For better or worse, Cincinnati will have to deal with another major election cycle for City Council and the mayor’s office in 2013. With four-year terms for City Council recently approved by voters, the 2013 election could play one of the most pivotal, long-term roles in Cincinnati’s electoral history.
But what most people know about the candidates and issues is typically given through small fragments of information provided by media outlets. At CityBeat, we do our best to give the full context of every story, but just once, we decided to give the candidates a chance to speak for themselves through a question-and-answer format. (Update: Since this article was published, CityBeat interviewed Democratic mayoral candidate Roxanne Qualls for another Q&A here.)
First up, mayoral candidate John Cranley, a former Democratic council member, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the recently announced parking plan (
“City Manager Proposes Parking, Economic Development Plan,”
issue of Feb. 20) and the Cincinnati streetcar (
“Back on the Ballot,”
issue of Jan. 23) in his mayoral campaign against fellow Democrat Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls.
CityBeat talked with Cranley about these issues and how they relate to the campaign to get his full take, all in his own words. The conversation (with some edits for readability) is below.
CityBeat: I know your campaign kick-off was last night. How did that go? Did it have good turnout?
John Cranley: It was awesome. We had over 300 people there. Very diverse crowd. It was just great.
CB: How do you feel about the campaign in general? It’s pretty early, but how do you feel about the local support you’ve been getting?
JC: It’s been overwhelming. People are rallying behind my progressive vision, and trying to stop privatization of parking meters to Wall Street. And trying to get focus back on neighborhoods, balance, equity, basic services for everyone, special attention to those in need and broad opportunities for the working poor. I think people are very excited for that message, and I’m finding support in every neighborhood of town.
CB: I noticed that a theme of your campaign is helping out neighborhoods by spreading the funding not just to downtown, but neighborhoods as well. Are you hoping to build support from those areas?
JC: I’m for fairness. I think that right now you have a disproportionate amount of money — $26 million over budget on the streetcar, yet they’re still proceeding with it — and the neighborhoods are forgotten about. But I want to see downtown flourish too, so it’s not like I’m one or the other. I want the whole city to do better. But I think there needs to be equity and balance.
CB: You just think the playing field isn’t leveled right now?
JC: Absolutely not. Right now they’re trying to raise parking meters in neighborhoods to build luxury apartments in downtown. If that doesn’t show you their values are out of whack, I don’t know what does.
CB: Speaking on that, the latest news is the city manager’s parking proposal, which he calls a “public-public partnership” that will boost economic development. What are your thoughts on it?
JC: The PR campaign that they’ve been putting out is very deceptive and willfully so. This is not a public plan; this is privatization to a Wall Street company. The only elements that matter to city control are control over rates and control over enforcement. The city has said repeatedly, dishonestly, that the city will maintain control over rates and enforcement, but neither one of those statements is true.
The rates are guaranteed to go up 3 percent a year for 30 years on a compounded basis. Prior to the recent increases in parking rates, the city hadn’t raised rates in 10 or 15 years. Right now, the elected officials — we live in a democracy, for now. Right now, City Council decides to raise rates, lower rates, maintain rates. If there’s a recession in the future, City Council can choose to reduce parking rates. There might be certain neighborhoods where you want to charge different rates over others depending on economic demographics of those areas. Right now, we have complete flexibility to change those rates. This plan gives Wall Street the right to raise rates by 3 percent every single year for 30 years.
The second thing is enforcement. I’m old-school where I believe that the government should be the one that has the potential of putting you in jail. Because if you don’t pay your parking tickets, you can be indicted and go to jail. Here, we’re giving away the power to issue tickets to a Wall Street company for 30 years.
Not to mention due process concerns. What happens if you don’t believe you were late back to your meter? Who do you appeal to? You appeal to this company from Wall Street, who has a financial incentive to make you pay.
[Editor’s Note: Meg Olberding, city spokesperson, told CityBeat the rate increase cap could be circumvented, but the decision would have to be unanimously approved by a board with four members appointed by the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority and one selected by the city manager, then affirmed by the city manager, then get a final nod from the Port Authority. The 3-percent rate increase is also not automatic, and the Port Authority could decide to not take it up every year.
She also said Xerox, which is not a Wall Street company, would manage enforcement based on standards set by a contract with the Port Authority. Guggenheim, a Wall Street financial firm, is acting as underwriter and capital provider for the parking plan.]
On that point, how is it that there are public hearings next week and they haven’t released any of the contracts or documents for this transaction? They are going on a Power Point presentation, which is their talking points. Everyone is writing it as if it’s fact, yet the contract and the details haven’t even been released.
Roxanne is calling public hearings and expecting people to weigh in on a 30-year decision before the details are released to the public. How cynical is that?
CB: We might not know the details right now, but you think that shows a lack of transparency?
JC: Of course. I hope you guys will editorialize about that and stand up against privatizing and outsourcing the city to Wall Street.
CB: In the past, you and I talked about the next phase of the Smale Riverfront Park not having funding, which you pinned on the streetcar taking tax revenue that could be used for it. I couldn’t help but notice that it’s one of the things funded in the city manager’s parking proposal. Do you see that as evidence to your claim?
JC: Well, of course. They don’t have funding for the Riverfront Park. That’s why they’re selling the city’s parking meters.
The bigger issue is it’s just fundamentally wrong to take an asset that is a recurring revenue stream for 30 years and try to monetize it today at the expense of the future generations. It’s giving Roxanne the ability to try to buy votes by playing Santa Claus before the election at the expense of the next generation.
CB: Another part of the plan is it’s expanding hours. Do you think that might hurt nightlife in Downtown?
JC: Of course it’s going to hurt restaurants, nightlife and the Cincinnati Reds, not to mention the neighborhoods — Hyde Park, Mount Lookout, Clifton. They’re going to pay higher meters so they can pay off their friends to build luxury apartments in downtown. The equity of this is awful.
CB: Would you be willing to bring up a referendum on this deal?
JC: Absolutely. It’s such a selling-out of the city on a long-term basis, but I think the people should have the final say.
CB: I want to move onto the streetcar. Even for supporters of the streetcar, the delays are unnerving. The latest news is these construction requests came way over budget and they might cause more delays. How do you feel about it?
JC: It’s what we’ve been saying for a long time. A lot of people’s reputations have been attacked for having said that this thing would be over budget. I think a lot of people, including Roxanne, need to fess up that they’ve been misleading the public about this deal for years.
But the real issue is it’s $26 million over budget, it’s the tip of the iceberg, and it’s going to get worse. And Roxanne is continuing to spend money on the streetcar. She’s continuing to move forward. She still says she wants to get it done by the (2015 Major League Baseball) All-Star Game. She still says that she wants to pay for future phases. So it doesn’t really matter, from Roxanne’s standpoint, if it’s $26 million over budget. I think it’s too expensive, we can’t afford it, we shouldn’t be raising property taxes, etc. We should stop now and we should try to get our money back.
CB: One of the issues you’ve told me you have with the streetcar before is a lack of transparency. Do you think that’s catching up to the city in these budget surprises?
JC: Of course the lack of transparency is catching up to them. Not only is it the right thing to do what you’re doing with their money and government; it’s always the right way to manage money. When you hide problems, it always leads to greater expense later.
CB: We’ve thoroughly covered what you’re against. What positive visions do you have for the city and neighborhoods?
JC: I have lots. On my website,
JohnCranley.com
, I have my 10-point plan, which goes in great deal over my positive plan for the city. We need to focus on jobs and opportunities for the future. We need to partner with the venture capital and university entrepreneurship efforts in the city, and I’ll do everything in my power to help that. We need to work to improve our schools; what we need to do is get communities involved to adopt under-performing inner-city schools to improve the standards and opportunities. Third, we need to adopt my plan to reprogram existing federal dollars into job training and job opportunities to put people to work in building city’s infrastructure projects now. Those are probably the three major ones.
The good thing about Cincinnati is we have momentum, which is great. But we’re not getting better fast enough.
Update: This story was updated with comment from the city manager’s office to clarify how the parking plan’s rate cap will work and Guggenheim’s role.
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2013.