Good morning all. Hope you had a great weekend and are quickly chipping away your holiday shopping duties. I… have barely even started, unfortunately. Anyway, here’s the news today.
The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority could see a boost from a new federal transportation spending package. The five-year, $305 billion transit spending bill is expected to clear Congress and be signed by President Barack Obama as soon as this week, and it could mean up to $20 million more a year for Ohio’s transit agencies. In addition, agencies will be able to apply for access to a pot of extra money totaling up to $300 million a year specifically aimed at improving bus service. Metro hopes to compete for some of that cash as it looks to improve service over the coming years. A report released last month found that current bus service only connects riders to about 40 percent of jobs in the city.
• Tucked away in that same transit bill might be more money for rail travel as well, which could be a great thing for an effort to bring daily rail service between the Queen City and Chicago. The local chapter of transit advocacy group All Aboard Ohio has been working hard to expand that service along Amtrak’s Cardinal Line, which currently runs trains between here and the Windy City three times a week. Those trains leave Union Terminal in the middle of the night, however, and aren’t seen as a practical transit option for many in the city. The total amount in the bill set aside to revive old train routes or expand existing ones is only $20 million for the whole country; an amount experts say won’t get Cincinnati to the finish line by itself. Though All Aboard Ohio estimates expansion of the existing Cardinal Line would only cost about $2 million, our region will have to vie with some strong contenders for the a very small pot of money. Still, transit advocates say, the increased funding is a start.
• Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Seelbach will introduce legislation designed to ban so-called conversion therapy, he has announced. The Christian-based therapy seeks to “convert” LGBT people, often youth, to heterosexual preferences. Transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, who committed suicide last year after she was bullied for her status, was enrolled in the therapy after coming out to her parents. Seelbach’s proposed law would fine therapists in the city administering conversion therapy $200 a day. Cincinnati would be the first city in the country to have such a law should council approve the legislation.
• Cincinnati’s chapter of the NAACP elected new leadership last week after a year of controversy and political wrangling, and incoming officials say they’re going to bring the civil rights organization back to its roots. Robert Richardson Sr., president-elect of the Cincinnati NAACP, has announced the organization representing black Cincinnatians is severing its ties with the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, a conservative group the local chapter often allied with under former NAACP president and now-Cincinnati City Councilman Christopher Smitherman. The change in direction comes after the chapter’s last president, Smitherman ally Ishton Morton, was sued by the civil rights organization’s national office over an allegation that it incorporated as a branch of the NAACP fraudulently and was spending money allocated to the organization without authorization to do so. Richardson says that under his tenure, the Cincinnati NAACP will return its focus to core civil rights issues such as voting access.
• A short, sad note: Local AM talk radio station 1230 WDBZ The Buzz is no more. The station, which served as Cincinnati’s main talk station serving the city’s black community, has been replaced by gospel programing by parent company Radio One. The Buzz was more or less the only station in town airing a number of programs dedicated to exploring and discussing issues within the black community. Talk show host Lincoln Ware, whose show runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will stay on the air, as will a syndicated program by Al Sharpton, but all other Buzz programming has ceased.
• Ohio Gov. John Kasich has been pulling in the most money of any GOP presidential primary candidate in his home state, but other candidates have more donors giving smaller amounts, according to campaign finance records. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson led Ohio in terms of number of donors with more than 2,400, followed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. But Kasich’s campaign did take home a pretty good amount of cash, raking in more than $2 million from his donors in Ohio. He’s going to need those fat stacks, though. Kasich is still lagging behind in polls, and recent flubs, including a less-than-stellar debate appearance and an abandoned call to create a new government agency to spread Judeo-Christian values, haven’t helped his chances.
• Cincinnati-based Macy’s Department Stores are the subject of a lawsuit out of New York City alleging the store discriminates racially against shoppers there. The lawsuit says the chain takes advantage of a so-called “shopkeeper’s privilege” law which allows stores to hold suspected shoplifters and demand civil penalties without a trial. New York resident Cinthia Carolina Reyes Orelanna filed the suit, saying that in July 2014 she was detained by security employees at a store in New York City and held until she paid a $100 fine. She was then released to the NYPD. Shoplifting charges against her were eventually dismissed. Orelanna’s suit claims that more than 6,000 shoppers were detained in this way by Macy’s stores in New York between October 2012 and October 2013.
And I’m out. Later all.
This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2015.