Good morning all. Here are some quick news bits today.
A lot happened Friday in campaigns for big City Hall jobs. First, Mayor John Cranley shuffled up his bid for reelection with new campaign manager Chandra Yungbluth, who replaces Jay Kincaid at that post. Yungbluth has lots of experience running campaigning efforts. She helped run State Rep. Brigid Kelly’s successful campaign, was executive director of the Hamilton County Democratic Party for three years and was the political director for the United Food and Commercial Workers, in addition to running or helping with other campaigns. Kincaid will stay on as an advisor and spokesman. Yungbluth’s hiring comes as Cranley looks to beef up his ground game after a second-place mayoral primary finish to challenger Councilwoman Yvette Simpson. The Cranley campaign has hired 12 full-time staff members — six of whom will spend much of their time canvassing.
• The Hamilton County Republican Party Friday announced its endorsements for Cincinnati City Council elections. Incumbent Amy Murray and newcomers teacher Jeff Pastor and real estate developer Seth Maney got the nod from the party. That’s a small slate in contrast to the Hamilton County Democratic Party’s nine endorsements. But county GOP chair Alex Triantafilou left open the possibility that the party will endorse more candidates as the campaign goes on.
• A few hundred activists Saturday marched through Over-the-Rhine protesting the mistrial of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing for the shooting death of unarmed motorist Sam DuBose in Mount Auburn. The march, organized by Black Lives Matter Cincinnati, the Amos Project and other groups, began at Findlay Playground with speeches, then wound through northern OTR. The event eventually led to protesters picketing outside the busy bars and restaurants along southern Vine Street before ending in the middle of Vine Street with a moment of silence for DuBose. There was some friction along the way as Cincinnati Police and protesters faced off in several locations. CPD officers on bicycles attempted to block the march at the intersection of Main St. and McMicken Ave., and again at 14th Street before moving and letting protesters through. At least one marcher, Theresa Felton, says she was treated roughly by officers at that spot, where she was momentarily pinned against a wall by an officer using his bicycle. CityBeat filmed that incident. Siri Imani, a march organizer, took Felton’s hand, pulled her away from the line of police and defused the situation, according to Felton.
• The new I-71/Martin Luther King Jr. Drive interchange doesn’t do enough to serve people without cars, some transit advocates say. The Ohio Department of Transportation project at the intersection of Avondale, Corryville and Walnut Hills is spending about $80 million to create a highway onramp and off ramp at the location as well as widening roads and the bridge that carries MLK Drive over the interstate. But all that widening means a space less friendly for pedestrians, critics like City Council candidate Derek Bauman say. And bus advocates like Cam Hardy, who helped found the Better Bus Coalition, say that the project doesn’t do enough to improve bus access in the neighborhood. Hardy and other critics also point to the painful history highway projects have had in urban black neighborhoods and says the interchange could spark gentrification in the historically black neighborhoods around it.
• U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday spoke to a crowd of more than 2,000 at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington, urging Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky not to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. GOP U.S. House members have already passed a bill that would repeal and replace big chunks of the ACA, and now the Senate is mulling similar legislation. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that legislation could cost up to 22 million Americans their healthcare coverage over the next decade. Sanders implored McConnell to drop efforts to destroy the ACA and begin working on ways to make it better. Earlier in the day, protesters supporting President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law held hands across the Roebling Suspension Bridge to protest the GOP healthcare laws.
