Monday, January 13, 2025

Cincinnati City Council Election January 2025 Update

Welcome to Cincinnati City Council Election Year 2025! We are 295 days away from the November election and there is some surprising news: We have a significant number of people who have taken out petitions to run for council. The BOE's website snuck this list in on Friday and it very much may not be a complete list, as three rows with blank names were included on the file and three incumbents were not listed as having taken out petitions to run yet.

Most of the names that are non-incumbents on the list of petition takers are new to me, so I don't know anything about them or their political leanings. There is one well known name included is Laketa Cole, a former member of City Council. This is a surprise because she had a very recent criminal conviction within the last few years. She has name recognition, but not all of that is good and she's been out of office since 2010 when she resigned for a state job. She did not last at State and was returned to City Employment by John Cranley. I would not expect a Party Endorsement, but there are Democrats who want a mess.  The problem is that Cole has been aligned with the Cranley crowd, far more moderate than progressive wing of the party that likes to attack the Democratic Party from within almost as much as Republicans like to do from the outside.  I can see yet another nasty endorsement process.  There is no good reason that process is made public.

Yes, we also have a Mayoral election this year as well. At this point there are six people who have taken out petitions for the May Primary, including current Mayor Aftab Pureval. If less than three people appear on the primary ballot, there won't be a primary election for Mayor. None of the other names are anyone I recognize and don't have any presence online. Unless those who have pulled petitions are doing so hide another candidate, then Aftab won't face any significant challengers. Republican Chris Smitherman seemed to cherish being appointed Vice-Mayor by John Cranley, so it would not surprise me that if there is a candidate that is trying to sneak around behind the scenes in desperation

Incumbant Candidates
Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney (D)*‡
Meeka Owens (D)*
Victoria Parks (D)*
Jeff Cramerding (D)*
Mark Jeffreys (D)*
Scotty Johnson (D)*
Seth Walsh (D)*
Anna Albi (D)*
Evan Nolan (D)*(Appointed in 2024)

Possible Candidates 
Audricia Brooks (I)
Gwen Summers (I)
Linda Matthews (R)
Laketa Cole (D)
Stephan Pryor (I)
LeTecia Cunningham (I)
Brandon Nixon (I)
Tyrone Roberson (I)
Barton Rosenberg (I)

Sharetha Collier (I) is also listed as having taken out petitions, but the address listed is in Woodlawn, outside of the City Limits. Additionally the person who has been registered to vote with the same name/address is no longer listed under that name on Hamilton County's voter registration list I have as of last month. I will monitor the lists to see if anything changes.

As always:  If anyone has any other names please send them my way (editor@cincyblog.com) or if anyone named above wants to confirm they are not running, I'll remove them future postings of this list. If there are other social media or full websites I don't list, send them along as well.

The party designations at this time are what I've seen reported or what I've determined based on my observations. These notations do not mean the candidate is endorsed by any political party or group. Once official endorsements are made, these references will be updated to reflect the endorsements. 

Key
* = Incumbent
‡ = On Ballot
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party
DSA= Democratic Socialists of America
I= Independent
?= I am speculating based on my reading of the information and observations available to me or unsure.

Friday, January 10, 2025

Local Governments Need to Use Wider Social Media Platforms, Immediately

With the demise of Twitter and now Meta creating a stench that will drive away users, local governments need to include all significant social media platforms.  This should not be a significant expense and if managed correctly would be a very limited increase in staff time.  The City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, include its agencies, should lead the way.  The platforms that need to be added include Mastodon, BlueSky, and Reddit.

This should have started happening years ago. This is a matter of public safety. There are alerts and updates that go out on Facebook and Twitter that thousands of locals are not seeing, as thy do not use those platforms.

It would be very bad to make this into a political issue, as fools will certain do if they read this.  If there are other sites with significant users, they can be added as well.  This is not about removing any platforms, no matter how toxic and useless they may be. I fear that there may be some elements in the IT departments of local governments that suffer from political biases that are using outright false information to keep these sites from being used.  If that is true, local elected officials should get outside consultation on the topics.

Getting credible information from governments and public institutions is critical for any society to effectively function. This should be a simple request that does not require any deliberation or debate. Just get some accounts created and start informing the public.

Thursday, January 02, 2025

Happy Election Year 2025, Cincinnati!

 Just when you want to forget about elections and politics, 2025 has arrived and for Cincinnati that means City Council and Mayoral Elections are this fall. Yes, I can see the joy in your face.  The glee of a local election is like a melted plastic spatula stuck to the burner on the stove:  You can't undue your failure, just fix your mistakes.

The mistakes with local elections in Cincinnati at this point are those who don't vote. Yes, the knee jerk reaction of many who pretend to follow politics is to opine about those in power.  Whenever I hear people complain about those in power in a Democratic City, I can put them in one of two camps: 1) They are a Republican/Conservative whining about not being in power or 2) They are a leftist who wants power and can't come to grips with the fact that their extremist views are not popular.

What sucks about local politics is that most of the people paying attention are extremists or cranks.  Yeah, you could call me a crank, but I am more of the nerdish observer that is content with a main stream Democratic Majority is not against Business Groups, but wants to have reasonable regulations and checks on them.

When local elections come around we tend to get lots of idiots out there.  You know you are.  Various fringe groups, special interests, and Right Wing assholes that are looking to get attention.  In 2025 getting attention for a local election is very difficult.  The public is extra ignorant these days.  People under 40 will barely vote.  What is sad is that those who actually turned out just a a couple months ago will not bother to vote again for years.  I blame them for there idiocy. 

Left leading groups want to blame Republicans for why they don't vote.  Sure, there are efforts to make it more difficult to vote from Republicans.  Yes, these efforts disproportionally affect the poor and racial minorities. That is not an excuse for people who can, but don't vote.  The problem is with adults who don't vote.  Yeah, adults, everyone who is old enough to vote is an adult.  They are charged with being responsible for themselves, but they can't bother to vote. So 18-55 years old would be the age range with shitty voter turnout. People have been worried about alienating the younger voters.  Well, they alienated themselves.  It is time to just call them out as lazy fucking morons. 

IF you can't get off your ass to vote one time a year, then I am will happily call you a lazy fuck.  Yes, the lowest common denominator type defense is the first reaction that I get, but that is just as lazy.  I am not talking about the exceptions. I am talking about the dumb fucks who spend their free time playing video games and smoking weed.  Maybe they watch tik tok or some asshole video from YouTube, but that is such a bullshit way to live.

These ignorant fucks just whine that they can do nothing to change things.  The problem: these fucks don't know what needs to be changed.  They are passive shits who are feed crap and think they are making choices.  They are just sheep. IT is not a surprise that an increasing number of younger men have become so intellectually lazy that they fall for sexist fascism Trumpists preach.

The only ones make an attempt to be activists are those with extremist views.  They are making an effort, but are have their own problems with reality.  They live in a mythical world that thinks purity is best and protest without achievable goal. They make noise and do little else. When you fail to achieve anything, other than pissing off people who could help your cause, you have no credibility.  For Activists, getting attention is more important than achieving goals.

Whilst my rant continues: I must also point out those who are knee jerk against those in office.  They don't have a consistent sense of ideology, but think they do when they want to remove other from power. No sense of what that will bring (See Trump), but they think change will be better.  The problem is just more ignorance.  They can't articulate what needs to change, just that change needs to happen.  This mindset hits into populists more than leftists. When they know they can't change, they don't bother to participant and point fingers at others or the system, anything but their own ignorance.

Do not forget that the Republicans and Trumpists will do something this year to hurt the city, it is their way.  COASTers or the like will make trouble and get suburban funding to make it happen. They could claim a "legitimate" effort in City politics if they get Chris Smitherman to run for mayor.  Based on my observation of Smitherman over the last 20+ years in local politics, it is obvious that his dream is to be Mayor of Cincinnati.  He has no realistic chance to win. He has pretended for most of last 20+ years to NOT be a Republican.  This past year he sloppily danced around direct support for Trump, something he has avoided.  He is surrounded by hardcore Trumpists as his core potential campaign leadership. I do not recall seeing him directly endorse Trump, but he pushed fringe issues championed by Trump and Vance. Before I left Twitter you could interpret his tweets as a bad RFKjr imitation.  I think Smitherman is unhinged and delusional. As the Republican Party's sane wing has drunk the Kool Aide or gone on an ethics holiday, they could see it as a wise play to try and demonize the City with Smitherman as their voice and a ploy to gain more black votes for County elections. Exploiting black men is not new for Republicans, but what kind of man allows himself to be exploited?

Yes, happy election year, Cincinnati! This will be a clusterfuck. People will bitch about the lack of candidates that they "like."  When people do that, they likely don't have a clue about the candidates.  They don't know about any of the issues facing the city and are not going to make any efforts to find out. Unless outside group put shitty Charter Amendments on the ballot, no issues will be discussed.  We can't have discussions on issue because any issues to be discussed will be usurped into a national debate that has little or just no relevance to the actual issue.  Groups will form and demonize others who disagree with them on the issue.  There will be no room for compromise.

The best thing you can do, is to ignore the assholes who are pushing you to join their cause. 98% of them are full of shit and lying about some part of their "cause." I observed this from the Rail Road sale. A bipartisan coalition of asses opposed the sale based on lies. It was sad to see people do this and join forces with extremists. Right Wing extremists and Left Wing Extremists mixed with some who in the past were not extremists and those non-extremists lost a lot of credibility. They burned so many bridges that I don't see how they get back into politics, locally. I don't suppose it matters anyway, least of all toe them.

I expect this year's election to end up two ways: 1) Democratic candidates win a fairly quiet and easy reelection or 2) Democratic candidates win a nasty election, maybe one or two less council members, but maintain their vast control of the City.

The only question at hand: Will the Republican Party OR the Charter Committee actually field any candidates for the general election? I will not be surprised if we don't see them publicly endorse any candidates. When they complain about the lack of choice, they get all of blame for that.