Mayor Ginther bets a million on crisis counselors instead of cops, Ohio EPA proposes letting data centers dump wastewater into rivers, and pothole season arrives.

Good morning, Columbus.

It's 31° right now but climbing to 58° under scattered clouds. Winter coat weather at sunrise, light jacket by lunch.

📍 Ginther pledges $1 million for crisis response program

Columbus is betting that sending mental health pros instead of cops to certain 911 calls will actually work.

Mayor Andrew Ginther announced Friday he's putting $1 million toward expanding the city's alternative crisis response programs, with the funding earmarked for his proposed operating budget. The money would hire new non-uniformed crisis response professionals who'd be dispatched to 911 calls involving mental health or addiction issues where there's no physical threat. Essentially, Columbus gets an option besides sending police.

The city's also using part of that $1 million to add a clinician to the 911 call center. Just one for the entire operation. Dispatchers can better figure out which calls actually need cops and which need someone trained to de-escalate. Ginther framed it as keeping firefighters and EMS available for emergencies while getting people in crisis "the help they need in the way that they need it."

City Council still has to approve this when they vote on the budget later this year. Nobody's released data on what the existing program has actually accomplished, so the city's asking for trust without transparency.

📍 Ohio EPA weighs allowing data centers to dump wastewater into rivers

The state's environmental agency wants to trade river quality for data center jobs. The job numbers don't look great.

The Ohio EPA just dropped a draft permit that would let data centers statewide discharge treated wastewater and stormwater directly into rivers and streams under specific conditions. The permit would cover every current and future data center, wherever they're located. The EPA hasn't said exactly how many facilities we're talking about.

This isn't a one-off deal. It's a blanket policy.

The draft permit openly admits the tradeoff: water quality will drop, but it's "necessary to accommodate important social and economic development." In other words, polluted water is the cost of doing business.

Right now, there's a public comment period, so Ohioans can weigh in on whether polluting our rivers for a handful of permanent jobs makes sense. Data centers are already being built across the state, including in Central Ohio. This policy would govern how they all handle wastewater going forward, setting the standard for what environmental protection looks like when tech infrastructure moves in.

📍 How to protect your car during pothole season

The freeze-thaw cycle has created perfect conditions for potholes across Central Ohio.

Bitter cold, snow, rain, and warmups over the past couple weeks have delivered textbook pothole weather. Water seeps in, freezes, expands, thaws, and leaves craters. Drivers are already feeling it in their commutes, and the city's seeing it in their 311 requests.

Columbus filled over 8,000 potholes last year by this time, and Scott Tourville, the city's Public Service Administrator, expects they'll hit 80,000 to 90,000 by year's end because of this brutal winter. Most potholes show up in spring when the freeze-thaw cycle really kicks in, so that 10x jump makes sense. The city's standard move is to respond to 311 reports within two days, then fill the pothole within another two days depending on severity.

"We simply cannot know about every single pothole that's out there," Tourville said.

If you hit a crater in the road, report it through 311 and help them prioritize where those crews go next. They've got crews out there, but they need you to tell them where the worst ones are.

If you can't avoid a pothole safely, don't swerve. Just slow down and roll over it. And keep your tires properly inflated. Swerving into another lane or oncoming traffic creates bigger problems than a bent rim, and hitting a pothole at high speed can damage your suspension, blow out a tire, or knock your alignment off. The slower approach minimizes impact and keeps you in control.

⚡ Quick Hits

• Columbus's scooter rental program is actually working: the city just released data showing ridership is up nearly a year after narrowing it down to just two operators, Spin and Veo.

Scoreboard

The Jackets scored twice but couldn't keep up. That's the season in a sentence.

Columbus Blue Jackets L, 2-4 vs. Boston Bruins. The season continues to be what it is.

Out & About

Bingo meets R&B, because why shouldn't daubing numbers be a mood?

R&B Presents: The Bingo Experience | Friday | Lincoln Theatre — This recurring event series combines bingo with R&B music and vibes. New year, new historic venue, same energy.

📜 On This Day

In 1949, Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress Debra Monk was born in Middletown, Ohio. She grew up in the Dayton area before heading to Broadway.

Monk went on to win a Tony for Redwood Curtain in 1993 and an Emmy for the show NYPD Blue in 1999, proving that Ohio theater kids have been quietly collecting hardware for decades. She's one of those character actors who makes everything better the second she walks on screen.

Watch for those potholes on your Friday commute. If you hit one, do us all a favor and report it. Finish the work week on a high note.

Before coffee. Before the chaos.