Corruption, New Food Truck, Corruption,

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The Coal Tab We Finally Stopped Paying

Ohio just ended one of its most expensive bad habits: paying hundreds of millions of dollars to keep two coal plants on life support. On August 14, the subsidies tied to House Bill 6 will finally be cut. That’s six years, roughly $150 million a year, and a total of about half a billion dollars taken from ratepayers to prop up plants so old they probably came with ashtrays built into the control panels.

How did we get here? HB6 was supposed to be about bailing out two nuclear plants. Instead, it became the centerpiece of one of the largest public corruption cases in state history. FirstEnergy allegedly funneled $61 million through a dark money group to secure the bill, which conveniently included subsidies for the Kyger Creek plant in Ohio and the Clifty Creek plant in Indiana, coal plants that had nothing to do with nuclear power but everything to do with keeping certain corporate friends happy.

And here’s where it gets truly insane: HB6 wasn’t just a little corrupt around the edges. It was the biggest public corruption scandal in Ohio's history. Federal prosecutors laid out the bribery scheme in painstaking detail. Larry Householder was convicted and sent to prison. FirstEnergy admitted to paying the bribes. The evidence wasn’t speculative; it was open-and-shut. Any rational system would have shredded the entire bill, salted the earth, and moved on.

But not Ohio. Somehow, in the upside-down logic of our legislature, the law still passed, stayed on the books, and kept draining your bank account for years after it was proven to be born of outright bribery. Imagine catching someone robbing your house, watching them get hauled away in handcuffs… and then mailing them rent money for the next three years “just because.” That’s essentially what we did.

The nuclear bailout portion finally got repealed in 2021, but the coal subsidies? Untouched. The very same provision that was literally part of a criminal conspiracy kept running in broad daylight, approved and enforced by the same political machinery that pretended to be shocked by the scandal. It wasn’t incompetence, it was indifference, the political equivalent of a shrug and a “yeah, but it’s already in the budget.”

Now that the subsidies are ending, you might think your bill will go down. Adorable. Rate hikes and “modernization riders” have a way of sticking around long after the justification is gone, kind of like the sticky smell in a coal plant break room. And in true Ohio fashion, the same Public Utilities Commission that was nodding along when this whole mess happened is now investigating whether FirstEnergy broke any rules. Imagine the getaway driver becoming the lead detective, and you’ve got the vibe.

So yes, we’ve technically stopped paying for someone else’s antique coal fetish. But the real outrage is that we ever kept paying at all, long after every detail of the scam was exposed. In most places, corruption gets you removed from the building. In Ohio, it gets you a multi-year payment plan.

Scarlet Letter Trivia

Question: Q: Which U.S. state is home to two villages smaller than a football field that once rigged themselves as full-time speed traps, with one being formally dissolved by the state?
Hint: There’s Brice, and the other disappeared into history, not unlike common sense after a speeding ticket windfall.)
A. New Rome
B. Ohio Village
C. Evanston
D. Yorksville

Columbus Has a New Meat Problem

Say hello to The Hot Box, Smoked on High’s brand-new food truck and the only box in town that never runs out of smoke. It’s the same slow-smoked, hand-crafted BBQ you love from their Brewery District spot, now rolling straight into your neighborhood with enough meat to make a vegan blush.

They’re hitting food truck festivals, pop-ups, corporate lunches, weddings, and anywhere else people need smoked brisket delivered by a vehicle that looks like it could win a demolition derby.

Find their schedule on Street Food Finder, follow the smoke, and remember: if you smell it before you see it, you’re probably in the right place. Want it at your next event? Lock in The Hot Box today and bring the smoke to you.

 Welcome to Brice, Population: Speeding Tickets

In a county full of small-town quirks, the village of Brice has managed to turn 0.1 square miles of southeast Franklin County into a money-printing machine, powered entirely by your inability to slow down. The place has fewer than 120 residents, one stoplight, and, as of last fall, 11,735 speeding tickets issued in less than a year.

That haul $432,282 and counting doesn’t come from some sprawling interstate crackdown. It comes from two automated speed cameras posted along a tiny stretch of Brice Road in front of Brice Christian Academy, a school zone where the speed limit drops to 20 mph. Blink and you’ve blown it.

The operation is precise. The cameras only run from 7:30–9:00 a.m. and 3:00–5:00 p.m. on school days, because apparently speeders at 10 a.m. pose no danger to children. No school? Snow day? Summer break? The cameras get a vacation too. And before you ask, yes, the system is run by a third-party vendor, which pockets 40% of every fine.

The ticket math is brutal: $105 if you’re clocked between 21–29 mph, $125 for 30–49 mph, and $145 if you hit 50+ in the school zone. Then comes the $111 court filing fee, because nothing says “we care about safety” like tacking on a second bill. That means your “oops” at 30 mph will set you back $236.

Brice Police Chief Delano “Bud” Bauchmoyer doesn’t apologize for the setup. In fact, he proudly notes that he once ticketed his own wife for going 36 mph in the school zone. (They’re still married, but presumably she drives very carefully at dinner.) Bauchmoyer also says residents like their independent village, where many have his personal phone number and expect him to show up in three minutes if there’s trouble. Fair enough.

But let’s be real, the trouble Brice is most interested in is the kind that happens between Chatterton and Refugee Roads. That’s where the speed limit drops faster than your blood pressure after you see the flash of a traffic camera. South of the zone, it’s 50 mph. Cross the intersection heading north, and you’re suddenly expected to drive at a speed usually reserved for golf carts.

So why does Brice still exist as its own municipality instead of being absorbed into Columbus? Simple: The residents want it that way, and as long as the cameras keep funding salaries, streetlights, and road maintenance, there’s little incentive to change. The ticket money goes straight into the general fund, covering everything from insurance to gasoline for police cruisers, while the 2.5% income tax on residents covers… well, probably not much in comparison.

The village swears there are no quotas and no bonuses for ticketing. “Whether the system captures five people speeding or 500, it doesn’t change the price of tea in China,” Bauchmoyer says. Which is true, but it does change the price of going 30 in Brice. And that price is $236.

Call it what you want, safety measure, cash grab, or the world’s smallest toll road. Just remember: in Brice, the welcome sign might as well read Population: 117. Annual Revenue: Speeding Into the Millions.

Trivia Answer

A. New Rome, was dissolved in 2004 after it became nationally infamy for speed-trap profiteering and internal corruption.