|
|
Cincinnati’s mayor recently began promoting his vision for the city, but it’s more a caretaker’s checklist of things to fix than a revolutionary master plan.
Charlie Luken stands to be Cincinnati’s first “strong mayor” since the Charter movement established the city-manager form of government in the early 20th century. If elected, Luken will be able to appoint the city manager and department heads and veto city council.
He has every reason to expect victory. The son of a popular former Congressman, Luken won election to city council on his first try. Then he won election to Congress on his first try. After a single term in Washington, he returned to Cincinnati to be a television news reader. In 1999 he decided to run again for city council, finishing first among the nine winning candidates while barely campaigning. Now he’s the leading candidate for strong mayor.
In two recent speeches, Luken laid out his ideas — he uses the word “vision” — for the next 10 years: Cincinnati will refill its downtown and nearby neighborhoods with new retirees and young professionals attracted by the city’s natural beauty and new housing.
A revamped bus system will reduce dependence on cars, leading eventually to a light rail network. As confidence in the city increases, families should return, stabilizing or improving long-declining neighborhoods.
Luken is no ideologue but says he has a “passion” for housing and education. He seems to care about improving race relations but isn’t sure how city government can help. He says regional cooperation is important but quickly dismisses revenue-sharing proposals used in Minneapolis and other cities.
Complaints about police conduct continue, and two officers are under indictment in a suspect’s death. But Luken is upbeat in his assessment.
“As bullish as I am on the Cincinnati Police Department — and you know I am — Chief Tom Streicher said this year that racial profiling does occur in this city,” Luken says. “He said that people are pulled over on occasion because of the color of their skin. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s just got to stop. That’s got to stop. As we begin this year, I think the police division, under its leadership, is working very hard to train police officers, increase their understanding, put them in contact with citizens.”
Luken is at the helm of a city at a crossroads. Merit-based teacher pay and other changes are creating hope for Cincinnati Public Schools. The riverfront is in the middle of a $2 billion, two-stadium makeover. The city has gone from annual spending increases of 5 to 7 percent to a 1 percent cut in everything except the police and fire divisions, enabling it to cut property taxes by about 12 percent.
Luken says the city has increased road paving from 40 miles per year to 140 miles in the past year, but is that keeping pace with needed paving? The hundreds of political jurisdictions that constitute the Tristate lead cities, townships and counties to compete for the same businesses, limiting the economic growth of the region. Cincinnati lost 9 percent of its population in the past decade, according to U.S. Census estimates. But in a recent speech to the Rotary Club, Luken noted with pride that suburbanites call themselves Cincinnatians — even if they live outside the city.
“We still have people who live outside of the city who say, ‘I’m from Cincinnati and I’m awful proud of it,’ ” Luken said. “I don’t care if they live in Mariemont or Anderson Township or Green Township or Butler County: ‘I’m from Cincinnati.’ And I can throw my shoulders back a little bit when I say that. … That’s why the things that we’ve talked about today are within the realm of the doable, and with your good help and God’s, we can.”
In brisk speeches to the Rotary Club and the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce last month, Luken delivered his vision for the city. Pronouncing himself optimistic about Cincinnati’s future, he certainly didn’t call for radical changes — his most dramatic proposal is starting or building 1,000 new housing units in the next year. In an interview after a Jan. 26 speech, Luken said the key to the city’s near-future is new or renovated urban housing of all types: apartments, condominiums and single-family homes.
CB: The city’s year 2000 plan, crafted in 1980, called for 6,000 housing units to be built by 2000. (Less than 2,000 were built.) Why didn’t that happen?
Luken: I’m not sure that the market was as hot as it is right now. What I sense is that now, in the last few years, there is this desire to move back to the center.
CB: So why have so many people left the city in the past few decades?
Luken: What drives them? Better houses, better schools, better property values, I guess.
CB: What about race? Forty-two percent of 1,159 people responding to a recent Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission survey cited “changing demographics” as a reason to move to a new neighborhood.
Luken: I hope it’s not race. I think people leave because they perceive blight may be coming to their neighborhood. That, to me, is demographics.
CB: Was it just the market’s influence over the past 20 years, or were there other influences?
Luken: I don’t think the city’s done a particularly good job of encouraging it, if that’s your point. The whole perception of the city and urban living has got to change. These issues are going to be difficult.
CB: In one of your speeches, you said competition is good for public schools. But you and other council Democrats voted down Councilman Phil Heimlich’s proposal to have several city departments compete against private bidders for their jobs. Why isn’t competition good for the city?
Luken: I guess the question is whether the city is going to benefit by privatizing our garbage collection, snow removal and whatever else they put on the list. I happen to think that moving in that direction is dangerous. It’s dangerous because the city loses its ability to provide the service. And some of the things that Mr. Heimlich listed to privatize are the services I don’t hear much complaint about. If you add them all up, and assume one-third savings, you’re going to save a couple million dollars — maybe. And you’re going to lose control. And I think five years from now the person that you gave that garbage contract to is going to be back knocking on your door, just like recycling, and say, “Sorry, we can’t do it for that price.” I’ll say something that doesn’t resonate with Mr. Heimlich. I have looked at the salary structure of people who pick up garbage, and this kind of thing, and they don’t make a lot of money. They work fairly hard, and they do have some benefits that some of the private guys don’t give to their workers. And I don’t begrudge them that. I think the city ought to stand for something. Having a living wage is okay by me. I’d rather privatize the white collar guys than the blue collar guys, I guess is what I’m saying.
And I don’t think it’s the guy throwing garbage in the back of the truck that is inefficient. But it may be the guy who’s organizing the distribution of that service.
CB: Is union support a factor in that decision?
LUKEN: I’m certainly not the darling of labor. They’ve supported me a little bit. I’ve had my fights with labor over the years and I expect I will again.
CB: How lean is the city’s bureaucracy?
Luken: I think it’s fairly lean. I think there are a lot of unfilled positions in the city right now. Particularly when you’re talking about places like economic development and neighborhood services. I’d like for them to consider keeping those vacancies open and using that money to contract with a national consultant or developer … When the economic development department says, “There’s nothing we can do about Nordstrom,” everybody says, “Ah, there they go again.” But if somebody from the outside — of reputation and stature — would be advising us, I think we could have more confidence in our decisions. I do think there are a number of areas where the city has got to continue to look to cut. I still think our administrative overhead is too high. I think the police department has the right staffing. I am not convinced the police division has the right manpower allocation — that they allocate their officers in the most effective, customer-oriented way. But that is something that’s going to take a long time to do.
CB: What is the average suburbanite’s perspective of the city right now?
LUKEN: Well on the negative side, I’ve heard from many people in the suburbs that they don’t like the school system. There are reasons not to like it, but I think it’s moving in the right direction.
They perceive that the crime rate sometimes is higher than it really is, the city is more dangerous than it really is. I think those are the two things on the negative side.
CB: Positive?
LUKEN: I hope people are reconnecting with the center of the city and understanding its importance. I sense that people understand that the schools, while they have a long way to go, are getting a little better; that there’s a lot of excitement going on at the riverfront. That there’s a lot of energy going in to revitalizing the urban core, and that there are opportunities to live in the city for empty nesters and young professionals.
CB: You mentioned in your speech regionalism has worked well with workforce development and the port authority. Is there a potential for bigger projects?
LUKEN: Well the big project is transportation: how are we going to work together as a region to deal with transportation issues. And by that I mean initially probably expanding bus service and moving someday, to light rail — where we will get. What the timing of that is, I don’t know. Light rail to me is as much land use planning as it is transportation. The places around these rail stops tend to get developed at high density. They tend to be great boosts for urban areas, and give people the opportunity, in some cases, to actually live without having an automobile. Having said that, I’m not sure the community is ready to jump on light rail next year. I sense tremendous resistance to it, particularly outside of the city.
CB: Myron Orfield, a Minnesota state legislator and regionalism consultant, is studying the Tri-state at the request of Citizens for Civic Renewal and other community groups. He’s an advocate of revenue sharing, in which regions share tax revenues. Three decades ago, for example, the seven-county region around Minneapolis and St. Paul began sharing 40 percent of its commercial and industrial tax revenue. The richest schools had 12 times the property tax revenue of the poorest schools, but now have four times the wealth. Is this something that might work in the Tri-state?
LUKEN: As I said this morning, the political jurisdictions around here are really tough. I mean, there’s so many of them. And they’re fiercely protective of their turf. And as much as I would like to, I don’t think that the notion of spreading the wealth around from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or school system to school system is going to get legs in this county.”
CB: Is there a long-term future for John Shirey here, based on his performance?
LUKEN: I’m not sure John Shirey wants to stay under the new (strong mayor) system. He’s a manager and likes to control all the operations, and if you look at the new system, the manager still has most of the control, but it certainly is a more shared arrangement with the mayor. So I’m not sure he wants to stay, and I think his future will be dependent on who’s elected.
I don’t think there has been an election in my memory for the city that is more important than this one because there are three openings, because there is this new system coming in with the election of the mayor. And I think that the results of this election will in large part determine our ability to move forward on a lot of the things you and I are talking about. You have incumbents that may be vulnerable. I don’t know. You could have a significant turnover in the council.”
CB: What causes crime? Cincinnati Police trainers have said car-based street patrols aren’t always the best way to attack crime. In New York, for example, the city dealt with every little problem, from graffiti and so forth, to reduce crime.
LUKEN: I still believe the best way to attack crime is police and neighbors working together on everything from graffiti to felonies. I think there’s got to be that neighborhood partnership to keep neighborhoods clean, to keep neighborhoods viable and safe. It’s not just police cruisers driving up and down the street. But certainly when something happens, that’s the first thing people want, and you have to be able to provide that immediate response.
CB: Do you believe the strong mayor’s position will allow the new mayor to make large-scale changes to the city?
LUKEN: I don’t view the powers of that office as that great. But the mayor must still facilitate dramatic changes in the way the city operates. The mayor will be charged with increasing efficiency, keep development department out of quicksand, even though cooperation is still crucial, and that depends on council members.
People should not expect that just because we changed the system, everything’s going to be sweetness and light. Democracy is like watching somebody make sausage. It’s not a pretty picture.
CB: What’s the $4 million for in your plan to bring 1,000 new housing units to the city?
LUKEN: This triples the amount of money available to subsidize new housing. “And it’s not nearly enough. If you look at Sixth and Race, they want to put 30 apartments above Walgreens on that corner. We ought to put 90. It can stand that kind of density.
The biggest impediment to us doing more housing projects downtown is money. These projects need to be subsidized. Sometimes the subsidy is very steep.
I think in a month you’re going to see a partnership to do housing in and around the downtown. I think you will see banks, foundations, Downtown Cincinnati Inc., the city — all these people come together and really say, “We’re going to get on this.” We’re going to discount the cost of loans, we’re going to have grants, we’re going to have a one-stop center for housing.
I get frustrated — there’s a guy who does housing on Fourth Street, and he’s been haggling with the city for three months over what color his windows should be.
CB: What are the region’s strengths and weaknesses?
LUKEN: I think the region’s greatest advantage is it’s a good place to live and work and its easy to get around. I think its disadvantage is nationally we haven’t done enough to promote ourselves and keep up with some of the more creative thinking that has occurred in other cities … We haven’t reacted quickly enough. In the 1960s I think we were the best-governed city in America — and won awards for that. And I don’t think that’s the perception anymore. I would argue that what changed is (other cities’) government structure and we just didn’t change quickly enough. We stuck with this 60s system that said ‘This is the way we’re going to run our city,’ when the whole world was changing. People keep wanting to go back to something. You can’t go back to anything. You’re not going to make decisions in the Queen City Club anymore. You’re not going to have these citizen legislators who come in once and week and do what the city manager wants, and then go home. It’s not going to happen.
CB: You told the Rotary Club that whites and blacks in Cincinnati sometimes seems to be living on different planets. How big an issue is race in this city?
LUKEN: We have a serious racial problem. I haven’t been to an American city that doesn’t. Whether ours is better or worse, I can’t measure. We have an ability to have mature dialog between the races, but we’re just a long way — we’re very far apart. This whole (Roger) Owensby issue I think is a clear example of how you have one set of facts and people react to it wildly differently. It’s not completely white and black, but that’s certainly part of it.
I don’t have any quick solution to the race problem, and it’s not a primary function of government to try to solve racial issues alone. The city has got to be a partner and facilitate a dialog. My office is thinking about doing something on the issue.
CB: Is there anything else you want to talk about?
LUKEN: Not really, except to say that even with all the negatives attached to the city, I’m still optimistic.
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 6, 2001.
