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Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Knapsack: Licking County Children Services serve us all
It is very hard to believe it has been 10 years since Licking County had to approve our primary levy for Children Services, and it's up again for a vote May 6. The Ohio Revised Code calls on counties to put these sorts of limited levies before the voters on a recurrent basis; 10 years is about the longest these go. School districts, boards of developmental disabilities and libraries are all the kinds of public entities which are subject to this kind of electoral review. Yes, I was involved in this the last time, as campaign treasurer and working with the Citizens for Children Services, a kind of political action committee specifically for asking support of our levy. Children Services is one part of the larger Licking County Job & Family Services office, which has a variety of funding streams, state and federal, for the work they do, but Children Services is largely funded directly by county property owners. Knapsack: 'Unalienable' is a peculiar word with some specific import It's been long discussed in Ohio that when it comes to the amount of state support for local Children Services, on foster care and kinship care, adoption and assisting with abused and neglected children, we are at or near the very bottom. By most nationwide measures, Ohio is 50th out of 50 states, and if the state were to double the amount it contributes to Children Services, we would still be in 50th place. It should really sting that in 49th place is Michigan. Yeah, they're at the bottom, too, but above us. There's a long history as to why this is so. I can't fix longstanding systemic problems (though I've tried to be engaged and proactive these last 10 years since I first learned these data points), so the reality in Ohio is that the state expects county property owners to cover what it won't. And we have to do it again because the law says these levies are limited. This time, we're asking for a replacement of the existing levy. The millage stays the same, but we get the smallest possible increase by using the latest assessed value of the homes, buildings, and property. But because of the mysteries of rollback provisions in state law, as housing values are assessed, the levy recipients continue collecting on where we were. Knapsack: Preparing for the 2026 celebration of our nation's founding warrants reflection We need a replacement levy passed simply because while we are successfully helping to see that fewer kids are entering the care of the county, the costs have increased beyond the reduction of total cases. Specialized foster care and residential care cost more, and the county staff has their hands full finding placement as it is. We decided well before the last renewal of this levy in 2015 that we were committed to keeping Ohio kids in Ohio and not using out-of-state placements, even when those might have cost us less. That's still our program. To implement it, we need the dollars to cover in-state placement. So on May 6, or as you vote early, in Licking County we are asking you to vote 'yes' to replace the Children Services levy. I am here to tell you the money is carefully managed, spent wisely, and with an eye to reducing the need to have state care intervene in a child's life in the first place. But when it has to happen, we want to keep kids safe, close to home and where they can thrive. I hope you will join me in voting 'yes' for Children Services this May 6. Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher in central Ohio; he's worked on a few Children Services levies and programs before. Tell him how you want to see children grow and thrive at knapsack77@ or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky. This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Knapsack: Licking County children need your support May 6
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Knapsack: 'Unalienable' is a peculiar word with some specific import
With a little over a year to the big celebration of our 250th anniversary of American independence (see for more info!), I asked you to think with me about the specific wording and intentions of that founding document for our lives in the United States today. Officially speaking, the final version of our Declaration of Independence says: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' There's a funny, and even mildly controversial word in there: unalienable. It's not one we use much in everyday speech. You could say, 'Hey, that hot dog is unalienable from my plate!' but it might not stop someone from swiping it. As for unalienable, the early drafts of the Declaration as Thomas Jefferson wrote it, called our rights 'inalienable.' If you visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, the letters on the wall inside say 'inalienable.' In fact, Carl Becker, a legal scholar and historian pointed out in 1922: 'The Rough Draft reads '[inherent &] inalienable.' Knapsack: Preparing for the 2026 celebration of our nation's founding warrants reflection Jefferson's draft earlier didn't say 'self-evident,' either: he said 'We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable,' and went on to assert 'that all men are created equal & independant.' In other words, the Continental Congress had a say in the final version. We don't know when or how that Congress changed 'inalienable' to 'unalienable'; but it appears in the official Congressional Journal and in the parchment copy. That's how John Adams wrote it in his notes: 'unalienable.' It might well have been his idea. Either way, so what? Most dictionaries make it clear it's a question of style; either word means the same thing. Something that's inalienable or unalienable is that which cannot be taken away. Obviously, there's a tension here in that life or liberty, let alone pursuing happiness, can be taken away. It's been known to happen. Jefferson's argument, and the final form adopted by the Second Continental Congress, is that government cannot casually or justly take away life, restrict liberty or restrain the pursuit of happiness. These rights pre-exist the government, and do not derive from the state or civic order itself: they are always 'deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' Knapsack: A few recurring thoughts about education Which is where I find 'unalienable' interesting, and a source of our understanding of civil rights which comes to fuller flower in the Bill of Rights, some 15 years later. Because when a 'Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.' That's the unalienable-ness of our rights as Americans. Sure, government can take or try to take certain rights: people do get pulled over in traffic, stopped for cause, arrested under warrant. Various forms of speech and communication can be limited under a variety of tests and with the strict scrutiny of a court's review. But the rights come first, not the government, and if the government is abusive or neglectful of protecting our self-evident (even sacred and undeniable) rights, the consent of the governed comes into play. Ideally, through elections, and the electoral activity that takes place in between, up to and including recall, or even impeachment. Meanwhile, our rights still exist, and are in an existential sense, unalienable. Or inalienable, if you prefer. Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher in central Ohio; he likes to stop and ask questions about obvious things. That's his right, isn't it? Interrogate his questions at knapsack77@ or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky. This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Knapsack: Our rights are 'unalienable,' but what does that mean?
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Knapsack: Preparing for the 2026 celebration of our nation's founding warrants reflection
This spring, I've had the pleasure of being involved with a series of programs, and an exhibit still up for you to see, at the Denison Museum. One of the co-sponsors of this is the America 250-Ohio Commission, preparing for the 2026 celebration of our nation's founding, in the passage of the Declaration of Independence. Todd Kleismit and his merry minions have been hard at work for a while, and rightfully so, getting us to think about what got started in 1776. It all warrants some deeper reflection this year, let alone next. It all went into motion June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee introduced before the Continental Congress a resolution 'that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.' They appointed a Committee of Five to write an announcement explaining the reasons for declaring independence: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and the primary drafter, Thomas Jefferson. Knapsack: A few recurring thoughts about education The delegates in Philadelphia had an idea of what they wanted to do, but they needed a clear set of arguments for why they could, in a world where monarchs and moguls held tight to the reins of power. Jefferson's intent in his initial draft was to establish the right of the United States of America to take a place 'among the powers of the earth' as a free and independent nation. The Declaration immediately points to 'the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,' setting up a case in which it could be said 'Nature's God' had established a basis of truth beneath their rationale for independence from Great Britain. To that end, they affirm: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident.' Before we get to those truths, let's look at how they are known: by being 'self-evident.' Jefferson appeals to the potential reader of this declaration, and how any reasonable person might agree that it's beyond obvious 'that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' Knapsack: Arcades from Paris to Ohio — a pedestrian tour Here's what's interesting. How self-evident is it that all of us are created equal? You could make a case from experience that it's evident some of us start with advantages, and it's been argued that this is the state of nature. But if a reader is tempted to go there, Jefferson has set you up to be tripped by a return to 'Nature's God,' pointing out that each soul is 'endowed by their creator with certain … rights.' In 1776, it was an open question, just as it is to many today: does every human person, even all life, have an essence which is attached to or intrinsic within or endowed with an equal right to just treatment? In 1776, the vote was to affirm this somewhat radical concept, and it turns out the world was ready to affirm it in many locations around the globe (even if it's still up for debate in many quarters). Those equally endowed rights, under law and in the light of heaven? They would be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is no natural cannon fodder or appropriate victim class. Life is a right. So is liberty, and Jefferson's own vexed and mixed record on slavery is complicated by how he tried to put a criticism of slavery in his declaration, but they were all removed by the time of final passage. A failure of nerve, a lack of consistency, which we also remember, and continue to wrestle with. Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher in central Ohio; he's been thinking about the 250th anniversary of 1776 for a while now, and you'll hear more about it. Tell him what you think an unalienable right is at knapsack77@ or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky. This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Knapsack: Reflecting on the Declaration of Independence
