Stadium Fund 'Deal' Reached by the County

Hamilton County Commission passed a deal to fund the gap in the Stadium fund. That deal included some concessions from and incentives for the Bengals and Reds. The deal mostly fills the gap by reducing the amount of the Property Tax rollback. It is a deal that got the job done, not a wonderful deal for anyone but the Bengals and Reds, who got of pretty easy. It is a deal that Jim Tarbell would have gotten done, but one Chris Monzel (on the surface) would never have voted for because he says he would rather destroy things than have the citizens chip in to save their county.

There is trouble ahead for the Poor, I fear, when reading this from the Enquirer article:

"Commissioner Greg Hartmann – who will be the board’s president next year and in the majority – committed the board to cutting all county levies next year, which would reduce property taxes."

So Hartman likely will go after the funds from the tax levy passed by the voters of Hamilton County to fund indigent health care. Tax cuts will trump life for the Poor. Got to love the logic of that. "Let them Eat Cake" is what must be stamped on Hartman's forehead. With the Monzel willing to destroy any and all parts of the county, Hartman will have the second vote he needs. If Hartman means to cut other levies the voters of Hamilton County passed, then the public good will be hurt, all for the sake of a little bit of money. The short term profit and appeasement of the greedy shouldn't be allowed to undermind the structure of a viable society. When you have a moat around your Mcfiefdom, I guess you don't care.

Joe Noriega Deters Appears To Be Our 'Dear Leader' Now

Well, I thought we lived in a land where the rule of law was followed by our elected officials. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters doesn't follow the rule of law and instead he has put himself in charge of running the Hamilton County Board of Elections.

Funny, I don't recall Joe Deters being allowed to break the tie of the Board of Elections. I thought Ohio Law stated the Secretary of State did that.

Hey Deters, keep your nose out of the BOE unless directed to do that by the BOE or the SOS or by an applicable court. Being the Prosecutor doesn't make you King. Not even a Burger King. Not even a Little King(s).

Republican Mike Wilson Is Paying To Be Racist

So Republican and 'Tea Party' candidate Mike Wilson is paying for a partial recount in the 28th House district election. I'm at a loss for words at how to describe how a man would be willing to pay $255 to be a racist. How's that, you may ask? How is this racism? Well, it's a bit of a repeat from his efforts before, but Wilson has picked 5 precincts to recount. ONLY Five. All just happen to be overwhelmingly African-American. All of the precincts being recounted just happened to go strongly in favor of the Democratic candidate.

Blue Ash Precinct 2-C went 65% to 31% in favor of the Democratic candidate. It WAS NOT one of the precincts being recounted under the wide reaching plan of Mike Wilson, who, looking for odd things, picked a bunch of majority Black groups and doesn't trust that Board of Elections correctly counted those votes the two times they were previously counted. I would think Mike might be concerned with Blue Ash 2-C, since it is the only precinct in Blue Ash that voted majority Democratic, the rest went for him. Why didn't he pick on Blue Ash? Oh, wait. Blue Ash is full of white people...right...the People of Blue Ash can be trusted to have the same people at the Board of Election, who counted all of his questionable votes, count their votes two times, instead of three.

This just all makes total sense to be. I'll be able to explain Wilson's lawsuit claiming that his vote wasn't counted enough times.  That will be easy and I didn't even have to push a button.

Gobble! Gobble!!

Happy Thanksgiving Day!!

Eat, Drink, and be Safe!

New Math At the Enquirer: Is It the Ghiz Formula?

I am not sure what math courses Enquirer reporter Jane Prendergast took in school, but in this article on the City Budget she has defined a new way to determine a Minority and Majority:

Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz, in the minority on budget issues and therefore often less in the know, went to City Solicitor John Curp on Monday after Acting Fire Chief Mike Kroeger wouldn't provide details on the number of layoffs and other cuts his department proposed to Dohoney.

Ghiz, Monzel, Winburn, Bortz, and Berding have voted together on most budget related issues. There isn't a majority that is agreeing on anything at the present, but those Five have been the new Fiscal Five and five is the majority on council. Ghiz was part of the old five, too, but who's counting?

Ghiz's real problem is that she isn't playing fair nor doing her homework. Why should the City Manager give any information to Ghiz? She's not bothered to come up with any ideas on how to make meaningful cuts and her current and past grandstanding efforts make any information she gets her hands on the fuel for the spin machine, no matter how out of context she puts it.

This is a tough budget cycle and their are going to be cuts. It would have good for Ghiz to have done some homework a little sooner.

Tom Callinan, Enquirer Editor Retiring At Year's End

The Enquirer has announced the retirement of Tom Callinan as Editor of the Enquirer. I wish to thank Tom for doing a difficult job well. He, I believe, has done his best to hold the line in favor of journalism against the dark business forces. The Enquirer is a very thin paper these days, and signs ahead point towards even less journalism. I've not agreed with many of the directions of the Enquirer over the last 10 years I been watching closely, but every time Callinan acted, he came across as an honorable man in a shrinking honorable profession.

I am very glad Tom is sticking around Cincinnati to work at UC. I hope he can instill a sense of traditional journalism into the students, before the ideas of journalism die completely.

For more on Tom Callinan's retirement check out CityBeat or the GannettBlog.

The next game will be seeing who get's Callinan's job. Many think there are three internal contenders. Who ever gets the job will have a mountain to climb and not much time to make it to the summit.

CEA Winners Announced

CityBeat's annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards took place on Sunday night and the winners show the strength of Cincinnati's music scene.

Mike Breen has an account, something close to a play by play of the night.

I was unable to attend the awards show, but the photos put the Grammmys to shame!

With the merger of the Theatre CEAs with the Acclaim awards, should the Music CEAs take on a more musical name? CMA is already taken, however, so I don't know if there's as good of an acronym out there.