Time for Big Changes at City Hall

Year after year, without fail, Cincinnati’s budget comes in “Structurally Unbalanced.”  Even when we get unexpected windfalls like the Convergy’s funds or the Blue Ash Airport sale, City Council cannot balance the budget without more and more one time money.  The Parking Plot is only the latest in a long line of shortsighted bad decisions by Roxanne Qualls and her cronies on Council.

We’re beginning to wonder: maybe it’s not just the budget that is unbalanced.  

Maybe it’s Roxanne Qualls and the Council.

Maybe it’s time to make wholesale changes at City Hall.

Click here to print out your absentee ballot request for the September 10th Mayoral Primary

Radio Roundup

Today was a big day in Cincinnati radio.

Christopher Smitherman on 55KRC with Brian Thomas:



and 700 WLW with Scott Sloan (starting at 15 minutes):



Ben Swann on 55KRC with Brian Thomas discussing his great reporting on the IRS scandal and his new website BenSwann.com sign up for his email alerts at his new page.

Barry Horstman and Christopher Smitherman Discuss Pension Problems

Barry Horstman of the Enquirer and Cincinnati Councilman Christopher Smitherman appeared on WVXU's Impact Cincinnati program this morning.  They provided wonderful insight into Cincinnati's pension hole and how the Streetcar project is exacerbating the problem.

Horstman notes that Cincinnati is alone in Ohio as the only municipality to have its own pension system rather than being part of the statewide PERS program.

Listen Here

Opposition to Parking Plan Rising

A recent public records request by COAST shows that while Cincinnati City Council passed a budget all but guaranteeing that our on-street parking resources would be privatized, they were being inundated with letters and emails in opposition to the plan.

While the City is dragging it's feet in actually providing all of the documents requested, letters from two of Cincinnati's most "establishment" bodies show just how wide and deep the opposition to the Mallory/Quall's agenda is.

Read the letters for yourself below:

UnHappy New Year for Chicago Parkers...

The Chicago Tribune reports that parking rates within the Chicago loop will increase 13% in the new year to $6.50 per hour.  Neighborhood street parking will go up to $4.00 per hour and $2.00 per hour outside the downtown loop area.

Read the Standard & Poor’s Report on Cincinnati

At the end of November Standard & Poor’s provided the below report on Cincinnati’s creditworthiness.  Note this line:

The outlook revision reflects our view of the city's revenue losses, which are contributing to a forecasted structurally-imbalanced budget for 2013

The budget Council is passing today does nothing to address the issues raised by S&P and only serves to hasten the city's decline.

In short, Cincinnati is screwed. Mallory and Qualls have proven themselves unserious and the rubber stamp crew: Quinlivan; Seelbach; Young; Thomas; and Simpson allow them to destroy a once great city with impunity.

SP Report - Cincinnati OH - Nov 2012

Chris Finney and Christopher Smitherman on 55KRC

Listen to Jerry Thomas' interviews of COAST general counsel Chris Finney and Cincinnati City Councilmen & NAACP President, Christopher Smitherman this morning on 55KRC AM.



Learn how to contact PUCO to stop the Duke Streetcar Tax here.

Chris Seelbach is a funny guy

Politicians surprise us in their stupidity, or perhaps into fooling themselves into how stupid the voters are.  And it's funny to watch them prevaricate to squirm out of a tough spot.

Yesterday the Finance Committee of Cincinnati City Council moved the budget proposal of City Manager Milton Dohoney on to Council for a vote by approving the same, with some not insignificant modifications.  However, the most controversial of the Dohoney proposals, the long-term lease of the right to regulate parking spaces (and collect revenue therefrom) along Cincinnati streets, received approved of a 5-4 approval of the Committee. And Councilman Chris Seelbach was one of the majority approving the budget proposal.

Now, the parking proposal has been widely panned by COAST, the normally silent Enquirer editorial board, the Hyde Park Community Council and the Clifton Town Meeting.  Thus, timid and cowardly Council members are naturally shying from the idea.

Thus, notwithstanding this fairly straightforward parliamentary process to approve the budget that included Seelbach's affirmative vote, Seelbach shortly thereafter tweeted and maintains that he does not support ceding parking sovereignty on public streets to a private company.

Thus, Seelbach wants it both ways.  He voted to "balance" the City's budget on the back of the ill-conceived parking idea, yet he maintains publicly that he oppses the idea.  Huh?

Yeah, Seelbach claims he is against the privitization even though he voted for it.

Chris Seelbach is a funny guy.

COAST general counsel Chris Finney to appear on 55KRC with Jerry Thomas at 7 AM Friday

COAST general counsel Chris Finney will appear on AM 550 (WKRC) with Jerry Thomas at 7 AM tomorrow morning (Friday) to discuss the City budget fiasco, including the surrender of the law enforcement function in collecting and enforcing on-street parking, dramatically increasing the City's property taxes, and taxing commercial garbage collectors.

Listen in!

John Cranley and Brian Thomas

John Cranley discussed the Cincinnati Budget on 55KRC this morning with Brian Thomas.  Well worth a listen.

Cincinnati Budget Punishes Workers While Ignoring Reality

Special Guest Column by Amy Murray

Cincinnati’s proposed budget has generated a great deal of heat, particularly the proposal to privatize street parking meters – which from experience in other cities will mean higher costs and aggressive ticketing enforcement by a private company seeking maximum revenue. This move will make downtown and neighborhood business districts less desirable and drive away customers and visitors.

What seems to have been lost in the shuffle is the proposal to eliminate the municipal income tax reciprocity credit.  This credit allows Cincinnati residents to work outside the city without being hit by double municipal taxation. 

For example, my neighbor across the street works in Blue Ash.  Currently, she pays 2.1% in municipal income taxes: 1.5% to Blue Ash, and .6% to Cincinnati.  Under the Proposed Budget, my neighbor will pay 3.6% in municipal taxes: 1.5% to Blue Ash and 2.1% to Cincinnati.  That’s an increase of 71%! It’s even worse for my neighbor who works in Norwood.  She will be paying 4.1% in municipal income taxes!  That’s a 95% tax increase! This tax increase is expected to generate $6.5 Million from 15,000 Cincinnatians.  That’s over $430 per person in 2013.  Do you know anyone with an extra $430 in their pocket?  I sure don’t.

Of course, this new tax arrangement won’t work in reverse.  Live in Blue Ash and work in Cincinnati?  You currently pay a maximum of 2.1% municipal income tax rate.  If Cincinnati ends its reciprocity agreement, you’ll still pay a maximum 2.1% tax.  The City Manager’s budget plan only works to punish Cincinnati residents who find work outside the city limits. I guess they want to stop encouraging people to live in the City.

Does anyone believe that increasing taxes won’t harm efforts to attract and retain businesses in Cincinnati and surrounding communities?  Increasing taxes will only lead to a greater exodus of working families from Cincinnati. Simply put, eliminating the municipal income tax reciprocity credit is not the solution to Cincinnati’s budget woes – it will only make it worse through the loss of residents who work outside the city taking their tax dollars with them.

But there is more. This budget is being balanced on the back of the residents and businesses of Cincinnati including all these cost increases to work and/or live in the city

• Increasing rates for all city parking meters and garages
•  Raising property taxes to the maximum level allowed by law
• Eliminate reciprocity between jurisdictions on the earning tax
• Eliminating trash collection for all commercial properties

And even with all of these higher taxes, the City’s budget will still, yet again, be structurally unbalanced. The City continues to spend each year more than it takes in. This has caught the attention of S&P who has attached a negative outlook to its debt rating for the city of Cincinnati.

I encourage you to write to your City Council members and remind them that it is a tough economic time for everyone and the City should limit their spending and balance the budget without causing a greater burden to the families and businesses in the city!

ROXANNE QUALLS	roxanne.qualls@cincinnati-oh.gov
CHRIS SEELBACH	Chris.Seelbach@cincinnati-oh.gov
YVETTE SIMPSON	Yvette.Simpson@cincinnati-oh.gov
LAURE QUINLIVAN	laure.quinlivan@cincinnati-oh.gov
WENDELL YOUNG	wendell.young@cincinnati-oh.gov
CECIL THOMAS	cecil.thomas@cincinnati-oh.gov
P.G. SITTENFELD	PG.Sittenfeld@cincinnati-oh.gov
CHRISTOPHER SMITHERMAN	Christopher.Smitherman@cincinnati-oh.gov
CHARLIE WINBURN	charlie.winburn@cincinnati-oh.gov
ENTIRE COUNCIL AT ONCE	citycouncil@cincinnati-oh.gov

Why the parking issue is so important

Corners of our community that previously have been silent as the City engages in one reckless budgetary decision after another have spoken up and spoken up in unusually forceful terms about the recommendation of the City administration to enter into a long-term lease not only of parking lots and garages owned by the City, but the very right to collect parking revenues from parking along the City's streets.  These vociferous opponents include the Green Party, the Clifton Town Meeting, the Enquirer, Hyde Park Neighborhood Council, and others.

Most (but not all) of the commentary to date has focused on the foolish fiscal policy of selling an asset (or leasing it long-term) to fill a budget hole for only six months or one year, which is what the administration is proposing.  Certainly, that is unwise policy.

But as with Red Light Cameras, there is a second and much more pernicious problem with the plan: the sale of the City's police powers, the privatization of the law enforcement function.

This particular act of selling on-street parking revenue streams is odious because we trade policy that should be multifaceted -- with impacts on public safety (where is parking safe and needed?), parking policy (e.g., needed high turnover rates), economic development (discouraging people from shopping in the City's business districts or even live in the City) to a private company that has only one motivation -- maximizing profits.

Further, the enforcement function also naturally migrates from these and other multifaceted considerations, including constitutional considerations of innocence until proven guilty, right to confront witnesses, burden of proof, justice and fairness, to, again, purely being about maximizing revenues.

By thus turning over the home rule powers (to set parking rates), the police powers (to enforce parking laws) and the judicial function (of hearing appeals to liability) to a private entity, we enter a brave new world where a private company -- largely independent of judicial review -- can extract monies from the citizenry in fairly small increments, and our duly elected but clueless Council gladly turns this power over to them so they can continue wasting money on excess personnel and a Streetcar the City can't afford.

Candidly, far more than the money at issue, the City is trading away its governmental powers for a few pieces of silver.  These powers are held by these Council members as a fiduciary for the citizenry, and the trading away of these powers long term is a breach of that fiduciary obligation -- and likely illegal.

The voters of this City rightly should remove these unprincipled Council members from power in November of 2013, but (as with the stadium deal and ObamaCare) by then the damage will have been done.

We have only ourselves to blame for electing scoundrels who fail to understand the power with which they have been entrusted.

Contact City Hall Today

As COAST reported here, the proposed Cincinnati Budget relies on income tax increases, property tax increases and increased fees for services. COAST had the story before the Enquirer; Business Courier; television news or talk radio.

These increased taxes include an end to the municipal income tax credit, which would mean double taxation for thousands of Cinciannatians.  Also included is addtional property tax, roughly $46 per $100,000 of value - this is in addition to the Hamilton County Property Tax increase.

Meanwhile, the Streetcar Boondoggle continues.

Contact Council today and let them know you oppose increased taxes and fees and want an end to the Streetcar.

Use the information below to call or email council today:

Call Council at 352-1576

Click on the name or copy and paste the email address

ROXANNE QUALLS	roxanne.qualls@cincinnati-oh.gov
CHRIS SEELBACH	Chris.Seelbach@cincinnati-oh.gov
YVETTE SIMPSON	Yvette.Simpson@cincinnati-oh.gov
LAURE QUINLIVAN	laure.quinlivan@cincinnati-oh.gov
WENDELL YOUNG	wendell.young@cincinnati-oh.gov
CECIL THOMAS	cecil.thomas@cincinnati-oh.gov
P.G. SITTENFELD	PG.Sittenfeld@cincinnati-oh.gov
CHRISTOPHER SMITHERMAN	Christopher.Smitherman@cincinnati-oh.gov
CHARLIE WINBURN	charlie.winburn@cincinnati-oh.gov
ENTIRE COUNCIL AT ONCE	citycouncil@cincinnati-oh.gov

Aesop's Fables for Politicians...

As children many of us learned to read with Aesop's fables.  Stories from ancient Greece which contained simple life lessons.

Cincinnati's proposed budget leads us to believe that perhaps a refresher course might be in order for our elected officials.

We start with The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg

A man and his wife owned a very special goose. Every day the goose would lay a golden egg, which made the couple very rich.

"Just think," said the man's wife, "If we could have all the golden eggs that are inside the goose, we could be richer much faster."

"You're right," said her husband, "We wouldn't have to wait for the goose to lay her egg every day."

So, the couple killed the goose and cut her open, only to find that she was just like every other goose. She had no golden eggs inside of her at all, and they had no more golden eggs.

Will anyone on City Council think about this as they vote to slash open the Goose by leasing out the parking operations, increasing taxes, and decreasing services?

Business Courier has Coverage of Rescission of Reciprocity

As COAST first reported here, City Manager Milton Dohoney is pushing to rescind Cincinnati's income tax reciprocity.

Dan Monk has the story up at the Cincinnati Business Courier.