Cincinnati City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee today voted forward two competing plans to fund $17 million in fixes for landslides that have blocked Columbia Parkway at least seven times in the past year.
The long-term fix will involve new retaining walls and a technique called “soil nailing” and is expected to shore up the hillside above the main city artery for 30 to 50 years. But the struggle to fund the fixes stirred up other issues.
The City of Cincinnati faces a fundamental problem: staring down a budget deficit of between $14 million and $19 million in the coming year, the city has to stretch to cover the landslides and a promised new police headquarters costing between $10 million and $22.5 million.
City administration identified a way to pay for the landslide fixes, but some of that money would come from funds meant to build a new Cincinnati Police District 5 headquarters — either a new facility in College Hill or in a rehabbed building in Clifton currently occupied by the city’s permitting department.
Council member David Mann suggested an alternative to the city administration plan that would borrow $13.8 million from property tax revenues that fuel the city’s capital budget, leaving the District 5 money untouched.
Mann’s plan, however, means the city will have about $1 million less to work with in its capital budget each year, money that critics of his idea said could have been used for pedestrian safety and other efforts. That plan, as well as the city administration’s, passed committee today and will be considered by full council this week.
Under the city administration’s plan, the city would take $6.2 million earmarked for a new District 5 headquarters and use it to fix Columbia Parkway. That plan would also borrow $7.6 million via bonds to be paid back with property tax revenues attached to an increase approved last year for the new headquarters. It would also borrow another $3.2 million via bonds to be paid back with proceeds the city gets from the Cincinnati Southern Railway.
The city administration’s funding solution would mean the police facility would remain at its current temporary location on Hamilton Avenue in College Hill for at least seven years. The city would need to spend about $3.2 million to retrofit that location for ongoing use.
Mann says his plan would allow the city to more fully consider public input and other factors when it comes to the police headquarters and not lock down the new District 5 location in College Hill.
Council approved an emergency $750,000 to shore up part of Columbia Parkway near Torrence Parkway last month, but now it must decide how to pay for the larger fixes — something many say is urgent.
“What ends up becoming of District 5 — that remains an important conversation,” said council member Greg Landsman, who expressed concerns about the impact to the city’s capital budget Mann’s plan would have. “I do think administration came up with a good plan.”
Landsman suggested council revisit the questions about the police headquarters soon, saying the landslides were a more pressing concern. But other council members say the city can do both.
“It’s an urgent situation, but let’s be urgent in getting it right and not in getting it wrong,” said P.G. Sittenfeld, who voted for Mann’s plan.
Taking money from the planned new District 5 isn’t popular in some corners, of course. Police officials say they don’t think the current location, which officers have occupied since moving out of another location in Clifton due to cancer concerns there, is suitable for permanent use.
“I think there has been a general history in Cincinnati of under-funding police infrastructure,” Fraternal Order of Police President Dan Hils said. “If there is going to be a commitment to police infrastructure, District 5 has some issues.”
Hils says that the current location’s unsecured parking — shared with a strip mall — is a big problem there. He called taking money from the District 5 plan to pay for Columbia Parkway “disappointing.”
Meanwhile, some like council member Amy Murray floated the idea of selling CPD’s District 1 headquarters — which is at the corner of Central Parkway of Ezzard Charles Drive next to the coming FC Cincinnati stadium — and using the proceeds to build a combined District 1 and District 5 headquarters. That’s an idea Hils has also floated.
“It’s not a secret — developers have their eyes on that intersection,” Hils said. “It’s going to be sitting on top of a stadium for 30,000 people. It’s going to be hard to operate out of. If developers want that intersection, let’s see what that’s worth and maybe combine.”
Council will likely take a vote on the Columbia Parkway funding Wednesday.
This article appears in Apr 17-24, 2019.
