians and journalists have relied on for decades. Other newspapers, including The Guardian, seem to be following suit.

That was from , meaning that IA was blocked before then already. The new error messages are not NYT errors now, but IA itself, reading like "The target server blocks access to [link]. (HTTP status=403)". So much for the open web!

: No Harm Data Center Act

Democrat U.S. Representative Greg Landsman has filed legislation require data centers to cover their own energy costs, prohibit officials from signing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), and require environmental impact studies when building new data centers.

You may read H. R. 8033 here: "To ensure that American families are protected from the impacts of data centers on the electric grid, and for other purposes."

: Summit County judge candidates

A writeup of Summit County's judge candidates that uses data provided to Signal Akron by the Akron Area League of Women Voters.

: Highland Square violence

New barriers now block off a stretch of on-street parking along West Market Street right in front of several bars. Mayor Shammas Malik says the hope is to cut down on street parties and large crowds gathering around parked cars.

: Trump and Pope Leo XIV

Aaron Blake's article saying that Trump's feud with a Pope is different when compared to his feud with Pope Francis.

Few demographics were more important to President Donald Trump's win than Catholics. While Catholics usually split close to 50-50, the data shows Trump won between 55% and 59% of them -- apparently the most of any presidential candidate in decades.

Additionally, the recent computer-generated blasphemous depiction of Trump as Jesus healing a sick man did not help his falling image.

: New York Times blocking Internet Archive

When trying to get a stable link for a New York Times article, I found out that it appears that the New York Times has taken to blocking Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. For example: here is an article regarding Trump's attacks on the Pope and how they may affect the midterms. The problem is that the link is useless due to the following message:

You have been blocked from The New York Times because we suspect that you're a robot.

Why am I seeing this? There are a few possibilities:

  • You are browsing and clicking much faster than is typical of a human being
  • Something is preventing Javascript from working on your computer
  • There is a bot with the same IP address as you

Either its bot filter is a bit too stringent, or they realized people were getting around the identification walls with it. Either way: not good, New York Times. Looks like I need to find a different article then.

: LLMs

[LLMs] lead people to self-harming actions which moreover become a burden on real medical professionals. NHS staff is compelled to "argue" against people who "know better" because some chatbot said this and that (even if it lacks any comprehension and merely parrots a bunch of inputs based on word correlation weights).

Oh, how I envy Roy Schestowitz's LLM usage.

: CareCloud breach

The healthcare company CareCloud has confirmed that it had suffered a data breach for several hours on , but so far had not confirmed whether sensitive data was exposed during that time.

The article says that "the company believes the attackers are no longer inside." Does that mean they don't know for sure?

: Akron Public Order Policy

The City of Akron has announced a new Public Order Policy which was announced by Mayor Shammas Malik and Police Chief Brian Harding.

: Hung jury in FirstEnergy trial

A jury in Akron hearing bribery and corruption charges against former CEO Chuck Jones and former senior vice president Michael Dowling is unable to come to a verdict.

: Track AIPAC

An on-line resource by Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption for tracking AIPAC's congressional spending in the federal government. The Israel Lobby Tracker, at least, functions well enough without running nonfree JavaScript.

: Cisco data breach

Crackers broke into AWS accounts belonging to Cisco, leading to over three million records getting published on-line. The records reportedly contain personally identifiable information, git repositories, AWS buckets, and other internal data".

: Israel propaganda

Israel Boosts Funding to Propagandize Americans.

There are already a number of companies established throughout the country that get money from Israel to publish Israeli propaganda. For example: Clock Tower X LLC.

This company's rather interesting: it's registered in Delaware, but the FARA documents say it is located on 3745 Medina Road, Ste C, Medina, OH 44256 with Bradley Parscale as a federally registered foreign agent.

The 1124-0006 document says in 10b and 11 that Clock Tower X LLC is supervised by Israel. The Services Agreement explicitly states that the company has been engaged by the state of Israel to "coordinate and execute public communications and media activities".

: Jeff Fusco

Akron City Council Vice President Jeff Fusco is retiring Tuesday after 40 years in public service.

: Urgent: Elect Casey Putsch

Ohioans: Elect Casey Putsch in the Primary Election. Do what is best for Ohio: elect someone that will take action for Ohio's people, culture, and institutions. Here is some information about his platform.

If universities mean anything to you, you may be interested in Vivek Ramaswamy's intention to shut down universities, claiming it's to cut down on "bloated bureaucracies and administrative duplication." Not a good plan, let alone a good idea.

If the University of Akron were one of the universities that get shut down, what happens with all of the time and money students spent to get degrees that won't exist anymore?

Do what is best for Ohio. Vote Putsch.

: Urgent: Stop Senate Bill 87

Ohioans: call on your Ohio House representative to kill the bill, urging him/her to not pass SB 87 in order to protect your constitutional rights granted under the 1st and 14th amendments.

To find your area's representatives: you may use either the member search form or the house directory. You should also be able to send an e-mail your representative with the following address format: rep##@lis.state.oh.us.

Make sure you are contacting your state house representatives. For example, if you live in Ohio House District 31, you will contact Bill Roemer rather than Emilia Sykes. She's the federal rep rather than the state rep.

: Lizzie Marbach

[I put a link to a promotional video and post by the organizer here, along with an RSVP link. As the references are no longer available, I have removed the note and added this explanation.]