Last night, Michael Earl Patton gave his first political speech of this campaign season at the 21st Century Theatre in Oakley.  Here is a transcript of his speech.

I’m an engineer, live in Oakley on Millsbrrae Avenue, and am running as an independent.

I am running for city council because I want a city that has jobs, and is welcoming and affordable for a wide variety of people—form the retired retail clerk to the current company president.  We need to attract industry to the city, to make it once again a place where people say it is a good place to raise a family.

Like Justin Jeffre, I am a fiscal conservative.  But our council has been doling out tax breaks and hand-outs to only a select few corporations.  We subsidize half-million dollar condos and pay for free parking garages for the favored.  The new condos by the river will get a $17 million parking garage, and Corporex will get a $30 million parking garage.  This will cause our taxes to go up.

I talked two years ago about TIF’s, the tax scheme which enables these handouts.  They are part of the reason why your property taxes went up.  If taxes are too high for the large corporations, then don’t raise them even higher for the rest of us.

People are leaving the city and schools are closing.  We must face that fact and act.  In 1960 Cincinnati had over half a million people; now we are near 300,000.  We haven’t been that low since the ‘90’s—the 1890’s.

Crime goes down when the people and police work together.  Our inspiration should be Sheriff Taylor of the old Andy Griffith Show, not Jack Bauer of “24.” We shouldn’t lock people up for petty offenses like possession of marijuana.  We need to bring back the nieghborhood officers.

Most of those in jail are there because they cannot afford bail and are awaiting a court date.  Let’s move things along and send the violent offenders to state prison.  Let the non-violent offenders work to reduce their sentence.  Don’t raise taxes just to warehoue more people waiting for their court date.

I want a city where new industry is welcomed, where everyone has access to the government, where people want to come to Cincinnati to live and housing for families is affordable, and where the community and police work together to reduce crime.

We need someone on council whom we can trust and knows the issues.  Please vote for Michael Earl Patton in November.

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