Has the cavalry arrived?

Perhaps COAST can sit back and relax. 

John Cranley, Maggie Buchanan and Gregg Fusaro have come to the rescue just before Cincinnati takes the plunge into fiscal oblivion. 

Candidly, our leadership and work exposing the boondoggle financing that daily pushes the City further towards insolvency,  hasn't accomplished a whole lot tangible -- except maybe encouraging the Governor to cut that $52 million in state funding.  Otherwise, Mallory & Co. were methodically, if ineptly, marching forward on the biggest boondoggle since Paul Brown stadium.

But our new allies, mainstream in the decision-making, power-brokering of Cincinnati, finally have come forward -- and forcefully and consistently --  as Mayor Mallory and his merry band of thieves head towards the point of no return on the Streetcar.

Here's yesterday's Enquirer editorial.  After five years of radio silence on the streetcar debate (does anyone but us think that was bizarre?), this is their second clearly anti-streetcar ed in two months.  We are pleased and surprised.

John Cranley appears to be smartly staking out a firm anti-streetcar position for his 2013 Mayoral campaign.  That's smart now; and it will look even smarter as he hangs the noose of streetcar foibles and catastrophes around the neck of Roxanne Qualls, his likely opponent in that contest, throughout the election year.

And Gregg Fusaro, a successful real estate broker and investor, has stepped forward and pointed out that a committed and well-considered rubber-tired trolley system delivers the same benefits at less than 10% of the cost of the Streetcar, something that should have been obvious to City planners. 

We want to thank Council members Smitherman and Winburn for continuing to lead the fight against this devastatingly bad project.  Their bully-pulpit leadership is deeply appreciated.  Even P.G. Sittenfeld, who clearly has his eyes on higher office, has finally come out cleanly as anti-streetcar.

Finally, now that he has finished law school and taken the Bar Exam, COASTer Brian Shrive this week stepped to the plate and took a few swings of his own against the Streetcar, and we thank him for his leadership.

So, we like how the debate is shaping up, even if Mallory and Dohoney are driving under the influence of intoxicating debt.  The truth is coming out.  And the debate is now being driven by folks in addition to COASTers.  We are pleased that it is so.

And we point out that this Council IS batshit crazy.