Carolyn Harding with Jonathan Beard and David Harewood, organizers for Everyday People for Positive Change, a citizen ballot initiative committee seeking to improve Columbus City Council.
(from website) “We believe our city council and our elections should be structured in such a way so that council members are accountable to ordinary citizens. We believe in fair and competitive elections for a responsive and representative council.”
Jonathan Beard serves as Treasurer of Everyday People for Positive Change. He has participated with three such groups since 2013, calling for reforms in the structure of city council and campaign finance reform, including serving as co-chair of Represent Columbus, the only citizen-led charter amendment initiative to make it to the ballot in the charter's 100 year history (2016). Beginning in 1996, Beard served for 22 years as President and CEO of Columbus Compact Corporation the nonprofit organization charged with developing and leading community strategies for areas of Columbus that met federal statutory criteria for "pervasive poverty and social distress." In this role, he organized and led a wide variety of grassroots economic development and neighborhood improvement initiatives. He has served as a little league coach and Board Chairman for the Driving Park Youth Baseball League, served as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Central Ohio, Ohio Dominican University, and on community advisory groups including with COTA, MORPC, PNC and Huntington National Bank, and has volunteered with numerous civic groups. Beard received a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in Public Administration from the Ohio State University. He is married with two children, and a resident of the Near East Side of Columbus.
David S. Harewood moved to Columbus in the summer of 2011, working to protect collective bargaining rights for the state's union employee population. He spent the next few years working with groups like Working America and the NAACP to register voters and promote progressive causes in the greater Twin Cities, Detroit, and Philadelphia areas, then returned to Columbus to focus on more local matters. A founding member of the People's Justice Project, former Ohio field director of the National Association for Civil Discourse, David is a progressive organizer who strongly believes that good government is possible so long as it's responsive to the needs and desires of its people.
http://everydaypeoplecolumbus.us/
GrassRoot Ohio w/ Carolyn Harding - Conversations with every-day people, working on important issues here in Columbus and all around Ohio!
Tune in every Friday 5:00pm, EST on 94.1FM & streaming worldwide @ WGRN.org
All shows/podcasts archived at SoundCloud! https://soundcloud.com/user-42674753
