Hello all. I hope your weekend was rad. I checked out the 2018 Cincinnati Art Book Fair at The Carnegie in Covington, which was great. But that’s a whole other section of CityBeat. You came here for news. Let’s get to our Monday news roundup.
Democrat Aftab Pureval’s congressional campaign faces a complaint before the Ohio Elections Commission after questions emerged recently about his campaign finance practices. The complaint, filed by conservative activist Mark Miller and his attorney Brian Shrive, alleges that Pureval hid donations to his congressional campaign made by his mother via his Hamilton County Clerk of Courts campaign fund and spent $30,000 in money from that fund for his congressional campaign, among other allegations. Roughly $16,000 of that money was paid to a firm that did polling for Pureval’s congressional bid. Miller is treasurer for the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes. Pureval’s campaign denies that the spending was improper.
Pureval’s opponent, U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, is also facing questions about his campaign spending related to contracting he doled out to his son-in-law for his campaign website. Such contracts are not illegal as long as the pay rate given to family members isn’t above market rate. But the complaint by former Democratic gubernatorial primary hopeful Connie Pillich alleges that Chabot is overpaying his son-in-law for his work on the website.
• On Friday, Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Laura Mitchell outlined a new plan for the district to move more students toward employment after high school. At a presentation at OTR’s School for Creative and Performing Arts, Mitchell presented three planks the district will focus on: college preparation, placement in the military or workforce placement right out of CPS. That last goal will get some help via new partnerships with four local businesses that will hire students to learn on the job two days a week while they’re still in school. Allied Window and Gold Medal Products in Sharonville, Multi-Color in Norwood and Steinhauser, Inc. in Newport are the initial partners, with the district looking to onboard more next year.
• More about CPS: the principal of Gamble Montessori High School has resigned after exchanging “inappropriate” text messages with a former student who was still a minor at the time. Jack Jose announced he was leaving the school last Friday via a post on Facebook, but did not say why. CPS Superintendent Laura Mitchell, however, sent a letter to students’ families the same day providing context.
“On about July 9, 2018, Cincinnati Public Schools officials became aware of allegations of inappropriate electronic communications between Mr. Jose and a former student,” the letter reads. “CPS believes these communications occurred approximately two years ago at a time when the former student no longer attended Gamble Montessori, but was allegedly still a minor. Mr. Jose admitted to inappropriate communications.”
The incident has been reported to the Cincinnati Police Department, the Ohio Department of Education and Hamilton County Job and Family Services, though no charges have yet been filed. The district has instructed Jose to stay away from CPS facilities.
• Cincinnati residents tonight (Aug. 13) will get the chance to pitch their ideas for policies that could improve life in the Queen City. City councilman P.G. Sittenfeld announced “Policy Pitch Night” a couple weeks ago, and since then, folks have been sending in their ideas for new and innovative city policy. A panel of judges chosen by startup Bridgeable sifted through those ideas and chose five finalists, who will each give their best sales pitch to an audience at People’s Liberty in Findlay Market tonight at 6 p.m. The audience will then vote, and Sittenfeld will then help the winner promote their idea at City Hall.
• There’s a new wrinkle in the saga of Cincinnati’s Terrace Plaza Hotel building, the Modernist icon that has been largely vacant for a decade in the heart of downtown. JNY Capital, a Brooklyn-based real estate investment firm, has reportedly purchased the building, despite well-publicized plans by another developer, Indianapolis-based Anderson Birkla Investment Partners. Firm principal Tony Birkla had unveiled an ambitious $61 million plan to renovate the 70-year-old hotel, which preservationists argue is a valuable historic landmark due to its pioneering Modernist design. An affiliate of Anderson Birkla has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the sale of the building, arguing that it had already entered into a purchase agreement with the building’s owner, an LLC controlled by Platinum Capital Partners Inc. based in New York City and Cyprus.
“News of this questionable transaction is beyond disturbing,” Birkla said in a statement.
• Shuttered online charter school the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is pushing back against an effort by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine to recoup millions from the school’s founder after ECOT was found to have submitted faulty attendance data. The state has already won in court against the company itself, clawing back millions in taxpayer money doled out to the school. But the state says ECOT still owes more than $60 million, and wants to pursue its founder, Bill Lager, and the companies he founded to help administer ECOT. The legal team for the charter, however, has countered that move in court, saying that courts haven’t identified Lager as an appropriate target for the state’s attempts to recoup its money.
• Finally, a high-profile white nationalist rally in Washington, D.C. fizzled yesterday, with just two-dozen members of various hate groups showing up for the event. Some 15,000 counter-protesters mobilized against the rally, which ended quickly. Jason Kessler, who also organized the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. a year prior, planned the “Unite the Right 2” event. Among the counter-protesters this year: Susan Bro, whose daughter Heather Heyer died last year when a white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism demonstrators.
This article appears in Aug 8-15, 2018.
