Lemmie get this straight

After just three years on the job as city manager, City Manager Valerie Lemmie resigns and expects to be able to take seven weeks paid leave instead of working through the transition to a new manager? And she had already taken four weeks vacation this year alone? That, my friends, takes some brass ones. Call me crazy, but when you leave a job, you put in your notice and you work up to that day, and if you don't, you don't get paid.

Lemmie claims that this was Mayor Luken's idea. While I seriously doubt that it was (HR Director Carole Cunningham says that it was fair and reasonable for her to get the seven weeks paid...how I have no idea), that would be an incredibly imprudent move considering yesterday's news of the city pension shortfall.

Adam

Reality Bytes

Sonny move out to the suburbs

The County Business Patterns report shows what we all probably expected: Hamilton County is losing jobs to the suburbs. This shouldn't be altogether shocking. Butler, Warren, and Boone counties for one have more land to develop for new business complexes. Given a choice, people would like to work close to home, and since the suburban counties' population has grown over the past several years it follows that the jobs would gravitate there as well. Couple that with downtown's inability to draw major businesses and retain the ones it has (without having to give them the world), and that leads to the above circumstances.

More troubling is the fact that "the region's population and labor force are growing at only half the national rate", according to George Vredeveld from the Economics Center at UC. Again, this isn't exactly news, considering that Cincinnati hasn't been very successful at luring younger workers to the area. At some point, the city (and surrounding areas) has to start making an effort to make the area more attractive to outsiders.

Adam

Reality Bytes

Labor history to take place in Cincinnati

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

Some unions dissatisfied with the AFL-CIO plan to formally establish a new federation Sept. 27 in Cincinnati.

Details on the convention are in flux, including which unions in the Change to Win Coalition will participate.

Certain to attend are the three unions that defected from the AFL-CIO last week: the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Four other unions also are among the Change to Win insurgents. Three of those are still affiliated with the AFL-CIO - the United Farm Workers, the Laborers' International Union of North America and Unite Here, which represents textile, hotel and restaurant workers. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America left the AFL-CIO in 2001.

The article continues by explaining why Cincinnati was chosen:

Cincinnati was chosen for its central location, because Ohio is "always up for grabs, politically," and because it is home to Cintas Corp., the laundry company that is the target of a coordinated organizing campaign by the Teamsters and Unite Here, said Jim Papien, a spokesman for the Food and Commercial Workers.

Between the 2004 Presidential election, the Taft scandal, last week's 2nd Congressional district special election, and this upcoming labor meeting, Ohio has become a regular hotspot for national political news, information, and events.

According to a recent Enquirer article, the

Change to Win Coalition has been in discussions about holding a daylong meeting as early as next month at the Millennium Hotel Cincinnati on Fifth Street downtown.

A sales executive at the Millennium also confirmed that discussions have been ongoing but said no deal has been signed. A representative for Change to Win said the group should be ready to discuss plans in more detail by early next week.

Question for the commenters:

Will Ohio's new role in national politics soon be forgotten or is it here to say?

This post was made by Josh Nelson of Cincinnati News.

The kindness of strangers...or elected officials

Courtesy of Joe Wessels, apparently some prospective council members and mayoral candidates aren't exactly falling over themselves to be courteous to reporters. You'd think that someone about to run for elected office would want to put their best foot forward for those that write about their campaigns (and eventually help to shape voter's perceptions of them). If reporters can't get a few minutes of their time, do we really expect them to pay attention to private citizens?

Adam

Reality Bytes

Brother, can you spare $9 million

I always get a bit nervous when people start discussing the funding of pensions. Now comes word that under-budgeting will force taxpayers to chip in $9 million to fully fund the city pension fund. Just from an amateur's perspective, it seems that a bit too much of the funding is dependent on investment gains. With the unpredictability of the stock market recently, perhaps there are better methods to funding that don't include reducing benefits.

Adam

Reality Bytes

Some humor for a Monday morning

Courtesy of Covington, click here if you want to send your support to Karl Rove. Whitehouse.org is also kind enough to copy the e-mail to other patriots like Novak, Hannity, Drudge, etc.

Adam

Reality Bytes

Paul Daugherty article

A few weeks ago Maggie Downs wrote an article about her boyfriend's sky-diving crash and the difficulties of a long re-hab ahead. Today Paul Daugherty writes a spectacular piece on her boyfriend (Jason Yasuda), the death of his friend (Sean Crossman), and what draws people to skydiving. Daugherty is always worth reading, today more so than normal.