Hello Cincinnati. I dunno if spring is here early or if this above-freezing weather is just a fluke, but I’ll take it as I continue to try and recover from one heck of a case of the flu. Grab your shorts and sandals and chill out on the back porch for a few as we talk news.
Cincinnati City Council yesterday made the very rare move of rejecting an appointment by Mayor John Cranley, who appointed Rayshon Mack to the board of the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority. But the six Democrat members of council voted against the appointment, citing Mack’s sometimes-combative tone on social media. Cranley and conservatives on council decried the vote as political. You can read our story on the controversy here.
• The Hamilton County Justice Center is bursting at the seams, and there’s little chance for relief in sight — except, perhaps, reopening another currently shuttered facility in the city that’s been offline for a decade. Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil said yesterday during a news conference that the county’s jail is reaching its occupancy “breaking point,” and will at some point this year no longer be able to serve his office’s needs. The 33-year-old detention center was designed to house 850 people; it now has more than 1,400 and held as many as 1,600 last year. That’s far too many, Neil says. If he can’t find another jail to take the county’s glut of prisoners, he’s asking that officials reopen a facility in Queensgate, which first opened in 1992 after renovation from a private prison firm and closed in 2008. That property is currently vacant and for sale for $1.2 million. Without the relief, things will only get worse, Neil says. The county jail could see as many as 1,900 prisoners this year as the state of Ohio sends 200 to 300 prisoners here in an attempt to cut prison costs. Hey, here’s a crazy, novel idea: stop locking people up for nonviolent drug offenses.
• If you didn’t make it to The Dock last night, you missed the end of an era. Yesterday was the popular 35-year-old riverside club’s final night, and with its closure to make way for an eventual Brent Spence Bridge replacement, Cincinnati is down another bar focused on the city’s LGBTQ community. Owner Rob Corman says the state of Ohio purchased the property on Pete Rose Way near the riverfront using eminent domain as it amasses land it will need for the eventual new bridge across the Ohio River. Open since 1983, the club was long a home for the LGBTQ community in town, and though Cincinnati’s overall atmosphere has improved somewhat when it comes to homophobia, transphobia and other retrograde attitudes, The Dock closes at a time when similar spots by and for the LGBTQ community are dwindling.
Those with ties to the bar say they’re looking for somewhere to carry on its legacy.
"Now, it's about finding a location,” The Dock’s entertainment director Jessica Dimon told media yesterday. “It's about getting the right place because we really desperately need something for the gay community, somewhere we can call home."
• Here’s a grim statistic: Since Ohio reinstituted the death penalty in 1981, Hamilton County has sent more people to death row than any other county in the state. With 24 people currently awaiting execution for cases tried in the county, it currently ranks No. 22 in America’s 3,000 counties when it comes to the number of inmates on death row — higher than the counties containing major cities like Los Angeles and Miami. Two — Raymond Tibbetts and Robert Van Hook — are scheduled to die this year. Tibbetts was recently granted a temporary reprieve after a jury member in his Hamilton County murder case wrote Gov. John Kasich asking his sentence be commuted to life in prison in light of new evidence about Tibbetts’ upbringing.
• Ohio wants Uber to pay more than $1.6 million in taxes and fees it says the rideshare company owes the state. But Uber is appealing that order from the Ohio Department of Taxation, saying state taxes don’t apply to the company because it merely provides an app and isn’t a transportation business. The taxes in question only cover the third quarter of 2015, but a July hearing before the Board of Tax Appeals could set precedent for future collections attempts by the state. Think tank Policy Matters Ohio said in a news release yesterday that it has calculated that the company could owe up to $13.5 million in taxes for the period after July 2015 — and that’s not counting any growth Uber has experienced in its business here since that time. Ohio says that Uber is a transportation network company liable for state taxes. However, Uber argues that contractors — i.e. its non-employee drivers — are the ones doing the transportation, and that its actual employees only work on the company’s app, not providing transportation. In 2016, the state sent a letter to Uber notifying it that its activities mean it was liable for state sales taxes.
“Not only was the petitioner present at the taxable sale, the petitioner is the catalyst for the transaction,” that letter read. Uber has been fighting that interpretation of state tax code since.
• On a final note, the United States saw yet another horrific mass shooting at a high school yesterday that killed 17 people. The massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was allegedly carried out by a former student at the school using a legally obtained AR-15 assault rifle. Suspect Nikolas Cruz, 19, had been expelled from the school last year and was known for posting disturbing comments and images on social media accounts, authorities say.
