Good morning all. Here’s a quick rundown of news today.
As former UCPD officer Ray Tensing’s murder and manslaughter trial approaches, new revelations about his past are coming to light. Tensing, who was indicted last summer after shooting an unarmed black motorist to death in Mount Auburn, has been involved in a couple other legal incidents in the past few years, according to court records. In 2013, then-Greenhills Police officer Tensing hit and dragged a teen while riding a motorcycle. He was off-duty at the time. He wasn’t charged in that incident, but his insurance company settled with the teen for $20,000. In another incident, Tensing is listed as the victim of an assault in Clifton. Tensing got beat up pretty bad at a fight there in 2010. Records reveal text messages where Tensing subsequently vows revenge and expresses extreme anger. “I wish I would have had my gun on me,” he says in one. “Somebody would of left in a fucking body bag.”
• Pending a hearing by the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals, we could find out today whether downtown’s historic Dennison Hotel building will be demolished. Local historic preservationists have opposed an application by Columbia, REI to demolish the building on Main Street, saying it was designed by the firm of famed Cincinnati architect Samuel Hannaford. The Dennison sits inside a historic district downtown, meaning that Columbia owners the Joseph family need special permission to tear it down. The city’s Historic Conservation Board denied that request earlier this year, saying that it’s not economically impossible to renovate the building. Columbia has appealed that ruling, and now the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals has taken up the case. At today’s hearing, Columbia attorneys will cross-examine Cincinnati Urban Conservator Beth Johnson and present evidence that the building isn’t economically viable as a renovation and that it isn’t historically significant. You can check out more on the fight over the Dennison here.
• How many people came to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s rally in Cincinnati last week? That depends on who you ask. Of course, Trump himself will tell you the event was huuuuge — 21,000 people in the arena with 7,000 waiting outside, he claimed during his speech here. However, some have pointed out that the usual capacity of U.S. Bank Arena is only about 17,000, which is only about 4,000 people off. Arena representatives say they don’t comment on attendance figures for third-party rentals of the space. Meanwhile, Trump’s VP pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, said on a TV appearance late last week that19,000 people showed up in Cincy for The Donald. Hey, what’s a few thousand friends when you have so many, am I right? Speaking of Pence, he’ll be in Mason today for a rally. That heavily Republican suburb should be easy pickings for Trump come November.
• The Ohio Department of Education is expected to take over operations of 30 low-performing charter schools in the state after the 21 sponsoring organizations that run those schools rated “poor” on recent state evaluations. Those sponsors will lose their licenses to operate the schools in 30 days unless they appeal their ratings. Charter schools, which were designed in the 1990s in Ohio to address low-performing public schools, are privately run but receive taxpayer money to operate on a lower set of performance standards as long as they’re overseen by another organization. Those schools have run into controversy over their performance and lack of oversight. Just five of the state’s charter schools were rated effective in the recent ODE evaluations.
• Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has proposed a remedy for Ohio’s voter roll registration purge controversy. The state’s practice of clearing its voter registration rolls of those who have not voted in four years and did not respond to a address verification mailing was slapped down by federal courts last month. But Husted says he has a solution — allow those who were purged off the rolls in 2015 to vote if their last-registered address matches one on a complete provisional ballot they’ve filed and the state’s Board of Elections can find no evidence they’re dead. Democrats in the State House and voting rights advocates have shrugged at this suggestion and continued calls for the state to restore all registered voters to the voting rolls.
• Finally, things just keep getting more and more awkward in the Republican Party. Yesterday, presidential candidate Trump cut ties with Ohio’s top GOPer, party chair Matt Borges. The move, which is unusual to say the least, comes in a state Trump almost certainly must win just a few weeks before voting wraps up. Trump is upset that Borges expressed reservations about his candidacy in the fallout of revelations that Trump discussed groping and kissing women without their permission in a 2005 video with TV host Billy Bush. Trump currently trails opponent Hillary Clinton in Ohio by a slim margin.
This article appears in Oct 12-19, 2016.
