Two far-reaching ideas by Cincinnati's fly-by-the-seats-of-their-pants City Council is being sharply criticized by people with extensive experience in policing issues.

As City Council acts surprised about a $58 million deficit that's loomed on the horizon for months, an amount that's only fluctuated slightly due to changing revenues, members last week proposed abolishing the Cincinnati Police Department's patrol bureau and contracting those services to the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office.

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He was hired by Republicans, and now he's been fired by Republicans.

Hamilton County commissioners voted 2-1 today to fire County Administrator Patrick Thompson. Republicans Greg Hartmann and Chris Monzel voted to terminate Thompson, with Democrat Todd Portune opposed.

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Here we go again.

This week’s Porkopolis column in the CityBeat issue that hit the streets today details how a recent plan by two Hamilton County commissioners to close a deficit in the county’s stadium account by delaying a payment to Cincinnati Public Schools was pushed despite knowing school officials wouldn’t agree, thus scuttling the proposal.

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Organizers of a local anti-gang and violence reduction program will hold an open house Thursday so the community can become reacquainted with its street advocate team.

The Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) is holding the open house and resource fair from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at its offices. The location is 19 W. Elder St. in Over-the-Rhine.

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This week’s issue of CityBeat, which hits the streets today, features a column about Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. and his request to use a $98,000 federal grant to buy another speedboat.

At least two of the Hamilton County commissioners — Democrats David Pepper and Todd Portune — were ready to accept the money for the boat but their Republican colleague, Greg Hartmann, disagreed. He said spending any money, federal or otherwise, on vehicles while the county is laying off workers and cutting back services is inappropriate.

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Fresh from a successful effort at stopping a budget amendment to block the replacement of a deteriorating Cincinnati bridge, State Rep. Denise Driehaus (D-31^st District) will hold a town hall meeting to discuss the Ohio budget with constituents.

Driehaus marshaled forces in the Ohio House this week after she noticed an amendment that affected the $66.5 million project had quietly been added to the state budget bill by State Rep. Bob Peterson (R-85^thDistrict).

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Although no one seems to want to comment directly on the situation, more details are emerging about the bitter political dispute between Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Berding and several anti-streetcar groups.

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As part of CityBeat's continuing election coverage, we’ve once again sent a questionnaire to the non-incumbent Cincinnati City Council candidates to get their reactions on a broad range of issues.

Nine of the 14 non-incumbents chose to answer our questions. Others either didn’t respond or couldn’t meet the deadline.

During the next few weeks, we will print the responses from the non-incumbents to a different topic each time.

Today’s question is, “Do you consider the operation of health clinics to be an acceptable function of municipal government?”

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The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) has threatened to block a move that would allow Cincinnati to use $37.5 million from the 2007 sale of the Blue Ash Airport for projects other than aviation, $11 million of which would go to the Cincinnati streetcar.

The Blue Ash City Council voted Thursday to re-do the sale of 130 acres at the Blue Ash Airport to the City of Cincinnati.  COAST says it wants to put the matter before voters in a 2013 referendum, which would halt the sale and re-instate the original agreement made in 2007 when Cincinnati made the sale.

The two cities decided to re-work the $37.5 million sale because a federal rule requires proceeds from the sale of an operating airport to be used for other aviation projects. The money would be returned, airport shut down and then the property re-sold to Blue Ash for the original amount.

“When they originally sold it they were stupid, which is typical of the City of Cincinnati, and did not realize that the proceeds on the sale of the airport have to go to other aviation-type things,” says COAST Chairman Tom Brinkman. “Now that they want to get the streetcar, they want to crack that money.”

Brinkman openly admits he doesn’t want the money to go to the streetcar (“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that boondoggle doesn’t occur”) but says COAST is working with a group of local pilots who want money from the sale to go to Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport.

Blue Ash is confident that the ordinance they passed approving the re-sale isn’t subject to referendum.

“Blue Ash believes everything enacted was lawful and would survive any challenge,” says City Solicitor Brian Pachenco. He declined to discuss specifics

The city wants the airport land to build a park.

Pachenco said the ordinance wasn’t written specifically to exempt it from referendum attempts, but nevertheless it falls under a section of the city’s charter that makes voters unable to recall it.

COAST isn’t so sure.

Chris Finney, legal counsel for COAST, said the buying and selling of land under the Blue Ash charter is subject to referendum. He said the ordinance was written to avoid using that language, but what was happening was in reality a sale.

For its part, Cincinnati doesn’t seem too concerned with the threatened referendum.

“We’re not going to talk 'what ifs' at this point,” city spokeswoman Meg Olberding said. “The streetcar has had two previous referendums that have been shot down.”

She pointed out that only $11 million of the sale was going toward the streetcar, and the remaining money would be available for other projects.

Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Seelbach was also unconcerned.

“COAST and groups like COAST have tried to put up every obstacle possible to prevent the streetcar from happening and we have overcome all of them,” Seelbach said. “I am 100 percent positive if this comes to a vote we will overcome it again and the streetcar will be built.”

As far as conservatives go, I can tolerate columnist George Will and often enjoy reading his work. Unlike most of what passes as conservatism today, Will tends to base his arguments on logic and fact, not emotion and rhetoric.

Making him even more of an anomaly in Republican circles, Will acknowledges and corrects his errors, when he makes them. As an added bonus, he's also a deft wordsmith.

Despite his many years in office, Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) could stand to take a few pointers from Will. Chabot, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, spoke during a hearing Wednesday about his concerns with a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by year's end.

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