Hello Cincy. Let’s talk news, shall we?
A group of preservation advocates are asking the city of Cincinnati to delay a demolition permit for the embattled Dennison Hotel and could take court action if it does not. The 125-year-old building, owned by Columbia REI, sits in a historic district and was the subject of a protracted fight over Columbia’s application to demolish it. The city’s Historic Conservation Board denied that application, but the Zoning Board of Appeals reversed that, allowing the city to issue the permit. A Jan. 6 memo by the city solicitor advised the city to issue that permit, despite a pending application for historic status for the building itself filed by Councilman Chris Seelbach. In a letter sent to the city yesterday, an attorney for Cincinnati residents John Blatchford, Peter Hames, Marge Hammelrath, Danny Klingler, Margy Waller and Dick Waller asked the city to hold the permit until consideration of Seelbach’s application is complete and after errors they say the ZBA made are corrected. If it doesn’t, the group could file a lawsuit in Hamilton County courts.
• Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, City Manager Harry Black and other city officials and social service providers unveiled a series of new proposals to benefit seniors yesterday in Evanston. Sittenfeld, Black and representatives from the Cincinnati Fire Department, the Cincinnati Recreation Commission, the city’s transportation director and leaders of many area nonprofits announced they would push for establishing an Aging and Accessibility Czar at City Hall who will engage directly with senior residents about issues they’re having and work directly with city departments to help address them. They also touted adjustments in the way tax incentives are awarded to developers that would award points for accessibility and features that serve senior citizens, $75,000 to pursue proactive health practices and reduce the number of emergency calls seniors make to paramedics, measures to improve pedestrian safety in areas with big senior populations, new zoning and code enforcement measures that will benefit older residents and more.
“The purpose of Golden Cincinnati is pretty straightforward: To ensure that Cincinnati is a great place to age and that we have smart, senior-friendly policies for all who call our city home in their golden years,” Sittenfeld said at the unveiling yesterday. “Cincinnati, like many places elsewhere in the country, is bracing for what many folks like to call a Senior Tsunami or a Silver Tsunami, as more and more residents turn 65. Indeed, we already have neighborhoods right here in Cincinnati where nearly 20 percent of the total population is over 65. The truth is, this issue impacts all of us and this initiative will benefit all of us.”
Click here to read all the motions, which are scheduled to go before Council soon.
• As president-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans gear up to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, local hospitals and health care professionals are on edge. What impact will the potential removal of the ACA, or Obamacare, have on the region and its health care? The Cincinnati Business Courier takes a look in this story.
• A quick plug: The Woman’s City Club of Greater Cincinnati tonight is holding a panel discussion on addiction, equity and race at the Clifton Unitarian Church. The panel, partly inspired by an editorial written by Christina Brown for CityBeat on the racial dimensions of the opiate crisis, features Brown, Ohio Justice and Policy Center’s David Singleton, Dr. Latrice Singleton at the UC College of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience and Dr. Kamaria Tyehimba of the Urban Minority Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Outreach Program & Recovery Services. Oh, also, yours truly will be moderating. It’s free of charge with food at 6 p.m. and the panel at 6:30 pm.
• The 26 Ohio State Troopers who were sent to control protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline back in October are home. But a lot of questions remain about their time there. Records requests by the Cincinnati Enquirer attempting to glean which state official ordered the troops to North Dakota and what they did while they were there have been rejected by the state. Sending the troopers to face off against protesters cost more than $600,000, money that North Dakota will reimburse Ohio for. Troopers made between $8,000 and $20,000 in pay during the trip, and, according to heavily redacted records sent by North Dakota officials about counseling sessions the officer received, "many are feeling conflicted with how to feel about 'sides’ ” between protesters and law enforcement.
• Finally, you probably heard about new, and unverified, accusations around president-elect Donald Trump. I won’t repeat the information detailed in a dossier reported by CNN and published by Buzzfeed that’s been passed around among the U.S. intelligence community for weeks now, but let’s just say they involve Russia having financial and uh, personal information with which to blackmail president-elect Trump. What kind of personal information? Let’s just say that some of the details could open up an unexpected door for an R. Kelly presidential run in 2020. Gross. All this sordidness came on the same night President Barack Obama gave his farewell address, an uplifting call to action for Americans to become better citizens.
