Staff article

Staff article: COLUMBUS, Ohio-Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (pictured) has announced the launch of the 2024 Grads Vote program, a civic engagement initiative designed to assist high school seniors with learning how to become active in Ohio’s election process. The initiative also encourages high school juniors and seniors to become election day poll workers as part of the Youth at the Booth program.

LaRose, a Republican, announced the launch for what he says is part of "a rigorous statewide election integrity initiative aimed at ensuring the accuracy of Ohio's statewide voter registration database.

"Beginning this week, the secretary of state's office will work with Ohio's 88 county boards of elections to conduct legally required list maintenance on out-of-date registrations from individuals who have permanently moved," LaRose said in a statement.

LaRose also directed the county boards of elections to review their records for "past-due removals, data mismatches, and bad addresses to ensure they are complying with state and federal law."

Ohio Democratic leaders and the NAACP, however, remain concerned that any efforts by LaRose to purge voter rolls in Ohio serve only to disenfranchise voters, including Black people and poor people. LaRose argues that he is acting within the confines of state and federal law, and is merely doing his job.

Ohioans will vote this November relative to the 2024 presidential election between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, a rematch of the 2020 election that Biden won amid controversy and claims by Trump and his supporters that the election that culminated in a pro-Trump riot on Jan 6, 2021 at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. was fixed against him.

Trump won Ohio in 2016 when he was first elected president, and again in 2020 when he was ousted from office by voters.

He has been indicted in four separate cases, one for which he is currently on trial as to whether he interfered with the 2016 election that he won over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by allegedly paying off adult film star Stormy Daniels to be quiet about an alleged affair he denies.

He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases, including the Stormy Daniels hush money, election interference prosecution, and says they are all a witch hunt by Democrats and are designed to interfere with his current run for president.

Prosecutors after him say presidents are no more above the law than anybody else.

All of it is constant fodder for talented media pundits and political talk show hosts across the country, with some Blacks and others who distrust the nation's systemically racist legal system looking on for comparisons and analyses.

Trump has said that Black people should identify with him because they too are routine victims of a criminal justice system that wreaks of impropriety and is weaponized against innocent people the government wants to silence for speaking out on issues of public concern.

A recent CNN poll found that only 13 percent of Americans nationwide believe that he is being treated like other criminal defendants, though race was not a factor in the poll.

To the contrary, a similar Pew study has shown that Black and Hispanic individuals are more likely than White people with similar criminal histories and charges to be arrested and held in jail before trial and that they tend to have higher bails set and receive lengthier and more punitive sanctions, such as incarceration rather than probation.

Ohio is no different, with research showing that Cuyahoga County, the state's second largest of its 88 counties, has the highest rate of convictions of Blacks, many of them poor, and of binding over Black juveniles to adult court for prosecution where they are regularly convicted and imprisoned. This often occurs with ineffective assistance of counsel, and at the hands of racist and corrupt White common pleas judges, White county prosecutors, and White men who lead the county's racist public defender's office.

Black Cleveland area community activists have called for a consent decree for common pleas court reforms between the county of Cuyahoga, which includes Cleveland, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) under U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee.

LaRose has not announced an endorsement of Trump but has said efforts to keep the former president off the November ballot in various states  are uncalled for as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide Trump's claim that he has absolute immunity from prosecution charges that accuse him of interfering with the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and criminal charges against him in general regarding his time as president and thereafter. He says it sets a bad precedent for presidents in the future who come under fire and are persecuted for political reasons.

Also on the ballot in November in Ohio, among other less prominent races, is a nationally watched contest for the U.S. Senate between Republican nominee Bernie Moreno, who won Ohio's March 19 primary over LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan with Trump's endorsement, and senior U.S. Sen Sherrod Brown, a popular Cleveland Democrat who is running for reelection.

Democrats hold a slim majority in the U.S. Senate while Republicans hold the majority in the House of Representatives, with Republicans vying like hell to win the White House and to dominate both chambers of Congress come November. Only time will tell, pundits have said, as Trump aggressively fights for his political survival, his freedom, and a second term as president of the United States of America.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

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Staff article by: Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland activists and Women's March Cleveland, the largest grassroots activist women's rights group in Northeast Ohio, are praising Cleveland WEWS News 5 Investigator Joe Pagonakis (pictured) after he and the news station announced earlier this week that he will retire, effective Mon., April 29, after nearly five decades in television news.

Pagonakis will sign off from WEWS News 5 for the final time Monday, ending a storied 48-year career in television, with 40 years on the air reporting in local communities and more than 30 years at News 5, the news station reported this week.

“My sincere thanks and gratitude to Northeast Ohio viewers for turning to News 5 and trusting me to tell their stories for more than three decades,” Pagonakis said via the story. “It has been such an honor and a blessing to have the opportunity to try and help others in need in my hometown for all these years.”

Women's March Cleveland head organizer Kathy Wray Coleman, a longtime Black Cleveland organizer and community activist who also leads the Imperial Women Coalition, called Pagonakis "a Cleveland television media legend who is widely respected and intuitive on issues impacting women, Blacks, poor people, and other marginalized groups," and said that he is "irreplaceable."

Coleman said that when organizing for women's marches and rallies in the fight against violence against women and for reproductive and other rights for Cleveland and Ohio women it was sometimes exhausting trying to engage the mainstream media in event coverage due in part to political and other reasons, particularly when key organizers were Black women, but Joe Pagonakis would often step to the plate and do worthwhile stories.

"His coverage was always thorough and fair, and he was always professional, even when the women would sometimes tease him about his suave-style and good looks," said Coleman, who has led  Women's March Cleveland for about six years, including helping relative to the successful passage of the Issue 1 referendum approved by voters last November that enshrined the legal right to abortion and other reproductive measures into the Ohio Constitution. It came after the U.S. Supreme Court, in June of 2022, overturned the longstanding Roe. v. Wade and gave respective states broad-ranging authority to regulate and legislate abortion.

Coleman said that Pagonakis also covered rallies she led for the Imperial Women Coalition as to the unprecedented murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland by the late serial killer Anthony Sowell, who died in 2021 while on death row.

His presence in sometimes covering anniversary rallies on the murders helped to minimize routine harassment, she said, from former city officials who told her that "the rallies made the city look bad because they highlighted heightened crime against Black women at a time when city leaders wanted to position the city as a great place to live and raise a family."

When her group pushed for more local, county and federal funding for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center and the Journey Center for Safety and Healing (domestic violence center) as cases of rape were increasing, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, activists could count on him to publicize the effort, Coleman said, adding that his coverage and that of News 5 on the issue was "neutral, timely, and unbiased."

"He would sometimes say Kathy I must tell both sides," the activist said, "sometimes to my annoyance, particularly regarding the fight by activists to preserve the right to abortion access for Ohio women currently, and for generations to come."

Coleman said that her response would sometimes be that "there is only one side to equality for women and we cannot reach equality when men in power, primarily White men and some state and federal lawmakers, seek to deny Ohio women the choice to decide what to do with our bodies through draconian, anti-female policies that we view as unconstitutional in every respect."

Activists say they worry that as some seasoned television journalists respected in the Black community and other community circles like Pagonakis prepare to retire, the largely Black major American city of Cleveland and activists will be left with a void.

"As women in Cleveland, Northeast Ohio and nationwide prepare to likely take to the streets in protests before the 2024 presidential election against an anticipated and potential national ban on abortion at the federal level we hope that our mainstream media of Cleveland that Blacks and women have continually supported over the years will be on the right side and with women every step of the way."

Activist Alfred Porter Jr. of Black on Black Crime Inc, who often helped Coleman in organizing women's marches and rallies, described Joe Pagonakis as "a part of Cleveland's history and a legendary, investigative reporter who was fair to activists and the Black community."

Delores Gray, also a community activist, organizer and community advocate, also agrees that Pagonakis will be missed by activists in the trenches of Cleveland as they continue their fight for equal opportunity and fair play for disenfranchised Blacks, women and poor people.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown (OH-11)

Staff article by:Clevelandurbannews.com / Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

Washington, D.C. – Ohio Congresswoman Shontel Brown (OH-11) and the Biden-Harris Administration have announced that Ohio will receive over $312 million in federal funding to create or expand solar energy programs in low-income and disadvantaged communities through the Solar for All grant program.

The State of Ohio and Growth Opportunity Partners, a Cleveland-based non-profit, each received Solar for All grants of $156 million, Brown said in a statement on Tuesday. The program is funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.

"The Solar for All grants are game changers for Ohio, these are climate change, and economic, and environmental justice wins," said Congresswoman Brown, a Warrensville Hts Democrat whose 11th congressional district includes Cleveland, a largely Black city where most residents live below the poverty line. "This is part of why I voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, because all Ohioans deserve a clean energy future. These grants are going to have a tangible impact – helping more everyday Ohioans enjoy the benefits of solar power, including lower costs and cleaner air."

Solar energy for power is becoming more of a trend, including for powering homes as a substitute for electricity. It is used for various purposes like heating, charging gadgets and appliances, cooling, cooking, and lighting up the environment. It performs virtually all the functions that a regular electricity supply performs.

The State of Ohio Office of Budget and Management State Accounting will receive a Solar for All grant of $156,210,000, Brown said. The state's program will create opportunities for Ohio's residential customers in low and moderate-income households and disadvantaged communities to achieve meaningful energy savings, relieve high levels of energy burden, and improve air quality and economic prosperity in traditionally under-served areas of Ohio.

Growth Opportunity Partners, headquartered in Ohio, will also receive a Solar for All grant of $156,210,000. Growth Opportunity Partners, located in Cleveland, will lead a multi-state effort to catalyze a just, clean energy transition in industrial heartland communities, helping low and moderate income-households install rooftop solar and more.

Ohio's state grant award was among 60 selections announced this week to states, territories, tribal governments, municipalities, and nonprofits across the country. For a full list of grant recipients, click here.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the 60 Solar for All recipients will enable over 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from distributed solar energy.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Staff investigative article by Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cuyahoga County juries that decide guilt or innocence in felony cases presided over by common pleas judges at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland are often tainted against Blacks, according to the county public defender's office that is now led by Chief Public Defender Cullen Sweeney, a wannabe common pleas judge who lost an election for judge in 2012.

Sweeney replaced former chief county public defender Mark Stanton, who was hired  by the county despite representing  police unions in excessive force prosecutions of cops who arbitrarily shoot and kill Black people with impunity. Stanton retired after only a few years in the job with sources saying he tired of the red tape and rampant court and prosecutorial malfeasance.

Assistant county public defender Scott Rodger Hurley, also a wannabe judge who lost a bid for a municipal court seat, sought a change of venue in one case involving a maliciously prosecuted Black defendant targeted by White cops and then county prosecutor Tim McGinty. He wrote in the motion before Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo that he later disregarded that his Black client would be the victim of jury tampering.

The motion is telling with Hurley saying that the Cuyahoga County Jury Commission of the Common Pleas Court taints jury pools and victimizes Black defendants, and that its actions and those of county prosecutors "cast a pall on every corner of court proceedings."

Such motion in the case is coupled with a companion motion for a special prosecutor in place of County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley. It says that O'Malley's office perpetuates retaliation against Blacks targeted by  police and former county prosecutor TIm McGinty, whom he ousted from office via an election in 2016 with the support of activists, Black leaders and the county Democratic party.

O'Malley's office, Hurley says in the unprecedented motion, represents a countervailing concern of impropriety. That motion was also disregarded by Hurley, after questionable activity.

Hurley met privately and ex parte with Judge Nancy Russo, which is unethical under the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Conduct on his part and the Judicial Code of Conduct relative to the judge. He then began colluding with her to disenfranchise his Black client by refusing to do discovery in the case to introduce as evidence for trial, including perjured county grand jury testimony by a corrupt and since retired White cop, Dale Orians.

He did this even after Nancy Russo had granted a motion to compel discovery by Hurley filed by the prosecution. She (the judge) then attempted to proceed to trial without any discovery whatsoever done on behalf of the defendant and was adamant about it until she came under community scrutiny and was exposed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Although she has until January 2027 in her current term, last month she lost a bid for the judicial seat left open by the Ohio Supreme Court misconduct suspension of former judge Daniel Gaul to Carl Mazzone. Activists, the Plain Dealer Newspaper and her own county Democratic party panned her candidacy and campaigned against her both publicly and privately by word of mouth.

Hurley had been appointed by Judge Nancy Russo as indigent counsel in the case but lacked the guts to go the long haul in representing his Black client. She ultimately removed herself from the case, following a petition for a writ of prohibition filed against her with the Ohio Supreme Court and  protests by community activists.

A new judge in the tortured case, Judge Nancy Fuerst, was handpicked to replace her by then chief common pleas judge John Russo. The assignment, no doubt, is in violation of the random draw mandate for assignments of judges in multi-judge trial courts in Ohio under the Ohio Rules of Superintendence.

When Hurley entered Fuerst's courtroom during a pretrial in the case that was filled with activists after she had removed him as indigent counsel for the Black defendant at issue via a journal entry, Judge Fuerst yelled at him, saying "No, get out of my courtroom."

Fuerst went on to harass the Black activist defendant in the case by issuing an unconstitutional gag order in an attempt to silence free speech and activism, and ultimately denying indigent counsel when the case got hot. Her actions also reveal tampering with records to get around the speedy trial mandate, and covering up indictment fixing by the county prosecutor's office and the county clerk of courts office.

Hurley had also said in a motion filed in a case that county prosecutors, with the assistance of common pleas court clerks, are taking original indictments involving White cops and  Black defendants, and illegally upping the criminal charges not supported by the grand jury without going back to the grand jury for an amended indictment. Simply put, they are re-typing and forging aspects of the original indictments, and getting a fake grand jury foreman to sign them as if they were original indictments.

Activists, in turn, filed a citizen's criminal complaint against Judge Fuerst, seeking a criminal prosecution by the city of Cleveland for denying Blacks their Civil Rights, falsification, and tampering with records, a felony crime under Ohio law.

It remains pending before the city's Black chief prosecutor, with county prosecutors bragging that O"Malley has the influence to stop any such prosecution and activists prepared to file a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Ohio Supreme Court that seeks a probable cause prosecution of the seasoned, intemperate judge.

The county's public defender's office now says that when White common pleas judges deny Blacks indigent counsel, regardless of the reason, it will support them over poor Blacks with support from county officials like county Executive Chris Ronayne and the 11-member county council. Ronayne refuses to intervene, even upon requests from activists and Black victims of the impropriety,

Sources say that when some common pleas judges in the county adjourn criminal trials on Friday to recommence on Monday it is sometimes allegedly done to give prosecutors and other culprits the opportunity to attempt to manipulate select jury members over the weekend to vote to convict innocent Black defendants.

This, say activists, is the height of public corruption and racism against the Black community.

Activists say they select common pleas judges, mainly privileged White judges pushed by White men, are corrupting the offices of the county public defender and county prosecutor and that the malfeasance is out of hand.

This, say sources, makes it all the more important that targeted and indigent Blacks are supplied indigent counsel before and during trial.

The 6th Amendment gives indigent people the right to indigent counsel and state law in Ohio requires that the county supply indigent defendants, including Blacks, with appointed counsel at all stages of the proceedings following an arrest or summons after an indictment, and certainly at arraignment.

Not one legal authority in Ohio, whether applicable case law or a court rule, gives common pleas judges and county public defenders the authority to deny people deemed indigent by the court indigent counsel.

Judges, county public defenders, and prosecutors are ruining the lives of Black people without consequences, sources say, and public records research reveals.

All of it, say activists, is evidence that common pleas court felony proceedings in the largely White, 34-member general division court are detrimental to the fair administration of justice and the county's Black community, including Black juveniles tried as adults in mass.

For chief county public defender Cullen Sweeney to refuse indigent counsel to Blacks for corrupt and racist White common pleas judges is serious enough to demand that the county fire him, activists say, not to mention the high rate in which poor Blacks that his office represents are routinely convicted in cases and disproportionately imprisoned via ineffective assistance of counsel and corrupt judges and prosecutors.

Suspended former judge Daniel Gaul actually forced a Black, male defendant to plead guilty to murder, according to the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel. And after a county jury found another Black defendant not guilty of murder he continued to say on record that the man is a murderer.

The extent to which some of the judges hate Blacks is astronomical, sources say.

Greater Cleveland community activists and other criminal justice reform advocates continue to call for an extensive FBI investigation and a federal-court-monitored consent decree for common pleas court reforms between the county and the Department of Justice (DOJ) under U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

This is a continuing investigation by Ohio's Black digital news leader of Cuyahoga County public corruption, racism and genocide against the Black community

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.