1) The prime contractor for Cincinnati's Streetcar project is Parsons Brinckerhoff.
2) Coincidentally, they are the same engineering contractor that designed the $40 million Riverfront Transit Center that has -- basically -- never been used.
3) Parsons personnel spring up all over the campaign finance reports of Council members and candidates who support their pet projects. You may remember when Parsons hosted a meeting in their offices for the Secretary of Transportation and Congressman Steve Driehaus. It's pay to play for this urban contractor.
4) Well it turns out that they employ one Randy Simes. Presently, he is on assignment for them in South Korea. Prior to that, he worked for Parsons in Chicago, the epicenter of pay-to-play in America.
5) Simes is the host and prime author of the UrbanCincy.Com blog, which coincidentally is the top cheerleader for the Streetcar project. Yes, you fools, for years you have been manipulated by a multinational corporation shilling for the Streetcar using a young urban hipster blogger on its payroll.
6) And now this. From Chicago, and now South Korea, Randy Simes decided to register to vote in Cincinnati at a friend's address so he could vote for -- Streetcar supporter Roxanne Qualls and the batshit crazy Council majority.Monday, COAST attorney Curt Hartman, representing the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, is challenging Simes right to vote in the November election. Read that here. We encourage you to read the entire Complaint at that site (WCPO.COM).
Perhaps more interesting is the inexorable conclusion that derives from that hearing. If he is ineligible to vote in November, then when he voted in the September Mayoral Primary election, he would have committed a felony.
This Qualls supporter was willing to risk a felony conviction and prison term to cast his vote for her and for his employer trying to buy yet another election.
This is how the game is played.
