This is the kind of junk people store in the garage, the basement or under sinks because they don’t know what to do with it. Most often they get dumped into the trash if they’re disposed of at all. It is possible to safely discard of this kind of hazardous waster, but it takes a specialist.

The Hamilton County Solid Waste Management District’s offers free household hazardous waste drop-off sites to take care of the toxins. A press release says they take“Pesticides, fertilizers, cleaners, automotive fluids, solvents, thinners, prescription drugs, pool and lawn chemicals, paint, batteries, fire extinguishers, stains, mercury, propane tanks, fluorescent bulbs, driveway sealer and thermostats.”

But the drop sites will close for the year on Nov. 22.

“To participate, residents must show proof of Hamilton County residency,” says the press release. "Since the program began on March 1, approximately 5,735 households have participated in the event, bringing in approximately 417 tons of household hazardous waste for proper disposal.”

For more information about the FREE Household Hazardous Waste Collection Program, call 513-946-7700 or visit www.hamiltoncountyrecycles.org.

Locations & Times:

Environmental Enterprises, Inc.

4650 Spring Grove Avenue

Environmental Enterprises, Inc.

10163 Cincinnati-Dayton Road

Tuesdays: 2 – 6 p.m.

Wednesdays: 2 – 6 p.m.

Saturdays: 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

The program will re-open on March 14, 2009.

Conceding that layoffs have created gaps in its coverage and that younger people don’t necessarily like getting information from newspapers, The Cincinnati Enquirer is turning to local bloggers and various social networking sites on the Internet for help.

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Based on the latest comments on his Facebook page, it appears Christopher Smitherman either doesn't understand the wording of Issue 48 or is deliberately trying to mislead voters.

On Wednesday, Smitherman wrote on his Facebook page: “Remember Issue 48 DOES not STOP light rail but it does force City Council to ask the citizens (sic) permission before spending $144 million. City Council does not want to ask the people (for) permission.”

As several legal experts have agreed, Issue 48's net effect will be to stop the planning and construction of any type of passenger rail project within Cincinnati city limits until Dec. 31, 2020 — even if the project is privately financed.

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A Cincinnati official who supports a deal negotiated by the city manager to accept a Duke Energy rate hike in exchange for getting $7 million from the company for a proposed streetcar system says it would have been “fiscally moronic” for the city not to accept it.

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Cincinnati native Whitney Holwadel Smith, born April 10, 1984, died April 4, 2009, of suicide at the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Terre Haute. Smith had reportedly been depressed and emotionally broken after being forced to spend more than a year in the Segregated Housing Unit (The Hole).

Smith grew up in Mount Lookout and was sentenced to the Dayton Correctional Institution as an adult for his first robbery at 17-years-old. From 2002-2003 he wrote a regular column on prison life and his struggle to rehabilitate for XRay Cincinnati Magazine which I published. Smith was released in 2005 and convicted the same year for bank robbery. He was sentenced to more than six years at the USP Terre Haute. Smith's blog, Super Friends: The life and times of an inmate at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute has been published since November 2008. It was notable for being an unusually lucid and frank account of prison life. Smith's writing was variously acerbic, humorous, brutal and hopeful.

After his 2005 release, Whit lived in my home. He was a kind young man with a good heart and a broken one, too. He was my friend. After many discussions in both the outside world and behind barbed wire fences, I still don't fully understand why he committed the crimes he did. He walked through his short life with a corrupted mind that led him to poor choices again and again. His choices to be a criminal were his and he deserved his time, but I also earnestly believe he was let down by a justice system that should help offenders rehabilitate — that is to restore dignity — rather than beat them down into someone more jaded and injured than they were at the time of their arrest. My 2005 CityBeat article Prisoners Forever articlewas inspired by Whit's journey through the prison system.

A memorial for Whit will be held on Wednesday, April 8 at 2:30 p.m. at the Civic Garden Center, 2715 Reading Rd. at 2:30 p.m. It is open to the public.

If you would like to make a donation in Whit's memory, the family has asked that those be made to Circle Tail, an animal shelter in Loveland, Ohio. Whit had recently told his father, Jeff Smith, that he hoped to volunteer at an animal shelter when he got out of prison. Circle Tail works with a several prisons to foster their shelter animals before they are placed in a permanent home.

Two prominent Democratic congress members say a $3 million settlement between Cintas Corp. and federal workplace safety regulators is insufficient because it downgrades the severity of the company’s violations and gives it two years to install new safety equipment.

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CityBeat has held off on posting the names of some people we've heard have been laid off from The Cincinnati Enquirer pending better verification, but we can now confirm two more departures.

 Assistant Business Editor Randy Tucker and Obituaries Writer Rebecca Goodman have left the newspaper's staff. Tucker was a victim of the layoffs; it's unclear whether Goodman was laid off or chose to leave since she recently graduated from law school.

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This week’s issue of CityBeat features an interview with Dr. Brad Wenstrup, the physician who’s the Hamilton County Republican Party’s mayoral candidate.

Wenstrup, who turned 51 on Wednesday, is an orthopedic surgeon who lives in Columbia Tusculum and is an Iraq War veteran. This is his first run for political office.

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They're just one step away from a full endorsement. 

The endorsement group of the Cincinnati Democratic Committee (CDC) recommended a full slate of candidates – featuring four incumbents and five challengers – tonight that included some surprises. Among the non-incumbents recommended for endorsement is a former investigative reporter for WCPO-TV (Channel 9) and an Avondale neighborhood activist who once worked for then-Mayor Charlie Luken. Also, a candidate endorsed by Democrats in 2007 but who didn’t win a council seat was rebuffed by the party this time.

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It appears there will be 22 candidates on the ballot in November vying for the nine open seats on Cincinnati City Council.

As of today's 4 p.m. filing deadline at the Board of Elections, that's the number of people who had submitted petitions with enough voter signatures. At least five of those candidates, however, haven't yet had the signatures verified by Elections Board staffers because they only filed their final petitions today.

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