19 Council Candidates Turn in Signatures

The maximum number of candidates for city council in 2009 will be 19 and the list is:

Jeff Berding (D)
Chris Bortz (C)
Anitra Brockman (I)
Laketa Cole (D)
Tony Fischer (D)
Kevin Flynn (C)
Leslie Ghiz (R)
Greg Harris (D)
Nicholas Hollan (D)
Chris Monzel (R)
Amy Murray (R)
Roxanne Qualls (C)
Laure Quinlivan (D)
Cecil Thomas (D)
LaMarque Ward (I)
Bernadette Watson (D)
Charlie Winburn (R)
Wendell Young (D)
George Zamary (R)

The short field is leading some to speculate that there could be some upsets. It is clear there will be one new spot on council, with the term limited Crowly out at the end of this term, but at this point, the question will turn back to GOTV. If Obama voters, who are registered still, get back out and vote again, things could greatly change. One could argue that if the Teabaggers GOTV things could change, but that assumes there are a bunch of Teabaggers living in the City. Well, I think the fact is clear that Teabaggers are not a big group and more importantly they don't live in the city. So, what does that mean? Is this going to be a repeat election of 2007, with all 8 incumbents winning? At this point that is the logical way to think, but this year I don't have a good sense yet of the mood of populace. I think energy will be a factor and the campaign with the most energy will be in the mix.

Deception (Exempli Gratia, COAST, Finney)

It is funny when Chris Finney gets hoisted by his own petard. Finney is pissed because he claims the City is trying to make the ballot language a bit more clear, preventing him from deceiving the voters. That is right, Finney is pissed because the forces of good are acting to thwart his efforts at deception. According to Finney's court filing, the city is considering removing the "(e.g., a trolley or streetcar)" part of the ballot language because it clearly is misleading. The ballot initiative will affect all "passenger rail transportation" and Finney (and COAST/NAACP) are knowingly trying to mislead the public into thinking this is just about the Streetcar. The "e.g." which is the abbrevation of the Latin phrase "exempli gratia" means "for example." Well, I just want to make it known that deceiving the voters is wrong, for example, how Chris Finney, COAST, and the Local NAACP are trying to deceive the public into thinking that their ballot issue is not anti-passenger rail, but is instead only about the Streetcar. Let's hope the forces of good will thrwart evil this time again.

Oh, and Finney will be costing the City and County more needless money if he fights this in court. Better ask him how many jobs will be saved if he accepts the clarity over his attempted deception. Oh, right, he wants smaller(None) government, so any government job loss is a positive to someone like Finney.

Happy Birthday Donald!

Give a cheer out to the Cincinnati Blog's Donald today. I am one less year older, for a while.

Eww!!!!

I'm not sure what else to say about the temporary closure of the Corryville Kroger to permit the Pied Piper to wander the aisles for a while.

But if I still lived in Clifton, I'm pretty sure I'd give up shopping there in favor of the Ludlow Avenue IGA. And if I really needed a Kroger fix, I'd probably head to the Kenard Avenue store (UC students: just head north on Clifton and keep going).

Derek Doesn't Like Our Weather...

That's not exactly true. But he has decided he'd be happier in a more "hurricane prone market." (I'm almost positive that only a meteorologist could ever be made happy by increasing his chance of being squashed by a house like the Wicked Witch of the East.) So he's headed to Mobile, Alabama.

I've made fun of Derek a couple times (here and again here, in a post that exposed my own meteorological failings). But in truth, I tend to look for his weather forecast, because I enjoy his on-air persona.

The good news, of course, is the possibility of more Randi Rico. (Yes, I'm a pathetic Rico groupie.)

But even with more Rico, I'll miss Derek. I hope he does well in Mobile, that the city is good to him, and that he doesn't miss too much having actual seasons (like winter and fall). Be careful, Derek: winter weather advisories are a lot safer than hurricane warnings!

GOP Heavy CincyPAC?

The voting is on for the members CincyPAC for the endorsements of Mayor, Council, and School Board. I've seen the CincyPAC Board of Directors' recommendation list and it surprisingly includes 3 endorsed Republicans and 2 very conservative endorsed Democrats. I am surprised this organization's leadership went that Conservative. For members of CincyPAC the voting is open until the 20th and the final slate will be announced at their big event on Saturday. It will be very interesting to see how the voting actually turns out, since the three Republicans have been negative on the Streetcar, but provide a 'maybe in the future' answer that gives a false impression of where their current position actually puts them on the Streetcars, which is against it.

It will be also be interesting to see how progressive the CincyPAC rank and file members actually are. The group I believe is very progressive on social issues, but on an economic front I don't sense an as progressive bent. The vote will tell.

Gotta Love Northside

Where else in world can you have your Brunch served by the lead singer of a really great band, then go buy her band's latest CD at the city's best record store?

Boo! Fixxed!

It is not humanly possible for the best bar in Cincinnati to be a bar I've never been to. Someone at the Cincinnati Man has some explaining to do!

Cable TV Bleg

Cincinnati Bell came a-knocking today, trying to sell me on their fiber-optic service. Their price for cable, phone, and internet beats Time-Warner.

I'm particularly interested in the television aspect of the service. (I've had Cincinnati Bell phone service before and used Zoomtown in a business environment.) Anyone have any experience with their cable service--either good or bad--that they'd like to share?

COAST Wrong, Again

The Provost at The Phony Coney details how COAST's Mark Miller wrongly tried to revise history.

Also, 5chw4r7z asks a great follow-up question to Mark (I paraphrase): If John Schneider is wrong and Miller is not the only COAST officer to live within the City of Cincinnati, then what other officers do? My additional question would be: what percentage of the COAST membership lives inside the City?

Has the FOP President Read This?

I don't like suggesting reading material for other people, but it would be a good thing for FOP President, Kathy Harrell, to read this new article. She might learn a valuable lesson.

A Plan That Falls Short

I can give Tony Fischer credit for being the only candidate for office to put forth his own plan to save more police officer positions. His play sorely likes in details on how departments are going to cut 10% of non-payroll. Additionally, how does one transfer a whole function to the county without the county paying for it? The translation is that his plan wipes out building inspection in the city, it just will not happen, the county can't pick up the slack without funding, which it doesn't have. If Tony wanted to make the politically difficult choices, like his press release suggest, he might look to trim the fat in the police department. In case people forgot, we survived a riot with fewer police than we have now. The issue is not the number of police, is issue is how we deploy the forces we have.

Additionally, and most importantly, his numbers don't cover the full shortfall. There is another 413,000 needed to reach the level of filled full time positions needing to be cut to meet the 28 million dollar gap.This doesn't even consider if the non-payroll levels listed by Fischer are above and beyond other non-payroll cuts provided by City Managers Plan. Fischer has taken a step, but it falls short and is incomplete. He is trading FOP votes for building safety. I don't see that being a fair trade.

UPDATE: Councilmember Laketa Cole tears the Fischer plan into shreds.

Was There a Blue Flu?

Did the FOP or any of it's members stage a "sick-out" over the weekend? The Chief thinks they did and is pissed and is making it known. It is a widely held belief that in 2001 the FOP staged a work slow down as a means of political and/or social retribution for the black eye they took after the Thomas shooting and resulting riots.

If the police union is conducting any type of blue-flu, then how many layoffs can be preempted with justified firings? If any police officer is not serious about doing their job, they should save us all some trouble by quitting now.

It's Downtown Restaurant Week

I love the idea of exploring Downtown's many varied Restaurants. For the price of $35 you can find some deals at some of the higher-end places. This is a good month to do it, from the perspective of business, where August is generally considered a slow month, where many people travel. I have not made plans of where I would like to go, but I am starting to think about it and would like suggestions on where, likely on Wednesday or Thursday. Anyone have thoughts?

(If you predict how fast it takes for the first snotty anti-city comment, then you may when a special prize.)

Another Place to Watch Soccer

Molly Malone's in Covington appears to be the place to watch soccer in Northern Kentucky, both the US Nation Team and the English League.

Buried Treasure

It would appear that lawyers for the FOP and CODE for some reason believe the City has buried treasure somewhere in city, likely they will claim it's in OTR. I don't know where else they could hide it. I wonder if X still marks the spot and I wonder how long before I see a bunch of cops with shovels roaming up and down Vine Street.

Layoff Battle Doesn't Have Clear Heroes Or Villains

Well, there's one clear villain. But it's not human. We'll get to that in a minute.

This is a rare instance in which I disagree with Blogdaddy Griff. The current fight in Cincinnati over the city manager's proposal to lay off 138 police officers--over ten percent of the uniformed complement--is not one where the folks in white hats are easy to sort from those wearing black hats. There's merit to both sides of the dispute, and plenty of blame to go around for our leaders' apparent inability to handle the current economic crisis in a manner that inspires the confidence of the citizenry.

First, what do we know? Milton Dohoney has announced that he'll order the layoff of 138 uniformed police officers. But he says he has a plan to do so that will not reduce the size of any district's complement or affect "street strength," commonly understood as the number of officers on patrol. In the last few days, we've heard some officials say publicly that the Vortex unit would be effected or altogether eliminated in the layoff. I'm not sure why this is surprising. Anyone with even a limited understanding of CPD's organization understood that if officers were being cut but district force levels weren't being impacted, the layoffs had to be in non-district-based units, like Vortex. I don't think Vortex has 138 uniformed officers (I could be wrong), so you have to wonder about the status of other units, such as Vice, Special Events, and others.

Next, why has this turned into such a mess? Frankly, the process foisted upon the City by its own charter is the real culprit. In this pandemonium, we see the problems with a manager form of government. Milton Dohoney has never stood for election in Cincinnati, yet he's the one empowered to make all the decisions. The Mayor can't do it, and Council's budget votes turn into advisory statements of policy rather than legislation with the force of law. As I've previously argued, Cincinnati should have a truly executive mayor. Under the current system, the real power lies with an appointed (in other words, unelected) official. I don't doubt Mohoney's competence, integrity, or sincerity. But a city our size should be led by an elected mayor, not a politically-insulated manager.

The structure created by the charter created the chaos of the last week. City councilmembers have been free to do anything they want because they all realize that their actions don't matter. That means that the Dems on Council were free to do as they did: shrug their shoulders at the thought of laying off that many officers and and defer to the expertise of the City Manager. Similarly, the Republicans on Council were free to launch bottle rockets in the general direction of Dohoney without proposing any real alternative. An alternative proposal, by the way, does not have to find $28 million in cuts; instead, those who oppose police layoffs need find only an additional about $3 million, the amount to be saved this year by laying off police.

Even within the flawed process created by the charter, though, some of our leaders could have behaved better. Mayor Mallory was wrong to stifle debate at the Wednesday council meeting. That meeting was the only scheduled session prior to Labor Day. That meant that had the mayor had his way, the public would have had no opportunity to weigh in on the proposed cuts before they were enacted. And Council would have had no opportunity to publicly question the Manager about the necessity and breadth of the cuts. That's bad government.

Leslie Ghiz and Chris Monzel were right to call a special meeting of Council. Their action permitted the public, as well as Council, to be heard on the manager's proposal. Public debate is not grandstanding; it is political discourse, and essential to the healthy functioning of a representative democracy. If you disagree with NAACP/COAST's excessive referendum efforts (as I do, even though I do not support the streetcar), then you must favor a transparent decision-making process by our elected officials. For representative democracy to work, we must have access to our elected officials, and they must have open, public debates that explain their decision-making to their constituents.

Finally, what about the merits of the decision? When I first saw the numbers, I was aghast. 208 full-time positions are being eliminated city-wide. 138 of those--or 66%--are uniformed officers. No one (or at least no rational person) expected the police department to be entirely spared. Had 20, 30, or even 50 police layoffs been proposed, I'd have not been surprised. But the scope of the layoffs was startling, and immediately struck me as the position the administration would take if it were playing a game of chicken with the FOP. The problem with this particular game of chicken, though, is that the FOP has no reason to swerve. They take issues with the priorities the City has set. But more understandably, the City has been unwilling to give them any assurances about the 2010 budget. Why should the FOP give back bargained-for benefits if their members only keep their jobs for the next four months?

And regardless of whether the end result of the current dilemma is 1 layoff or 138, it is (and should be treated as) a sad decision by the City. The officers to be laid off will be young officers, fresh out of the academy. These are individuals who made a decision to serve the residents of the City; many are people who could have done what many others their own age did and left the region in pursuit of other professional opportunities. Their decision to stay and to serve and protect should be honored, and we should not make light of a decision to add them to the unemployed in our region.

As long as we have a weak mayor and an overly strong city manager, Cincinnatians will be spectators to overly dramatic but non-productive political theater. But the players in that theater need to behave like adults, something almost all of them forgot this past week.

Brad's Gone Fishin'

So, the Republican Mayoral candidate, Brad Wenstrup, has time to read the Mayor and Council's emails, but he doesn't have time to provide a detailed budget that fills the $28 million deficit? I mean just last week he was complaining about the need to save cops jobs, but now he is off the deep end with a new attack on the Mayor. It appears Brad can play politics, but doesn't know the first thing about running a government.  He cares more about winning an election, than about letting the Mayor do his job by balancing the budget.  What a complete political tool, being led around by the non-city Republicans who care more about tearing down the city, than helping it grow. To make matters worse it seems Wenstrup is now taking his lead from Chris Smitherman, wow, that's a doozy of a move.

Enquirer Takes Down COAST's 'Poison Pill'

Readers of this blog have known that COAST's effort to destroy any type of rail plan was clear in their actions and their language of the anti-passenger rail charter amendment. The Enquirer has reached a similar conclusion.

Where is the Republican Budget Plan?

The last 24 hours have seen the City Republican council members, candidates for council/mayor, and conservative activists all blatantly Grandstand, stomp their feet like children, over the tough decision, the kind leaders and adults make, to cut 319 city jobs. Where is their Plan? What is preventing any of the Republican leaders sitting down and coming up a list of cuts they would make instead of those outlined, especially the 138 jobs from the Police Department they are apparently claiming they wouldn't cut if elected? The city manager listed in detail how he would reduce the 28 million to zero. There are a few gray areas left to fill, but the big numbers and big cuts are on the table. You don't get that from the likes of Leslie Ghiz, Chris Monzel, Brad Wenstrup or local GOP hack supreme Alex Triantafilou. All of these Republicans are Grandstanding and misleading the public on what these cuts means, which they don't really know, and don't know what can be done to offset the reductions.

So now is their chance: put up or shut up! If you claim you can make things happen, then do it! Post it here, email me, or hell put it up on anyone's website. Just stop making the false claims and promises you know you can't keep.