Monday, August 10th, 2026

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Pennant. To listen to this newsletter, click the “Listen Online” link in the top right corner of this email.

On this day in 1984, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their self-titled debut album, "The Red Hot Chili Peppers."

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Friday that Ashville must certify a citizen petition challenging an EdgeConneX data center. Find out what this means in the Top of The Fold.

Also, Ohio election campaigns are already ramping up. Read more about this in our Editorial.

ASHVILLE — The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Friday that Ashville must certify a citizen petition challenging an EdgeConneX data center. 

Village council approved the deal as an emergency motion, and Fiscal Officer April Grube refused to certify the referendum petition. 

Justices said council gave no adequate reason for the emergency label. 

The Pickaway County Board of Elections must now decide whether the resolution is administrative, which would keep it off the November ballot. The board meets Wednesday.

HARPERSFIELD TOWNSHIP — Competition at the inaugural Patriot Games resumes Monday at SPIRE Academy, where athletes ages 14 to 17 are vying for a share of a $250,000 scholarship pool.

The White House-hosted event marks the nation's 250th birthday and runs through Tuesday's finale, when one male and one female champion will be crowned.

President Trump is expected to attend, returning to the Ashtabula County campus where he campaigned in 2016.

STATEWIDE —As kids head back to class, a change in state law is quietly reshaping what a school levy actually raises. 

Ohio guarantees districts a minimum tax rate of 20 mills, and starting this year, emergency and substitute levies that used to sit outside that calculation now count toward it once a county completes a reappraisal. 

These changes mean your district may need to ask for more than it would have a year ago. 

For a deeper dive, go here.

Soon you’ll hear a knock on the door. Someone will ask you to put a sign in your yard. And if you’re on Facebook, get ready for a flood of digital ads from groups whose names are built from words like “save,” and “protect,” and “stop.”

By the end of September, most of us will have had enough, and we’ll still have five weeks to go.

Here’s what to know before the political chaos hits your front door. If what a group is promoting doesn’t match what it filed, there’s usually a reason.

In one central Ohio community, one we’ll be reporting on in the next few days, a proposed charter amendment filed with the board of elections does not match what the sponsoring group has been telling people on its website. Local business leaders hired an elections attorney this summer to confirm the discrepancy. The certified petition is on file with your county board of elections, and most will gladly email you a copy.

That gap is not an accident. And the neighbor standing on your porch with a clipboard almost certainly doesn’t know about it — they were handed the same summary you’re about to be handed, often by someone who doesn’t live there either, and they’re committed. They believe it.

These campaigns depend on people who never read past the sales pitch. We’d rather tell you this in August than explain it in November.

Then there’s what a measure actually does to the rest of the community. A measure that claims to be about a specific project can be written to include, well, everything. That’s called collateral damage.

Continue reading the editorial here.

Did you watch the "Holy Toledo!" OSU football game back in 2000?
- Yes - 42%
- No - 50%
- I can't remember - 8%

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