Good morning, all. Here are some quick news updates to get your day started (or finished, or during lunch, or whenever you happen to read this).
Cincinnati officials, including Mayor John Cranley, acting City Manager Patrick Duhaney and several members of Cincinnati City Council yesterday toured the city’s Emergency Communications Center and announced staffing increases there after the death of 16-year-old Kyle Plush two weeks ago. Plush suffocated under the bench seat of his van after calling 911 twice and receiving no aid. The tragedy reignited long-running questions about the city’s 911 center, as well as raised new concerns about police response to the incident. The two officers dispatched to the parking lots near where Plush was trapped appeared not to get out of their cruisers in the three minutes of body camera footage released to the public. In the wake of Plush’s death, officials announced yesterday they will work to hire 11 new staffers at the ECC, including trainers and tech experts.
Cincinnati City Council’s Law and Public Safety Committee will meet at 3:45 p.m. today (April 24) to discuss further changes for the call center.
• The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is asking voters to up their contributions to the library system via a property tax hike. That levy, Hamilton County Issue 3 on the May 8 ballot, would cost the owner of a $100,000 home an extra $35 a year. Even with the boost, which would bring that same homeowner’s contribution up to roughly $52 a year, the library is cheaper than many across the state for taxpayers. A similar homeowner pays $98 a year in Columbus and $132 a year in Cleveland — and their libraries aren’t as big or nationally lauded as ours. Library officials say they need the boost because funding for libraries approved by state lawmakers has declined in recent years. Currently, the library gets $38 million from the state — the same level it got 25 years ago. Should the levy fail, the library will face a deficit by 2020. Early voting on the May primary ballot has already started, so get yourself on out there and vote.
• Greater Cincinnati’s Metro bus service will hold a series of community information sessions around its Reinventing Metro plan. Those sessions come as the bus service itself considers its own tax levy ask. Metro could seek as much as a 1 cent sales tax increase in November, though it has also said it is considering smaller .5 or .8 cent increases. That boost could pay for more bus routes, routes that run later into the evening, dedicated bus rapid transit routes and other upgrades. The smallest tax boost would basically keep Metro, which is facing a multi-million budget deficit in coming years, at status quo. Metro’s first information session is Saturday, April 28 from 1-2:30 p.m. at Westwood Town Hall. There are eight other meetings all over town after that one.
• A group in Northside is working to raise money to preserve the neighborhood’s iconic Daisy mural. The ArtWorks mural next to Hoffner Park dates back to 2008 and has seen better days, so the group “Save the Daisies” has convened to try and get it retouched. They’d like to crowdfund the $15,000 needed to freshen up the mural by June 1 so the revamped icon can be unveiled during Northside’s Fourth of July celebration.
• By now, you’ve probably read all about the resignation of Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, whom the FBI is investigating for potential ethics violations related to trips he took on the dime of lobbyists for the payday loan industry. Rosenberger says he’s done nothing wrong but stepped down to keep controversy away from the state house. The drama has also shined a light on a major Republican donor who helped Rosenberger ascend to one of the most powerful perches in state government at a very young age. Heiress Virginia Ragan, who has donated about $1.7 million to state Republicans over the past five years, was instrumental in supporting Rosenberger and previous House Speaker Bill Batchelder. Ragan also rented a Columbus condo to Rosenberger and other GOP lawmakers for an undisclosed amount, gave gifts to lawmakers and helped put together a state party fundraiser in Florida. You can read more about the influential donor in this story here.
• A whistleblower claims former online charter school Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow intentionally used software to inflate its attendance records and dupe the state of Ohio out of millions of dollars, the Associated Press reports. A former ECOT employee has told state regulators that the charter instructed employees to fix student data after the state demanded $60 million back from ECOT for faulty 2015-2016 attendance records. A former lobbyist and spokesman for the shuttered charter says the allegations are “ridiculous attempts to abuse a corpse.” State officials are investigating the claims by the former employee.
