Hello all! Let’s talk about news today. There’s a lot of it, so I’ll refrain from my normal verbosity (you probably got enough long-windedness from the GOP presidential debate last night anyway) and just give you the facts.
• As a bike commuter, I’m intrigued. As a reporter who follows the trials and travails of building bike infrastructure in this city, I’m skeptical. But intrigued. A coalition of bike groups is unveiling Cincinnati Connects today, a plan that would link up various proposed or in-progress bike trails to create a 42-mile loop around the city. The groups involved include boosters of major bike trail proposals like Wasson Way and the Millcreek Greenway, along with Queen City Bike and others. Those trails, along with connectors, would need to be completed for the plan to come to fruition. But boosters say they have a much better chance at things like federal TIGER grants — which Wasson Way was recently passed over for — with this larger project. The group says 242,000 of the city’s 300,000 people would live within a mile of a bike trail should the project take off. But will it help me avoid getting flattened by that one guy who drives his SUV, like, 60 miles an hour down Highland Avenue as I bike to work in the mornings? Here’s hoping.
• Hamilton County has yet to set a trial date for Ray Tensing, the former University of Cincinnati police officer who shot and killed unarmed black motorist Sam DuBose in Mount Auburn over the summer. At a pretrial hearing yesterday, prosecutors said they’re still in the evidence-gathering phase of their investigation, a statement that frustrated DuBose’s mother, Audrey DuBose. The court did set another pretrial hearing for Feb. 11 next year. In the meantime, a settlement to a wrongful death civil suit brought by DuBose’s estate against UC could be near. That settlement could be worth millions. Tensing pulled over DuBose because he didn’t have a front license plate on his car. Though Tensing claimed DuBose tried to drive off and dragged the officer, footage from Tensing’s body camera appears to show that story is false.
• It’s baaaack. Thanks to a change of heart by a Cincinnati City Council member, the much-discussed Over-the-Rhine parking plan has new life after a mayoral veto sunk it earlier this year. At that time, Council had five votes in favor of the plan, which would block off 450 parking spots for residential permit holders. Those permits would cost $108 a year or $18 for low-income residents. Another 151 spots would be set aside for service workers in the neighborhood. Cranley didn’t like the idea, however, saying that people all over the city pay for the streets and thus have a right to park on them. Now, however, Councilman Charlie Winburn has been persuaded to switch sides and vote for the measure, giving Council a veto-proof majority. Winburn says he asked OTR community members about their biggest problems and that parking came up over and over again in those discussions.
• Speaking of Mr. Winburn, it looks like his road to running as the Republican candidate for the county commission seat vacated by outgoing chair Greg Hartmann just got easier. Winburn’s fellow council member, Christopher Smitherman, an independent, announced yesterday that he won’t seek the Republican nomination in that race. Smitherman cites more work he’d like to do on City Council as his reason for foregoing the race. That leaves Winburn the most likely choice to face Democrat Denise Driehaus, who formally filed paperwork for her candidacy earlier this week. Winburn has yet to do the same, but has expressed serious interest in the race.
• The U.S. Department of Justice will review a request by the family of Tamir Rice to remove grand jury deliberations from the jurisdiction of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty and conduct a federal investigation into the police shooting of Rice. That request came in the form of a letter to the DOJ in which attorneys for the family outlined what they say is misconduct by McGinty, including remarks made by McGinty to the press that the family had economic interests at heart in pursuing the case, the alleged disparaging of a defense expert witness and an alleged incident where a prosecutor stuck a toy gun in a defense expert witness’ face while he was testifying. Rice, 12, was playing with a toy gun on a playground when he was shot by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann. Dispatchers did not relay information to Loehmann from a 911 caller who stipulated that Rice was a child and that the gun he was holding was probably fake.
• The organizations that sponsor Ohio charter schools will get a new rating system after data rigging at the Ohio Department of Education earlier this year left low-performing online charters out of a statewide charter school performance evaluation. That scandal resulted in the dismissal of ODE’s School Choice Director David Hansen, who admitted to leaving the school data out of evaluations on charter school sponsors. Now, ODE is expecting to put in place a more rigorous 12-point scale that is weighted depending on school size. So if a charter sponsor has a small school that is failing but larger ones that are doing well, it won’t be penalized as much as it would be otherwise. Some have questioned this scale, however, saying students and parents at failing schools suffer no matter the school’s size. The new rating system is expected to be implemented early next year.
• So, the question on everyone’s mind. Did Ohio Gov. John Kasich break through in last night’s presidential debates? Not really. We did see a kinder, softer Kasich, however, as opposed to the sharp-elbowed interrupter who graced the stage at the last debate. Instead, he called out other candidates for fighting in what was perhaps the most contentious GOP debate yet. The tussling often centered around foreign policy and national security, and while Kasich wasn’t as abrasive as his last performance, he seemed to have a hard time getting a word in edgewise against frontrunners like Donald Trump and the recently emergent Sen. Ted Cruz. His campaign says Kasich has a busy schedule of appearances in early primary states that will bolster his profile among voters, but it’s clear time is running out to make the big splash Kasich will need to boost his flagging poll numbers and rise above the crowded GOP field.
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2015.