Red Alert: Enquirer, Council, Mayor plot second parking ordinance

It was signaled this morning on the Enquirer editorial pages: Parking plan has to change.  The ed was pushing a legal maneuver and a political compromise position on the Parking Plot that undoubtedly was a trial balloon launched by Council member and Mayoral candidate Roxanne Qualls, as the Enquirer dutifully speaks from her script on all City issues.
Reading between the lines of the editorial, it is clear that Mallory, Qualls, Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan and Enquirer Editor Carolyn Washburn are scheming up a strategy to deny a vote to the public on the referendum on the Parking Plot that 315 volunteers diligently earned for the past month in Court and on the sidewalks of each of Cincinnati's 52 neighborhoods.

So, what the powers-that-be have cooked up for us is a witches brew of a slightly modified parking plot, changing the recipe for selling out our City only a pinch  here and there, but retaining the key ingredients of leasing or selling away Cincinnati's parking assets and sovereignty for an extended period of time in exchange for enough cash to buy us through the coming election.  This gives Qualls a clean election day that avoids, again, discussing the hard budget decisions before this Council, and gives the politicians enough time to float an earnings tax hike.

The idea of Qualls and the Enquirer advanced by today's ed is to repeal the current Parking Plot ordinance, thus both removing the issue from the ballot and mooting the Court case.  Then, they would replace the ordinance with a new one that does exactly the same thing -- leases our streets and parking meters to out-of-town investment bankers for a prolonged period of time.

Qualls sees the handwriting on the wall as a result of the shock-and-awe petition turn-in Thursday and public opinion polling showing the Parking Plot was being rejected by nearly three quarters of all Cincinnatians. 

The Parking Plot is sure to go down in flames on November 5, and Qualls may well go down with it if they don't change course.

So the plan now being advanced is to repeal Ordinance #1 and replace it with a slightly modified Ordinance #2, and thus avoid a fall vote.

The thing the plotters are not sure of is whether the petitioners against the Parking Plot would do it all over again, or whether the voters would exact a price for their underhanded approach to deny them the vote they have so richly earned.

We want them to fear both; as elected officials who fear their electorate, respect their electorate.