By all accounts, yesterday’s special council session to discuss the Cincinnati streetcar was long and contentious, more than 60 streetcar supporters pleading with an indignant Mayor John Cranley and newly elected council members still spouting campaign-trail anti-streetcar rhetoric.
After the meeting, Cranley dismissed an offer by major philanthropy organization The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation to pay for a study of streetcar shut-down costs that opponents want to see come in lower than the city’s estimates before they vote to completely stop the project. Cranley dismissed the offer because it also came with a note saying that if the streetcar is canceled the foundation will reconsider its contributions to Music Hall, the Smale Riverfront Park and other city projects. Cranley would rather make the city pay for the study than negotiate with terrorists respond to threats.
About seven and a half hours into this debacle of American democracy — which included numerous procedural abnormalities including the mayor asking Council to discuss and vote on ordinances no one had read yet, an hours-long delay and a funding appropriation that leaves the cancellation vote safe from the pro-streetcar-threatened voter referendum (something Cranley railed against when the city administration kept the parking plan safe from referendum) — Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld livened things up with something everyone tired of the streetcar debate can agree is funny: undermining the mayor’s authority by asking fellow council members to overrule him.
The following video published by UrbanCincy shows Cranley denying Sittenfeld an opportunity to speak. Sittenfeld then asks for a vote to overrule Cranley, which the mayor had to approve, and everyone but Kevin Flynn votes to overrule. (Flynn unfortunately had to vote first, leaving him unable to determine which way the vote was likely to go — a tough position for a rookie politician.) Once David Mann and Amy Murray voted to allow Sittenfeld to speak, the rest of the anti-streetcar faction followed suit, knowing Sittenfeld had the necessary votes to overrule Cranley. Then Sittenfeld spent a few minutes going mayoral on Cincinnati's new mayor.
