The Other Side of Issue 1

With only a few days left until the Aug. 4 special election, certainly everyone has had their say by now. Right?

Maybe not. There remains a third side, a third dimension, if you will, awaiting consultation by the news media and the public at large. For far too long, the city’s spiritual realm has been ignored in Issue 1 coverage, spiritual advisors say. So what does the Other Side have to say about increasing taxes?

Well, City Hall will be pleased with the answer. Informal polling by The Other Paper shows that local psychics, astrologers and card readers are overwhelmingly predicting that Issue 1 will pass. By a 3-1 margin, those who dabble in the city’s paranormal vibrations say voters will approve the Aug. 4 ballot initiative. But it will be a squeaker. And there could be consequences.

 

 

“On an intuitive level, I really feel like people want to protect services,” said Gayle Pelz, a psychic and spiritual reverend.

Pelz said she got an undeniable sense that the tax issue would find success earlier this summer while chatting with, of all people, a Columbus police officer who stopped by to campaign for Issue 1.

“It was then that I felt it was going to go through by a close margin,” she said. “Even though people are afraid to vote in higher taxes, it will pass.”

Pelz offered some campaign advice from the paranormal:

“I’m getting a sense that it would have passed by a much better margin if they would’ve better advertised the fact that we are keeping the same levels of service and not increasing those levels.”

A psychic’s personal politics rarely plays into supernatural readings, said Brenda Frazier, a local medium.

She, too, confirmed Issue 1’s passage during an impromptu consultation with her guardian angel this week.

“Responses have less to do with politics, and more to do with the best interests and positive outcome for the city,” she said. Spiritual guides are politically neutral.

“The realm that it comes from is so much bigger than our little country,” Pelz said.

When opinions come from the spirits, they’re usually light and breezy. Egos and opinions of mediums and psychics are heavier and more forceful, she added.

The advice of psychics and mediums have long been sought by politicians who were second-guessing decisions, said Larry Copeland, who practices part-time as a clairvoyant and intuitive medium.

Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy frequently relied on public policy advice from psychics, Copeland said. But times have changed.

“Today, politicians who do come out and say they’ve used a psychic, sadly, even an excellent individual and outstanding politician, won’t win any accolades,” Copeland said. “A lot of people pooh-pooh it.”

Still, although she wouldn’t name names, medium Frazier said her clients include political types, as well as high profile physicians and lawyers.

“We see all walks of life,” she said.

As for our own civic leader, the mayor’s office confirmed this week that the mayor himself has never even considered contacting a fortune teller, a card reader, astrologer or any other-worldly source.

“The mayor does not consult a psychic when making public policy decisions,” said Dan Williamson, mayor’s spokesman.

Mayor Mike Coleman’s public pooh-poohing of the local psychic community has not affected Copeland’s vision of Aug. 4, however.

For his own prediction, Copeland also said Coleman will be victorious at the polls and that Issue 1 will pass, but the narrow margin through which it succeeds will cause mass controversy in the city, he said.

“A scant majority, I’m seeing between 52 and 58 percent, will pass this tax, and that will cause a problem,” he said.

While campaigns for and against the tax increase rely on conveniently worded questions outsourced by third-party polling operations to gauge the pulse of the voting public, Copeland explained how he personally arrived at his conclusion. Columbus residents can determine which method is more accurate.

For the laymen, “I get an impression. A lot of the time it could be a picture impression or a sense of knowing. As a clairsentient (or clear-seeing), the visual side tends to impress itself upon me until I know how something is going to play out,” he said.

“It involves drawing from an externalized parameter internalizing things and getting into the collective unconscious.”

Confused?

“It’s like jumping in a stream, he said.

But it’s not all peaceful streams and supernatural roses for the tax issue, which also has its spiritual nayseers as well.

“I’m feeling very confident and getting a very consistent message that it won’t pass,” said Christopher Scott, a psychic and a lone voice of opposition against the cosmic tide of support.

“I see us reaching out in other ways to save. There will be layoffs. I see cuts in educational funding and funding for the homeless. Single parents, in particular, will be hurt by these cuts.”

Kay Frain, an 89-year-old psychic with the Columbus Psychic Awareness Center in Grandview, also said that the issue would fail, but that city leaders would find another way to get money out of residents.

“They’re going to come back with a smaller amount,” she said. The revenue increase might not come in the form of another ballot initiative, but rather, from things like fee increases, Frain predicted.

Deb Hinty, a professional tarot card reader, had an interesting take on the fiscal health of the city during a reading this week. . .not one you’d read in Issue 1 campaign literature.

“Prosperity is definitely coming back. We’re getting back where we need to be, but everyone is going to suffer,” she said. She predicted success for Issue 1. “This is hell, where we are now. There is only one way to progress and that is up.”

Most psychics interviewed, even the naysayers, envisioned headlines about the city emerging from its financial mess a few years down the road—with Coleman at the helm.

Psychics predicted that Coleman’s approval rating will suffer in varying degrees as a result of the tax increase. Several offered that the fallout would be bad, but that the public relations damage would be mild compared to the prior  problems involving his wife, Frankie, who managed a portfolio of unflattering headlines during Coleman’s brief gubernatorial campaign.

All agreed that Coleman will be back to serve a fourth term as the city’s mayor. None said his political career would be mortally wounded at the polls as a result of the tax increase proposal.

In fact, one psychic went one step further, giving him the cosmic seal of approval.

“I’ve felt very positive about Mayor Coleman from day one. I had the privilege of being in his presence, and it confirmed many of my own sensations about him,” said Nancy Cullen, a Clintonville-area psychic.

Cullen said she was not fortunate enough to meet Coleman personally a few years ago at a Dublin community forum related to wireless Internet service. But just by standing a few feet from him, she said she could tell he was right for the city.

There, she got a sense of “the direction he has for Columbus.”

Residents can “have no doubt that he has the insight to move us into the future with greater potential,” Cullen said.

Cullen said the same for Coleman’s tax issue.

Speaking like a planetary Issue 1 campaign consultant, Cullen said support from the Other Side will translate into support at the polls Aug. 4.

To those who may be worried about how the city’s impending tax increase, as forecast by the psychic community, will affect their families’ destinies and maybe their pocketbooks, Cullen had some positive advice:

“This vote will point the city of Columbus, and its residents, in the right direction.”