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Why does Portland keep entering into discussions about the super-sized price tag of a small streetcar line for Cincinnati?  As has already been indicated by Michael Earl Patton, Portland has restrictions on sprawl.  Given an article in today’s Enquirer, I thought this point worth repeating—as we are already starting to see repetition of illogical points used as a strategy for bolstering this concept.

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The 2005 race does not come close to comparing to this year’s run for City Council in terms of opportunities for voter education.  In 2005, the old “Dean of Cincinnati” website was easily the number one spot for detailed information about candidates.  And it was easy - hardly anyone was giving the candidates any play.  Sure, there were the community forums, and that was about it.  Things have changed in these past two years, but the real question will be the degree to which this change will affect how voters cast ballots.  Will it really be a matter of yard signs and television advertisements anymore?  Is Cincinnati waking up to the issues that lurk beneath the endorsements and ad campaigns?

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Each election year, campaign rhetoric reaches a frenzied pitch about the “property tax rollback.” The issue allows politicians to stump about whether Cincinnatians deserve a tax break, or whether we need to do what it takes to keep things like swimming pools open.  However, the concept that any of these politicians—or the corporate media outlets in town—really care to inform voters about Cincinnati taxes is absurd, as soon as we remember that the entire City council voted to raise taxes so Corporex could have a $30,000,000 parking garage, and that The Enquirer didn’t bother to inform anyone about this.

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This Saturday 83 protesters were arrested after demonstrators blocked the city’s annual Columbus Day parade. Prior to their arrests, protesters poured fake blood on the streets to represent the genocide of indigenous people that began after Columbus sailed to the Americas.

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Posted by Justin Jeffre
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This weekend, The Cincinnati Beacon’s Print Edition of the NAACP Voter Education Guide will hit newsstands.  (And yes, we will post an updated list of locations.) I encourage everyone to get a hard-copy of the guide to get a nice profile of several candidates based on the NAACP questionnaire.  We decided to compliment this with a web version that compares candidates by question.  So for today, we begin with the following inquiry and all responses gathered:

Do you believe that the city should tax stock-options of companies for the purpose of generating revenue for the City? Please explain.

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The Cincinnati Beacon has obtained a copy of reports describing environmental concerns at the Kahn’s site.  Although they answer some questions, they do not answer others and raise new ones.  First, the site is contaminated and will need to be cleaned up before a new jail is built.  Second, only limited testing for contamination was done so the extent and magnitude could only be estimated, although it is probably not severe.  Third, given the fact that the site will have to be cleaned up, when will that work start and how will it be funded?  We will try to get the answers to this and other questions.

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Recently, Todd Portune has suggested that those opposed to the jail tax have deliberately misrepresented facts.  What about this video?

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Full size available here.

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Council Chambers haven’t been as packed as they were today since the slashing of the health and human services budget.  I was there to protest the proposed cuts and so were hundreds of retirees, but before I got the chance to speak, Leslie Ghiz put forth a motion to save our current retirees benefits.

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The other day, I found this discussion thread about Fountain Square, and I was surprised to see how many people agree with The Beacon about how bad of a job 3CDC has done with Fountain Square—which still isn’t finished over one year after its original completion date.  So often, when we write anything critical of 3CDC and Fountain Square, a small number of commenters—who probably work for 3CDC—flood the site, trying to tell us that we are an extreme minority with our views.  As it turns out, plenty of people recognize the problems of 3CDC and the allegedly improved Fountain Square.  Here are a sampling of comments from the forum.

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(Editor’s Note:  I decided to post this media release from David Pepper’s office because I am hoping that Nate Livingston will have a chance to respond to the allegations against him.)

Tosses Out Complaint; Plan Opponents Don’t Even Make Appearance

(September 20, 2007). The Ohio Elections Commission today ruled in favor of Sheriff Leis, Commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper, finding no probable cause that they and other supporters of the Comprehensive Safety Plan made false statements when talking about the county’s safety crisis.

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But Safety Plan Is Necessary to Fund Both Temporary, Permanent Solutions

Echoing meetings they have had in recent weeks, Hamilton County Commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper today continued to express support for state efforts that will allow them to rent jail beds across the river, including legislation being announced today.

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Last night, WCPO aired this I-Team report.  Looks like someone must have forwarded The Beacon’s information to Laure Quinlivan, as the whole piece looked like a recap of what Michael Earl Patton has been posting for the last several days.  Who knows!  But the real treat in this report is how Si Leis looks like he is about to become totally unhinged!  Go to WCPO and check out the video!

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Today’s Enquirer provides all kinds of cover to the good-old-boy network as exemplified by the dead baby Slaby case.  Thank God for Bill Sloat, who reminds us that Hamilton County once convicted a Black woman for leaving her child in the car—and the kid in this case lived!  Some people have faulted the NAACP for comparing the Slaby case to the Smith case involving a dead dog.  Fine.  Let’s compare apples to apples—a white woman whose child cooked to death and who did not get charged, and a Black woman whose kid lived and who got charged anyway!

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DeWine Reiterates Call to End Practice to Free Up Jail Space

Cincinnati, OH - - September 5, 2007 - - An opinion made public today, and authored by the County Prosecutor, supported County Commissioner Pat DeWine’s position that the current contract to house federal prisoners in the County jail does not comply with Ohio law.  DeWine first identified the illegality of the practice, and introduced a motion to end the practice on August 15.  DeWine noted that Ohio law only allows such an arrangement to be entered by the County Commissioners and the Board of Commissioners had never acted to allow such a practice.  The full Board held up acting on DeWine’s request, requesting an opinion from the Prosecutor. 

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Amid Crisis, Bipartisan County-City Effort Showing Results; Will Be Expanded

[September 4, 2007] Hamilton County, Ohio- Amid the national and statewide headlines surrounding foreclosures, a bipartisan group of elected officials and community leaders announce the results of a successful Hamilton County and Cincinnati anti-foreclosure program and its expansion.

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Recently, critics have wondered about Nick Lachey’s politics now that he has come out in support of Justin Jeffre’s campaign for Cincinnati City Council.  In 2004, People Magazine claimed that Lachey had come out in support of George W. Bush.  According to Lachey, nothing could be further from the truth.

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Now that Justin Jeffre has announced he is running for City Council, people keep asking for more information about his particular platform.  So, in the event that you have not found it yet, be sure to check out his new campaign web page.  More position statements and policy suggestions will be added as campaign season progresses!

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Guest article by Greg Harris, candidate for Cincinnati City Council.

In case you haven’t heard, Cincinnati has a crime problem. Unfortunately, when it comes to fighting crime, City Council has too often allowed easy politics to trump good policy.

Case in point: In 2005, the Cincinnati Business Committee and other business groups commissioned nationally renowned police expert John Linder (http://www.linderandassociates.net) to examine the culture and effectiveness of the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD). The study has since been buried. Because the funding was private (apparently a condition of CPD cooperation), it did not qualify as a public document subject to Ohio open records laws.

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A few months ago, I interviewed Cecil Thomas on video about his anti-marijuana law.  During the discussion, Thomas revealed that he thinks the anti-marijuana law is effective because it took 62 guns off the street in its first year.  However, those 62 guns came from less than 2% of people arrested.  Under Thomas’ new law, the other 98% (most of whom are disproportionately black) have permanent marks on their criminal records.  So I asked him a question:  why not make baggy pants illegal?  Maybe 2% of people in baggy pants might have guns, too!  Now it turns out that other cities really are making such a law!

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Commissioner Pat DeWine responds to Commissioner David Pepper.

I read with interest the interview with Commissioner David Pepper regarding the Pepper/Portune/Leis jail plan. Thanks to the hard work of the citizen led referendum effort we have real opportunities like this to examine the plan and debate its merits. In addition to the doubts that many have already expressed, several important questions were raised in yesterday’s interview. I appreciate the time and effort that Commissioner Pepper put into his response, but I believe several statements deserve clarification.

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The Naughty American, a new web magazine that hit the web at the beginning of this month, has The Beacon’s own Justin Jeffre in a headline story today:  ”98 Degrees Singer Turns Up Heat On Politicians.” Say what you want about Jeffre, or our humble efforts here at The Beacon—but our Cincinnati brand of media activism is now becoming a national story!

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For some reason, unemployed trust fund baby Phil Heimlich wants to be a Congressman.  That is a big responsibility, requiring hard work and knowledge.  But instead of putting together a national platform that makes sense, Heimlich has decided to recycle the strategy from his failed County Commission campaign.  (Didn’t he learn anything from that devastating and expensive loss?) We’ve got a link to the “WayBack Machine,” and you can plainly see Heimlich’s total lack of originality and vision.

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After building several brand new buildings to replace several that didn’t have anything wrong with them, Cincinnati Public Schools is gearing up to ask property owners for a tax increase, claiming the district faces a $79 million deficit without more money.  But before we start thinking about those figures—and whether they are accurate or politicized—what about the fact that Ohio’s school funding formula has been found unconstitutional on several occasions?  Should we really raise our taxes to fund a broken system?  Or, should we push to fix the system first?

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As the argument over the need for a new jail hits a frenzied pitch, we will hear about how the matter impacts the County budget.  Critics oppose spending almost a billion dollars of taxpayer money for a big jail, while Pepper and Portune say we lose for each month we don’t start construction.  But what does the Hamilton County Auditor say about any of this?  Here is a recent letter from Dusty Rhodes to the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners.

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Contrary to , Joan Kaup will not be Jim Tarbell’s replacement on City Council.  It will be Roxanne Qualls!  I think this is delightful news, particularly because I think Joan Kaup is an egocentric elitist unfit for serving public office, specifically given her disrespectful treatment of The Cincinnati Beacon when all we wanted to do was give her a free platform.

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COAST had an important role in the collection of signatures to place the jail tax on the ballot, but that does not excuse them from other bad behavior.  Recently, The Enquirer’s “Politics Extra” blog posted this item, which is a bit hard to follow, detailing a controversy surrounding abortion and the indigent care levy.  A closer look at the timeline demonstrates that COAST and DeWine mounted a smear attempt, hoping to rally a frenzy of conservative anti-abortion voices against Portune and Pepper.  I am disappointed in COAST. 

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Recently, Chris Bortz has pushed to enhance the City’s curb appeal by getting rid of bench billboards.  Bortz has argued that government is under no obligation to allow private companies to use public space for private profit.  But does anyone know how such a philosophy might get applied to the new Italian restaurant being built on Fountain Square?  Who owns that restaurant?  To whom does the rent money go?  Is the City of Cincinnati now in the restaurant renting business?  Or, did 3CDC build a space to rent on the top of Fountain Square?  If one company cannot make profit off placing bench advertisements on public space, should another be allowed to build a whole restaurant on public space?  What are the details about this restaurant?

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On August 2nd, the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber is hosting “Web 2.0 Blogging Bootcamp.” According to the event description, the bootcamp is for “especially valuable for companies with limited marketing dollars, including non-profits.” Cost to participate in the four-hour long camp?  $300.  As a community service to those area institutions who cannot afford $300 per person, The Cincinnati Beacon is proud to present some totally free suggestions for how to leverage new technologies for an enhanced business marketing strategy.

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