Hamilton County Green Party Endorses Smitherman, Murray, Wegman and others

From the Hamilton County Green Party:

The Hamilton County Green Party has endorsed Chris Smitherman for Cincinnati City Council, just like we did back in 2011.  Councilman Smitherman has been outvoted most of the time in the past 2 years so we are also suggesting a vote for other candidates who can improve our chances of getting the correct “things” done and decreasing the chances of the wrong “things” passing.  The candidates we suggest you consider voting for are:  Cincinnati City Council

Independents:  Chris Smitherman & Angela Beamon

Charter:  Vanessa White & Kevin Flynn

Republicans:  Amy Murray & Melissa Wegman

Democrats:  David Mann & PG Sittenfeld 

For mayor:  John Cranley 

You can vote for up to 9 candidates for City Council, but the fewer people you vote for, the more powerful each vote becomes.  

In choosing this list of candidates, the Green Party is most concerned about the financial future of Cincinnati if the City goes bankrupt we could lose our parks and other physical assets as well as lose all city funded programs that matter to us.  

-  Our biggest looming debt/concern is the over $850 million shortfall in the funding of the Cincinnati pension fund (but we suggest a NO vote on Issue 4 in November 2013.) 

-  We remain concerned about the financial games being played and the money being wasted to build the short OTR section of the streetcar and know that this little section will likely be the only section ever built (since there is no possibility of federal or state funding and the city doesn’t have the money for it either), so it is just a waste of money and will give real mass transit a bad name plus will financially hurt the bus system.  

- We think that the city’s parking system can best be managed by the City employees without sending a huge cut of the profits from parking to the Port Authority &/or other outside investors.  

- The Democrats who have been running Cincinnati for the past generation have tried to bring us the “trash tax,” red light cameras to produce revenue, to transfer our police department services to the County and in general have been supporting the sale of public assets &/or privatizing public services. 

The Green Party has been working with the NAACP, COAST and other groups to prevent these negative actions from taking place over the past several years.  The candidates we suggest have shown the best record for opposing these actions and will give our best chance to take positive actions to secure the financial future of Cincinnati.  

Regarding the Cincinnati School Board race, the Hamilton County Green Party picked the following candidates based on their direct contact with the classroom.  We believe that since teachers work directly with the students, they are the most knowledgeable source of input regarding what will make our school system better.  With that in mind, we are recommending a vote for the following candidates for Cincinnati School Board:  

Betsy Shank

Martha Good 

Sally O’Callaghan

Victoria Staughn 

Regarding the other issues on the Cincinnati ballot, we recommend a NO vote on Issue 4 - the pension fund

Regarding the Hamilton County ballot, we recommend a YES vote on both: 

Issue 1 Library tax renewal

Issue  2 Zoo tax renewal