Ohio Citizen Action

Ohio Citizen Action gets results
year by year, 1975 - 1998

1975: Citizen Action is founded as the "Ohio Public Interest Campaign"...; Citizen Action and Ohio unions campaign against Gov. Jim Rhodes' ballot issue to give big tax breaks to Ohio manufacturers; voters reject the proposal resoundingly...
1976: Citizen Action begins a nationwide campaign to require advance notice of plant closings, which becomes federal law in 1989...
1977: After Citizen Action and community groups make downtown tax abatements a top issue against incumbents, voters oust the Cleveland mayor and ten City Council members; the tax breaks are stopped for a decade...
1979: Under pressure from Citizen Action and community groups, Columbus City Council denies a $10 million giveaway to Nationwide Insurance for their new headquarters...; Clevelanders vote 2-to-1 to keep the city’s public power system after a mid-winter door-to-door campaign led by Citizen Action, the mayor, unions, and community groups...
1981: Citizen Action and neighborhood groups negotiate community reinvestment agreements with State Fidelity and Citizens Federal Savings and Loan in Dayton, Bank One in Columbus and Akron, and Central Trust in Cincinnati...
1982: Citizen Action, unions, and community groups win Cincinnati City Council approval for the strongest toxic chemical right-to-know ordinance in the nation...
1983: Citizen Action’s campaign against "construction work in progress" rate hikes for the Perry and Zimmer nuclear plants wins as the Public Utilities Commission repeatedly rejects such charges...; Citizen Action wins an anti-trust suit against three northeast Ohio grocery chains for price-fixing, resulting in a $20 million victory for a million Cleveland, Akron and Lorain-area households -- the largest private consumer anti-trust settlement in U.S. history...
1984: Citizen Action and Dayton environmental groups pressure officials to close the notorious Powell Road landfill...; Citizen Action and allies win toxic right-to-know ordinances in Akron and Norwood...
1985: Citizen Action plays a key role in winning a settlement with Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation, saving Ohio gas customers $300 million -- the biggest rate cut in Ohio utility history...; Citizen Action and allies win a toxic right-to-know ordinance in Cleveland...; Citizen Action wins a new state law severely restricting "construction work in progress" payments...
1986: Congress enacts a federal right-to-know law modeled on Ohio’s local ordinances backed by Citizen Action...; A Citizen Action-led campaign secures State matching funds to clean up hazardous waste dumps...; Citizen Action develops a high school curriculum on hazardous materials and wastes -- the first of its kind in the nation...
1987: After a two-year legislative brawl, Citizen Action and others win victims’ rights protections in an insurance industry "tort reform" bill...
1988: Citizen Action helps win a new toxic transportation law after the Miamisburg train derailment, and wins reforms in Ohio’s garbage law to prevent the State from overriding local zoning of new landfills...; Citizen Action saves Ohio Edison customers $25 million when its intervention delays a massive rate hike...; Citizen Action helps build a community consensus in Dayton leading to passage of the city’s landmark groundwater and wellfield protection law, now a model for communities nationwide...; Citizen Action wins a state chemical right-to-know reporting law and protects local right-to-know ordinances from attack by chemical lobbyists...
1989: Citizen Action releases the first comprehensive industrial pollution reports for every zip code in the nation...; A Citizen Action initiative petition with 27,000 signatures forces Toledo City Council to investigate lower-priced competitive alternatives to Toledo Edison’s electric monopoly...; A Citizen Action lawsuit forces the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to open all its discussion of cases to the public...
1990: Citizen Action’s ‘good neighbor’ campaigns begin to yield results B.F. Goodrich in Akron commits to reducing emissions by 70% within three years... GenCorp Polymer Products in Mogadore commits to abating odors from the plant... Dayton-Walther Corporation recieves the highest air pollution fine in Ohio history...; The State carries out Citizen Action’s "Insurance Consumer’s Right-to-Know" plan, publishing comparison prices and appointing an Insurance Consumer’s Advocate...
1991: A flood of letters from Citizen Action members to legislators stops an attempt to abolish Ohio’s Hazardous Waste Facility Board...; Toledo Edison’s customers save 7% as the utility tries to head off Citizen Action’s public power campaign...
1992: Citizen Action and other groups lead Cincinnati City Council to pass a new clean air code, which beefs up the city’s enforcement against polluters and gives citizens the right to sue...; Citizen Action forces an FDA recall of Halloween hair sprays with cancer-causing ingredients...; Ohio voters pass term limits for state and federal officeholders, after petitions from Citizen Action and others put it on the ballot...
1993: Citizen Action brings Akron-area high school students and teachers together for field trips and workshops on solving local environmental problems. The project expands in 1994-5 to Cleveland-area schools...; Citizen Action blows the whistle on, and stops, an inside deal for the legislature to drop environmental safeguards at Montgomery County’s garbage incinerators...
1994: After a year of prodding by Citizen Action, the state warns the public about PCBs and other toxic chemicals in Lake Erie fish...; After 15 years of Citizen Action public power campaigns, CEI and Toledo Edison scrap the Perry nuclear plant, bowing to competition from Cleveland Public Power and a Toledo public power system in the planning...; East Ohio Gas drops its rate hike request from 18% to 7% and drops its demand for a future automatic rate escalator, after Citizen Action members wrote 9,500 cards and letters, held protests, and won city council resolutions opposing the hike...
1995: Thousands of letters from Citizen Action members persuade Ohio grocery chains, including Kroger, Finast, Rini-Rego, Big Bear, Acme and Heinen’s to offer organic food grown without pesticides...; After thousands of calls from Citizen Action members and other customers, Columbia Gas drops a winter billing plan that overcharged customers by $10 million...; Montgomery County scraps its two garbage incinerators thanks to years of organizing by neighborhood groups and Citizen Action against dioxin and other air emissions...; Lobbying by Citizen Action and other groups block a federal bill to allow more cancer-causing pesticides in food, and jeopardize standards for meat and poultry inspections...; Toledo City Council first blocks the public power study, then votes 10 - 0 to continue when Citizen Action threatens to take the issue to the ballot...
1996: After three years of pressure by Citizen Action and others, Congress passes the Food Quality Protection Act to shield children from harmful pesticides in their diets...; A grassroots campaign led by Citizen Action persuades the cities of Columbus and Bowling Green to take steps to keep the weedkiller atrazine out of drinking water...
1997: Citizen Action, unions, injured workers, and trial attorneys win the first referendum vote in Ohio in 60 years. Voters rejected a new law to reduce injured workers compensation and make it harder to prove damage from chemical exposures...; After a seven year campaign -- and 15,000 Citizen Action member letters -- Ohio enacts the tougher water quality standards of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement...
1998: Sixteen Ohio statewide candidates electronically file their campaign contributions on Citizen Action’s website. This first-ever demonstration spurs then-Secretary of State Bob Taft to follow suit...