Meet the Network
OHCRN has an experienced network of community organizers available to speak with your community about establishing Community Rights. Contact us.
Athens County -
Saraquoia (Sara) Bryant - saraquoia@yahoo.com
Sally Jo Wiley - sjwiley@frontier.com
The Athens Bill of Rights Committee is currently considering options including a new county charter as well as possible Rights of Nature options to protect their water and environment from industrial development and waste disposal. They want to assert their right to self governance by expanding local control and protection at the county level.
Cuyahoga County -
Tish O’Dell - tish@celdf.org
Paul Sherlock
Mothers Against Drilling in Our Neighborhoods (MADION) was the first community group in Ohio to get a community bill of rights passed by citizen initiative in 2012. The group was formed by Ohio moms whose mission was to preserve the health and safety of our children from the harmful effects of drilling for oil and gas in our neighborhoods. Although the law was challenged by corporate oil/gas corporations and their “rights” were upheld by the courts over the people’s law to prohibit drilling, no new oil/gas well shave been drilled in the city since the passage of the CBOR.
Fairfield County -
Charlotte Owens - cowensus@yahoo.com
Franklin County -
Bill Lyons - wmlyons@gmail.com
There are currently 13 active injection wells in our Columbus watershed area taking millions of gallons of toxic, radioactive frack waste. In addition, there is a site in Columbus that has been sanctioned by the Ohio EPA to accept drill cuttings (solid frack waste). Columbus Community Bill of Rights is circulating a city charter amendment that asserts a rights to clean water, air, and soil and prohibits fossil fuel extraction and related activities, especially the deposit and transportation of frack waste, and the sitting of frack infrastructure in Columbus.
Fulton County -
Sherry Straub - sstraub66@gmail.com
Fulton County residents attempted to place a County charter on the ballot in 2016 to protect the community air, soil and water from the harms posed by the Nexus pipeline through the county. The residents were denied the chance to vote on the charter.
Sherry recently moved back to her hometown of NW Ohio, but has been very active in Community Rights and Rights of Nature work in Florida. We are all connected by water. CLEAN WATER NOW Sherry is excited to be back in Fulton County Ohio and work with residents interested in projects involving Rights of Nature and Community Rights.
Hamilton County -
Jim Schenk - jschenk@imagoearth.org
Susan VonderHaar - ssvonderhaar61@gmail.com
Citizens for Rights of the Ohio River (CROW) is developing a Bill of Rights for the Ohio River. CROW is focusing on educating the public about Rights of Nature and Community Rights and works with individuals and local groups to further this goal.
Mahoning County -
Susie Beiersdorfer - yogayoungstown@gmail.com
The Youngstown Community Bill of Rights effort proposed a charter amendment to protect the residents of Youngstown and the natural systems that sustain them. The Drinking Water Protection Bill of Rights ensures a right to clean water, air, and soil by banning harmful activities that pose a direct threat to public and environmental health – including fracking and injection wells.
In 2017 the group proposed a Fair and Free Elections ballot initiative to address the influence of corporate money on local elections. Despite having enough signatures the local Board of Elections made every attempt to keep these initiatives off the ballot and impede local democracy.
Medina County -
Kathie Jones - kathieohio@gmail.com
Sustainable Medina County (SMC) protects Medina County’s environment to ensure a healthy ecosystem for today’s residents and future generations. Residents face harm from radioactive gas and oil waste being used as a deicer and our goal is to prevent the spreading of this toxic radioactive waste in our county as well as in the State of Ohio; Since our residents are also faced with air, water and soil contamination and destruction of nature from the NEXUS pipeline and Wadsworth compressor station, SMC has partnered up with SWPA Environmental Health Project to continually perform both air and health monitoring for residents.
Portage County -
Gwen Fischer - gwenfischerohcrn@gmail.com
Joe Mosyjowski - jmosyjowski@cs.com
The Portage Community Rights Group is working to adopt a home rule form of county government, which secures for all, our rights to participate in local democratic government. They believe that all political power is inherent in the people, that government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit and that we the people may create a county government that is healthy, safe and sustainable for us and for our families. State government enacts laws that give preference to corporate activities over our human rights; that corporations headquartered outside our community obtain permits from the state government to engage in activities without our permission.
Williams County -
Sherry Fleming - wmscoa@yahoo.com
The Williams County Alliance is a non-profit grassroots citizen group dedicated to promoting a sustainable future through education and citizen action. The group focuses on water privatization; CAFOs; landfills. The goal is to advocate for the right of Williams County residents to have local control over issues impacting their health, safety and well-being and environment.
Wood County -
Lisa Kochheiser - lisallis11@gmail.com
In 2013 a Bowling Green community group, Protect BG, proposed a Community Bill of Rights charter amendment to prohibit oil and gas related activity, including pipelines and fracking. Due to heavy opposition and publicity by the Chamber of Commerce, Bowling Green League of Women Voters, and BG city elected representatives and appointees, it lost the election with 45% of the vote.
In 2017 a Bowling Green State University student-led community group proposed another BG Community Bill of Rights charter amendment. This time the initiative was aimed at not only prohibiting pipelines and other oil and gas related activity, but was also aimed at protecting our climate future as well. Once again, due to heavy opposition and publicity by the Chamber of Commerce, Bowling Green League of Women Voters, BG city elected representatives and appointees; and also due to bad timing of an Ohio Supreme Court decision to approve the BG Charter Amendment for the ballot which was made just 2 1/2 weeks prior to election, the charter amendment lost the election with 39% of the vote.