Good morning all. Here’s the news today.
An unidentified University of Cincinnati police officer shot and killed 43-year-old Sam Dubose during a traffic stop at the corner of Rice and Valencia streets in Mount Auburn around 6:30 p.m. yesterday. Dubose, who has been identified by his family but not yet by law enforcement officials, died in his car from a single gunshot wound to the head. UC police say Dubose dragged an officer with his car before he was shot, resulting in minor injuries to the officer. The corner where Dubose was shot is about half a mile from UC’s campus. Cincinnati Police were subsequently called to the scene to investigate. We’ve made public records requests to both departments. So far, CPD has released only the initial incident report. We’ll update this story as we find out more.
• Mayor John Cranley on Friday suggested that the city “scrap” its Central Parkway bike lane in response to accidents that have occurred on the major downtown thoroughfare. Cranley called the lane a “disaster” that should be removed, pointing to confusion over parking on the street and ire from local business. The bike lane was completed last year after controversy from a few business owners along the route, who said the lane would take away their customers’ parking. A compromise was worked out to preserve much of that parking, but now lane opponents say the way cars must park on the route — in the parkway’s right lane, between traffic and the bike lane — has caused more accidents. A WLWT report says 33 automotive accidents have happened on the parkway since May. It says that multiple times, in fact, without revealing how many of those accidents were directly related to confusion over the lane. In a pretty befuddling oversight, it also doesn’t mention how many accidents happened during the same stretch of time before the lane went in. Hey, a bunch of accidents (way more accidents) happen on the nearby stretch of I-75. We’d better remove that as well. It’s unclear how many, if any, accidents involved cyclists. Cincinnati City Council approved the lanes before Cranley was elected, and a majority of council still stands behind the project. Personally, I have a better idea: If you’re driving your car on Central Parkway, pay attention to the road and don’t run into other cars.
• The University of Cincinnati might soon spend more than $70 million to renovate its Fifth Third Arena, according to plans released last week. The 26-year-old facility houses the men’s and women’s basketball teams, the women’s volleyball team and other athletic groups. The plans call for a reduction in the more than 13,000 seats now in the building and the creation of more premium, high-price seating like the 16 private suites the arena currently boasts. University officials say they haven’t made a decision about whether or not to carry out the renovations because they’re waiting on more information about the potential project.
• David Hansen, the Ohio Department of Education official responsible for the oversight of charter school sponsors has stepped down. Hansen resigned from his position after it was revealed last week that he omitted data from low-scoring online charter schools in reports about charter school sponsor performance in order to make charters look better. The reports possibly set up two charter sponsors run by Republican donors for more financial help from the state. Hansen has said he felt the poor performance data from the online charters “masked” better performance by other charter schools in the state.
• Well, Gov. John Kasich will announce that he’s seeking the GOP nomination for president tomorrow, which should come as no surprise to anyone, since he’s been campaigning for months. The timing is designed to give Kasich the biggest bump possible ahead of selection of the Republican contenders who will be invited to the party’s first debate in Cleveland later this year. Only the 10 highest-polling candidates will be invited to the debate, and there are (depending on who you ask) anywhere between 16 and several thousand people running for the GOP nod.
Ahead of his announcement, New Day for America, the nonprofit associated with Kasich’s almost-campaign, has released its first ad touting Kasich’s conservative record. There’s a minute-long version of the spot and a longer, five-minute sort of director’s cut. Both are that odd combination of weirdness and totally bland sloganeering you can only get from political ads. Strange moments include a seemingly unedited Kasich asserting that his fight for a balanced budget in Ohio “was ‘cause about values,” an odd slip in syntax for the stuffy world of campaign ads. Another howler: The longer-playing version has a voice-over that drops the following statement about Kasich’s time-out from politics in the early 2000s: “Kasich then worked in the real world as a commentator on Fox.” That’s… uh…. is that…. wait how in the hell is being a Fox commentator in any way being part of the real world? I need to go lie down and think about that for a minute.
