Yo Cincy. To quote an obscure scene from The Simpsons, there are a doings a transpirin’. Here’s a quick midweek news round-up to catch you up on all of them.
Vice President Mike Pence was in Cincinnati yesterday to talk up the Trump administration’s tax cuts; promote Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh; tout a new branch of the armed services called Space Force; and praise the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The event at the Westin hotel downtown drew about 400 people and roughly 20 protesters outside.
The event also featured a number of local GOP politicians in election battles this year, including U.S. Reps. Steve Chabot and Brad Wenstrup, both seeking reelection, and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, who is looking to grab a seat in the U.S. Senate from Democrat Sherrod Brown. Chabot, facing a stiff challenge from Democrat Aftab Pureval, called Pence the greatest vice president since John Adams, which is kind of like calling someone the greatest backup quarterback since… well, I don’t know the names of any great backup quarterbacks but you get the point. Pureval held his own event next door, where he bashed the president’s tax bill by pointing out it will add $1.5 trillion to the national deficit.
• No word on whether Pence loved his stay in the Queen City, but we know another high-profile visitor had a good time here. Tennis icon Serena Williams had glowing words to say about Cincinnati during a press huddle Monday after a win at the Western & Southern Open.
“I love it here,” she said. “I was at practice the other day and I looked at my coach and I was, like, ‘I really love coming here.’ It’s a great city, for my daughter as well, it’s super chill and relaxed so I’m so happy to be out here.”
Because this is Cincinnati, the remarks triggered a bunch of local media coverage, including somehow a disjointed and grumpy column in the city’s daily paper about how terrible Cincinnati, especially Cincinnati City Council, is right now. Gotta love it.
• Some leadership changes are happening in a couple key places around the city. First, Cincinnati Child Poverty Collaborative head Karen Bankston is stepping down from that role after seven months. The Collaborative is working to bring 10,000 children in Hamilton County out of poverty, and though her stay was brief, others who help run the organization say Bankston contributed to a realistic understanding of what it would take to reach that goal. Roughly 45 percent of children in the city live in poverty, according to 2017 Census estimates. Bankston says a health scare in June caused her to reevaluate her priorities.
“I had a health scare that afforded me an opportunity to reflect on my purpose,” she said in an interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer. “Because of that scare, I decided to step down to do the kind of work that will help me focus on strategies that will get people in poverty on the path to economic self-sufficiency and inclusion.”
• A community development corporation in one of Cincinnati’s quickly-redeveloping neighborhoods has a new leader. The Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation has tapped historic preservationist Emily Ahouse to replace former executive director Kevin Wright. Ahouse previously served as preservation and planning specialist for the city of Covington. She also serves on the executive board of Renaissance Covington. Ahouse will start her new role Sept. 4.
“When looking for our next executive director, we wanted someone who would not only be passionate about the physical structures of Walnut Hills but also the people,” WHRF board president Jena Bradley wrote in a statement. “Someone who would work hard to ensure there is a place for all residents that want to be in the neighborhood. I feel confident that we’ve found that balance in Emily.”
• A new initiative by Cincinnati Red Bike is off to a good start, the bike share’s representatives say. Red Bike Go, which provides a $5 monthly membership to low-income riders, has handily exceeded its goals for enrolling members. The program aimed to get 100 people signed up in the first two years of operation, but blew past that goal in just four months. One hundred and fourteen people signed up for the program, and about 70 have stayed active members. Red Bike allows members to track the mileage they’ve ridden and the number of rides they’ve taken, and their data shows that the two riders who have taken the most rides on Red Bikes recently have been Go users. The program is available to anyone who is eligible for federal SNAP or heat benefits, or anyone who is a client of Red Bike partner organizations like the Greater Cincinnati Urban League, The Hamilton County Community Action Agency and Ohio Means Jobs.
• The special election in Ohio’s 12th District continues to show Republican Troy Balderson with a razor-thin win over Democrat Danny O’Connor, even as election officials tally a few thousand provisional and absentee ballots that could tip the scales. Balderson won the initial election day vote count by .8 percent with 1,534 votes. But there were about 5,000 absentee ballots and another 3,400 provisional ballots left to be counted. But elections officials say few of the absentee ballots remaining — maybe 400 — were mailed in time. That plus the provisional ballots, all of which may not be valid, means there are less than 4,000 votes remaining to be counted. A large chunk of those votes would need to be for O’Connor for him to win the election outright. O’Connor’s campaign points out that most of the provisional ballots are likely to be counted and that those ballots generally favor Democrats in Ohio. If O’Connor gets enough votes to take Balderson’s margin of victory below .5 percent, the state will recount the ballots. No matter how the count turns out, Balderson and O’Connor will face each other again Nov. 6 to fight for a full term in the general election.
• Finally, even as revenue grows for America’s largest companies, wage growth for most Americans remains negligible. Experts believe that dynamic is tied to a small number of so-called “superstar” companies continuing to consolidate more and more market share and economic clout, according to this article from The Financial Times. So what can be done to extend more benefits to workers? The answers vary. Democrats and moderately-progressive thinktanks want to increase anti-trust protections to make it harder for companies like Google and Facebook to dominate markets. But conservatives, including the Trump administration, say that’s a bad idea. Either way, the dynamic is accelerating, some experts say.
“We see evidence of rising market power and declining competition in the U.S.,” Daniel Leigh, deputy division chief in the western hemisphere department of the IMF, told the Financial Times. “This is coupled with signs that the (labor) share is going down.”
This article appears in Aug 15-22, 2018.