Oscar at 40: Does He Need a New Home?

The New York Times reports that Sesame Street has reached its 40th anniversary. The article points out that the show's sets have changed and now look "gentrified."

As a kid, my two favorite characters were (of course) Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch. PBS has already updated Cookie Monster for the new millenium, rounding out his diet with fruits and veggies and moderating his cookie consumption. (I don't know when the last time he was televised singing my favorite song, "C is for Cookie.")




But the article had me thinking: how many of today's kids come into contact with a trash can like that which serves as Oscar's home? Is it time for Oscar to trade in his metal can for a plastic "Herby"?

Downtown Restaurant Happenings (Mayberry's, Roma Trattoria, and Busken's)

None of these items seemed substantial enough for a full post, but each is interesting enough to be included in a round-up.

Mayberry's: Earlier this week, Mayberry's opened on Vine Street between Ninth and Court, in the space formerly occupied by Tom's Pot Pies. It's run by the same folks who own the Whole Food Market at Findlay Market. I stopped in for lunch on Tuesday and had (to go) a chicken Caesar salad and macaroni and cheese, both of which were quite good. A friend had the tuna melt and the tater tot casserole. He indicated the tuna melt was very good, but the tater tot casserole might just be an excuse to carbo-load (not that I ever need such an excuse). I'll note that I could smell the pot roast when I was there; it smelled great, but I was in the mood for something lighter. I'll definitely be back, as it's directly on my courthouse-to-office route.

Roma Trattoria: The big fight regarding the remodeling of the Metropole and its conversion to a luxury hotel will center on the relocation of its more than 200 residential tenants. But the sale of the Metropole will also force the relocation of two commercial tenants, Roma Trattoria and the Subway Lounge. I've never been to the Subway Lounge. Roma Trattoria is a great restaurant that will no doubt be hurt by taking away its Aronoff-friendly location. There are a couple spaces nearby that might be suitable: the space formerly occupied by Arloi Dee (on Seventh) and the space formerly occupied by the Maisonette come to mind.

Busken's: Finally, the Busken Bakery at Ninth and Plum (across the street from City Hall) will be moving in early December. It will take over a space on Seventh between Walnut and Main that was formerly occupied by Mythos (and, for those whose memories go back that far, occupied by Sushi Ray's before that). That seems like a sensible move to me, as the Ninth and Plum location always seemed to be a bit outside of the hustle and bustle of downtown (and thus lacking in foot traffic). No word yet on where the mayor and council members will get their doughnuts after the move, though.

Who Will Be the Next Vice Mayor?

With David Crowley term limited, the position of Vice Mayor will become vacant. The mostly cermonial position is not filled with much power, but it carries some influence. The Mayor gets to pick the person he wants, but it is often used as a way to reward or instill loyalty to a member of senior member of Council. Greg Harris may have been the logical choice for the Mayor, but now I don't know who he picks. Cole and Thomas are in his party with seniority, but wouldn't it be smarter for the Mayor to bring a foe into the Mallory camp by picking Chris Bortz? Bortz does not have the rumored eye on the Mayor's office that Qualls is alleged to have.

There are not other choices that gain the Mayor much. If there are better options, chime in.

Someone Tell Ghiz There's a Veto

I just heard Leslie Ghiz speaking on WVXU (mp3) about getting five City council members to reverse anything thing the lame duck council does, specifically on Property Taxes. Is she forgetting about something called the Veto? Here's the relevant part of the City Charter:

Section 6. Every ordinance shall be fully and distinctly read on three different days unless three-fourths of the members elected to the council dispense with the rule. No ordinance shall contain more than one subject which shall be clearly expressed in its title, and no ordinance shall be revived or amended unless the new ordinance contains the entire ordinance revived, or the section or sections amended, and the section or sections so amended shall be repealed. Council may adopt codification ordinances, codifying, revising and re-arranging the ordinances of the city or any portion thereof.

Any legislation passed by the council, whether in the form of an ordinance or resolution, shall be dated when passed. If the mayor approves the legislation, the mayor shall sign and date the legislation and it shall be effective according to its terms when signed by the mayor.

If the mayor does not approve the legislation, the mayor may veto the legislation and return it to the council within four days after passage with a notation of the veto on the legislation. The vetoed legislation shall be placed on the agenda of the council at its next regularly scheduled meeting. Legislation vetoed by the mayor and returned to the council may not be amended.

Upon motion passed by five members of the council, the council may reconsider the vetoed legislation. If six members of the council vote affirmatively to override the veto and enact the legislation, it becomes law notwithstanding the mayoral veto. It shall be effective according to its terms upon the affirmative vote and, if otherwise subject to referendum, the time for referendum on the legislation shall begin to run again from that date. Unless the council overrides the veto of the mayor at or before the second regularly scheduled meeting of the council following passage of the legislation, the legislation shall not take effect. Legislation enacted by the council over the veto of the mayor shall not be vetoed a second time. An ordinance placing on the ballot a charter amendment initiated by petition shall not be subject to a mayoral veto.

If the mayor neither approves nor vetoes the legislation, the legislation shall be effective according to its terms the fifth day following its passage. The effective date shall be noted on the original copy of the legislation by the clerk of council.
Every ordinance shall be published once within 15 days after its passage in a newspaper of general circulation in the city of Cincinnati, or a newspaper regularly published under the authority of the council. In the publication of every ordinance or resolution relating to improvements or to assessments upon private property for such improvements, the advertisement shall contain simply a statement of the title, number and date of the ordinance and resolution, a concise description of the private property affected, a summary of the nature of the improvements, the rate of any assessment levied or to be levied, and a reference to a copy of the said ordinance or resolution, which shall be on file in the office of the clerk of council. In the publication of all other ordinances or resolutions the advertisement shall contain a statement of the title, number and date of the ordinance or resolution, a brief statement of the nature of the ordinance or resolution, and a reference to a copy the ordinance or resolution, which shall be on file in the office of the clerk of council.

(Amended by Ord. No. 77-1999, eff. Dec. 1, 2001; election of May 4, 1999)

So, based on reading the above, the Mayor can veto Council ordinances and resolutions passed by council, and it requires 6 council members to override the veto. Now, other than measures to add Charter Amendments to the Ballot, there are no exceptions to the Mayor's veto power listed in this section I found.

If there is another section exempting the power of the Mayor on the veto, I invite anyone to post the link to it. I couldn't find it. I only found two sections mentioning the veto in a search of the entire Municipal code, including the Charter. The other simply was in Article III restating the Mayor has the power of the veto as defined in Article II, which is the section referenced above.

So, if the Mayor doesn't like what Leslie Ghiz and company wants, he can veto it. Why he's not used the veto yet, I don't know. If he doesn't use it now and going forward, then I'd like to know why. Leslie needs to work on getting 6 members of council to do something the Mayor does not like, not just five. Five is not the Magic Number when you don't like the Mayor.

Why do people keep underestimating the tenacity of the Mayor?

The Truth Sometimes Does Win

Like the Mayor, I was a little bit worried about Issue 9 going into last night. Once the absentee votes came in, however, I was convinced that the night would end well for those of us opposing Issue 9.

The campaign by the those in favor of Issue 9 was filled with a combination of out right lies and scores of misleading comments from both Chris Smitherman and COAST. Top that disreputable combination off with a very confused Tom Luken and you get a campaign that got far too much unquestioning attention from the media regarding its clearly visible goal to damage the city. With great effort from the No on 9 team, that gaggle of strange bedfellows failed. Truth and common sense won out.

The defeat of this measure does do two things to make transportation improvements closer to happening. For the Streetcar it takes away a big hurdle to funding the project. Efforts can now confidently be taken to secure the Federal and State funding require to move forward on the Streetcar. We don't need to vote on it again. We just elected a Mayor and 6 council members who support the Streetcar plan. That is how representative democracy works.

We'll still get the crack-pots around to unfold their latest tin-foil hat reasons why more jobs, increased public transit, and the economic development of the urban core is a bad thing, but that argument is easy to refute. Until then, I really hope the handful of anti-city zealots at COAST will learn something from their big defeat.

The second thing to help transportation is to remove any hindrance to the high speed rail efforts to connect Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. This Federal plan was destined to pass Cincinnati by, but again the Truth won out.

Council Election: What the Hell Happened?

Well, the council on the surface has appeared to have flipped to a majority Conservative 5. I think we need a new name, the rebirth of the Fiscal Five maybe? I don't know what we are going to call them, but what ever it is, with Charlie Winburn making up the fifth member, I pity the other four ever getting a trustworthy answer out of the nutty soon-to-be council member.

The bad news from the council race was the loss of Greg Harris. It is really a terrible thing to lose Greg. He was a level headed council member who consistently worked to find good solutions and to date has issued the only viable 2010 budget plan that I hope people look at even after Greg leaves office. I hope to see Greg stay around politics in Cincinnati, we need more people like him running for office.

The question from Greg's loss is: what happened? Well, I've done some Ward totals comparison analysis between 2007 and 2009 and I see two trends.

1) The more conservative wards came out in big strength yesterday, especially on the East side with Mt. Washington, Mt. Lookout, and Hyde Park (Wards 1,4,5) with a 6.08%, 4.40%, & 3.85% increase in voter turnout. Key West side wards generally increased between 2 and 3% over 2007 as well, adding to the strength of the former minority 4.

2) African-American Wards generally only moderately increased, or in the case of Avondale (Ward 13), West End/OTR (Ward 17), and the West End (Ward 18) all decreased from 2007, with Ward 18 dropping a whopping -1.21%.

With the increase of conservative voters, liberals like Greg were left off more ballots and with the loss of the African-American voter turnout, Greg was put behind the 8-Ball. Cole's drop also supports this idea, as she was ninth after the final, yet unofficial numbers were reported last night.

In the coming weeks I likely look over the numbers more and compare trends with the Mayor's race and Issue 9.

Election Post-Mortem

The final election results are in. Once again, Roxanne Qualls was the top vote-getter. Greg Harris has been ousted from Council, and Charlie Winburn and Laurie Quinlivan will join the fray. What does all this mean?

First, the political breakdown is as follows: Council now has three Democrats plus a Charterite/Democrat; one independent (Berding); three Republicans; and a Charterite who leans Republican.

Next, the big question is on the 2010 budget. Part of that will depend on what happens with property tax. Crowley and Harris, as lame ducks, could be in favor of ending the property tax "rollback," which would constitute a significant tax increase. If that's so, a tax increase would pass if just three members of the newly constituted Council were in agreement. (The property tax millage must be finalized next week, before the new Council takes office.)

But if the property tax isn't raised, the budget will need to be reduced by around 50 million dollars. I thought Greg Harris had offered a plan that made sense: go to the unions (including the FOP) for concessions in 2010, with reimbursement made in 2011 and 2012. The problem, of course, is that 5 members have apparently made promises that there would be no police or fire layoffs. If they're unwilling to change their positions, then concessions are out of the question. (If I were a union member, and I knew that my employer would not, under any circumstance, reduce the size of its workforce, I'd vote against concessions). That may mean huge cuts in services: parks and recreation; health clinics; reduced trash collection.

I suspect Mayor Mallory learned a lesson as an incumbent executive. He knew he had won the race and, he acknowledges, he didn't campaign very hard. But this race wasn't about him. It was about the Council he'd be working with. Mayor Mallory is an extremely likeable guy who campaigns well. He needed to be on the trail more to support the Dems for Council. This was the first time Mallory was in this position, so the error is certainly understandable. The mayor will come to regret that his coattails weren't a little bit longer this year. But his personality and affability may make him uniquely able to bridge the divisions amongst the current Council to build a majority that can govern sensibly and effectively.

Jeff Berding may be the key to a governing majority. If he wishes to mend fences with the Democratic party, he may join forces with Qualls, Quinlivan, Thomas, and Cole. But he's been treated badly enough that it's unlikely he'll be looking to make peace. Instead, the Council Dems will have to find a way to offer him an olive branch if they wish to garner his vote on important issues.

Council committee chairs are appointed by the mayor, so expect little changes there. That means Cole probably retains the gavel in Finance. But membership (and vice-chairs) are elected by Council, so there should be some shake-ups in the composition of the committees.

Finally, there's one thing I don't understand, perhaps because I've only lived in Cincinnati since 2000: why does Roxanne Qualls do so well in these field races? Don't get me wrong. Qualls is smart as hell, and I enjoy hearing her pontificate on public policy; she resembles liberals who are about 30-40 years older than she is. (Qualls often reminds me of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.) But Qualls isn't terribly charismatic, at least not in the traditional politician sense of the word. And "smart" doesn't always get you very far with the electorate; we live in a county that twice sent George W. Bush to the White House. It's got to be more than mere name recognition. What's the answer? Why does Qualls do so well with so many demographic and geographic groups across the city?