Hello all. It’s Friday. The sun is out. Let’s tick off a few news things real quick before you head toward your weekend.
Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing is expected to take the stand today as his retrial for the shooting death of unarmed motorist Sam DuBose moves into day seven. Tensing will likely testify that he feared for his life because he thought he would be run over by DuBose’s car. Testimony from expert video analyst Grant Fredericks for the prosecution earlier this week contradicted that assertion, but defense witness Scott Roder, who specializes in animated recreations of crime scenes, challenged Fredericks’ assessment yesterday. In pre-trial hearings, Roder admitted he wasn’t certified or trained as a video analyst, but takes a “common sense” approach to the field. Hamilton County Judge Leslie Ghiz, presiding over the case, ruled that his testimony would be allowed. When asked by assistant prosecutor Stacey DeGraffenreid yesterday whether he was a video expert, Roder pointed to Ghiz’s ruling and quipped sarcastically, “I am now.”
• In other Tensing news, Hamilton County prosecutors yesterday asked Ghiz to allow the jury to consider the lesser charge of reckless homicide. That’s a third-degree felony usually receiving nine months to three years in prison. Some trial watchers speculate that’s a sign the prosecution isn’t confident they can get a conviction on the murder or manslaughter charges Tensing is currently facing. Ghiz declined to let the jury consider the reckless homicide charge, saying the evidence presented so far doesn’t support it. Both prosecution and defense have established that Tensing shot DuBose on purpose, not in a reckless manner.
• Hamilton County commissioners “won’t stand in the way” of a medicinal marijuana facility in Camp Washington proposed by Rhinegeist brewery founders, commission president Todd Portune said recently. A 155,000-square-foot beer distribution site Rhinegeist is working on will occupy the former Kahn’s meat plant on Spring Grove Ave. Rhinegeist founders Bob Bonder and Bryant Goulding would also like to build a 120,000-square-foot indoor medicinal marijuana cultivation site there. That facility would be a separate business called Nature’s Apex. But an agreement between the county and Vestige Redevelopment Corp., which has cleaned up the site, means that commissioners will need to give the go-ahead for any planned development. That OK looked uncertain after the commissioners’ attorneys asked questions about the wisdom of county go-ahead for an enterprise that would technically break federal law. But Congress has decided it won’t fund federal legal action against medicinal marijuana in states where it’s legal, making the county’s lawyers feel a bit better.
“If they so choose, they’ll be able to set up shop there and move forward with their business plan,” Portune said.
• Big news about Big Boys: Frisch’s will open its first downtown Cincinnati restaurant in nearly a decade and a half in historic Carew Tower. The 90-seat restaurant will employ as many as 80 people. It’s the first Frisch’s downtown since the restaurant closed its Sixth Street location in 2004.
• This week, the Cincinnati Business Courier ran a cover story about local grocery giant Kroger’s battle with online retailer Amazon. The Jeff Bezos-owned mega-company, which has over the past few years made forays into the grocery industry, represents Kroger’s biggest competition. Today we found out that that competition is about to get more intense: Amazon announced it is acquiring Texas-based upscale organic grocer Whole Foods, a company some grocery industry experts thought Kroger might buy earlier this year. Amazon’s move to snap up the struggling fancy-pants organic grocer should worry Kroger, some say.
• City of Covington elected officials yesterday passed a resolution hiring an attorney to investigate allegations of “possible wrongdoing.” Sounds ominous. But the city isn’t saying what those allegations are, who made them, or who they’re directed toward. The city will hire Lexington attorney Scott White to check into whatever these allegations are. Meanwhile, Covington has yet to reply to public records requests related to the mystery claims of wrongdoing. The move comes after an exodus of employees from Covington City Hall following the election of new mayor Joe Meyer in November, though no one at the city will say if that is in any way related to the investigation.
• As lawmakers wrangle over the state budget, Democrats in the Ohio Senate are pushing for an end to a small-business tax cut that they say is draining the state’s coffers. The state is facing a $400 million budget deficit this year, and conservatives are looking to cuts to various programs to offset that loss. But Democrats say they should be looking to bring in more revenue, and that the tax cuts ushered in by Ohio Gov. John Kasich haven’t yielded the jobs Kasich promised.
“Right now, we’re throwing money on a tax break that is not creating jobs,” Senate Minority Leader Kenny Yuko said at a news conference yesterday.
Democrats say their proposal would bring in $2.2 billion in revenue over the next two years. They’d split that money in half, using $1 billion to reverse cuts in the current budget and another billion to bolster Medicaid, efforts to fight opiate addiction, local government funds, education and human services.
This article appears in Jun 14-21, 2017.