You know what time it is. It’s news-rundown time. Buckle up. There is a lot to talk about.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters today filed public nuisance complaints against inhabitants of a tent city on Third Street downtown and threatened to slap obstruction of justice charges on anyone aiding the campers in their quest to stay there. Mayor John Cranley called the camp “unacceptable” and announced he was seeking Deters’ assistance in clearing it in a statement Friday afternoon. Earlier that day, the residents at the camp and the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition filed a federal lawsuit against the city, saying removal of the camp violated its inhabitants’ 1st and 14th Amendment rights. The camp was briefly broken up so the city could briefly clean the area Friday. Residents quickly returned to the site, however. You can read our story about the camps here.
• One of the city’s major developers and Cincinnati Public Schools are locking horns over parking spaces in a garage under Washington Park in Over-the-Rhine. CPS employees working at the district’s School for the Creative and Performing Arts have for five years used 200 spaces in the garage via a contract with the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation, which built the garage. That contract is ending, and 3CDC initially said it would reduce spaces available to CPS employees to 50. That caused an outcry by district representatives. 3CDC has since proposed a compromise — 100 spaces in the Washington Park garage and another 100 in the nearby CET garage across Central Parkway in the West End. CPS says it had verbal assurances from 3CDC that it would be able to keep its original arrangement indefinitely. CPS has its own deal in mind — pay about $40 a month per space for 200 of the garage’ 450 spaces with a 3 percent annual increase. That’s well under the estimated $100 a month market value for the spaces.
“Our need for these spaces for our teachers and staff has not changed,” CPS Board President Carolyn Jones wrote in a letter to Cincinnati City Council last week. “It is critical that the district maintains the stability, convenience and, most importantly, safety for its employees – which is why we feel strongly that our original agreement must be honored. Further, these increased rates were not contemplated in the district’s 2018-2019 fiscal year budget.”
City council will meet tomorrow to consider the situation.
• Mayor John Cranley has advanced a plan to plug a potential hole in the city’s budget resulting from a temporary restraining order on a new billboard tax Cincinnati City Council approved last month. That tax would have raised roughly $700,000 a year, but a lawsuit by Norton Outdoor Advertising has hamstrung the revenue collection effort in court. Cranley’s proposed replacement for the money comes by cutting funding for The Center for Closing the Health Gap, a nonprofit that works to promote healthy lifestyles among African-Americans, and other groups. Though the organization run by former Cranley ally and Democratic Mayor Dwight Tillery saw its city funding balloon in Cranley’s first few years in office, the group has been on the chopping block after a falling out between the two and investigations into the group’s finances. Cranley’s move would take this year’s $550,000 allocation provided by city council for the group and use it to close budget holes. The plan would also cut roughly $60,000 from startup boosters CincyTech and Cintrifuse as well as about $40,000 from Hillman Accelerator.
• Two of Cincinnati’s streetcars had mold in their ventilation systems, according to the head of the union that represents the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority’s streetcar operators and bus drivers. SORTA says maintenance crews found “minor mold” on one of the streetcars, prompting the transit authority to inspect all the vehicles. Another of the system’s five cars also had mold in it. Local ATU leader Troy Miller says SORTA should have notified the public about the mold. SORTA says it mitigated the situation quickly.
“All vehicles were cleaned in consultation with the vehicle manufacturer,” SORTA representative Brandy Jones told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “We will work with Transdev and CAF, the vehicle manufacturer, to determine the cause and correct the issue.”
• Democrat congressional candidate Aftab Pureval’s campaign dropped its first TV ad last week, a spot called “Sunshine.” In the one-minute video, Pureval highlights his bio — son of refugees who served as a federal prosecutor and corporate lawyer for Procter & Gamble — and his time as Hamilton County Clerk of Courts, where he led cost-reductions and restructuring that trimmed about $955,000 from the office’s budget. The ad comes during a time of uncharacteristic turbulence for Pureval’s campaign against U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot for the Westwood Republican’s 1st District Congressional seat. A report last week revealed that Pureval may have spent more than $30,000 from his clerk of courts campaign funds for his congressional campaign — a potential violation of federal election law. Chabot’s campaign has said that Pureval “has a lot of explaining to do,” but Pureval’s campaign says that he did not violate any campaign finance laws. Chabot, meanwhile, is the subject of a campaign complaint himself. Cincinnati resident Leo Yakutis last month filed a request for an investigation into Chabot’s use of official congressional photos and videos on his campaign blog, an alleged violation of campaign ethics rules.
• Finally, transit has been a big issue here in Cincinnati lately, with our bus system lagging behind and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority recently declining to pursue a county sales tax levy to help boost it. So, what are statewide candidates talking about doing to help shake loose more funding for public transportation? Democrat gubernatorial candidate Rich Cordray unveiled his answer last week — a satewide bond issue that would fund transit, infrastructure and other connectivity improvement projects across Ohio. The plan isn’t big on specifics in some parts, but it’s more than Republican Mike DeWine has said about transit. Cordray’s opponent, currently Ohio attorney general, has been mute on the subject so far. Ohio spends less than 44 other states per capita on public transit, even though it has the 14th-highest public transit ridership in the nation.
This article appears in Aug 1-8, 2018.
