Hello, all. Here’s a really quick rundown of news today as it prepares to snow outside. Mother nature, I feel betrayed.
It’s no secret: the streetcar is struggling, and Cincinnati City Council’s Major Projects and Smart Government Committee got an earful about it yesterday. Without big changes, the streetcar could be running a deficit by fiscal year 2019 (which actually starts July 1 this year, confusingly), according to Assistant City Manager John Juech. That’s due to declining fare and advertising revenue and delayed payments from the city’s voluntary tax incentive program. But there seems to be a consensus forming that part of the streetcar’s woes come from its truly Byzantine management structure. Putting decision making in one set of hands could streamline other needed changes, advocates say. You can read more about the streetcar’s complicated situation in our news feature here.
• Curious about where the Oakley Community Council stands in regard to FC Cincinnati’s pitch to build a stadium there? After the team presented preliminary findings from a traffic study that showed where infrastructure improvements would be needed, the council’s board of trustees released a detailed statement about its stance written yesterday. You can read the whole statement here, but basically, the community council is open to a potential stadium and infrastructure improvements should FCC get a Major League Soccer expansion franchise, but wants the team to keep doing engagement work.
“Following last night’s meeting, we ask FC Cincinnati to continue the engagement with our community,” the statement reads. “Please do not force us to wait another 4 months. We recognize that alternative paths are being pursued. We appreciate the diligence that FC Cincinnati is conducting, and we are grateful that our neighborhood is being considered for such a transformative development. We need to continue to evaluate whether such transformation is the right direction for Oakley. And if our neighborhood is chosen as the ultimate destination for this stadium, we will make every effort to ensure that it enhances the neighborhood for the benefit of those who live, work, play and worship in Oakley.”
By way of context: Back in November last year, OCC wrote a provisional letter of support for an early vision of an Oakley stadium FCC presented. The council, however, later balked at a financing plan presented by Mayor John Cranley that would have taken money from a tax increment financing district there. Cranley amended that plan, and OCC jumped back on board.
• Speaking of FCC’s stadium, those wanting to know more about possible contracting opportunities related to the construction of the potential stadium can pop by Woodward Theater in Over-the-Rhine tonight at 7 p.m. for presentations by FC Cincinnati GM Jeff Berding, Turner Construction and the African American Chamber of Commerce. Though Turner hasn’t been tapped as the builder for a possible FCC stadium, Turner built both Nippert Stadium at University of Cincinnati and Paul Brown Stadium.
• Cincinnati City Council is set today to vote on a request from neighborhood groups that could increase the number of restaurants and other establishments with liquor licenses in Clifton. Making the neighborhood a Community Entertainment District would allow the state to issue more lower-cost licenses, boosting economic development, say Clifton Town Meeting and the neighborhood’s business group. Their request passed out of council committee yesterday. Cincinnati’s first CEDs were two districts at The Banks created in 2008. In 2010, council made it much cheaper for applicants looking to revitalize the city’s neighborhoods to apply for a CED, lowering the cost from $15,000 to $1,500. Since that time, the city has named 11 more districts in Northside, Over-the-Rhine, Walnut Hills, Pleasant Ridge, CUF, Madisonville, East Price Hill, Short Vine, College Hill and 3 East, a district encompassing East Side neighborhoods East End, Columbia Tusculum and Linwood.
• Local philanthropy hub People’s Liberty announced its 2018 Haile Fellowship recipients yesterday, and you can read about it in this CityBeat story. Former Cincinnati Public School Board member Elisa Hoffman will spend the next year working on efforts to help future school board members better understand and carry out that job. Nicole Armstrong will start an organization aimed at making sure employers treat their employees fairly. Both will receive $100,000 for those efforts as part of the fellowship. A panel of judges including Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau Vice President Jason Dunn, former Haile recipient Chris Glass, LPK exec Valerie Jacobs, Greater Cincinnati Foundation’s Jenny Powell and former mayoral candidate Yvette Simpson picked the recipients from 101 applicants.
• Cincinnati Police will hold a public input session on the location of its proposed new District 5 headquarters today in College Hill. District 5’s current headquarters have been in the news a lot over the past couple years over concerns that the aging 60-year-old building has ties to cancer cases reported by employees there. A federal study found no link, but the city would like to relocate the policing hub anyway. Tonight’s meeting will take place at the College Hill Recreation Center at 6 p.m.
• Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and the city of Columbus are suing to try and keep Major League Soccer team the Columbus Crew from leaving the city. But the Crew’s owner and MLS aren’t taking that sitting down and have blasted that lawsuit. Crew ownership is currently mulling a move to Austin, Texas (and if it keeps snowing, I may follow them). Ohio and Columbus want to apply a never-used Ohio statute called the Modell Law, passed in 1996 after the Cleveland Browns skipped the state for Baltimore. Crew ownership group Precourt Sports Ventures and MLS say the law doesn’t apply to the team, however.
“Precourt Sports Ventures and Major League Soccer are disappointed that the Ohio Attorney General and the City of Columbus have chosen to commence litigation rather than encouraging public officials in Columbus to engage in constructive discussions about the future of Columbus Crew SC,” a statement from the groups reads.
• Ohio’s four Democratic hopefuls for governor will debate tonight in Toledo. Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray, former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, State Sen. Joe Schiavoni and former Ohio Supreme Court Justice William O’Neill (all dudes, bee-tee-dubs) will face off over who is the best contender to face off against whoever wins the GOP primary contest between Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.
• Ohio Gov. John Kasich gave a philosophical, hour-long goodbye speech of sorts last night at his final State of the State address in Westerville. Kasich name-dropped Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and other hard-to-pronounce philosophers; seemed to rail against the prevailing political attitudes of the Trump era; and in general went for a Bill and Ted moment in which he implored us to be excellent to each other. The speech has gotten mixed reviews. Among the iciest: this tweet from his second in command, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who has swung far to the right as she campaigns for the GOP gubernatorial nomination herself. Shade level: Rain forest.
This article appears in Mar 7-14, 2018.