Whoops (Top Chef Spoiler Ahead)

Julie pointed out that this season of Top Chef would feature a Cincinnati contestant, Lauren Starling Hope of Jag's Steak and Seafood.

Unfortunately, she didn't even make it into the kitchen, being eliminated during the first episode's "quickfire" challenge.

The LA Times offers an episode recap and critique here.

Aside: Bravo's bio of Lauren says that Jag's is the "most luxurious and contemporary steakhouse in Cincinnati." Is this really true? Is it more luxurious than Ruby's or the Precinct?

I Voted For Obama, And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

I donated both time (all day Election Day) and money (twice, both in small amounts) to the Obama campaign. It's no surprise that I was happy when he won. But after a two-year long campaign, I was looking forward to the end of emails and calls soliciting support.

A week later, and not so much. I'm still getting emails. Apparently, the DNC went into debt for the Obama campaign. So President-Elect Obama is still fund-raising. But I can get a T-shirt if I give $30 or more.

Woo hoo.

Pulse Ends Print Edition

In a surprise move last week Cincinnati Pulse (Formerly known as the Downtowner) haulted the printing of their weekly newspaper and launched a web only edition at www.cincipulse.com.

Web only news sites, as I can tell you personally, are difficult to profitable when you have reporters to pay. As a new source, the paper has greatly improved under the new owners. I hope they are able to make this model work, but without the print copy, they are losing a downtown niche that I think drove readership: available in local establishments. When you could pick up a copy inside Skyline and read it while you ate lunch, that provided a solid niche that will disappear with an online edition.

Silver Lining

Over at PepTalk, Commissioner Pepper notes an 8% increase in third-quarter revenue from the HamCo hotel tax over the same period last year. That's good news.

My guess is that a large portion of this increase is from the NAACP and National Baptist conventions downtown. Are there any indicators that can sort out convention traffic versus what I'd call "pure tourism" (someone saying, "Hey, let's go to Cincinnati for a weekend!")? Nonetheless, it's definitely a positive sign.

Of course, maybe HamCo just found a way to start taxing bedbugs.

(Sorry for the bedbug snark...as a downtown resident, I check my bed and body for signs of the critters daily, given the recent outbreak. They're been spotted everywhere, as has been widely reported, including 800 Broadway--the county building that houses juvenile court--and the courthouse.)

Is There Leadership In Local Government These Days?

Local government does a lot more than it did 150 years ago--or even 50 years ago. Thus, it's much more complicated and difficult to manage on a day-to-day basis. That means that our elected officials need the help of professional managers (some would call them bureacrats, which I think is fair apart from the pejorative sense the term has acquired). We want to elect ordinary citizens (Joe the Plumbers) to lead us. But they don't always have the necessary expertise to keep government functioning, and turn to professionals for assistance.

The City of Cincinnati, like many others, has a "City Manager." Previously, I've been critical of Cincinnati's mayor/manager government, and suggested revising the charter to give more power to the mayor.

Hamilton County has an "Administrator." Presently, Patrick Thompson fills that role. Like the City Manager, he proposes a budget (that's what we saw on Monday). After public comment and tinkering by our elected executives, some version of that is then codified.

Here's my problem: creating budgets is governing. It's policy-making. Non-elected government administrators like Thompson (or the City's Milton Dohoney) should stick with management, non-policymaking tasks. When we permit the professional bureaucracy to create budgets, we let our elected officials off the hook; we relieve them of the responsibility of the office we elected them to assume.

Over the last few years, we've seen a pattern with the City budget process. Dohoney announces a budget with draconian cuts, the public is outraged, and then Mayor Mallory swoops in with a plan to save some of the services axed by the Manager's budget. Presently, I'm cynical enough to believe we'll see some form of this with the County budget: now that Thompson has announced a scary budget, Todd Portune, David Pepper, or both will announce a plan that's less harsh--or at least less unpopular.

Why have we allowed our local elected leaders to delegate policymaking decisions to professional administrators? This isn't criticism of Patrick Thompson. (For those who don't realize it, he and his staff spent countless hours on this budget, and produced it only after soliciting and reviewing feedback from every county department head.) But when the President proposes a budget to Congress, it has the President's name on it. He doesn't have his chief of staff sign it, and then publicly review and revise it. Shouldn't we expect the same of our local leaders?

Our county, like local governments across the nation, is facing a dire financial picture. Frankly, if we had a majority Republican Commission, we'd see a sales tax increase this year. (It's an only-Nixon-can-go-to-China thing. Local Democrats won't raise taxes for fear that they'll be labelled "tax and spend liberals." Republicans in this mess would look at the budget and do what needs to be done.) Commissioners Portune and Pepper won't do that, though, so we're faced with the drastically reduced budget presented this week.

So how do we restore real leadership to local government? I'll renew my call to change the city charter, and add to it the suggestion that we look at the way power is delegated in County government.

UPDATE: Having re-read the post, I wanted to make sure I'm not giving the impression that I'm singling our county commissioners out for criticism. I think all three are good public servants working to do the best by the people of this county (albeit from three different perspectives); I think the same will be true of our incoming commissioner. (Of course, all of this could just be my fondness for lawyers.) The trend towards "managers" encroaching on governance is not unique to HamCo; I just want to raise the issue and discuss whether it's a good thing.

Protest for Equal Marriage in Cincinnati, 11/15/08

From the wonderful Barry at QueerCincinnati...

A protest in favor of equal marriage will occur at Cincinnati's City Hall on Saturday, November 15 at 1:30p.m. Local students, activists, and community members lead this event as part of a day of national protests in reaction to the passage of Proposition 8 in California, re-banning equal marriage in that state.

The local movement is being organized by Cameron Tolle, a junior at Xavier University and Vice President of the Xavier LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, queer/questioning) Alliance, with the assistance of students from the University of Cincinnati and Miami University, along with several community members. Organizers state that the goal is not to overturn Proposition 8, but to create a national movement and create awareness for the effects that anti-gay legislation has on the local community. The protest will occur in conjunction with other groups from around the country at the same time as part of an initiative launched by JoinTheImpact.com; local organizers are in contact with many of these other coalitions as a way of building unity. In the first two days of organization, almost 300 people have stated they will be in attendance; 500 people are expected to attend the event.

"Last week, voters in California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas allowed hate to infiltrate into our political system and classified the LGBTQ community as second-class citizens," Tolle says. "We cannot sit back and watch this happen. We have to let our communities know that we oppose hatred under the law in all forms. In Ohio, we live in a state that has already declared inequality by banning equal marriage and failing to include crimes against LGBTQ individuals under state hate crime laws. We cannot let this hatred under the law perpetuate any further."

JoinTheImpact.com is a national initiative that was created in reaction to the anger felt by many who believe in equal marriage rights after the passage of California's Proposition 8. It is a loose coalition of activists and organizations who seek to bring positive change in the fight for equality. The movement, less than a week old, is drawing hundreds of thousands of hits a day to its websites. Almost 40 localities have announced protests in correlation with the initiative. More are expected to join in the coming week.

According to the website, the goal is to "come together for debate, for public recognition, and for LOVE! ... [to] move as one full unit, on the same day, at the same hour, and...show the United States of America that we too are UNITED CITIZENS EQUAL [sic] IN MIND, BODY, SPIRIT AND DESERVING OF FULL EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW."

Local organizers are hopeful that the protest will spur discussion and movement towards positive change in the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana region. Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana all currently have laws banning equal marriage rights; Ohio and Kentucky have constitutional amendments, passed by voters in 2004, to the same effect.

Suggestion Box

HamCo Commissioner David Pepper is soliciting comments and suggestions on the proposed budget that was released today. While I hope we have a conversation about this issue in the comments here, I doubt that Commissioner Pepper reads our little ol' blog, so be sure to make your point there, too.

HamCo Administrator Patrick Thompson's recommendation (pdf) is available here. The Enquirer's coverage is here. I've read the recommendation; here's what I found notable:

• Huge cuts to the Sheriff's Office. Patrols in Green, Anderson, and Colerain townships would end. Queensgate would close.
• The Board of Elections gets a 24% budget decrease, but this is mainly because 2009 is an "off-year," in that no national or state-wide offices are at stake in elections.
• The County Commissioners and Administration budget is slashed 35%. The County will no longer make any payment to SORTA.
• The Recorder's Office's budget is reduced by 18%, the Treasurer's by 19%.
• The Clerk of Courts would lay off one-quarter of its workforce.
• Administrative functions of the Common Pleas, Municipal, DR, Probate, and Juvenile courts would be consolidated, resulting in 15 layoffs and $1 million in savings.
• In all likelihood, Hillcrest Training School closes. This leaves juvenile judges with one institutional option: DYS.
• For Municipal Court, a 20% decrease in funding to pretrial services and private complaint mediation and elimination of mental health funding (making ironic Commissioner Pepper's recent posts on the success of pretrial services and Mental Health Court).
• The elimination of 22 positions in the Probation Department, including all MDO (mental health-related) probation officers.
• In the Prosecutor's Office, the elimination of Project Disarm and the Witness Protection program.
• In addition to the county budget cuts, DJFS is apparently facing a 300-employee layoff because of state cuts.

Let's be civil and polite in the comments. I know, lots of people will get excited about the prospect of making government smaller. But right now, hundreds of our neighbors are facing the loss of their jobs. The county's severance package is pretty lousy, as you'd expect: one week's pay per year of employment, with a minimum of two weeks and a maximum of eight.