APJN Board Member, Dick McGinn, has been named to the Board of the Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN) and will also serve as the Athens County Coordinator.  OHCRN’s purpose is to encourage Home Rule for each of the 1,200 Townships in Ohio, including 14 townships in Athens County.  Local citizens will be collecting signatures and asking their Township Trustees to hold public meetings in an effort to pass Resolutions in support of Bills of Rights and against fracking and injection wells.  Fracking is just one local issue—there are others, but that one seems to be the most pressing right now.

The Ohio Community Rights Network is a statewide organization supported by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).  It is the same parent organization that is supporting the Bill of Right Committee in its effort to pass a Bill of Rights and anti-fracking Ordinance in Athens City.

The OHCRN joins five other states promoting Home Rule at the Township level.  Members of the Athens County Chapter include Gini Coover (Lodi Township), Richard Carlson (Waterloo), Joanne Dodd and Luther Haseley (Alexander), Jeanette Ammon (Lee), Renee Ripple (Bern), and Karen Carlson and Hanna Vorisek (Ames Township).  Persons interested in joining this effort please contact Dick McGinn (mcginn@ohio.edu).

OHCRN is officially incorporated in the state of Ohio.  It has a Mission Statement called the Columbus Declaration, a set of by-Laws, a Board of Directors, and a set of officers (President, Treasurer, Secretary).