Good morning all. Here’s your news today.
It was an eventful day yesterday at Cincinnati City Council. First up, Council weighed in on an ongoing controversy brewing in Clifton and unanimously passed a resolution telling Cincinnati Public Schools not to take back the building housing the Clifton Cultural Arts Center. CCAC occupies a historic former school building across from Clifton/Fairview German Language School. The arts nonprofit took over the building from CPS under an agreement that it would fix up the structure. It’s done that to the tune of $2 million. But now CPS is debating whether or not to exercise a clause in its contract with the CCAC that would let it turn the building back into a school. With its neighboring magnet school bursting at the seams, CPS has eyed renting space in the CCAC building. But the two organizations couldn’t agree on a rental price, and now CPS is at least considering taking the building back. Officials with the school district, however, say Council’s resolution is premature, and that negotiations are ongoing with the CCAC around how to resolve the issue.
• At the Council meeting, Mayor John Cranley revealed that his communications director, Kevin Osborne, would be leaving his post April 8. Osborne, a former reporter with CityBeat, WCPO and other local media, is taking a job as community relations director at the Greater Cincinnati Community Action Agency. Osborne has worked in the mayor’s office since 2014.
• Council also moved forward on a proposal banning non-essential city-funded travel to North Carolina, which recently passed legislation allowing discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community by businesses. Council sent the legislation to committee for further consideration. The ordinance, proposed by Councilman Chris Seelbach, seems likely to pass.
• Remember the big kerfuffle between local Democrats and state rep. primary candidate Ben Lindy, who wrote a law school paper other Democrats said was anti-union? Lindy last month lost in the primary race for a chance at the Ohio House 31st District seat to Brigid Kelly, but the controversy over his campaign is just now getting cleared up. Local unions recently seemed likely to boycott a major party fundraising dinner April 13 over the Hamilton County Democratic Party’s refusal to strip Lindy of his party rights — including access to voter data — over his academic work. But it seems bridges have been mended now. Organized labor will get more seats at the table, so to speak, on the party’s executive committee as part of a reconciliation between the party and the unions, according to party and union officials.
• An attorney for former UC police officer Ray Tensing will be granted access to the medical records of the unarmed black motorist Tensing shot. Stu Matthews requested Samuel DuBose’s records as part of his defense of Tensing, and Hamilton County Court Judge Megan Shanahan granted that request yesterday. Matthews says the records will reveal a medical condition DuBose was suffering from that will expose more about the fateful traffic stop where Tensing shot DuBose. Matthews did not reveal what that condition was or how it played into Tensing’s decision to shoot DuBose in the head after DuBose refused to exit his vehicle during the stop in Mount Auburn.
•A Fairborn Municipal Court judge has found that there is probable cause to charge with a misdemeanor the 911 caller in the police shooting death of John Crawford III in a Beavercreek Walmart in 2014. The judge ruled that Ronald T. Richie, the only person in the store to call 911 on Crawford, could face charges of raising false alarms, a first-degree misdemeanor. Richie called 911 and told operators that Crawford was walking around the store pointing a gun at other customers, including children. Video footage of the incident does not show this, however, instead revealing Crawford had the toy pellet gun slung over his shoulder. It's unclear what may happen next, but the judge has recommended the case be turned over to a prosecutor. Crawford died after Beavercreek police officer Sean Williams shot him twice while responding to the 911 call. A grand jury declined to indict Williams in the incident, though an investigation by the Department of Justice is ongoing.
• The Ohio American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, alleging he has unlawfully purged Ohio’s voting registry. At issue is a practice by the state that clears voters who haven’t voted in the past three elections from the state’s registry. Husted says that keeps deceased and out-of-state voters off the registry and prevents voter fraud, but the ACLU says numerous Ohio residents have approached them complaining they’ve been turned away from the polls due to the practice. The group claims that more than 40,000 voters in Cuyahoga County alone have been “unlawfully purged” from voter registries because they haven’t voted in every election. Husted says the practice aligns with state and federal laws, however.
• A political forecasting group at the University of Virginia Center for Politics has moved the race for U.S. Sen. Rob Portman's seat from "leans Republican" to "a toss-up." The group cites the name recognition held by Portman's Democratic challenger, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, as well as his strength in Ohio's Appalachian counties, which Strickland once represented in the House of Representatives. While the forecast notes Portman's big fundraising lead over Strickland, it also says that favorable conditions in the state for Democrats' presidential candidate, presumably Hillary Clinton, could give Strickland the extra edge needed to scoot past incumbent Republican Portman in November.
• Finally, Ohio Gov. John Kasich yesterday gave his state of the state speech in Marietta. The address mostly focused on the state’s economic recovery and job growth. But Kasich, who remains a long-shot Republican presidential primary candidate, advanced few new policy proposals, instead playing it safe and touting his record. He did touch on the state’s drug addiction crisis, its looming changes to statehouse redistricting, problems with the state’s educational system and other challenges. Kasich also floated new tax cuts in the next state budget, though lawmakers seem lukewarm about the governor’s proposals.
