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The police work slowdown. The collaborative agreement on police reform that features little collaboration, less agreement and no measurable reform.
Being named the sixth meanest city in the country.
The Riverfront Classic leaves. The Jazz Festival leaves. The Great Inland Seafood Festival leaves (then comes back). Closson’s leaves.
City council pays Convergys $52 million to stay. City council pays Kroger $15 million to stay.
Vine Street: “the most important street in the city.”
The Empire Theater financing fiasco. The collapse of the roof at the Empire Theater. The Empire is torn down.
A new litter law, doubling the fines.
Council unanimously approves new fees for burglar alarms. Council unanimously repeals new fees for burglar alarms.
Metal detector is installed at City Hall.
Alicia Reece threatens to send firefighters to silence a critic.
Fighting all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep the menorah off Fountain Square during Chanukah.
Flower boxes in Over-the-Rhine.
David Pepper’s kidnapping.
Col. Ron Twitty’s damaged police car.
John Cranley threatens to picket the Woman’s City Club.
Huntington Meadows residents are forced to move over a health hazard that the health department says didn’t exist.
Cranley successfully proposes “housing impaction” ordinance to end the concentration of poor people in one place. Cranley successfully fights the closing of English Woods, keeping all those poor people in one place.
The escaped cow.
The reinstatement of the cop who admitted placing pot in a suspect’s trunk. The reinstatement of the cops who had sex, while on duty, with a drunk woman they picked up at a bar.
“Nonsensical, ludicrous, mean-spirited”: U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott’s description of city council’s attack on civil rights attorney Kenneth Lawson.
Bragging about jobs she wanted but didn’t get: “Ms. Reece has been recognized at the state and national level as she became one of the youngest females to make the short list for lieutenant governor on the Ohio Democratic ticket in 2002 and was courted for a run for secretary of state.” (On Reece’s personal Web site and the city’s Web site.)
Repealing the property-tax rollback. Repealing the repeal of the property-tax rollback three weeks before Election Day.
David Crowley heckled for withdrawing a resolution opposing the war in Iraq.
In a press conference highlighting graffiti, Pat DeWine asks the media to quit showing graffiti.
Chris Monzel’s kids see a homeless man defecating.
Passing laws to discourage almsgiving. Kicking homeless people off public property.
The two-minute limit on citizen input. Banning CitiCable cameras from showing citizens giving input, the better to foster decorum at council meetings.
Cranley gives the mayor the finger at a council meeting.
The $236,300 settlement of lawsuits over police violence during the uprising in Over-the-Rhine. The $4.5 million settlement of lawsuits by families of African-American men killed by police.
Repealing the air pollution ordinance.
Censoring photos in the “My Cincinnati” project.
Reece declares illness “a major cause of death” in Cincinnati. The Quality of Life Index. Enforcement of an ancient anti-spitting law dramatically increases.
Council holds a retreat outside the city. ©
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2003.
