Where's Washington Park?

In starting to spread the word about this Saturday's community signing event at Washington Park in Glendale, the most common response we've gotten has almost without fail had three parts...

• Great!
• I'll be there!
• Wait, where is it?

So we thought it might be a good idea to give a few hints as to just where Washington Park is in the world.

Let's start with a couple of maps from Google...

The best way to describe its location is a block north and a block or two west of the PCSD Central Office. (Central office is directly behind Friendly Stop Cafe on the lower of those two maps.)

Here's an aerial view from Bing...

We'll be at the shelter house next to the basketball court. There's a playground for the kids, space to set up a few games of cornhole, and - most importantly - a place to spread out our petitions to get 'em signed.

If anybody needs directions, here's what we suggest you offer up.

From the north...

• Drive south on 747.
• From the intersection of Kemper (right by Tri-County Mall), go about 1 mile.
• Turn right on Washington Ave (at a stop light by Glendale Florist & Gaslight Cafe)
• Go about 1/2 mile on Washington Ave.
• Park is on the right, head into the driveway for best access.

From the south...

• Drive north on 747 (Congress Ave in Glendale)
• From the intersection of Sharon Rd & 747, turn left at the next stoplight.
• Go about 1/2 mile on Washington Ave.
• Park is on the right, head into the driveway for best access.

From the east or west, get to Tri-County Mall and head south or get to the Sharon/747 intersection and head north.

It's actually really easy to get to, and we're looking forward to Saturday.

Major congrats to Becky Heckman at PHS who already has 18 registered voter grads pledging to come and bring their friends.

What are you doing to bring folks?

Today's task

Today, there's one task for each of you, one simple task.

Put next Saturday's community event on your Facebook page. Make it an event. Tell people we'll have food and games and petitions. Direct 'em to either Summit Park or Washington Park (We promise that we'll know which by the end of the day Monday). Tell everybody you know that you're going to be there.

That last part is key. We want your friends there. We want your family there. We want your neighbors there. But we need you there, because if those people know you're going to be there, they're a lot more likely to actually show.

We'll be at the park from 12-5 next Saturday (5/21), so work around your kid's baseball games, your aunt's birthday, your lawn cutting, your whatever else you have planned for the what'll hopefully be a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, because when it comes right down to it, there isn't much that you could have planned that is more important than the future of your job, your retirement, the middle class, Ohio's kids, Ohio's economy, Ohio's future.

Because, in the end, Senate Bill 5 is an attack on every one of those.

If you want to take the soft sell route, then tell people about coming out and spending a beautiful afternoon with the Princeton community. (Though we'll be there rain or shine...)

If you want the hard sell, then tell 'em about the ruination of Ohio's schools, Ohio's unions, Ohio's economy, Ohio's future if theirs - if yours - is the one signature that we don't get and that we needed.

Either way, be there on Saturday.

Things are heating up...literally...

This afternoon was magnificent.

We got most of the Glendale staff signed on the petition and handed out three blank petitions to Glendale staffers, all of whom promised us at least fifty signatures by taking it around their neighborhoods, to their local police force, through the stands at soccer and baseball games, and generally finding anybody and everybody who wants Senate Bill 5 repealed. That's the kind of excitement and dedication that we're looking for.

Then, after a brief break in the air conditioning (and we use the term loosely) of PHS, we headed out into the swelter of the warmest day of the year so far to receive a bountiful blessing from the Princeton community on their way into for the final choir concert of the year (and of Jamie Holdren's PHS tenure, congrats, Jamie). We saw parents, aunts, uncles, retired staffers, alumni, current teachers, and lots of our union brothers and sisters signing for us. We saw wives telling their husbands to sign, parents bringing back their graduated children as they'd promised us from Monday night. We saw seniors filling out their voter registration forms just so they could sign and support their schools.

We've filled two petitions entirely and have nearly full Butler and Warren county petitions. Those'll be turned in to Ann Bayou on Friday so we can get new petitions and hand those out as well.

Our Glendale connection came through, so now we just have to get Glendale to give the okay to us using the park (we don't think it'll be a problem, but the form has to filed). Hopefully May 21st will work out just fine.

Heritage's signing has been moved to Monday of next week, and we're still on to see the Sharonville staff at the Blue Goose on Friday. Let's make this one a three-way signing by bringing out Evendale and Stewart, too. Anybody on either of those staffs willing to do the organizing work to get people excited? Heck, I'll promise to buy a drink for the first Stewart and first Evendale person who stops in at the Goose. Just to make it fair, I'll buy one for the first Sharonville staffer, too.

A day's respite...back to the grind

The weather at the Ice Cream Social last night was gorgeous, and we want to give a shout out to the jazz band parents who stopped by our table to voice their opposition to Senate Bill 5 as well as Pat Walden who manned the table and brought in parents by the bucketload. Also nice to hear from a fellow union man who stopped by to cheer us on and mentioned that he'd gotten 120 signatures by taking a petition to his kid's track meet the past weekend (speaking of which, read on to see how you can get your very own petition - yes, a teaser, take that.)

Tuesday was a bit of a day off from collecting signatures, but Wednesday is right back at things as we'll see the Glendale crowd at O'Charley's and hopefully see the choir parents outside Matthews at PHS for the choir concert (apparently we should show up a little sooner as the students' call time is 6:30 meaning that there are a lot of parents who are there before that 6:30 time - lesson learned). If the weather's dry, we'll be at the corner of Matthews to catch 'em as they cross over to the school. If it's raining, though, we'll be inside keeping our petitions dry.

Thursday, then we're trying to get over to Heritage Hill to do a quick signing on the sidewalk.

Friday, then we'll be at the Blue Goose to hang with the Sharonville (and maybe Stewart and Evendale) folks.

We're still working toward a district-wide event at Summit Park on May 21. We're looking for a Glendale resident who's friendly to the campaign and would be willing to talk to the park board about making that reservation for us, though. If you know of a such a person, can you make the initial contact and then pass their info along to your humble webmaster, Lonnie Dusch, at the paceforkids@gmail.com email? I have a contact or two, but I'd take a more solid one.

We also have - big news - enough petitions that we can start handing those out to anyone who's a trained circulator (or who wants to be one and is willing to listen to one of us talk to you for about ten minutes) and is willing to pledge to get fifty signatures. We're including that last part to make sure we get our good union money's worth out of the petitions that we've had printed up. You can take the petitions to your kid's baseball game, your bunko night (does anybody play bunko anymore?), your pilates class, your family reunion, or just around your neighborhood like I am this weekend.

Give a holler in the comments or to the paceforkids@gmail.com email if you're interested in having your very own petition to help the campaign.

Where from here?

First, off, thanks to the staff of Lincoln Heights for hosting a fun happy hour/signing event at The Pike on 747. Never been there before. Think I'll be going back.

Second, coming up this week we have our first public event - Monday night on the sidewalk (we can't be on school grounds but the public sidewalk at the school is fair game) at the PHS Jazz Band Ice Cream Social. To see what the event is like, check out these photos from a couple of years ago. Hopefully it'll give some of our more active/involved parents a chance to get their names on the petition.

Third, Wednesday afternoon we'll be at O'Charley's in Tri-County to see the Glendale folks. It'd be a great chance for any staffers from the other schools - whether they're ones we've already visited or ones we haven't visited yet - to stop by and help us out.

Fourth, turns out that Sharon Woods is all booked for the 21st, but Glendale has a couple of nice parks - Summit and Washington - that would be perfect for our purposes. We'll need a resident of Glendale to get the actual reservation, but I'm thinking that's do-able. PACE had already agreed to foot the bill for the shelter house at Sharon Woods, and the Glendale reservations are even cheaper (free with a deposit) so we should be able to have some food to grill out there. Plus there's space for cornhole and nice playgrounds around. Bring the kids out...have some fun.

What we need from you...

• Talk to everybody in your building to make sure everyone has signed the petitions. If they haven't send 'em our way on Wednesday at O'Charley's.
• If you're at Heritage Hill, Evendale, Stewart, or Woodlawn, we need to know when and where you want us to have the petitions to get your staff signed up. Feel free to make Wednesday's O'Charley's visit a multiple-school event, but if you want one of your own, we need to know soon.
• Start talking up the May 21st event with parents and staffers. We're going to want to get friends, family, EVERYBODY out to sign on that afternoon.

It's been great to get out and see folks from schools that we don't get to visit often. Thanks for everybody at PCMS, PHS, Springdale, and Lincoln Heights especially for getting on board early.

Let's make a Friendly Stop

Glendale is now on the calendar for a petition signing at The Friendly Stop on May 11 from 4:15-5:00.

Anybody wanna ask the CO folks to stop in and sign on their way out from work?