The Return of Neon's

Kevin LeMaster has a really good story about efforts to reopen Neon's in the Main Street area. One of the coolest looking bars around, Neon's was a sad place to see close. The concept behind the new place sounds very reasonable. It doesn't look to be a hot club, it seeks to be a neighborhood bar that has a unique take on what a bar is. It seems to be more like a space that sells beer and wine. It will take a while to get the place open again, they are shooting for next Bockfest, so don't rush over to the 12th Street location just yet.

Disparate Treatment?

Two days before the 2004 general election, President George W. Bush came to Cincinnati and held a campaign rally at Great American Ballpark. His address to the crowd was carried live in primetime by all of Cincinnati's local news channels, preempting network programming. The event was nothing short of a free infomercial in the heart of a "battleground" state just before Election Day.

Today, President Barack Obama came to Cincinnati and addressed a crowd at Coney Island. Given that even the mid-term elections are over a year a way, it's hard to describe the speech as a campaign event. Instead, it was a presidential address, delivered on a national holiday in Cincinnati. This time, though, only channel 19 carried the speech live. Other channels decided that Montel outranks the president, and declined to break into their weekday programming.

It's just despicable how "in the bag" for Obama the media is, isn't it?

Lactating Women Need Not Apply

Jill's comment a few posts below reminds me that I'd intended to discuss the Ohio Supreme Court's appalling decision in Allen v. totes/Isotoner. (By the way, if you're not reading Jill's blog, you should be--although she's on hiatus until after Election Day, as she's busy running for Pepper Pike City Council.) In its opinion, of which no member of our highest court was willing to claim authorship, a three-member plurality found that an employer could lawfully fire a lactating mother because she took extra bathroom breaks in order to pump her breasts. Two members of the court went a step further, writing that post-pregnancy lactation isn't really related to pregnancy, and thus not covered under Ohio's Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

The decision is now two weeks old, so I'm not sure my own discussion would advance much debate. So instead, go read Jill's excellent posts (here and here) on the decision. I'll just add this: each time we insist that a judicial candidate prove his or her allegiance to "pro-business" interest groups, we demand opinions like the one our court handed us in toner/Isotoner. This is the quintessential "pro-business" opinion, in that it expands an employer's power to fire an employee at the expense of Ohioans' civil rights. It's a stark reminder that "pro-business" isn't always good for Ohio. (To be clear: I'm not implying that any of our Supreme Court justices are inherently biased or unfair to litigants. But when we're willing to accept only a narrow range of credentials for our successful candidates, we wind up with a narrow range of viewpoints on our courts.)

Union Concession Issue Isn't Straightforward

Things on Plum Street have gotten uglier, and they're not going to get better as the campaign season really heats up. But somehow, Council has to begin to work together once again. In all likelihood, 8 of the 9 current members will be responsible for next year's budget. They need to find a way to have a budget process that isn't as driven by rancor as has been present in Council chambers over the past three months. Part of doing that requires that Council actually discuss, in open session, the issues impacting the City.

There's plenty of blame to heap on both the majority and the minority on Council as to how we've gotten to where we are: a last minute hail mary effort to save jobs for the rest of the year. No matter how we got there, the FOP, AFSCME, and CODE now face a difficult dilemna. Do they give up money (for the FOP, a little more than a day's pay each month for the rest of the year) to save jobs this year, but with no promises for 2010?

The FOP is certainly not the first union being asked to make concessions in this economy. A friend who works in the aviation industry recently reminded me of the deep, deep concessions Comair pilots have made over the last few years in order to preserve jobs. But usually, when a union gives up something it bargained for, it does so with some assurance of medium- or long-term job preservation. Here, the City has made explicit that there are no guarantees for next year. And I wonder: if a school board were threatening to fire ten percent of its teachers if the union didn't agree to a pay cut of roughly 4-5 percent for four months, would we on the left be demonizing the teachers' union for its reluctance to agree to the extent the left is demonizing the FOP? I doubt it.

I had hoped Council would find some cuts to fill the gaps in the 2009 budget, and then go to the unions for concessions--perhaps much more significant than those currently sought--as part of the 2010 budget process, as the unions would then have some assurance of lengthier job security. That didn't happen. So the FOP will have to decide how much value it places on its newest members. No doubt some members would benefit financially from the concessions. I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect that some of the sergeants being displaced to patrol by the layoffs would lose less money by giving up 4.6 days' pay than they would by accepting a lesser-paying position. And hopefully, the FOP, AFSCME, and CODE can set aside the bitter taste the process has left and recognize that Council has, in the end, significantly reduced the concessions originally sought and found money elsewhere for the unions' members' salaries.

As Council approaches the 2010 budget process, its individual members will have to strive to be more understanding and more cooperative. In particular, a couple members of Council can--and must--do better than they have the last few months. Chris Monzel's fear-mongering (and perhaps race-baiting) press release early this week was regrettable; using the injury and death of citizens to advance a political agenda is simply unacceptable. And Greg Harris's role on Council has been surprisingly disappointing. When he was appointed, most young professionals were excited. We saw him as a problem-solver, someone who, having come from outside the political establishment, would be a leader on Council and above politics-as-usual. Right now, sadly, he acting as a recalcitrant hard-liner more devoted to party than principle. That may be a way to raise campaign money, but it's not any way to govern a city.

Once the ballots are counted in November for City Council, let's all promise to do all we can to force the seemingly broken Council to come together to work for the common good.

Courthouse Plaza Solution

Over the last month, we've been hearing about the increased number of homeless people sleeping out on the courthouse steps, and the mess that this is creating because some of them urinate on the plaza overnight.

Introducing: the pop-up urinal. Believe it or not, the "urilift" is a device (now deployed by a few European cities) that rest in the ground during the day, but pop up at night for those who can't find a public restroom.

Yes, of course I realize that neither the County nor the City has the money to spend on these right now. (Perhaps, though, the Urilift Company might like to donate one or two in order start attracting business from American cities.)

Initially, I was concerned that installation of these would pose an equal protection issue (can the County supply a restroom facility for men but not women?). Apparently, though, Urilift has resolved this problem by introducing the Urigienic:

I call upon Urilift to supply the County or the City with a couple of these devices at no cost in exchange for testimonials from our public officials to other American cities. It could be a great partnership!

Important Ohio Criminal Justice Bill

As this article by Sharon Coolidge explains, an important bill has passed the Ohio Senate, has the support of Governor Strickland, and is now pending before the House. The proposed law, S.B. 77, contains several important reforms for Ohio's criminal justice system. The article focuses on a provision that raises the ire of some of my colleagues, which mandates DNA samples to be taken from all people arrested for a felony. Currently, Ohio law permits DNA collection only upon conviction of a felony. Federal law already requires this for those arrested for federal offenses, but requires the DNA sample to be destroyed if a conviction is not obtained. I've not heard a good answer as to how the Ohio bill handles an acquittal. (Even if the specimen itself is destroyed, the record of it could remain in CODIS, the national DNA database, without a procedure in place to retract it.)

For me, though, there are three other, much more important provisions of the bill (mentioned in the article, but not given enough attention). These would require:

• that all police interrogations be recorded from beginning to end;
• that DNA evidence in violent crimes be preserved even after conviction and that more convicted persons have access to DNA testing; and
• that when line-ups are performed, they are done in a "double-blind" manner, in which the police officer who conducts the lineup does not know who the suspect is.

The interrogation provision is the one that faces the strongest opposition by police and prosecutors' associations. But ultimately, it will prove beneficial to law enforcement. About a year ago on a trip to Chicago, I met a Chicago homicide detective. His department had recently begun taping all suspect interviews, and he explained that it was making his job easier, not harder. He no longer had to worry about a defense attorney insinuating that a confession was coerced or obtained in violation of a suspect's rights. Motions to suppress (a procedural device to prevent the use of an illegally obtained confession) were much less likely to succeed. The tapes proved what police have always contended, the detective said: in the vast majority of cases, the police do things correctly and legally. (I tended to agree with the detective on this.) For more on this topic, check out this report, Police Experiences with Recording Custodial Interrogations.

The identification procedures mandated by the bill are also quite important. Over the last several years, a significant body of scientific literature has arisen regarding the inherent unreliability of eyewitness testimony. The double-blind procedure will help to ensure that line-ups are done in a manner that ensures the greatest possible degree of accuracy.

Republican State Senator Bill Seitz (of Green Township) has been a prominent supporter (and sponsor) of the legislation. On many issues, I often find disagreement with Senator Seitz. But--particularly over the last year--he had an extremely thoughtful voice on criminal justice issues and has been an important leader for crucial reforms in that area.

Riverfest Etiquette

Had I not gone to law school, I likely would have pursued a Ph.D. in sociology (or perhaps in economics, which over the last ten years seems to have expanded to areas that were previously thought to belong to sociology). And if I had pursued that alternate path, I'd likely do some writing on the fascinating issue of space reservation for Riverfest fireworks watching.

The fireworks aren't set to begin until Sunday evening, but since early this morning, people have been staking out their spots along the Serpentine Wall, as well as on the grass atop the Newport levee. As you can see from the pictures, people simply put down tarps (usually secured by duct tape) and leave. The people who leave their tarps make no effort to guard their spot or stay with their claimed space, but instead seem to just trust that they can return tomorrow to watch the fireworks.

This situation presents a departure from the rules governing any other situation I know of in which people wait for a particular event. For instance, when people want to buy tickets to a sporting event or concert, they can't merely show up in line, claim a number, and leave until a few minutes before the ticket window opens. (Yes, I realize that the internet has drastically reduced the camp-out-overnight-for-tickets phenomenon.) People hoping to cash in on limited-supply sales events on "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving) have to physically hold their spot. Golfers hoping to play the famous Bethpage Black course without a reservation subject themselves to a complex set of rules as they wait one or more nights in the course parking lot. And a few years ago when I watched the fireworks from the observation deck of the Empire State Building on the Fourth of July (truly a fabulous experience), we had to stand in our spaces for over five hours; we didn't dare to even take a bathroom break for fear that our group would be forever separated.

So I'm curious: how has the Riverfest tradition developed? Why is it so polite--and, frankly, so easy? What prevents an unscrupulous (or perhaps just eager) fireworks watcher from removing someone else's unguarded tarp and claiming a spot of earth for themselves?

Enjoy the fireworks, everybody. And if you're going to drink down there, have a designated driver or catch a cab.