Hey, hey all. It’s Friday. The weather’s rad. One of my favorite musicians is playing in Cincy tonight. So let’s get this news thing out of the way real quick and head toward the weekend ASAP, shall we?
You’ll be seeing a lot more of the space bus… err, Cincinnati streetcar soon. Four of the five cars are in town already, and the city plans to start running them two at a time along the transit project’s 3.6-mile route in order to rack up the required mileage necessary to meet Federal Transportation Administration testing requirements. The fifth car is due at the end of April, and officials believe they’ll be able run simulated service — all five cars running their daily routes without passengers — by August, with actual service beginning in September.
• Renovations to Music Hall have been a long time coming, but now that they’re happening, are they unfolding in the best way? Some folks have reservations about the plans for the Cincinnati landmark, including a planned removal of 1,000 seats and acoustical adjustments in the hall’s Springer Auditorium. The city owns the hall, and much of the funding for the renovations has come from public sources. But there have been questions about the transparency and public input into the planning process for the rehab work. Officials with 3CDC, which is overseeing that work, say public input has been taken into account throughout the process. The kerfuffle comes ahead of the first major public hearing on the renovation plans before the city’s Historic Conservation Board, which was slated to take place April 4. However, that’s opening day, something of a major holiday in the city, and the city has announced it will move the meeting to a less busy date.
• Perhaps you heard about the bizarre incident on I-75 the other day in which a suspect for a murder in Maryland was shot and injured by police along a stretch of the highway going through Evendale. That incident has sparked a fight over public records between local media and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters. Javier Pablo Aleman was walking along the median of the highway when he was approached by Glendale police officer Joshua Hilling, who searched Aleman’s belongings and found a large knife. A scuffle ensued between the two, during which Aleman was shot. Deters is refusing to release video footage of the incident taken by the officer’s body camera, saying an investigation is ongoing into the incident. However, an attorney for the Cincinnati Enquirer argues that the footage is public record and must be released immediately. We’ll keep you posted on this one.
• Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has ordered across-the-board cuts for the state’s eight public universities and its community college system. Bevin has ordered an immediate 4.5-percent cut for the schools as part of his plan to cut the state’s budget. Those cuts will come out of quarterly transfers from the state to the schools scheduled to take place today. The budget reductions will then double to 9 percent in the upcoming 2016-2018 budget. The Kentucky House of Representatives has resisted those cuts, while the state’s Senate has backed Bevin in the education funding reductions. The budget fight comes as the state looks for ways to shore up flagging funding for pension obligations.
• Finally, regular CityBeat readers know we’ve been pretty skeptical of Ohio Gov. John Kasich and his GOP presidential primary campaign. But come on. There’s absolutely no wrong way to eat pizza.
The Big Queso is catching some heat for eating his ‘za with a fork on the campaign trail in New York. Now, the Empire State, home of the pizza slice as big as your head that you have to fold like a beach blanket to eat, is the last place in the world you want to do that. But the man is eating pizza, perhaps the most relatable act he’s ever committed. I would hope that we, as Americans, could put aside our ideological differences and recognize this. Even New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, not exactly Kasich’s ideological brother, has come to our hapless governor’s aid, tweeting a photo of himself also eating pizza with a fork. Did Kasich just start an anti-fork-shaming movement? Primary results will tell.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 6, 2016.