The Home Energy Assistance Summer Crisis Program (SCP) will provide a one-time benefit to eligible Ohioans to assist with electric bills, central air conditioning repairs, and air conditioning unit and/or fan purchases.
The program will run from July 1, 2022 through September 30 2022.
What are the benefits?
A one-time electric bill payment of up to $500 for customers of PUCO-regulated utilities or $800 for unregulated utilities.
Who is Eligible for the Summer Crisis Program?
Households must be at or below 175 percent of the federal poverty guidelines and meet one of the following criteria to be eligible:
Have a member of the household who is at least 60 years of age or older.
Have a documented medical condition or a diagnosis .
Households whose electric has been disconnected, in threat of disconnection, or a new service is being established.
Customers who are enrolling in PIPP Plus for the first time or have a PIPP default
Size of Household
Total Household Income 12 Months
1
up to $23,782.50
2
up to $32,042.50
3
up to $40,302.50
4
up to $48,562.50
5
up to $56,822.50
6
up to $65,082.50
7
up to $73,342.50
8
up to $81,602.50
For households with more than 8 members, add $8,260.00 for each individual.
by Billy Goldfeder, Deputy Chief of Loveland-Symmes Fire Department
Fire Chief Otto J Huber (2020 file photo)
We are pleased to announce that Fire Chief Otto J. Huber of the Loveland-Symmes Fire Department has been appointed as a Commissioner on the Commission on Fire Accreditation International.
The Board of Directors of the Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc. (CPSE) has confirmed his appointment as Commissioner on the Commission on Fire Accreditation (CFAI). He will represent accredited fire service agencies serving populations between 25,000 and 99,999. Chief Huber’s name was among several proposed to represent the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). Chief Huber’s term of appointment is for three years beginning on July 1, 2022 and ending on June 30, 2025.
The Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) provides an assessment tool to determine when a fire department has achieved an appropriate level of professional performance and efficiency. The CFAI has been providing this service since 1988 when it was created by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA). In 1996, the CFAI became a trust organization in cooperation with the IAFC and ICMA, and in 2001, the CFAI incorporated to create a unique standalone organization. The cooperation among all three organizations remains excellent.
The mission of the CFAI is to “assist the fire and emergency service agencies throughout the world in achieving excellence through self-assessment and accreditation in order to provide continuous quality improvement and the enhancement of service delivery to their communities.” The accreditation program provides an in-depth process of self-assessment for fire departments, granting accreditation to organizations that successfully complete the assessment process and an on-site evaluation by their peers.
Chief Otto J Huber has been with the Loveland-Symmes FD since 1976. He is a certified Ohio Fire Executive, Fire Command Officer as well as a cedentialed Chief Fire Officer. LSFD is an ISO Class 1, CPSE/CFAI fire accredited agency as well as an accredited EMS agency by the Commission on Ambulance Accreditation.
Loveland, Ohio – The Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency has announced an Air Quality Alert for the Loveland Area, including Butler, Clermont, Hamilton and Warren counties in Ohio and Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties in Kentucky.
The air quality index is predicted to be 108 on Wednesday which is “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups”.
Active children and adults, and people with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should be avoiding all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.
You can track the air quality in real-time by clicking the image below.
Do Your Share! Take these precautions:
• Take the bus, carpool, bike or walk instead of driving • Refuel your vehicle after 8 p.m.; do not top off when refueling and tighten the gas cap • Avoid idling your vehicle • Combine trips or eliminate unnecessary vehicle trips • Keep your vehicle maintained with properly inflated tires and timely oil changes • Avoid use of gasoline-powered lawn equipment on Air Quality Alert days • Avoid use of oil-based paints and stains on Air Quality Alert days • Never burn leaves or other yard trimmings • Always burn clean, seasoned wood in outdoor fire pits, fireplaces and wood stoves • Do not use fire pits or fireplaces for non-essential home heating on Air Quality Alert days • Conserve electricity
Michael J. Gabrielson being promoted to Kettering Department Captian on November 20, 2019
Loveland, Ohio – Michael J. Gabrielson, current Assistant Chief of Police with the Kettering Police Department, has been chosen as the Loveland Police Department’s new Chief of Police.
Gabrielson will begin his employment with the city on August 1.
Sue Madsen, who has served as the city’s Safety Director since April when former Chief Sean Rahe retired, will assist with Gabrielson’s onboarding according to a release by the City.
“My family and I have been blessed throughout my law enforcement career and we absolutely see Loveland in that same light. It is an honor to be selected as chief and become part of an exceptional and successful agency. I am eager to join a flourishing community with outstanding schools, beautiful parks, and a thriving business district — all serviced by an incredible city with hardworking and dedicated employees,” said Gabrielson in the City press release.
“Gabrielson brings more than 28 years of experience as a certified peace officer in the State of Ohio and more than 20 years as a law enforcement instructor to his new role. He has served the citizens of Kettering since 1993, where he began as a patrolman. His responsibilities as the Assistant Chief at Kettering included leading one of two major divisions of the department with special focus on patrol operations, administrative support, community relations, and criminal investigations.”
Gabrielson holds a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice Administration from Tiffin University and has pursued ongoing education through the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety.
“We are very excited to have Mr. Gabrielson join the Loveland Police Department,” said Loveland City Manager David Kennedy. “After an extensive interview process, he is the right candidate to lead the department. He has a robust background in building internal and external relationships, and I believe he will be a strong asset to the Loveland community and to our police officers’ development. Thank you to all who assisted in the candidate interview process.”
Hey y’all! Our summer sale at Plaid Room Records is here! During RSD we always run 15% off in-store, but we’ve never had the fulfillment capacity to extend that sale to online the same weekend. After some discussion here and a ton of folks asking, we decided to extend that 15% off sale to online customers Sunday through Tuesday! Our warehouse team has also been putting some pressure on me to try to clear some of our overstock so they can continue to operate normally. So, here’s the deal:
EVERYTHING (excluding pre-orders) IN THE STORE IS 15% OFF! No code required, the discount will auto-apply at checkout.
ALL DOUBLE DISCOUNTED ITEMS There are some serious deals in here – I hope y’all find something that’s been on your list!
**Discounts are applied one at a time. For example, a $100 item discounted 30% and then 15% would be ($100 – 30% = $70). Then, it would be ($70-15% = $59.50). $59.50 would be the item’s price before tax.
Scratch And Dent Section On Website Now! As many of you have seen over the last few years, distributors don’t always get product to us in perfect shape. When my team is receiving product, they do their best to separate out the damaged products. In the past we’ve listed some of this product online, usually with the word [DAMAGED] in the title. We’ve historically usually only listed products where we have 3 or more copies that arrived damaged. Now we will be listing tons more titles, even if we only have one copy. The scratch and dent “collection” is available on the site on the menu “Shop Only In Stock” -> “Scratch and Dent Deals”. I’ll drop the link below and sort by the newest added so you can see what’s there. Scratch And Dent
Loveland, Ohio – For area residents choosing to celebrate freedom and independence this 2022 Independence Day, here is some information from City Hall.
A kid zone with photo opportunities, a mini petting zoo, performers and more will occur 4-6:30 PM in Nisbet Park. Lawn games will be available from 4-9:30 PM in front of City Hall and Fountain Greene (in front of the Fleet Feet store).
At 7 PM, the parade will leave from Loveland Elementary School (600 Loveland Madeira Road), turn on West Loveland Avenue, and travel through the downtown district, ending at the intersection of State Route 48 and East Loveland Avenue. If you or your organization would like to be in the parade, registration is open through June 30.
The band Color Blind will perform from 8-10 PM at the Nisbet Park Amphitheater. This “high-energy party band” performs songs from the 1970s to current radio hits.
The fireworks display will begin at 10 PM and be visible across the downtown area.
Parking shuttles will be transporting eventgoers continuously from 4-11 PM. Shuttle pick-up locations will be at Loveland High School (1 Tiger Trail) and the Loveland Early Childhood Center (6740 Loveland-Miamiville Road). Drop-off locations will be at Riverside Drive and Third Street.
Loveland, Ohio – The Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency has announced an Air Quality Alert for the Loveland Area, including Butler, Clermont, Hamilton and Warren counties in Ohio and Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties in Kentucky.
The air quality index is predicted to be 101 on Tuesday which is “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups”.
Active children and adults, and people with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should be avoiding all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.
You can track the air quality in real-time by clicking the image below.
Do Your Share! Take these precautions:
• Take the bus, carpool, bike or walk instead of driving • Refuel your vehicle after 8 p.m.; do not top off when refueling and tighten the gas cap • Avoid idling your vehicle • Combine trips or eliminate unnecessary vehicle trips • Keep your vehicle maintained with properly inflated tires and timely oil changes • Avoid use of gasoline-powered lawn equipment on Air Quality Alert days • Avoid use of oil-based paints and stains on Air Quality Alert days • Never burn leaves or other yard trimmings • Always burn clean, seasoned wood in outdoor fire pits, fireplaces and wood stoves • Do not use fire pits or fireplaces for non-essential home heating on Air Quality Alert days • Conserve electricity
I just wanted to point out that Ohio has a special/primary election (state legislative offices) scheduled for Aug 2. You can request your mail-in ballot now by going here (link below) and printing out the request to mail in once you fill out the form. They start accepting absentee ballots on July 6, so if you send in your request this week you should get your ballot in plenty of time to mail it off. It's always best to take your absentee ballot directly to the post office counter when mailing it and ask them to postmark it, so there's no question your vote will count (they don't automatically postmark everything anymore).
Below is the link to make your absentee ballot request.
ohiosos.gov/elections/voters/absentee-ballot/
As Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed court motions to enact Ohio’s six-week abortion ban, a motley bunch of protesters gathered near the Ohio Statehouse on Friday in a tiny sliver of shade cast by the William McKinley statue.
They held signs declaring “abortion is healthcare” or “abortion is a human right.” Another read “our democracy, it is broken.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. (Photo by Justin Merriman/Getty Images)
Cheri Wells stood next to her one-year-old daughter, Lux, who was strapped into a stroller.
“I brought my daughter down here because this absolutely has everything to do with her, too,” she said.
“It’s taking away her rights to overturn Roe vs. Wade, as well,” she said. “I mean, it’s all about controlling women, period.”
Advocates surge ahead
Advocacy groups and leaders for and against abortion spoke out on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the nationwide right to abortion included in Roe v. Wade.
Religious and anti-abortion groups praised the decision that overturned abortion legalization that had been in place since the early 1970s, and continued their push for prohibitions in Ohio.
“Ohio Right to Life encourages our pro-life legislative majorities and Governor DeWine to be ambitious and end abortion once and for all in our great state,” said anti-abortion lobby Ohio Right to Life’s president Michael Gonidakis.
The anti-abortion groups have state leaders on their side, as Gov. Mike DeWine promised backing for the six-week ban that has been tied up in federal court, and Attorney General Yost put the wheels in motion for that ban to become effective.
In a motion filed less than an hour after the Dobbs decision was released by the U.S. Supreme Court, Yost’s office asked to dissolve the injunction that kept the state abortion ban from going into effect in 2019 when it was passed by the Ohio General Assembly.
“Because there exists no just reason for delay, defendants respectfully request this court immediately dissolve the preliminary injunction and dismiss this case,” Yost wrote in the motion to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
Later Friday night, a court granted the motion, and Gov. Mike DeWine signed an executive order permitting the Ohio Department of Health to set rules for the law.
Those in the pro-abortion realm are not sitting on their laurels after the much-anticipated decision came through.
In a Friday afternoon press call, members of Planned Parenthood of Ohio said while the ruling had been expected, even before a draft opinion leaked to the public, the results were no less devastating.
“Ohioans should not have to figure out how to safely provide health care for themselves,” said Iris Harvey, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio. “It’s an attack on your rights, an attack on your privacy and your freedom.”
Though abortion is now legal at six weeks rather than 20 weeks after a missed period, pro-abortion advocates maintained a message that until a court rules or another ban is put in place, abortion is still legal in the state of Ohio.
Case Western Reserve University law professor Jessie Hill, who has worked on cases defending reproductive rights, said there “are still legal moves to be made” and lawyers intend to continue pursuing options.
One way in which Hill said abortion advocates can move forward is by giving advice that is protected under the First Amendment.
“The state can not, as a general matter, ban truthful, factual information,” Hill said.
Working within the state’s legal system is also in the playbook to keep abortion legal.
“Our in-state strategy ensures that we protect the Ohio Supreme Court, which has been a backstop for securing reproductive justice,” said Rhiannon Carnes, co-founder and co-executive director of the Ohio Women’s Alliance Action Fund.
The group is working with partners to “implement harm reduction measures to ensure that people who need an abortion can obtain the essential health care they deserve,” according to a statement by the OWA. A “voter education plan is also” being launched as the August 2 primary and November general election approach.
“We are all coming together to build independent political power against those stigmatizing abortion and forcing their political objective on our lives and bodies,” Carnes said in the statement.
One Small Step
In the Ladies Gallery at the Ohio Statehouse, a group of anti-abortion activists held a press conference to applaud the Dobbs decision. The room, set aside to honor the achievements of women in Ohio politics, regularly hosts events of all kinds, but the setting wasn’t lost on the speakers.
Beth Vanderkooi of Greater Columbus Right to Life described abortion as a “systemic injustice” meant to discriminate against women.
“True advocates for women’s rights would work together to bring down these injustices rather than tell women that their path to equality, to liberty and to freedom, rests on the dismembered bodies of their dead children,” she said.
The organizers sought to cast Friday’s decision as a watershed achievement for civil rights, comparing it to the reversal of Dredd Scott and Plessy and invoking the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. They also propped it up as a landmark historical event on the order of the moon landing or D-Day.
“It’s one small step for babies,” Created Equal vice president Seth Drayer insisted, “one massive leap for humankind, because Dr. King famously said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
While abortion advocates prepare for their next moves, Created Equal’s president Mark Harrington said their fight was far from over. Invoking Winston Churchill, he called the Dobbs decision “the end of the beginning.”
That posture certainly means advocating for greater restrictions or even the elimination of abortion at the state level, but given Justice Clarence Thomas’ suggestion that the court should next revisit rulings on the legality of same-sex marriage and relationships, as well as contraceptives, some worry the right to an abortion is far from the only one under threat.
Despite promising continued action, Harrington distanced his organization from Thomas’ remarks.
“The idea that one justice which we may or may not agree with on these other issues, says that from the bench in his opinion, doesn’t really matter unless the court actually has a case,” Harrington said. “And there’s no future that I can see where that’s actually going to occur in the short term.”
While Harrington and others who spent years fighting abortion look to the future with the wind in their sails, people like Cheri Wells are looking ahead with uncertainty. The leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs may have undercut the shock of the decision, but the despair is just as deep.
“For some reason, in the back of my mind,” she said, “I thought someone was gonna save us.”
Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ohio legislature is set up to move forward with abortion bans in the state.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday morning that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Legislative leaders said they were prepared to wait until the decision was released before moving forward with legislation to eliminate abortion services. As of Friday night, abortion is legal in Ohio up to six weeks into a pregnancy.
“The most important thing that Ohioans need to know today is that abortion is still legal in Ohio,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio. “There are nine clinics across the state and several in neighboring states that can safely and legally provide abortion care for patients. Today’s ruling is devastating, but it is not the end.”
Gov. Mike DeWine agreed that it would be “prudent” to wait until the Dobbs decision was made, and implement the previously-passed six-week abortion ban before moving on to new legislation.
“While noting those conditions, the Governor has expressed support for additional legislation depending on the details of the Dobbs decision,” a spokesperson for DeWine told the OCJ.
The Ohio Policy Evaluation Network, a group of researchers working with The Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati and Case Western Reserve University, said in a fact-sheet that it expects Ohio to ask for immediate implementation of the six-week abortion ban enacted in 2019.
The ban does not include exceptions for rape or incest, and only allows doctors to present an “affirmative defense,” legal arguments that could only come into play after a doctor has been charged with an offense, if the life of the pregnant person was at risk at the time of the abortion. The defense only works if the abortion happened in a hospital, and does not allow for risks that involve mental health.
Columbus-area OB/GYN Dr. Anita Somani said a ban at six weeks could eliminate the chance of an abortion before a pregnant person is aware of the pregnancy.
“If you don’t know you’re six-weeks pregnant, and you find out at eight or 10 weeks, then you have to look at going to a neighboring state,” Somani said. “At that point, you have to have money and time, as a patient, when you may have other children or just can’t afford it.”
The most recent abortion trigger ban, House Bill 598, was introduced by state Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, would make abortion a fourth-degree felony, and promotion of abortion a misdemeanor offense.
The charges are targeted at the medical professionals providing the abortions, and provides no exemptions for cases of incest or rape. “Affirmative defenses” would be allowed in cases where the pregnancy presented a serious risk to the pregnant person.
Civil lawsuits could also be filed against physicians who perform abortions under the bill, and medical licenses could be at risk.
Senate President Matt Huffman celebrated the decision as “a long overdue turning point in our nation’s history.”
“I look forward to reviewing the specific details in the opinion, so that as we move forward, any legislation we pass in the Ohio Senate follows the guidance of the court, protecting life, and upholding the Constitution,” Huffman said.
House Speaker Bob Cupp said in a Friday statement that the “process of reviewing the decision is underway, including what steps should be taken at the state level and the timeline for doing so.”
“We will be working closely with Governor DeWine, Attorney General Dave Yost and our colleagues in the Ohio Senate on this matter,” Cupp’s statement read.
DeWine has been consistently pro-life in his support of legislation and funding choices, including an executive order that allocated $3 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars to organizations who assisted pregnant Ohioans without promoting abortion as an option.
Attorney General Dave Yost said the decision “returns abortion policy to the place it has always belonged: to the elected policy branches of government.”
“Roe was poorly reasoned, a doctrine of shifting sands that invited perpetual litigation,” Yost said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the impacts of abortion bans in the state could create significant health care barriers and increased transportation costs to access care, according to researchers. These impacts could disproportionately impact low-income communities and people of color.
Iris Harvey, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, said the Supreme Court decision will give politicians power over Ohio bodies, including how they receive care.
“This dangerous and chilling decision can have devastating consequences in Ohio, forcing people to travel hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles for care or remain pregnant,” Harvey said in a statement.
