Hello all! It’s been a while since we’ve done a weekly news roundup (I was out of the country for a bit, alas) but it is well past time to do another. So let’s do it.
First, if you need something to pass the time when you’re stuck in the house after the snow comes tonight and buries us all, you should take a look at this week’s cover story, a long feature on Greenhills. This Cincinnati suburb was built by the federal government in the 1930s as a social experiment of sorts, and its history is fascinating.
• OK. Enough self-promotion. In huge local news that isn’t 80 years old, the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation this week purchased Fountain Place, the former downtown home of Macy’s, Tiffany’s and Palomino. All of those tenants have left the building just across from Fountain Square downtown; only the Booksellers on Fountain Square remains in the structure. The building’s former owners — a somewhat unwieldy partnership of different property management and development companies — said it was simply time to move on from owning the building. They chose to sell to 3CDC, they said, because they felt the nonprofit developer, which controls Fountain Square, would do the best job redeveloping the property.
More in Cincinnati Business Courier here.
It’s been a busy week in Cincinnati City Hall. Let’s count all the stuff that happened:
• Cincinnati City Council this week passed its annual tax budget. After some debate, the city will keep its so-called property tax rollback, which constrains city property tax receipts to $29 million a year. That’s an unusual policy for a major city, but one many council members support, saying property taxes are already too high. Some dissent came up in this week’s meeting, however, from council members who pointed out the city’s looming $19 million budget shortfall. Those supporting keeping the rollback — instead of increasing the city’s property tax millage to a voter-approved 6.1 mils — say that it isn’t lack of property tax receipts holding the city’s revenues back, it’s cuts to the state’s local government fund. Mayor John Cranley in council this week says those cuts, plus the elimination of the state’s estate tax, cost Cincinnati $30 million a year.
We explored the impact the cuts to the fund have had on Cincinnati, and whether they’re likely to be reversed, in this piece.
• Following a number of incidents in which cars have hit and in some cases killed pedestrians in Cincinnati, local officials are promising changes. Some, like Council member Greg Landsman, want the city to change the way it thinks about traffic safety entirely by adopting an approach called “Vision Zero.”
You can read more about what that is — and other proposed measures to make Cincinnati safer for pedestrians — in our story here.
• As intense controversy swirls around revelations that two Cincinnati Police officers used a racial slur in separate incidents late last year, city officials are weighing how to respond. The two officers are currently on desk duty as an investigation into the incidents takes place, Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac says. Mayor John Cranley has proposed mandatory explicit and implicit bias training for all city employees in the wake of the incidents, and has highlighted changes to city policy made by City Manager Patrick Duhaney last year that stipulate a mandatory minimum 40-hour suspension for officers caught using slurs the first time, with a second offense leading to termination.
Others, however, including Council member Tamaya Dennard, want a “zero tolerance” policy for CPD officers caught using slurs. But Cranley and Duhaney, as well as some other council members, say outright firing an officer after a first offense could result in costly legal challenges for the city.
You can read all the ins and outs about those proposals here and here.
The controversy comes as the city works to find ways to refresh the historic Collaborative Agreement police reforms, which it entered into by court order following the 2001 civil unrest around the police shooting of unarmed black 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. A report last year by a panel of law enforcement experts said that in many ways, the city has drifted from its adherence to the racial relations reforms.
• Some council members are now beginning to push for a change to the way the city hands out tax abatements for developers. A motion by council members Greg Landsman, Tamaya Dennard and Wendell Young asks the city administration to prepare a report on including affordable housing, higher environmental standards and wages for workers. Some of those issues mirror those presented by an “equitable development rubric” drawn up by grassroots group Peaslee Neighborhood Center, which we covered late last year. The movement toward changing the city’s abatement practices comes as a two-decades-old agreement between the city and Cincinnati Public Schools around tax abatements nears its expiration date, and as the two bodies renegotiate how the city doles out abatements.
• Council this week also approved a program that will dedicate $400,000 to eviction prevention as many of the city’s neighborhoods see higher-than-average levels of evictions. The money will be used for rent assistance. The Hamilton County Human Services Chamber has also suggested some of the money go toward legal counsel for those being evicted.
Check out new CityBeat intern Seth Weber’s great story on the program here.
• Two major Cincinnati historic landmarks also landed historic designation this week: the Manse Hotel in Walnut Hills and the Mt. Airy Watertowers.
Ok. So that was City Hall. What else has happened?
• One of six Cincinnati neighborhoods could end up with millions in additional affordable housing investment. City officials have narrowed down their selections for a program through the Ohio Housing Finance Agency that will provide $3 million in federal low-income housing tax credits to a project in one Cincinnati neighborhood. Officials have picked Avondale, CUF, Evanston, Over-the-Rhine, Roselawn and Walnut Hills as their top choices, and, after a month of community engagement and speaking with developers interested in proposing projects in one of the communities, will pick a finalist.
You can read more about the program and its criteria in our story here.
• A former Mason Schools student convicted of a brutal attack on an African American man at last year's "Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Va. will serve three years and 10 months for the crime, a judge ruled this week. You can read more about the sentence in our story here.
• The federal government continues to be partially shut down, meaning that roughly 800,000 federal workers won’t get their paychecks today. The shutdown looks likely to break the record of 21 days set back during the Clinton administration, and there’s no end in sight as President Donald Trump demands $5.6 billion for a border wall and Democrats in Congress dig in their heels against that demand.
At least two prominent Ohio politicos who may run to oppose Trump in the 2020 elections have seized on the shutdown to blast the president. Democrat U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown had harsh words for Trump after the president made a 10-minute Oval Office address seeking support for the border wall funding. So did Trump’s partymate, outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who leaves office today. Both Kasich and Brown are mulling their own runs for president.
You can read more about what they had to say in our story here.
• If the gears of our federal government slowly grinding to a halt makes you want to drink a little bit, you may want to act soon. As it turns out, the shutdown is also hobbling new craft beer production. New breweries and new beers from established brewers must get approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and with the government shut down, that ain’t happening right now. So we’ll have to make do with our tried and true favorites for now. Bummer.
That’s it for this Friday rundown. Have a fun day playing in the snow (or staying in and drinking some craft beers in defiance of the shutdown) this weekend.
