MIAMI 59, XU 57

Love and honor to Miami,
Our college old and grand,
Proudly we shall ever hail thee,
Over all the land.

Alma mater now we praise thee,
Sing joyfully this lay,
Love and honor to Miami,
Forever and a day.

Read about it here.

Much Ado?

Jason Haap is frothing at the mouth about something that one of his nutty candidate friends quickly saw in a document from the BOE. I wonder if what Michael Earl Patton saw was the canvass report from the BOE which listed the vote totals from each precinct. The total ballots cast listed there are 50,017. This is different than the total results which included the absentee ballots, which totaled 59,246. The difference in ballots cast are some 9,229. Is this difference Jason refers to when he stated:

It seems about 9,000 less votes were actually cast than originally reported.

The Canvass report did come out after the total results were listed, so it does fit. The Canvass report doesn't include absentee votes and the total number of votes cast in canvass document matches the number cast on the total document. Unless Jason has a different document, then he and Michael Earl Patton appear to have made a very foolish mistake. No, that would not be a surprise.

Teen Club?

Ok, what teen club is near the intersection of Main and 12th Streets? Are we talking about a rented out club? Club Red maybe? Also, when the newspaper says "teens" do they mean over or under age 18 year olds?

Why wasn't the club named? Someone planned a teen night and didn't control things at all. They are lucky no one was hurt, at least no reports on that were made in the paper. If someone was hurt, the paper certainly would have made that known.

The last thing Main Street needs are teenagers. Please, oh please, keep the kids out of an adult entertainment area.

Help Wanted

I'm in need of guest bloggers. If you have the desire to chime in on this blog with a limited form of semi-autonomy, send me an email at cincyblog at aol.com.

The Blue Wisp Plays On

New owners of the Cincinnati Jazz institution plan on carrying on the tradition of the club, with some newness.

"Bloggers?"

Greg Korte of the Enquirer is claiming:

"The issue made it to the ballot when an unusual coalition of bloggers, the NAACP and conservative anti-tax groups collected more than 38,000 valid signatures in order to put the tax to a referendum.

OK, bloggers plural? What blog beyond the Beacon supported, in more than lip service, the anti-jail tax petition? Also, how on earth do "bloggers" get top billing over the NAACP and the nuts in COAST?

I think Greg's bow tie was a little too tight on Tuesday night. I thought about getting a picture of him and post it, but the Less Nessman headline I was thinking of would have been just too snarky.

Voter Turnout Low

The voter turnout in the County was down slightly from 2005, but in the City Voter turnout dropped significantly:

County:
2007 - 34.14%
2005 - 35.87%
Change - 1.73% Decrease

City of Cincinnati:
2007 - 27.91%
2005 - 35.23%
Change - 7.32% Decrease

On Issue 27 this shows that the anti-tax faction got their base out in force. It is difficult to get a motivated electorate to come out in mass in an effort to raise taxes.

Counting Irregularities

The most in your face story from last night was clearly the screw ups with counting the votes. First of all, does anyone wonder why a paper trail is absolutely critical to any voting system?

Secondly, why the hell did it really take this long? Who was unprepared? Were the poll workers not trained correctly? I would surmise that may have only been a small issue. It sounds like to me the real issue was how the counting programming was set up. It was a BOE problem. Someone needs to either get new a new system, or get someone who knows how to operate the system they have. This is not the first election in which they used this new voting system.

While they are at it, could the HC BOE get a new website? Could they put the results online in a form other than a pdf? Why can't they also give real time precinct detail? Also, why can't I find a listing of the Cincinnati precinct locations online? Hell, I'd take a map of the wards to know where they are? I was personally very displeased with the efforts of local election officials. Cincinnati will again be part of the Ohio swing state mess that certainly will fall upon us in 2008.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

I don't believe anyone predicted that all incumbents would keep their jobs. I am very surprised that Ghiz, Berding, and Monzel all stayed on council. Here are the results:

John Cranley 32,663
Roxanne Qualls 32,648
David C. Crowley 30,112
Cecil Thomas 26,206
Chris Bortz 25,677
Leslie Ghiz 24,163
Laketa Cole 23,853
Jeff Berding 22,906
Chris Monzel 22,712
Charlie Winburn 21,267
Minette Cooper 18,141
Sam Malone 16,767
Melanie Bates 14,863
Pat Fischer 14,570
Greg Harris 13,734
John Eby 13,684
Wendell Young 13,432
Brian Garry 12,710
Joan Kaup 8,184
Andre Harper 7,223
Justin Jeffre 7,065
Mitch Painter 4,944
Steve Pavelish 4,058
Michael Earl Patton 3,025
George Zamary 2,112

This election is one where analysis of which Wards/Precincts voted and who voted for which candidate is going to be looked at with intense research.

Coming Down to the End

As of now I am resting my laurels for a while and grabbing dinner before heading over to the BOE. The polls are open for a just over an hour an hour. What's the feeling on turnout today? What issues are going to pass or fail?

Ok, the CCV are Irrelevant, but....

We can learn about at least one councilman's views on evolution. I don't really care what Monzel thinks on social issues, as long as he doesn't make them into law. In the poorly written question he gives a bad answer. Chris is a good guy with just many, many bad and oppressive stances on social issues.

Is the CCV actually losing all of its influence in the city? In the questionnaire referenced in the The Bellwether Daily only two council candidates are listed on the as having responded to the survey. I mean, where is Charlie Winburn and Sam Malone's response? Sam Malone carried the CCV's water in their crusade to oppress gays and lesbians in the City. Sam can't be bothered with the CCV? Or does the CCV not want to associate itself with a guy who allegedly whipped his son with a belt. I think I can take away the allegedly part, but I am going to be on the safe side.

City Link Winning?

Kevin Osborne of CityBeat reports on a court win for the Cit Link group.

Vote Early, And Often

Ah, that saying never gets old! Well the polls are open and will be open in Ohio until 7:30 tonight.

Chime in with your voting experiences. So far it is cold and Sunny out. The forecast via weather.com states:

A mix of clouds and sun with gusty winds. Much cooler. High 48F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph.

So, there is no excuse to not get out there an vote.

Council Predictions 2007 - Final Round

Ok, it is time for the final installment of council predictions. Today, I'm going to make a full prediction, including order of finish. Other than the top few, I have no real way to know who will get on, and the order of finish is nearly always a surprise. I'm making my guesses based most only my gut. I couldn't afford a crack staff of 25 analysts this year. Sorry about that, maybe next year for the big election. Anyway, here is what I say will happen:

John Cranley
Roxanne Qualls
David Crowley
Chris Bortz
Laketa Cole
Charlie Winburn
Chris Monzel
Cecil Thomas
Greg Harris
Leslie Ghiz
Jeff Berding
Minette Cooper
John Eby
Joan Kaup
Sam Malone
Melanie Bates
Pat Fischer
Wendell Young
Brian Garry
Andre Harper
Justin Jeffre
George Zamary
Mitch Painter
Michael Earl Patton
Steve Pavelish

Voter turnout will be the key factor this year, with the last few to get on council still up in the air. The two in the top that could really move are Cole and Winburn. Cole will unfortunately likely still win. She could drop like a rock to 7th or 8th place. Winburn could move up, depending on voter turnout and if he is keeping both the Conservative and Black votes he has had before.

I'll be doing more blogging tomorrow during the day. Keep me posted on any voting problems. This is another year where we have to have ID to vote. I just moved, and I have the electric bill as back-up ready to go!

Does First Place Matter This Year?

Other than for ego, will coming in first place for City Council actually do anything for the candidate? For Cranley or Qualls will be number get them anything? I would guess that Crowely will remain Vice Mayor. Will they get better committee chairs? The article makes the point that convention wisdom states that the top vote getter can use the status being number one to get higher office. Would Cranley or Qualls run for Mayor next time around? Will Cranley take on DeWine for the County Commission? Yes, I'm looking ahead, but Cranley and Qualls are going to win, so we can start looking ahead for them.

More on the the Murder on Main

Yes, the alliteration is a bit much, but here's a story on the murder near 12th and Main on Wednesday night. This article reports that police are investigating the possibility that the shooting stemmed from an argument inside Club Red. Was Club Red even open that night?

More on the Brink

Get the lowdown on the Brink music showcase tomorrow night, including a nice background on the bands from the organizer of the fest, Dan McCabe.

Takedown of Winburn and Malone

In case you missed it, here's the website that exposes certain sides of Charlie Winburn and to a degree Sam Malone. Malone is toast anyway, so this really hits more on Winburn and his extreme odd church.

CityBeat Council Endorsements

I am somewhat surprised by some of CityBeat's Endorsements. Here they are:
Chris Bortz
Laketa Cole
John Cranley
David Crowley
John Eby
Brian Garry
Greg Harris
Joan Kaup
Roxanne Qualls

I am a little bit surprised, but pleased they support John Eby. I disagree on some issues with John, but he is a good guy, and is the best Republican in the field.

I am very surprised about Laketa Cole. Even without her recent Drama, she's not been a good council member, and how she's been working with the fiscal five should turn her off from the usual CityBeat philosophy.

I am also surprised CityBeat has a very white slate. I think Cecil Thomas is worthy of consideration, even with his conservative social views. With CityBeat's choices as cover, I might be able to avoid some of the White Guilt crowd's anger when I say this year there is a clear lack of good minority candidates. There by comparison an increased number of non-minority quality Urbanist-Progressive candidates attractive to CityBeat. This does not fit the demographics of the city, however. Does this bode well for the future?

More Thugs on Main?

I think I saw a couple of cop cars fly down my street last night racing towards Main, but I didn't notice a crowd at all. They didn't run down 12th Street my way. With another murder on Main two things need to happen. Firstly, the corner of 12th and Main needs to be cleaned up. Station a cop there all the time. Drive out the criminals. The Jordan attracts criminals. The section 8 housing on Main and 12th needs better management to get the problem people out or in jail when they break the law.

Secondly, if the clubs down there are at all to blame for bringing in stupid wannabe gang bangers. It is a rather simple thing, don't cater to the thugs. Do promote gang life, don't glorify it and the thug will stay away.

What is funny, if I hadn't read about this today, I wouldn't have know this happened 2 blocks from where I live. Who would ever have guessed that 12th and Vine is far safer than 12th and Main Street?