Saturday, December 15, 2012

Obsession

As detailed below, Mayor Mallor and his merry band of thieves at City Hall are diverting yet another revenue stream into the Streetcar pot of money at City Hall -- SORTA funds. This is but the latest tile in the mosaic that allows us to understand the legacy of Mayor Mallory, who entered his lame duck, term-limited 8th year as Mayor at the beginning of December.

The simple fact is that, at the expense of every single other priority, Mayor Mallory and Milton Dohoney are obsessed with building the Streetcar.

Any rational partisan of the project would likely have given up the ghost after Governor Kasich killed $52 million in state funding in January of 2011; not this administration.  Others would have relented when the State legislature cut off all future funding or when the County Commissioners refused to allow MSD to pay for utility relocation to facilitate the construction; not these Einsteins.  Still others would have thrown in the towel when Duke Energy refused to fund $18 million in its own utility relocation costs; not these characters.

For six years, they have been quietly amassing money from various parts of the City budget to pay for their Streetcar project, shorting street paving, public safety, the casino revenue windfall, and now looting SORTA funds to pay for the project.

We hear that Mallory has been in a snit for 24 months against the business community because they have not been sufficiently firm in their support for the streetcar folly, burning bridges with folks who could help move the community forward.

Single-minded obsession may get us a Streetcar someday, but at what price to this City?

The six Council members who are propping up this failed Mayor in this obsession should pay a price for the mis-direction they have allowed for Cincinnati.

5 comments:

  1. Obsession is exactly the right word. You'd be surprised how many pro-streetcar Democrats I've spoken with who disagree with my opposition to the streetcar, but readily agree that Mark Mallory and City Council are obsessed with the project, to the detriment of the rest of the city.

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  2. You say "Obsession." I say "Purpose-Driven Leadership" on the part of the City of Cincinnati.

    COAST has the obsession with the streetcar, having lost two citywide votes on ballot issues it drafted to kill the streetcar, having supported a streetcar-opponent mayor who lost, having supported four streetcar opponents who lost their city council seats while four streetcar supporters were elected.

    And now, completely disregarding the objective of having decisions on public investments made by people who will be using and paying for them, COAST is suing the City of Blue Ash to try to undo an investment in Cincnnati. And losing again. Kinda of like jury-shopping. I you don't get the result you want, seek another venue.

    COAST has lost every single challenge to the Cincinnati Streetcar, and it still keeps ginning up the oppostion. That's obsession!

    COAST needs to find another "White Whale" to harpoon. It could find plenty to complain about in Hamilton County's Eastern Corridor plan. But that would cause COAST to question our region's auto-centric transportation planning, and I doubt COAST has the intellectual honesty for that.

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  3. First, not sure how we (Jeff Capell, in fact) are losing the Blue Ash litigation, as the Judge has not yet ruled on anything in that case. Brilliant attorneys for sure on the Blue Ash side of things, but the Fat Lady has not sung on that case just yet.

    Still, we knew that comment of "obsession" was coming, but, of course, unlike the single-minded zeal of this Mayor and administration for this project that simply is rationally out of reach, COAST is multi-faceted in its activism.

    Since the Streetcar boondoggle was announced, we have opposed and defeated a jail tax, opposed and defeated red light cameras, opposed and defeated the sale of the Water Works and opposed and defeated the City's trash tax.

    We have a zeal to tamp down the excesses of government in Ohio generally and SW Ohio specifically, but not an obsession on any specific issue.

    This administration, and Mallory and Qualls, however, have made a series of tremendously imprudent decisions on the Streetcar, and they keep cascading into yet more bad decisions. That trend certainly will continue.

    As evidence of this, we point to P.G. Sittenfeld coming out squarely anti-trolley. A booster of the urban core, and hardly a chest-beating conservative, this democrat has joined the broad chorus speaking out against this waste of City resources.

    We are speaking so consistently because we want the City to avoid this disastrous decision.

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  4. "...broad chorus speaking out against this waste of City resources.
    We are speaking so consistently because we want the City to avoid this disastrous decision."

    Cincinnati voices voted out your "chorus"; Amy Murry, Leslie Ghiz, Wayne Lippert, as well as Chris Bortz.

    But you continue to ignore that fact and the much broader Cincinnati electorate "chorus".

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  5. You are absolutely dead-on right about that.

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