We really are glad to take credit, but....

One lie that has been spun so often from City Hall that it has become part of Streetcar lore is that the two ballot issues on the Streetcar advanced by the NAACP Cincinnati Chapter and COAST somehow inhibited -- legally or practically -- forward progress on the Streetcar.


Read here, for example, how the lie is spun and willfully accepted by a gullible or complicit Cincinnati media:

"The streetcar is now four years behind schedule, with an opening set for spring 2016. To be fair, many delays were beyond city control. Streetcar opponents forced two ballot measures to scuttle the project; though both failed, they did succeed in slowing progress."

Now, don't get us wrong.  COAST is glad to take credit for anything and everything that is obstructionist as to the Streetcar, as we hate the Streetcar Boondoggle and generally are boastful of our own accomplishments, but:

• (a) The statement is patently untrue; and
• (b) it has become just one of the excuses that the City pulls from its great big bag of excuses to explain why we have had not a single inch of track laid after six years of streetcar planning and discussion.

So, to our lazy news media, when Meg Olberding (Cincinnati P.R. flack) spins this lie to you, stand up for yourselves and ask: "why is that so?"  Because, it ain't so.