Hello all. Here’s a quick news rundown to take you into the weekend.
Here’s a depressing thought: You just got older. Right now. This instant. And, demographically speaking, so are most areas in the United States. But despite that trend, Hamilton County isn’t. It’s not a Benjamin Button scenario, but a sign that the number of young people is increasing in the county, even as surrounding areas continue to see their median ages go up. Even as Ohio’s median age crept up by .6 years between 2010 and 2017, the median age in Hamilton County dropped .5 percentage points to 39.6 years. According to Census data, the county added 12,000 people between 25 and 44 during that period. It’s unclear whether those people aged into that range or came here from elsewhere. Either way, welcome, fellow youths!
• As we mentioned last week, opponents of a .2 percent sales tax increase instituted by Democrats on the Hamilton County Commission are pushing to get that increase on the November ballot so voters can potentially vote it down. Anti-tax group COAST, which has been more or less dormant since its vocal opposition to the streetcar several years ago, is leading the push against the tax. It will need to collect some 23,000 signatures by July to get an anti-tax provision on the ballot. The Hamilton County GOP has stepped into the fray to support the ballot initiative, though it has yet to weigh in on whether the tax itself should be repealed. The boost would take the county’s sales tax rate to 7.2 percent until 2020, when the .25 percent portion of the tax paying for Union Terminal’s renovations expires. The tax would cost a family making $50,000 a year about $25. The tax hike is being used to plug a multi-million dollar budget deficit the county is facing. Without it, Democrats on the commission say, layoffs will be necessary in the Sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices, the county’s crime lab, 911 center and other functions.
• Will a West End public housing complex get a major makeover or even a complete redevelopment? It could happen. The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority is mulling an application for a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to turn Stanley Rowe towers into a mixed-income community. The housing agency has floated similar ideas in the past, though they led to protests from some residents, as we reported here. The grant is supposed to be used on projects that will replace subsidized housing one-for-one so no one gets displaced, but some residents are wary of that promise. CMHA decided to apply for the grant two days after FC Cincinnati was awarded a franchise with Major League Soccer, which sealed plans to build a stadium about half a mile from Stanley Rowe.
“HUD likes to see local investment in communities where assisted housing exists when it considers where grants will be awarded,” CMHA said in a statement to WCPO about the potential boost the stadium could provide its efforts to win the grant.
• A month-long pilot program in Northside that tested out 24-hour parking in the right lanes of Hamilton Ave. is over for now, but some residents there want it to continue. Generally, parking is prohibited along the route during morning and afternoon rush hours, but those rules were temporarily eliminated last month. The traffic-calming measure was meant to slow drivers and increase safety on the busy street, which has been the focus of concerns since local business owner Sarah Cole died after she was hit by a car there two years ago.
• Despite a number of changes, including the closing of its downtown department store and moves that could allow it to sell off a parking garage attached to its nearby headquarters, Macy’s says it is still committed to Cincinnati. That assurance comes as the last of the company’s top executives based in Cincinnati — CFO Karen Hoguet — is set to retire next year. When she does, all of Macy’s top leadership will be based in New York, where analysts say the company, one of the nation’s largest retailers, might be tempted to move. Macy’s, Inc. employs about 3,600 people in Greater Cincinnati.
• Cincinnati’s Brewery Heritage Trail officially broke ground yesterday in northern Over-the-Rhine. That trail will feature experiential and interactive elements, including an app, signage and murals highlighting the brewing history in the neighborhood around the Christian Moerlein Brewery between Vine and East McMicken streets. The trail will include three segments. Launch parties for the first of the three are planned for September.
• Let’s zoom back out to statewide stuff to finish up. If Ohio’s primary results are any indication, the coming election could be a partisan toss-up. More than twice as many new Democratic than Republican voters flocked to the parties’ primary in May, according to election data. But there are still more GOP voters in the state overall. And unaffiliated voters — who requested an issues-only ballot — far outnumber primary voters for both parties. More than 165,000 new voters grabbed Democratic ballots this year, compared to 60,000 Republicans. But there are more than 2 million registered Republicans in the state overall to the Democrats’ 1.4 million, and both parties’ voters pale compared to the nearly 4.5 million voters without party affiliation.
This article appears in Jun 20-27, 2018.
