Sorry, It's Not a Blue Pony

In all seriousness a big welcome to A Lucky Step, a new furniture store that just opened in the Gateway area.

Know Theatre : Red Light Winter

Tonight opens up the rep production of Red Light Winter at the Know Theatre. I'm attending tonight, but I think it is sold out! Get your tickets for an upcoming show now. You might email the Enquirer and make them aware that there is something to do Downtown after you eat dinner at one of the many new restaurants. I guess they don't read their own websites much.

CincyPAC - Meet and Greet Congressional Candidates

Sean Parker of CincyPAC has announced an event for Cincinnati YPs to a meet and greet candidates from the 1st and 2nd districts:

Mark your calendars, CincyPAC will be having its first event of 2008 on February 21 at Mixx Lounge on Main St. We are inviting all of the District 1 and District 2 Congressional Candidates to attend the event. Please check the blog at www.cincypac.com for updates on who is running and who will be attending.

What: Congressional Candidate Meet & Greet with Greater Cincinnati Young Professionals
When: Thursday, February 21, 2008 from 6pm-8pm
Where: Mixx Lounge on Main St.

For Questions or to RSVP: Email Sean@cincypac.com

A great chance to meet the candidates and check out a new OTR venue.

Ohio Will Matter

Ohio is going to see a lot of Hillary and Barack over the next month.

CiN Weekly's New Look

Any thoughts on CiN Weekly's website redo? They have conformed with the formating of Cincinnati.com, so it looks much like the Enquirer's portal, which makes sense since the site now resolves to cinweekly.cincinnati.com.

More Streetcar Obstacles Ahead

This week's City Beat has an article by the always-excellent Kevin Osborne suggesting that Mayor Mallory will have to overcome some significant obstacles to see his streetcar proposal to fruition. Most notably, 3CDC seems to have some concerns about whether they'll continue to get their share of the funding pie once the City starting spending on the streetcar infrastructure:

"We are concerned (that streetcars are) funded with a dedicated revenue stream and a sustainable revenue stream," says Steven Leeper, 3CDC's president. Any financing plan shouldn't rely on funds "presently being used effectively in the neighborhood. We don't want to stop that momentum. We want something that will complement that."
Due to 3CDC's concerns, city officials are tweaking the plan to use less TIF money and likely will borrow more cash. Other ideas also being considered include imposing a special assessment fee on surface parking lots for their "wasted development potential," sources say. There are more than 100 such lots in downtown and Over-the-Rhine.

Many will remember that I wrote a post that was somewhat critical of the streetcar plans a few weeks ago; subsequently, I announced that I've come around--tentatively--to the pro-streetcar side of the issue (not that anyone cares what I think).

3CDC may have a valid concern: the streetcar ought to proceed alongside current development efforts, not in place of them. But assuming that concern can be mollified, there should be no reason for 3CDC to "derail" the streetcar efforts.

It'll be interesting to see what tone the hearing on the 25th takes. If Cranley wants to obstruct what seems like a positive step forward for downtown and OTR, he'll certainly have the opportunity to do so. Hopefully, he take the opportunity to see beyond what he sees as his fairly narrow base of support (which falls squarely outside of downtown) and do the right thing.

State of the City

Mayor Mallory gave his State of the City speech last night at Playhouse in the Park. How was it received? How does his vision gel with where we are headed? I was very pleased to see a Streetcar Plan from Downtown to Uptown was high on his list.


Read the speech here(doc).