Portune & Pepper's Reverse Robin Hood Scheme

Faced with shrinking revenues, Commissioners Portune and Pepper will do anything rather than curb spending. Their latest conspiracy is a new low. The merry duo want to continue giving millionaire sports teams free or reduced rent for the stadiums, and continue underwriting private real estate moguls for the $800 million Banks waterfront apartments and luxury retail development. In order to do so, they will renege on the $5 million payment promised to Cincinnati Public Schools as part of the same deal.

Cincinnati NAACP President Christopher Smitherman highlighted that a majority of CPS students are African-American and many of them are too poor to afford to attend a game at the stadium. Pepper and Portune are, in effect, robbing the poor to payoff the rich.

Inexplicably, the School Board voted 4:3 last night to approve the scheme. Just 21 days ago, voters approved a renewal levy based on CPS' insistance that they were desperate for money. Now that they are giving it away so freely, voters can plainly see they were lied to again. Smitherman, who endorsed this past levy, says, "I do not think the School Board can justify this transaction to voters in 2010 or 2011 when they ask for another levy."