Cincinnati City Council on Friday approved a budget that relies on parking privatization as a means to plug a $34 million budget deficit while also raising property taxes in 2014.

Mayor Mark Mallory opened up the council meeting with a moment of silent prayer for the 27 students and adults killed at an elementary school in Connecticut.

“I want us all to take a moment and put into perspective what we’re doing today,” he said.

Council voted to increase the property tax by about 24 percent, from 4.6 mills (a mill is equal to one-tenth of a cent) to 5.71 mills. That means Cincinnatians would pay an additional $34 for every $100,000 of their home’s value.

The vote reverses a move made last year by conservatives on council, who reduced property taxes.

Council also passed a budget that relies on $21 million from a proposed lease of the city’s parking facilities — a deal that is expected to be voted on in March. Of the proposals submitted to the city so far, Cincinnati stands to gain $100 million to $150 million in an upfront payment and a share of the profits over the 30-year lease.

“My concern about balancing this budget with a onetime revenue source by selling our parking system seems to be ill advised,” said Independent Councilman Chris Smitherman. “We don’t know how council will vote in March … but we have tied not only the budget to this one time revenue source, but we have also tied reciprocity.”

Council nixed a plan to eliminate tax reciprocity for people who lived in Cincinnati but worked elsewhere and paid income tax in both cities. 

Though the budget doesn’t mention parking privatization, council hasn’t mentioned other options to close the budget deficit.

If opponents of parking privatization want to keep facilities under city control, they would have to come up with $21 million in revenue elsewhere or make $21 million in cuts. 

Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld suggested using casino revenue, cutting travel expenses, downsizing the ratio of managers to workers, sharing services with nearby jurisdictions and downsizing the city’s fleet as ways to cut down the budget.

Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan, long an advocate of downsizing the police and fire departments, voted against the property tax increase in protest of what she said was bloated spending on departments that were outpacing population growth.

The budget also requires Cincinnati to accept police and fire recruit classes in 2014, regardless of whether the city gets a federal grant to fund the classes. 

The budget also restores the Cincinnati Police Department’s mounted patrol, which patrols downtown on horseback. The city will use $105,000 from off-duty detail fees from businesses that hire off-duty officers. Council also voted to start charging those businesses an extra $1.64 on top of the off-duty pay.

Council also voted to shift $50,000 for repairs and upgrades to the Contemporary Arts Center to pay for maintenance and beautification at Washington Park, which is operated by 3CDC.

Residents will get a chance to ask Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig some questions at a public meeting this week.

Craig, who was sworn in as the city’s 13th police chief in August, will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of Citizens for Civic Renewal (CCR). The session will be held from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday at Kingsgate Marriott Conference Center in Corryville, near the University of Cincinnati.

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News junkies probably heard about the warnings issued by Cincinnati City Hall this week, reminding citizens of its “ticket amnesty” program: Anyone with unpaid parking tickets should pay now or possibly have their vehicles impounded by police.

What City Hall didn't announce was that as of last month, 429 of the nearly 62,000 unpaid parking tickets were issued to municipal employees — including some cops and firefighters.

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Duke Energy announced Thursday night that it will help fund a campaign to raise private and government money to replace the outdated Brent Spence Bridge. It will cost about $2.3 billion to replace the span, which carries traffic from I-75 and I-71 over the Ohio River.

Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig said an audit to determine methods for improving the Police Department’s efficiency is continuing. Among the latest recommendations, the department will no longer seek accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies and that response of a recent shift to 10-hour workdays has been positive.

Three development groups have submitted proposals to Covington officials, each vying to be selected to reshape that city’s riverfront area. One of the proposals, drafted by Corporex Realty & Investment and Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment, involves refurbishing the Waterfront Restaurant and creating a floating boardwalk, marina and wharf.

A Cincinnati police officer assigned to the Drug Abuse and Resistance Education (DARE) program was suspended without pay this week after she was charged with tampering with records, securing writings by deception and forgery. Sandra Johnson, 38, allegedly said she taught DARE classes and got paid for them when she didn’t. DARE is among the programs being ended by Chief Craig; he has called it ineffective.

In news elsewhere, German President Christian Wulff resigned from his position today as head of state amid mounting criticism over a home loan scandal. Wulff has been plagued by allegations since mid-December over his connections to wealthy businessmen, initially over an advantageous home loan from a friend's wife. He then faced claims he tried to hush up the story, as well as reports of free vacations accepted from friends.

The Obama administration’s newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to begin monitoring and regulating debt collectors and credit bureaus for the first time. Richard Cordray, the agency’s director, said he wants to ensure people aren’t subjected to abusive practices.

An influential group of scientists issued a report this week pressing U.S. officials to tighten regulations of so-called “fracking” operations to reduce environmental and health risks. The independent review of fracking by professors at the University of Texas in Austin said that the development of shale gas was "essential to the energy security of the U.S. and the world,” but added the process needs more oversight.

The recent brouhaha over a new federal rule that requires insurance coverage of birth control for women reveals that the Roman Catholic Church has lost its influence in U.S. politics, some observers said. An AlterNet article noted that even though the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops remains opposed to a compromise rule pushed by President Obama, many other Catholic groups — including the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and the Catholic Health Association — are ignoring the conference and accepting it.

Police in Fort Worth, Texas, have arrested 16 students in a major drug bust at Texas Christian University, a conservative evangelical institution. The drugs involved included marijuana, ecstasy pills, a powdered form of ecstasy commonly called “molly” and prescription drugs such as Xanax, hydrocodone and Oxycontin. Four football players were among those arrested.

O’l girl Leslie Ghiz is back on local government’s payroll after being hired by Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, which will allow her to run in a judicial race as a badass crime-fighting prosecutor (The Enquirer’s words, not mine). Deters, of course, is the former chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party and Ghiz is the former City Council woman who was voted out last fall and then decided to move out of Cincinnati.

Tim Burke, head of the Hamilton County Democratic Party called the move “political as hell,” while Ghiz had Deters’ spokeswoman explain how Deters’ office is still allowed to hire one more lawyer if it wants to.

Ghiz will earn a $55,000 salary, down from $60,000 she made in the part-time position of City Councilperson.

Gov. Kasich is apparently really proud of the new energy goals he outlined yesterday, as evidenced by the 15 press releases he's sent to the media since then. Kasich: We have other stuff to write about other than your thoughts on how cool it is that someone called Ohio “the Saudi Arabia of coal.”

Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig would like to skip the police certification process even though he wouldn’t be able to arrest people if he does.

Riverbend has gone the way of 1970’s Riverfront Stadium, installing artificial turf on its concert lawn.

Milford 15-year-old Eben Franckewitz was voted off American Idol island last night, not quite reaching the round of 13. Good try, Eben!

Oh snap! Obama on Iran: “I don’t bluff.”

Unfortunately, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are coming to Ohio, and they’re reportedly “neck-and-neck.”

A mentally disabled South Carolina man who has been on death row for 30 years could soon be out of prison for a bond hearing. Edward Lee Elmore’s sentence has already been overturned three times and reduced from the death sentence to life in prison. From The Washington Post:

As other death row inmates were exonerated because of new DNA testing technology, Elmore’s attorneys asked a judge in 2000 to overturn his convictions because a blond hair found on Edwards after her death did not match her or Elmore.

Elmore’s lawyers thought the blond hair may have belonged to Edwards’ next-door neighbor and they asked a judge to exhume the man’s body to test his DNA, but a judge denied the request.

It wasn’t until 2010 that Elmore began to see his fate turn around. A South Carolina judge ruled he was mentally unfit and could not be executed, per a 2002 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

State prosecutors didn’t oppose a judge’s decision to sentence him to life in prison, and Elmore was, after 28 years, moved from the state’s death row to another maximum-security prison.

Weather services (and people know what the sky is supposed to look like) are concerned about tornadoes in the Midwest today. Most worrisome are extreme southern Indiana, central Kentucky and north-central Tennessee, with storms expected across the Gulf Coast states afterward.

Google offers some answers to questions about its weird privacy changes.

Oh, and it’s Bockfest Weekend. Grab your digital camera and the biggest mug you can find.

Cincinnati officials today released an updated list of City Hall employees who have unpaid parking tickets, and the list includes members of the Police and Fire departments.

A total of 311 municipal employees have delinquent parking tickets, totaling $30,662 in unpaid fines, as of May 4th. That amounts to about 0.25 percent of the total amount of delinquent tickets, said a city spokeswoman.

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President Obama dropped $90 mil on a couple of local non-profit development companies. Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC) and the Uptown Consortium were awarded $50 million and $40 million tax credits, respectively, by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as part of a program aimed at spurring retail and residential growth. 3CDC says it plans to create a rock climbing wall/juice bar/light-free techno dance hall in order to draw more YPs to the area. (Just kidding.)

P&G plans to cut 5,700 jobs next year (and we just had our resumes all cleaned up to prove we could write the best stories about how Tide makes clothing — and life — better for everyone…).

A 15-year-old Milford High School freshman named Eben Christian Franckewitz has advanced to next Thursday’s live episode of American Idol. Franckewitz is reportedly the first area reside to become one of the 24 Idol semifinalists. Pick it up, area talented people!

The New York Police Department is defending its recent practice of spying on mosques using tactics it normally reserves for criminal organizations. The AP got a hold of documents that showed police "collecting the license plates of worshipers, monitoring them on surveillance cameras and cataloging sermons through a network of informants."

The new documents, prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, show how the NYPD's roster of paid informants monitored conversations and sermons inside mosques. The records offer the first glimpse of what those informants, known informally as "mosque crawlers," gleaned from inside the houses of worship.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says his police would never spy on Muslims.

Officials in Australia have opened another investigation into the 1980 death of a 9-week-old baby whose parents say was taken away by a dingo. The mother was convicted of murder and later cleared of the charge.

Seven Marines were killed in a training crash near the California-Arizona border Wednesday night, one of the deadliest training crashes ever. Officials say it will take weeks to determine why the two helicopters crashed in midair during a routine exercise.

JC Penny lost $87 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. CEO Ron Johnson says it’s cool, though, because the company was getting a makeover and those are expensive.

On the other side of the fence dividing companies that lose money and companies that make mass of it, Apple is so flush its CEO says the company has too much cash. Tim Cook is reportedly “wondering what to do with the company's $97.6 billion.”

More drivers than ever are about to be paying $5 per galling for gas, although if we vote Newt Gingrich for president he’ll make it $2.50.

A new study says that global warming could shrink the human race. Wait, what?!? It’s true: NEW GLOBAL WARMING THREAT: HUMAN RACE MAY SHRINK. Great ... just great.

Oh, and the UC basketball team beat No. 17 Louisville last night, a big step toward playing in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. Nice, one-handed jam, Dion!

In news you've likely already heard from your favorite website, social network, radio station, print publication, TV or the guy in your neighborhood who likes to talk about current events, President Barack Obama yesterday announced his support for same-sex marriage, becoming the first-ever sitting president to do so. The news has spawned analysis from across the land, ranging from “risky but inevitable” to “matters less than you think.” The Enquirer says the decision is going to “echo in Ohio” (whatever that means).

One thing we know for sure: Hollywood celebs are preparing to pack George Clooney's house tonight and fill up Obama's briefcase with money.

The “No. 2 official at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office” says the jail being next to the casino will be bad for business, according to an Enquirer story detailing worries over jail overcrowding leading to accused criminals to go into the casino to “get warm, panhandle customers or just give visitors a bad impression of Cincinnati.”

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune yesterday cancelled a new truck order for Paul Brown Stadium, instead giving the vehicles to Parking Operations. Parking Operations was supposed to get the stadium's used trucks after the stadium received new ones, but Portune said the stadium doesn't need brand new stuff all the time.

Up north, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman says his city wants an NBA basketball team now that the public has purchased the arena the Columbus Blue Jackets play in.

Poll watch: Portman on GOP ticket doesn't change Ohio race

New claims for unemployment benefits dropped again last week, nearing a four-year low.

Facebook will soon launch an App Center, because it's so annoying to have to leave Facebook to get cool new apps.

Famous hairdresser Vidal Sassoon died yesterday after a bout with leukemia. He apparently played a large role in creating “wash and go” hairstyling and later revolutionizing the hair-care industry. Here's a Philadelphia Inquirer obit. And five ways Vidal Sassoon changed people's hair. Sassoon, according to the book Insider's Guide to Cincinnati, had a home in Mount Adams (his wife was a Greater Cincinnati native).