So as you may (or may not) have noticed, there was no morning news update yesterday. Did you know that the internet is a thing that can go out, that it doesn’t just emanate from some corner of the universe like gravity or light? We went without the unifying force in the world for hours yesterday, huddled around each others’ desks in fear while gazing into our smartphones, praying for 4G coverage.
But now we’re back online and serving up a double dose of morning news.
Local charter school VLT Academy is gone, but some say the lingering spirit of unregulated schooling and questionable legality remains in the building. The Ohio Department of Education is investigating Hope4Change Academy, a charter that began operating in August at VLT’s former site on Sycamore in Pendleton. That school, or whatever it is, no longer has a sponsoring organization, meaning it legally can’t operate as a school. The ODE ordered it to shut down, but says its classrooms are still full of students. An employee of Hope4Change told a reporter that the building is a tutoring center, and officials with the school claim they’re just making computers available to students who need to take online classes. The ODE is continuing to investigate.
• Let’s go back to that parking permit idea Mayor Cranley floated the other day, which could charge OTR residents $300-$400 a year to park in the neighborhood to help fund streetcar operating costs. Turns out it would be the most expensive of such programs in the country, tripling car-choked San Francisco’s $110-a-year permit scheme. Critics say that would be a huge burden on the neighborhood’s low-income population. Mayor Cranley has said that low-income residents of the neighborhood would be exempted from the fee.
• There is another new wrinkle in the Mahogany’s saga, the controversial restaurant and only African-American-owned business at The Banks. The establishment was told Wednesday it was in violation of its lease and would have to vacate the riverfront development.
The restaurant’s lease says Mahogany’s must be open daily, a clause it violated when it closed for four days in late August due to unpaid state sales taxes, its landlord NIC Riverbanks One said. However, Mahogany’s attorney today said that the order to vacate is in error, and that the restaurant’s lease only applies to voluntary closures, not the tax struggles it has faced. The restaurant paid the back taxes it owed and reopened Saturday. It’s just the latest chapter of troubles for the restaurant, which has struggled with rent payments and other difficulties for two years at The Banks.
• A Cincinnati resident and former University of Toledo student says a man who raped her was fined $25 and given probation by the school. She filed a complaint with the Department of Education against the university Wednesday, joining a number of other students at schools across the country challenging the way the institutions punish sexual assault. She’s outraged, she says, by the punishment a former acquaintance received for allegedly sexually assaulting her while both were at UT. She reported the incident six months later after battling anxiety and depression. The university has confirmed that it fined her attacker $25, required him to attend 10 hours of sexual assault training and put him on a year-long probation. He was allowed to remain at the school and keep his campus job. The woman left University of Toledo to finish her studies elsewhere.
“The way they handled it was extremely upsetting,” the woman told USA Today.
• With tension still in the air from recent police shootings in Ferguson, Mo. and closer to home in Beavercreek, local groups held a forum in Evanston last night to discuss issues surrounding law enforcement treatment of minorities. Among those in attendance were Cincinnati Chief of Police Jeffery Blackwell, community leaders and activists Rev. Damon Lynch, III and Iris Roley, Councilman Chris Seelbach and others. Blackwell commented that some Cincinnati Police officers are trying out body cameras. He also commented on the investigation into the shooting death of John Crawford III, who was killed by police in a Beavercreek Walmart Aug. 5. Attorney General Mike DeWine has declined to release to the public security camera footage of the shooting. Blackwell said the footage should be made public.
• Cincinnati is one of Bicycling magazine’s top 50 bike-friendly cities, rolling in at number 35. That’s just under Chattanooga and just above Milwaukee. New York City, Chicago, and Minneapolis rounded out the top three, respectively. The rankings consider bike infrastructure such as bike lanes and trails, as well as environmental factors such as hills and hot summers. Working in Cincinnati’s favor: The Central Park bike lanes and RedBike, the city’s new bike share program.
• Going after the elusive gambling hipster demographic, Horseshoe Casino has announced it will be hosting a farmer’s market next week on Sept. 10. The event will feature 24 vendors, cooking demonstrations, and more. If rain happens, the market will move to the casino’s parking garage. There is a Portlandia reference in this somewhere and I just can’t find it right now so I’ll leave it up to you.
• Fast food workers across the country began strikes and protests yesterday, hoping to push some of the nation’s biggest food chains toward a $15 an hour minimum wage. Labor organizers with the Service Employees International Union say actions are planned in more than 100 cities. The SEIU is also encouraging workers outside the fast food industry to get involved, including home health care and janitorial workers.
• Finally, this new Google Glass app detects other peoples’ emotions. You know, the kind of thing you do naturally when you’re having a face-to-face conversation with someone that is unmediated by some crazy internet-connected device you have attached to your face.
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2014.