In a refreshing sign of sanity at City Hall, Cincinnati officials might change the way they go about drafting the municipal budget. Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, who heads council's Finance and Budget Committee, is proposing the group adopt a new priorities-based process that involves more community input. Six council members support the idea, which means it probably will be adopted.
As first reported by The Daily Bellwether blog and later picked up by The Enquirer, a new tenant at The Banks shopping and residential district will get almost $1 million in grant and loan assistance from the city. Mahogany’s Bar and Grill, a soul food restaurant scheduled to open in spring, will get a $684,000 grant and $300,000 loan, if City Council approves the deal Thursday. The grant would cover design and construction costs, while the loan would be used to pay for furniture and equipment.
Legendary Soul and Funk singer Patti LaBelle is visiting two local Kroger grocery stores to celebrate Black History Month. The diva will visit the Queen City Centre store at 4777 Kenard Ave. from 1:30-2:30 p.m. today, where she will be joined by a choir from the School of Creative and Performing Arts, along with students from Rockdale Academy in Avondale. She will visit the Norwood store at 4500 Montgomery Road from 1:30-2:30 p.m. Thursday, where she will perform with the St. Bernard High School Choir and students from Evanston Academy. As Ms. LaBelle might say, “Gitchi gitchi yaya here, mocha chocolata, yaya here.”
As expected, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, has broken a 2-2 tie vote by siding with the GOP members of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. Husted wants to appeal the decision of a federal judge who ordered elections officials to count additional ballots in a disputed 2010 juvenile court judge election.
In news elsewhere, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is defending comments he made in 2008 that he's a Satanist. No, not really, but he did say that The Evil One exists and has targeted the United States for destruction through the policies of President Obama. (Yes, that part is real.) Maybe Santorum would prefer being elected Pope instead of president. Someone buy the man an airline ticket to Rome, please.
The newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to overhaul rules on overdraft fees charged by banks. The agency plans to limit the costly charges. Last year, banks made between $15 billion and $22 billion from overdraft fees, which is excessive, agency officials said.
President Obama is about to ask Congress to scrub the corporate tax code of dozens of loopholes and subsidies to reduce the top rate to 28 percent, down from 35 percent, while giving preferences to manufacturers that would set their maximum effective rate at 25 percent, sources told The New York Times.
At least four people were killed and 20 injured in Afghanistan after protests spread over the burning of copies of the Koran at a U.S. military base. American officials apologized on Tuesday after Korans were "inadvertently" put in an incinerator at Bagram Air Field. Seriously, we're in our 11th year of this war, shouldn't we know proper protocol by now?
