Lawmakers and public officials around the country react to the horrible shootings in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Ohio is planning to expand safety training for Ohio educators, and meanwhile, Gov. John Kasich says he will sign a bill passed last week allowing guns into the Ohio Statehouse parking garage. The Ohio Supreme Court is in transition as the year ends – Gov. Kasich has appointed appellate judge Judith French to the high court to replace Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, who announced this past spring that she was retiring.
And this week brought another announcement of a retirement. Jim Petro, who oversees higher education in Ohio as chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, revealed this week that he’ll step down from that office in February. Petro, the former state Auditor and Attorney General who ran for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010, wants to spend more time talking about the book “False Justice: Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent”, which he wrote with his wife Nancy.
The end of the year offers everyone an opportunity to look back on the year that was, and look forward to the year that will be. In previous administrations, governors of Ohio have sat down for individual one-on-one interviews with reporters around the state. But Gov. Kasich has started what is a new practice – a two-hour long session with journalists where he details his accomplishments and thoughts about the past 12 months. The governor also took questions from reporters, who wanted him to expand on some of the biggest issues he’s dealt with and brought forward this year. He talked about mental health funding, about the future of JobsOhio, his plan for the Ohio Turnpike, his proposed severance tax increase on oil and natural gas drillers, and his plans for education and school funding in his budget next year.