The West Chester Kroger Was Robbed at Gun Point, But Shhhh!

I'm not sure how much panic ran through the streets when the West Chester Kroger on Tylersville Road was robbed at gun point earlier this week. The Enquirer sure isn't helping fuel the panic. The Enquirer didn't allow comments to it's very, very short story on this incident. So we instead got next to nothing, a footnote.

The Website Westchesterbuzz.com (owned by the Enquirer) had a story about it. That link, however, comes up with a not found error, but it is still on Google's cache and can be read here. The blog postreferences  a Pulse-Journal story I couldn't find there, but instead found on the Hamilton-Journal site, which lists more details and this gem of a fact:

Tombragel (Police Officer) said the suspect took off on foot following the incident, but it remains unknown if there was a getaway vehicle. This is the first time in Tombragel’s 14-year career that the West Chester Kroger has been robbed.

So, in other words this would be NEWS WORTHY, something out of the ordinary. Something people living in that community should know and read about.

If an inner-city or even an older inner-suburb Kroger was robbed, wouldn't the Enquirer have a banner headline with a long story outlining the crime problem in that city or community? At least they would have more than a tiny bare boned story.  Does anyone at the Enquirer follow crime news in West Chester or do they only report in detail the good or sentimental news from West Chester?

I guess a story about a Kroger being robbed in West Chester the same day hometown boy John Boehner took office as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, wouldn't look good. A Kroger getting robbed for the first time in at least 14 years in the exurban Congressional District of the Speaker of the House on the same day he took office, isn't something worth at least a full story in the same newspaper providing live Twitter updates of the Speaker's swearing in ceremony.

The Eqnuirer certainly appears to be spinning crime news to make exurbanites feel safer.  That's quality Journalism, for ya.

UPDATE: As a commenter pointed out, the story appeared to have been posted on the WestChesterBuzz.com.  The only story that came up on Google is the "old" one I posted originally.

A Bit More Negative Snark Metromixed In?

The Enquirer's Metromix articles generally are not reviews, as I (or any Food or Entertainment Critic) would define them, but this story about the new trendy club Lunar by Rich Shivener has more snark than we usually get. I like the snark. I like progress Downtown, but let's get serious, I really don't like that kind of club. (Not that there's anything "wrong" with it.)

Molly Wellmann To Open Bar on Main Street in OTR

Kate the Great has the big news concerning local mixologist phenom Molly Wellmann's new bar on Main Street set to open in early summer. Wellmann plans to open up Japps at 1134 Main Street along with part of the ownership team of Neons.

Over-the-Rhine Pretzel Fest January 21st

The Over-the-Rhine Pretzel Fest, a benefit for the 2011 Bockfest, rises up on Friday January 21st, 2011 from 5 to 10 PM at Venue 222 (222 E 14th St). A $35 ticket price will get you exclusive tastings of a variety of freshly baked pretzels from local restaurants and bakeries. Add in a brat and a couple of drinks and the evening is full for this year's first benefit for annual Bock Beef Festival.

Special events include the Arnold’s Bathtub Raffle and the Ultimate Bockfest Weekend Raffle. Entertainment will be provided by the Cincinnati Dancing Pigs, a groups of musicians no strangers to beer. Get out and support a rowdy event , Bockfest, which takes place this year from March 4th through the 6th.

The Young Urban Four

Soapbox included a section this week in its article listing the Ten Things To Watch in 2011 on four young candidates for Cincinnati City Council: Jason Riveiro, Chris Seelbach, PG Sittenfeld, and Yvette Simpson.

All four have a connection to the Downtown/OTR area. I've been listening to those who want to through out everyone on council, impractical and improbable as is may sound. I wouldn't mind seeing all Four of these candidates on council. That isn't a political reality, unless all manage some campaign miracles, but it is a good sign to see people stepping up and joining the process. Conventional Wisdom states none of these Four will be in the top Nine in November's election, but all, if they run a solid campaign and place well, move closer to a 2013 win if they keep their organizations together.

I give out this advice every council election to new candidates, which doesn't mean it is impossible to win your first time running (See Chris Bortz), but it takes lots of money and lots of political dichotomies to win. Neither is easy to gain or manage. I hope all Four stick it out.

New Online News Magazine to Serve the Cincinnati Area GBLT Community

The Cincinnati Business Courier is reporting on a new non-profit website, TriStatePride.org, recently started to serve the Gay and Lesbian community. Editor Troy May wrote on the purpose for creating the online magazine.

TriStatePride.org is our first of many minority publications. Since the Tri-State area has never had a professional magazine covering the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and progressive community, I thought it was an ideal area to launch our first publication.

My hope is that this online magazine will inform, inspire and unit the local gay and progressive community to rally together like never before in history. What would help is for the gay, bisexual and transgender people in this area is to read about the successes of others in our community. After people read these stories, I hope they get a powerful injection of pride, self confidence and comfort with who they are today.

You can depend on TriStatePride.org to always be honest, fair and ethical as we report on the community. At the same time, our goal is to highlight people who are successfully ‘living out loud’ in the Tri-State.

The site covers a wide range or topic, including politics, arts & Culture, Business, Relationships, and family stories. A recent article had local reactions on the repeal of DADT.

Amy Murray Picked to Fill Empty Seat

The Hamilton County GOP didn't do anything stupid last night and instead unanimously picked Amy Murray to fill Chris Monzel's open City Council Seat.

It will be interesting to watch how the Hyde Park Republican starts out. She was able to miss the conflict ridden days of last week. I'm hoping in the coming months she doesn't add to the conflict and instead looks for compromises that can help fix the impending budget crisis that exists at the end of the 2011. Yes, it exists now, so why not start mentioning it?

Carolyn Washburn is the New Editor at the Enquirer

The Cincinnati Enquirer has named Carolyn Washburn as the new editor of the Gannett daily.

I've not heard much about her, other than what the Gannett Blog has posted recently, which is that she previously worked for Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan while at the Idaho Statesman.

I don't know what any editor can do to face down the business side of the business that has been draining reporters from the newsroom for years, but we shall see.

So, Anyone Think Amy Murray Will NOT Fill Monzel's Seat?

WVXU has a story today reporting that the Hamilton County Republican Committee will be meeting tonight to select someone to fill Chris Monzel's Cincinnati City Council Seat. Leslie Ghiz and Charlie Winburn 'offically' get the appointment, but they are expected to do what the county party wants.

Great, the anti-City Republicans (which in my opinion make up about 90% of local Republican Party officials) get to pick who will serve on City Council. I would love to know how many voting tonight actually live in the city. That would be a great news item for a professional reporter to dig up.

Amy Murray was the next highest Republican vote getter in the 2009 election and would be the fair and logical choice. The tone in the media and the actions of Mrs. Murray indicate she is the front runner. I have heard that many or at least a powerful few in the local GOP want Brad Wenstrup, the failed 2009 Republican Mayoral candidate. I've not heard his name mentioned for a while, and he may no longer want the job, but as Ghiz referenced in the article, it wouldn't be the first time the local GOP screwed over a woman Republican. If Murray is not the pick, Ghiz should stand up to the outsiders in her party and nominate Murray. I don't know how it would work if she and Charlie Winburn don't agree, but I would hope Charlie wouldn't stand to see someone who worked for it, not get what is fairly their's. Yet, no one can actually trust Winburn, and Winburn's buddy, Sam Malone, was the person who denied Ghiz's appointment back in 2005, in favor of Chris Monzel. If I were Amy Murray, I wouldn't trust anyone.

UPDATE: The Enquirer Politics Extra blog is reporting there are Five candidates being interviewed tonight by the 40 member GOP committee. They are: Amy Murray, Lamont Taylor, Wayne Lippert, Jr., Sam Malone, and Mike Robison. Reportedly, Brad Wenstrup isn't being interviewed. That makes Four ways the GOP could screw over Murray. If anyone on the committee votes for Sam Malone, please name them publicly, so they may be ridiculed appropriately.

UPDATE #2: The Enquirer's Politics Extra blog has an update on Brad Wenstrup. He's out of the mix for the council seat and says he was his choice.

So...'We Demand a Vote,' Where's the Outrage about $809M?

The I-74 expansion is thoroughly described by UrbanCincy's Jake Mecklenborg. It is a plan that does nothing but continue our transportation system down the high cost wasteful path we have been on for 60 years.

I've yet to year the coalition of groups, called "We Demand a Vote," come out with a press release denouncing this boondoggle and demanding that the Citizens of Hamilton County vote to approve any spending for building new or upgrading existing roads. This new road will not pay for itself and there is no budget for its maintenance and operation in either the City, County, or State budgets.

After all, its not like anyone on the West Side is going to ever travel to the East Side (or visa versa).

So I expect to see a new ballot issue to require the citizens vote on this plan prior to spending a dime on it. I don't just expect to see, I demand to see it. (Cough, cough)

City Council Approves Budget, Ghiz Throws a Rock in a Glass House

The Cincinnati City Council finally approved a budget for 2011. The deal nearly fell apart after Cecil Thomas and Charlie Winburn temporarily pulled their support over curtailing the Marijuana ordinance. I'm not actually clear what the budget could do to actually repeal the ordinance. I am inferring that they cut the budget for enforcement of the law, but did not overturn the law. The details of the whole plan are quiet sketchy and clearly Thomas and Winburn didn't understand it and only relented after some lobbying from the Mayor. If they did actually repeal the Marijuana ordinance, that's the one good thing to come from this mess.

Leslie Ghiz spewed a gem

"'There are five members of council who won't part with a thing,' she said."

by "thing" I presume she means the non-public safety workers. Trash Collectors must be things in her world. Things can be dumped in the hands of the private sector to be consumed and destroyed. Cops and Fire Fighters are not things in her world. They are gods, that must be appeased all costs. They are not be touched. Not one god can lose their job. That would bring an end to all that is holy. By holy in this case I mean endorsements and conservative voter support, which for some reason isn't considered sacrilegious, even in the slightest. Leslie shouldn't complain about not cutting 'a thing' when there was massive chunk of the budget she refused to cut, even though the evidence shows they should be. I guess she has the "do what I say, not what I do" part of being a mother down pat.

City Council Found a Way to Punt, AGAIN!

Call it election year gaming,call it gutless, but after basically no one on Council could agree on an honest budget, we got a budget that repeats last year's short term thinking. We punt.

Terrible idea.

In other words we got a big pile of steamy poop.

Politics rules again. Fear of the FOP and Fire Fighter's unions ruled, again. We had multiple council members willing to fire all of the garbage collectors, but not touch the CPD or CFD staff levels at all. That is not honest, that is appeasement to special interest. Refusing to raise fees for trash collection because you want to push through an ideological concept, isn't responsible governance, it a political ploy.

A handful of social service cuts (Pools, school nurses) and a cut to Police overtime, which a couple of years ago wasn't even used, and then the city raids other funds for a ONE TIME FIX.

What that means is unless money falls from the sky, we will be right back where we are this time next year.

We are unfortunately going to get 10 months full of bullshit and hollow political stunts where Ghiz and Winburn will promise the moon and the stars, then in the case of Ghiz put forth no plan and in the case of Winburn be the person who made the steamy pile of poop we got this year, happen again.

Monzel ends his tenure as a City Council member without contributing anything to the City.

As for the rest of council, I am disappointed. The only one making a strong case was Laure Quinlivan. She stood up to the FOP and Fire Fighter's union, pushing both union's leaders to get ejected from Council Committee meeting for disruption. Her ideas were good, but I think her lack of political experience showed in her in ability to muster public support for her plan to cut the excess police staff, something we should do.

There are now clear issues for candidates to run on for election next year. The problem is that few candidates will have the guts to discuss those issues honestly and specifically.

If anyone is paying attention, they might spend some time learning about the candidates and voting for people who would not be afraid to actually make real choices and not use hard economic times to push through selective ideological ideas.

So What Do You Make of Porkappolis?

A new local social media application is out for the iPhone and it is for Cincinnati. It's called Porkappolis, and it's from the Enquirer. If you want it, you need to go to the AppStore on your iPhone and sign-up. At this point, the website is only a place holder.

Picture a localized FourSquare and you have Porkappolis, at least in a nut shell. I've signed up for it and checked in at a whopping one location, which I created myself. I copied a place I created on FourSquare, I'm so original. Porkappolis doesn't stray far from FourSquare's functionality. I don't know yet what makes it better.

Greg Sterling at www.screenwerk.com comments on the new app and is optimistic.

Is Kathy Harrell Possessed By Kabaka Oba?

It has been over four years since Kabaka Oba was gunned down outside City Hall, but his spirit clearly is living inside local FOP President Kathy Harrrell. No, seriously, Harrell is possessed by Kabaka Oba. When she got thrown out of a City Council Committee meeting yesterday for being disruptive, nothing short of Kabaka Oba's spirit entering Harrell's body and taken over her actions can explain it.

A Piece of Coal For City Council

The City will not be getting a nice gift wrapped 2011 budget under the tree this year. Instead we get more bickering, contradictions, and lack of planning. I think it is time for the mayor to come in and knock a few heads together, assuming he still has any pull left. If not, we will headed towards a New Year's Eve showdown.

I still don't understand how Leslie Ghiz can be out to protect police and fire union jobs, but more than willing to crush the unionized trash collection workers with the effort to outsource trash collection. I can understand how she might believe ONLY police and fire functions should be provided by the government, a position held by extreme right wing politician, but why the hypocrisy in support for only some union jobs? If she is wiling to outsource part of city services, why not outsource it all? Why have a government at all? (Yes, I am asking rhetorical questions.)

Ghiz and others on council are using the budget crisis as cover to push their goal of outsourcing many government run public services. This has been a long standing political point of many Republicans, and trying to force it through now is far more distasteful then trying to offload the patrol function of the police on the Sheriff. At least the plan to outsource police patrols was vetted with the Hamilton County Sheriff and current police would have good opportunity to keep a job. No plan would exist with the outsourcing of trash collection.

The Enquirer Editorial Board is not pleased with the city council's lack of progress.

I really hope this Cincy Cop is on the layoff list

Seniority likely will rule who gets laid off in the Cincinnati budget cuts, but this cop needs to go. If he's not laid off, then he should be booted off the force without question as soon as possible.

Celebrate Arnold's 150th Birthday on New Year's Day

Cincinnati's oldest bar, Arnold's Bar & Grille, is celebrating 150 years of serving great food and drinks.  Come out New Year's Day night (January 1st) at 6PM for birthday specials and .  In addition, enjoy for the first time the Arnold’s 1861 Porter from Christian Moerlien, the first beer brewed at their newly opened Over-the-Rhine brewery. Here's more of the details:

On New Years Day, Saturday January 1st, Arnold’s and Christian Moerlein are having a Birthday Bash to honor Arnold’s 150th year of continuous operation. We are more than honored to announce that this will also be the release of Arnold’s 1861 Porter, the first beer brewed in Christian Moerlein’s new Brewery in Over The Rhine. We are not shooting for some fancy-shmancy anniversiary party. We want to have a blowout for everyone. For this duel event, 12 oz drafts are just 1.50 in honor of our 150th year. Keeping with the 1.50 theme Arnold’s will also have a 1.50 specials menu. On the menu, hamburgers, veggie burgers, french fries, Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Vegetarian Spaghetti and Marinara. That is not a typo, all will be just 1.50. You can effectively get an entire gut-busting meal and several craft beers for under ten bucks. Oh, and did I mention? Free Cake! A Birthday party is nothing without free cake. Keeping with the party theme, The Cincinnati Dancing Pigs are on stage from 8-10 singing all the drinking songs that they are known so well for. This is just an event for Cincinnati’s oldest tavern to say Thank You to Cincinnati for keeping this old codger around so long. So please come celebrate with us. For those that can’t wait for the new beer, we also will be making it available at midnight on New Years Eve at the stroke of Midnight, for the same 1.50 special price.

Enjoy entertainment from the Cincinnati Dancing Pigs from 8 to 10 PM. Even if you are hung-over from New Year's Eve, you can have a dish of spaghetti or a burger and porter.

What a Fucking Circus, What a Fucking Mess

I am not sure if I have ever seen the Cincinnati City Council be more like a three ring circus, but Tuesday's antics rank up there with the most pathetic in my memory.

Today we don't have any better action.

Where were all of these new plans six months ago?

I have to just ask everyone on Council to please just cut the crap and layoff the Police and Fire Department staff that have been called for in the City Manager's plan. No more false promises,  no more gimmicks, no more pie in the sky dreams.

Gutting all of the rest of the City Services will not erase the city's problems, instead they will get worse. Protecting specific voting blocks(FOP Boosters) is not going to win anyone more votes. None of the other plans are thought out enough to actually work. We are heading into a grandstanding zone when there are about 9 days to get this done. Some of these plans have ideas worth exploring, but that should have been started last December when the new Council began it's current term. We now will face an election year with every candidate promising magic beans in every pot. I'd like some truth and honesty from the current council. There is some there, but not 5 or 6 votes worth.

The worst idea I heard, was the idea to borrow capital funds. Who in the right mind wants to punt layoffs another year? Oh, Monzel was part of that, go figure.

I really wish ego wasn't such a driving force behind so many on council. If the egos were checked at the chamber door, why might not have all of these last minute half-assed plans that don't even add up.

Side Note: Is Charlie Winburn a 7 year old kid? He seems to like to pretend that math is not real and you can not cut anything or get more revenue yet still make the budget balance. If he is planning on performing an exorcism on the City Budget, I really hope he can get it broadcast on local TV. That would be entertainment.

UPDATE: My reading on the capital funding was wrong, updated above.

It Sounds Like a Trial Balloon and It's Losing Air Quickly

Three members of City Council with One non-committal member on the fence, put forth a budget plan that includes a transformation of the Cincinnati Police Department. In some form, details are not really known, it either merges the CPD with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department, or subcontracts the patrols of CPD to the Sheriff's Department. Either way it would shift police officers to the Sheriff's Department at presumably lower pay rates, thus saving money.

Both possibilities are rather radical. They are the type of ideas that get studied and reviewed and publicly discussed for a reasonable amount of time. I think these plans sound like a trial balloon. These council members want to see how the public reacts and then work on making these plans happen in the coming years, where the cuts that are made in the police force now can be made up by contracting with the Sheriff. We have a year end requirement to pass a balanced budget. We don't have the time to just put this idea into action and hope it works out. That would be foolish.

Yes, it seems clear to me there are going to be cuts in the police and fire departments, but with the latest news the cuts will be less than originally planned because of higher tax revenue projections. We need to face those cuts. Some on council can say they did what they could or still have future ideas, but were forced to make the cuts. Ghiz and Winburn will complain and vote against it, but still refuse to put forth an plan that balances the budget. One that is feasible and doesn't rely on kindness of delinquent tax payers.

Keven Osborne has more on this new plan and the possible conflict with the City Charter in how the council members discussed it with the Sheriff.

Tom + Chee Is Open on Court Street

Fountain Square used to be the only place to get the best Grilled Cheese sandwiches in town, but now Tom + Cheehave a restaurant open on Court Street.