The Fireworks Are Quieter

First, let me express (cautious) excitement about the Reds. They're currently a game above .500, in second place, and just three games behind the Cardinals. Mike Leake is a lot of fun to watch, despite a tough seventh inning tonight.

Now, let me move on to something that's ridiculously trivial, but that has been bothering me anyhow. I've made no secret of where I live: in an apartment building on Fourth Street between Plum and Central. My apartment is in the back of the building, facing the Duke Energy Convention Center.

In past seasons, I could "follow" the Reds in my apartment even without having the game on the radio or the television. If I heard fireworks, I'd flip the TV channel to FSN to see who just hit a home run. If I heard fireworks late enough in the evening, I'd know the Reds had just won. The sound was quite audible, and echoed off the buildings behind my building.

But this year, things are different. I can no longer hear fireworks from GABP. I was wondering if perhaps the Reds were using quieter fireworks, but when I attended a game for the first time this season (the eleven-inning thriller this past Monday), I thought the fireworks were as loud as ever.

My new theory: the Great American Tower is absorbing or deflecting the fireworks noise so that it no longer reaches the western end of downtown.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

And by the way, my previous concern that the Tower could impact games by causing right fielders to drop balls during day games has proven unfounded, as the building doesn't seem shiny enough to create a glare.

The $64 Million Question

Today's Enquirer has a "First in Print" story on the decision facing City Council this week: whether to approve the issuance of $64 million in bonds in the hope that this will be sufficient to attract federal funding for the streetcar. There's apparently some division amongst the streetcar supporters on Council, with some wanting to unconditionally approve the bonds, and others (Berding and Bortz) apparently wanting to hedge the City's bet, conditioning bond issuance on the receipt of federal money.

Mayor Mallory has said that the Council should unconditionally approve the bonds, and insists that the bonds wouldn't be issued by the administration until after the federal dollars come in, anyhow. Of course, under our present system of government, this isn't actually the mayor's decision; the City Manager would be solely responsible for the bond issuance once it's approved by the Council. I believe I've heard Milton Dohoney say that the bonds would wait until after federal financing is in place, but I can't find a link to that right now.

An interesting situation is presented. Mayor Mallory has put this on Council's agenda this week because recently, federal officials have told the City that it needs to have "skin in the game" to get federal money. The thought now is that approving the bonds will be enough, and that next month, the feds will reward the City in its next round of TIGER grants. Of course, the feds make it clear that local financing is no guarantee of federal money, but merely a necessary precondition of it.

So here's the question for streetcar supporters: what if Council unconditionally approves the bonds, and next month, the City again gets passed over? And what if a federal official says that merely approving the bonds isn't enough, that the City needs to actually issue them for the feds to know we're serious? Once again, the feds make no guarantees, just tell us we improve our chances if we issue the bonds. Under those circumstances, should the City place a $64 million bet on federal funds becoming available?

And what if we lose the bet?

New Rendering of Casino Out

A new image of the Casino slated to be opened at Broadway Commons in 2012 has been released. It is an interesting rendering of the building, but this image doesn't appear to show how this building would look with the rest the Downtown backdrop. That's a very important factor. The building needs to fit in with the buildings on an aesthetic level. We can't have a crappy box of drywall as the welcome sign to Downtown at the I-71 entrance.

More on the details of the building is here in the Enquirer.

Friday Night: Click @ CAM

If you are looking for a cool event for a hot May night, put your eyes on Click*, 8PM to 11PM at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Entertainment includes the amazing indie-electronica sounds of You, You're Awesome.

Tickets are $20 before the show, or $30 at the door. So buy your's today!

In Memoriam: Donald Spencer

I just wanted to note my sadness at the passing of Donald Spencer. Mr. Spencer and his wife, Marian, are best described as civil rights icons in Cincinnati. I feel extraordinarily privileged that early in my career, my practice led me to briefly cross paths with the Spencers.

For decades, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer were the civil rights movement in Cincinnati. It's impossible to overstate the importance of their service both to the cause of justice and our community. And in person, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer are the warmest, most caring people you could meet.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Spencer family today. And I hope that today's sad news will cause us all to reflect both on how far we've come in the past half-century, but also on how far we have left to journey.

It's very few people about whom one can say the following: Cincinnati is a better place because Donald and Marian Spencer have spent their lives here.

A Little On The Election

I'm pretending to be a lawyer again today, so I haven't had a chance to go through the canvass report to drill deeply into the numbers. There is one race, though, that I think is worth mentioning: the contest for the Republican nomination for State Representative in the 28th District.

The current office-holder is Democrat Connie Pillich, who was unopposed in her primary. The GOP primary featured four candidates. The winner was Mike Wilson, founder of the Cincinnati Tea Party. Not only did Mike won, but he did so handily, pulling in 44% of the vote and trouncing the "establishment Republicans" who were running.

The significance of this win should not be under-appreciated. The Tea Party has now proven that--at least in a relatively small race (geographically speaking)--it can mobilize its members, get out the vote, and win an election. Overall turnout in the district was low--about 12 percent of Republican voters turned out--but nonetheless, this is an extremely important development in local politics, and one that we should keep an eye on.

**************

And: can we get some UN monitors up to Butler County to monitor their Board of Elections? Every year, it's something new with them.

Election Recap

After a Late Night, here are important results of last night's Election:

Issue #1 Cruised to victory 68% to 32%

Jim Tarbell won the Democratic Nom in the end by a comfortable level: 46%-40%-14% (Tarbell-Thomas-Brown).

Chris Monzel rallied his newly adopted suburbanite neighbors to handily defeat Leslie Ghiz (56.5%-45.5%).

The biggest news and I would call it the surprise of the night: Surya Yalamanchili won the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District over David Krikorian (40%-38%-21%).

I hope all of the candidates and campaign teams can take a short breather, but then the winners can get back to work.

The race for Hamilton County Commissioner is going to be a good one, but the choice is going to be clear: Vote Tarbell.

Tarbell Wins!!!

With 94% of the votes in, Cincinnati Blog is declaring Jim Tarbell the winner!

Election Night Blogging

UPDATE #2: We are on pins and needles but the news is good:
Tarbell 10,520
Thomas 10,240
Brown 3,036

UPDATE #1: Absentee Report for the Dems:
Tarbell: 4,352
Thomas: 4,215
Brown: 1,057

So, I'm about to head down to Arnold's for the Jim Tarbell event and will be setting up shop for the evening. I plan on sitting, eating, drinking, listening, and do some limited blogging from my iPhone. If you want the official results, check out the Hamilton County BOE for the canvass report. If I hear things I can report, I will try to update this post.

Krikorian Has a Future With Amway

No matter what happens today in his primary race for the 2nd Congressional District's Democratic Primary David Krikorian has proven himself worthy of job with Amway by adopting Amway's alleged corporate philosophy.

If you want to know more about what I'm talking about, try Snopes.

When I get to reference Amway (now called Alticor) and I get to link to Snopes.com, you can pretty much consider yourself to be tainted. Krikorian may win today's primary, but his chances of ever winning any public office are slim.

Polls Are Open! Get Out and Vote!

The polls in Ohio are open until 7:30. If you don't know where to vote, then click here to find out if you live in Hamilton County. A few points to know.

• If you voted last year in November and have not moved, you are still registered to vote. 
• If you have never voted in a primary for a particular party, you can ask for a particular party's ballot, which will allow you to vote for the primary races of that party. 
• You can still vote for just the Issues, but getting an issues only ballot.

Bring ID to vote. Here is what is acceptable:

1. Current and valid Ohio driver’s license; or
2. Current and valid photo identification card issued by the State of Ohio or the United States government; or
3. A military identification (“military ID”); or
4. An original or copy of a current utility bill; or
5. An original or copy of a current bank statement; or
6. An original or copy of a current paycheck; or
7. An original or copy of a current government check; or
8. An original or copy of a current other government document.

For more overall questions, check out the Secretary of State's website FAQ.

Primary Predictions?

Who is going to win in the Primaries tomorrow?

For the Democrats:
I would guess Fisher will win for Senate.
I believe Tarbell will win for County Commission.

For the GOP:
I am going to say Monzel will squeak it out over Ghiz, but I think it will be a close race.

Did Thomas Infer Kroger's Actions Were Racist?

The Enquirer's Jane Prendergast has a blog post today updating last week's Council Committee meeting where representatives from the Kroger Company answered questions about their
closing of the Roselawn Kroger.  Here is the quote she includes from Cecil Thomas that prompted the Jeff Berding's comment claiming Thomas was inferring Kroger's actions were racist:

Thomas said, “Maybe I’ll be a little more specific…There is a perception that you’re moving out of the black neighborhoods, the predominantly African-American communities in the inner city. That’s a perception that’s out…that is a reality, I should say, that’s there.”

I would say Thomas's comments were over the top and designed to be confrontational, but don't amount to what Berding is charging.

One Other Thing To Watch Tomorrow

I suspect this blog's readers will be following a couple of races particularly closely: the HamCo Commission races and the Dem primaries for governor and OH-02. But the "under-card" is particularly rife with drama this year, and warrants some attention.

As the Enquirer reported a few weeks ago, during the primary, voters will choose the membership of both parties' central committees, on both the county and state level. The Tea Party* has fielded candidates of its own, mainly for the GOP committees.

The Cincinnati Tea Party seems to be figuring out that the GOP isn't as welcoming to Tea Partiers as the GOP's public pronouncement would lead one to believe. Kevin DeWine and Alex Triantafilou both publicly say that they're happy to see the Tea Party involved in Republican politics. But behind the scenes, both are trying to limit the influence the Tea Party will have on the GOP. The linked post details those efforts on the state level. But those efforts are occurring on the county level, too.

Take a look at tomorrow's ballot (scroll down to page 27). There are a lot of Republicans running for county central committee spots for the first time. Some are Tea Partiers. But a lot more of them are "establishment" Republicans. Many are employed in public service with elected Republicans as their supervisors.

There's clearly an internal struggle going on within the GOP. While they don't want the Tea Party running its own candidates (the best thing that could happen for the Democratic Party, on either a state, local, or national level, would be Tea Party candidates; think Ross Perot), but GOP leaders clearly fear that if the Tea Party has too much of a voice in the GOP's governing committees, current leaders (e.g., party chairs) could lose their positions to newcomers elected by the Tea Party. The establishment GOP/Tea Party rift even became publicly evident at the Mainstay debate the other night, with some harsh words by Chris Monzel for a prominent Democrat and a Tea Partier in the same sentence--though Monzel didn't point out the party affiliation of either person he mentioned. (Apparently, now that Monzel has received the Ohio Tea Party PAC's endorsement, he feels he no longer has any reason to be nice to Tea Party's members.)

The election of the county Democratic central committee is not without drama, either. As we've previously noted (via Howard Wilkinson), Darren Tolliver is challenging Tim Burke for the local party chairmanship. Tolliver is presently the treasurer of the HCDP and was a board member of CincyPAC. The central committee, elected tomorrow, will vote on the chairmanship in the next several weeks. I have no idea whether Tolliver will have the votes, but a wrestling match for the party's gavel hasn't happened around here in quite some time.

So while there are interesting races near the top of the ticket, don't forget to watch the "smaller" races, too. As Tip O'Neill famously quipped, "All politics is local," after all.

*Griff: Come on, man, time to start calling it the Tea Party and its members the Tea Partiers. (Yes, "teabaggers" was a term that its original members used first, without realizing the word's other meaning. But everyone knows the euphemism now.) Even if we disagree with them, they deserve at least to be called by the name they choose. A while back, I called out Alex Triantafilou for using "Democrat" rather than "Democratic" as an adjective. I'm more than a bit hypocritical if I don't call out Griff, too.

More Clear Evidence the Cadillac Ranch Sucks

Liz of the getinmybelly blog has provided a overwelhming documentation that the Cadillac Ranch is an absolutely horrid establishment.

I most readers know the treatment "the ranch" gave to MidPoint Artists last year, but Liz has shown how poorly they treat paying customers.

Questions About Ethics

I find the character assignation of Chris Bortz to be very unfair, but I'm going to sidestep the details of the infamous letter and instead make a few points that are not going to be asked by the the less than honest anti-streetcar foes pushing this issue, nor will it be asked by the Enquirer.

1. Since Chris Bortz owns part of Jeff Ruby's located at 7th and Walnut, if a vote were to come up in Council to fund the re-pavement of 7th Street between Central and Broadway, then should he recuse himself from that vote?
2. Why are Tom Luken, Chris Smitherman, and bandwagoner Justin Jeffre not complaining about the votes Chris Bortz made to fund 3CDC's effort to redevelop downtown, including rehabbing the Metropole, which will clearly benefit the near by Jeff Ruby Steadhouse?
3. Have any of the votes for the funding of the streetcar ever specifically defined in the ordinances the actual route of the Streetcar? I mean literally the route where Luken et al claim it will go near properties owned or operated by Towne Properties?
4. If Chris Monzel where to be elected to County Commission(heaven forbid), would he be required to recuse himself when approving anything that improves or maintains any road around GE?

I never would expect Tom Luken to ask these questions, he's not concerned with truth. Cherry picking issues is his method of choice. I would however like a longer form story from the Enquirer covering what the ethics laws actually say and what each elected official should do to comply with them.

I Thought Chris Bortz Was Smarter Than This.....

You all know about the kerfuffle surrounding Councilmember Chris Bortz's decision to ignore advice from the Ohio Ethics Commission to abstain from votes regarding the streetcar. I have no opinion regarding whether a conflict of interest actually exists. From what I've read, there are cogent arguments on both sides.

(Interestingly, the same streetcar opponents who claim that the streetcar will not spur economic development or prosperity claim that Bortz operates under a conflict because the streetcar will spur economic development and prosperity. But that's probably another post.)

But I do have a strong opinion that Chris Bortz is in need of an IQ- or drug-test. How could he be so short-sighted, particularly regarding an issue that he believes is so vital to the city? Two questions are raised:

1. Why ask for an OEC opinion if you're going to ignore it if you don't get the answer you want?
2. Once you've got the opinion, why continue to participate, particularly since your vote hasn't been needed for passage? Even without Bortz, the streetcar has five votes (Qualls, Quinlivan, Cole, Thomas, and Berding).

Bortz has permitted--begged for, even--a controversy to be manufactured. Of course someone was going to file an ethics complaint. Of course certain people would use this to detract from a debate on the merits of the streetcar.

Chris Bortz has displayed an appalling lack of judgment in this matter, and everyone should be disappointed in him. Streetcar advocates should be angry with him for hurting their cause, regardless of the existence of an actual conflict. And streetcar opponents are upset that he ignored the opinion of the OEC after asking for it. He needs to start doing better by the citizens he represents.

Don't 3C and the Streetcar Need to Work Together?

It's no secret that I am no more than lukewarm about the prospect of a streetcar in Cincinnati. (Though it may seem odd to some of you, some info about Kenosha's experience is perhaps bringing back to supporting the streetcar.) And I actually don't like the proposed "3C" train. (I'm not sure who decides to take a three-hour train ride to Columbus from Cincinnati when your car gets you there in half that time. I'd consider the six-hour trip to Cleveland, depending on the reason for my trip.) If federal money becomes available for the streetcar, though, it appears both will be foisted on us. My question: shouldn't they connect?

City Council recently agreed to recommend that a site on Laidlaw in Bond Hill be the Cincinnati terminal of the 3C line, at least until Union Terminal becomes a viable option--and that could be two decades away. So what happens when a passenger arrives at the Bond Hill station? Remember, that's north of the Norwood Lateral. How do you get to downtown? Or Clifton? Or anywhere else?

Given that the federal government has agreed to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to passenger rail in Ohio, wouldn't it be a good idea for the city to make a streetcar pitch that is connected to that investment? Terminating the train in Bond Hill creates a real danger of a "train to nowhere." So why not pitch the government on not only funding the streetcar, but funding an expanded version of it now, reaching all the way into Bond Hill to connect the new train line with both downtown and Uptown?

Below is my proposed streetcar route. Note that I have the streetcar jog west to Spring Grove. That's because if it went straight up Vine Street, it would pass through St. Bernard, and I have no idea whether St. Bernard would support the extension of the streetcar through its boundaries.

Well?


View Donald's Streetcar proposal in a larger map

Tarbell Gets It: Arts Means Jobs

Enquirer Endorsements for Hamilton County Commissioner Primaries

Well, while much of the Enquirer's Reporting has begun to reflect the importance and value of the City, their Editorial Board clings to the folly that people outside the City would be better at City-County relations, than current and former City Council members. What that translates to is that the Suburban centric Enquirer Editorial board somehow thinks the rest of the county knows how to run a county better than the biggest player does. The folly in this idea is that the rest of the county has two concepts that are paramount: 1) Everyone for themselves, where each small town takes care of itself, and 2) The City Is the Enemy, where the city is either the cause of the problem or the place to dump their problems.

Endorsing Hubert Brown in the Democratic Primary sounds more like a strategic move to anger Thomas, Tarbell, and the Democratic establishment, rather than a reflection of the best candidate.

Jim Tarbell is the best candidate out of the three. That is clear from any logically perspective and Jim has far more ability to embrace the rest of the County than Brown would for the City, a place I don't know how much he knows about.

Cecil Thomas has just been phoning it in. His lack of commitment to the primary and his penchant for appealing to arch conservatives makes him the worst of the three.

Picking Ghiz over Monzel is no surprise. What is more interesting is the rosy picture they painted of Leslie Ghiz as being "politically savvy" and having "tough solutions." Well, if you think it was politically savvy to do nothing but hide in the shadow of the FOP and offer ZERO solutions to the City's budget problems last year, then I guess someone must be confusing the real dictionary with the fake dictionary. Also, in the campaign, Ghiz has been the one rather quiet, while Monzel has been the political grandstanding champion. What I guess is "savvy" about Ghiz is that she did all of her grandstanding last year, while Monzel's grandstanding looks more forced than hers does, being so close to an election.