Readers, council candidates: This blog's for you
Newspaper political endorsements tend to follow a familiar formula: Candidates visit the paper's editorial board for endorsement interviews; board members discuss and decide which candidates to support; editorials announcing the board's choices are written and published in the weeks leading up to the election.
Well, this fall we want to turn that formula upside-down -- or at least tweak it. And we're asking you to help. Starting now, we will devote most of this blog to the Cincinnati City Council race. We've asked all 25 candidates to be guest posters here for the next two or three weeks. Their task: To answer questions on the issues that voters as well as editorial board members want them to address. We've already held preliminary interviews with all the candidates, during which we outlined how this will work.
In brief, each candidate is being encouraged to make posts outlining their positions, answering specific questions and contrasting their views with those of other candidates. Members of the public will be able to add their comments to any of the posts.
Some of the questions we pose to all the candidates will come from the editorial board. Others will come from you, the readers and voters. To pose your own question, use the special online message board, "Ask the Cincinnati City Council candidates," that we have created on our Community Conversation page. Fill out all the information on the message board's form so we can contact you to verify who is asking the questions.
To get the ball rolling, we've sent out the following question via e-mail to all the candidates:
If you are elected, what will you consider the most important issue for City Council to address immediately?
Check back on this blog for the candidates' posts, and feel free to add your own comments and spur the discussion among voters and candidates alike. As we said, this blog's for you.
posted by Ray Cooklis at 5:59 PM
12 Comments:
at 7:51 PM, September 28, 2007 
pavelish said...
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at 6:36 AM, September 29, 2007 
Harris for Council said...
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at 8:42 AM, September 29, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 1:58 PM, September 29, 2007 
Leslie Ghiz said...
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at 9:23 PM, September 29, 2007 
Westside Resident said...
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at 7:37 AM, October 01, 2007 
Leslie Ghiz said...
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at 8:14 AM, October 01, 2007 
Councilman Chris Monzel said...
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at 10:50 AM, October 01, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 6:14 PM, October 01, 2007 
George Zamary said...
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at 7:24 PM, October 01, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 5:02 PM, October 02, 2007 
Anonymous said...
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at 5:18 PM, October 02, 2007 
Joan Kaup said...
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Post a Comment*I have been running on the platform that City Council should be a full time job. Presently it is treated as a part time, second job. Part time Cincinnati government is no longer working. We have much to do in this City and my attention (as a full time councilmember for the two year term) will be on CINCINNATI as PRIORITY ONE.
The lack of neighborhood safety is really the first priority but maybe one that may not be able to be solved right away until we as parents teach our children
(1) Respect
(2) Importance of education
(3) Love of Country
(4) Love of God
But in the meantime we must treat the crime problem as if we all "had a dog in this fight." The police alone cannot solve the problem . Our neighbors need to get to know each other and watch out for each other. Neighborhood Watch and Citizen on Patrol programs have worked in some neighborhoods and need to be tweeked and spread into more areas. And we as citizens must cooperate with the police and come forward as witnesses.
Our safety problems didn't start overnight and these problems will not be solved overnight.But we must start NOW...
I believe the most important issue for City Council to address immediately is getting the Banks built. If we don't stall the momentum, we can get the plan to a vote before Council and the Commission as soon as next week, and then break ground.
The Banks will fill a necessary niche in our urban core: a suburbanite-friendly, sanitized, self-contained space that would entice a larger slice of the region’s 2 million people to make downtown a destination again. The Banks will help ensure first and foremost that a larger portion of the hundreds of thousands of folks who attend Reds and Bengals games remain on the riverfront after the game. We can’t capture this potential revenue with the current mud pit.
I admit that save for the park, I personally probably would not hang out much at the Banks. But those of us who crave authenticity and want to support independent theatres, local owned shops, restaurants and bars can enjoy these things in dynamic neighborhoods (Northside, Clifton, O-t-R, etc.) throughout Cincinnati.
1. Economic Development
2. Crime Prevention
3. New Public Transportation/
A New Green Cincinnati
The most important issue facing Cincinnati leaders should be first and foremost economic development. It is the city leaders responsibility to greatly increase our tax base by incentivizing for small and large businesses to move to our amazing city immediately. This has not been a priority of past leaders. Without this as our top priority development and business goes elsewhere and our budget continues to suffer.
Equally important is crime prevention. We must immediately initiate sheriff's in all crime ridden neighborhoods, implement police on foot patrols, segways, and bikes, and create a much better community interaction by the police. Furthermore we must hold the parents responsible, expand summer and job training programs for teenagers, and expand intervention programs.
Thirdly insuring we have a new street car system connecting to uptown will be vital in the development of our core. By sending a clear marketed message that Cincinnati is the new young, green, urban city we can bring people back to the city and retain our young professionals.
All of these issues our essential in pushing our city forward quickly. Most importantly above all we must create an action oriented team that work together efficiently and affectively. We must elect leaders that are tenacious with clear vision and unstoppable drive.
-Mitch Painter
www.painterforcouncil.org
Reducing violent crime immediately. This will take dollars and political will, but it can be done. Second to this, make sure the Banks has dirt turned in the next few months.
The overriding issue in this campaign is Safety and Security. We must create arts and entertainment districts. We must build the Banks. We must revitalize the core of the city. We must create a feeling that Cincinnati is safe. We must have clean safe streets. We must have family friendly neighborhoods or young professionals will not buy homes in the city. The safety and security of our citizens means we must combine new technology with stronger community relationships between the police and our citizens. New forms of technology would include predictive analysis data mining. Data mining will allow our police department to effectively predict where and when crime may occur. Armed with this knowledge our police commanders can effectively deploy their resources to address and resolve crime. Digital ticketing will allow officers to perform traffic stops in less than 7 minutes. The time reduction will decreases offices exposure to roadside danger, decreases clerical errors, and increases the amount of time the officer is on the beat. Traffic safety, officer safety and community safety are all increased.
We must continue the work of the collaborative agreement as we have made strides in creating greater interaction, trust and mutual respect between our nationally recognized police department and our proud citizens. I will push for the creation of an auxiliary police force. I will return the neighborhood police officer. I will call for regular police and community meetings. We can build a Greater Cincinnati by combining the best of modern technology with the best Cincinnati tradition of hospitality in family friendly neighborhoods lined with clean safe streets. Please visit my website at www.JohnEby.com and see my easy to understand safety and security plan.
I wasn't going to write a long position paper because I thought our answers were to be short ones. But to elaborate on my violent crime reduction stance, I have worked on programs that have helped the city see a slight decrease in violent crime over the past 18 months: Creation of 60 new police officers, allocating 1.5 million for walking patrols, allocating $500,000 for the CIRV (Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence), which is underway currently, enacting a marijuana ordinance (which has collected over 100 illegal guns and hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal drugs), and the chronic nuisance ordinacne.
However, no one should be relaxing. We still have a long way to go. We need more police presence, as presence deters crime. This should be in the form of walking patrols. We need facilities to house criminals (ie the comprehensive safety plan issue 27), and we need cooperation from communities with the police.
The Banks also needs to get dirt turned. Currently there are rumblings that some council members are not happy with the developer. As always, we are behaving very dangerously. We have a developer who has been working with an independant body of private buisness people, the Banks Working Group, and we have trusted them for the past 18 months to come up with the best plan to develop the Banks. We should be waiting with baited breath to see what they present, and we should do exactly what our resolution stated when we created the BWG: an up or down vote by council. No nit-picking, no word-smithing, no "what if's." We owe it to this community to get started and spark new enhancement to our downtown area.
The most important issue to address is crime. We can have the greatest plans in the world for our city but if we do not continue to decrease the amount of crime none of them will work. In order to achieve this I will continue to:
1. Support our police and make sure they have the necessary & requested resources to do their job
2. Support the deployment and use of the specialized Vortex Unit – which has helped reduce crime in Over-the-Rhine (40%)
3. Support the Cincinnati Initiative To Reduce Violence (CIRV)
4. Continue to be an active member of Citizens on Patrol in my neighborhood. As well as encouraging others to get involved in programs like these where citizens can help make a difference
5. Push for the creation of more satellite probation offices in our neighborhoods
6. Initiate and collaborate with various groups to promote initiatives aimed towards helping families reduce and cope with violence - such as the recent Child Safety Summit with CPS that I co-organized
7. Work with CPS to increase the usage and efficacy of their truancy hotline number (363-0003). This is a critical component to getting kids off the streets and back in school where they belong
8. Continue to emphasize and promote the importance of improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods by removing blight, litter and cleaning up areas where crime is encouraged. When criminals think that no one cares, they will think that no one will care what they do. We need to put a stop to this type of thinking
I will continue to work hard to decrease the number of homicides and shootings in our city, so that people not only feel safe, but truly are safe. I want to make Cincinnati a great place to live, work, play and raise a family.
I agree that fighting crime is important, but let's not overlook the role a more prosperous economy will play in lowering crime rates. (It's no coincidence that crime rates plummeted in the 90's while the economy was thriving.) Getting the Banks built (and street cars) is an essential component of a prosperity agenda for our region.
We currently spend 2/3 of our city budget on public safety. If we don't do more in the way of positive economic development to grow our wealth as a community, then each year we will spend an even greater share of our budget on crime fighting--greater than the current 2/3.
Economic growth and safety go together hand in glove.
Greg Harris
www.votegregharris.com
blog: http://votegregharris.blogspot.com/
Hello. My name is George Zamary and I am running for Cincinnati City Council.
I am running for City Council because I am passionate about this city, have proven results, and think Cincinnati needs fresh leadership.
My campaign slogan is to help "Cincinnati SOAR to New Heights."
SOAR is an acronym representing the most important issues I feel face Cincinnati:
1) Safety – clean and safe. People are not going to move into historic neighborhoods if they are putting their lives and property in danger. We must make them safe.
2) Overhaul spending – people deserve the right to feel the government is spending their money wisely. Today, expenditures continue to rise faster than revenue. This must stop.
3) Add population – both residential and business. Since the 1970s, the city has lost 1/3 of its population. Lexington, Louisville, Indianapolis, and Columbus have all added population. We must target a new middle class known as the "creative class," and bring them back to the city.
4) Reduce taxes - If the first three objectives are met, then council should be to reduce the burden on Cincinnati's taxpayers.
We must also not forget the first ring suburbs in our plans. Westwood, Price Hill, Northside, Hyde Park, Oakley, the list goes on, are all part of the city. We have 52 neighborhoods and Council must work with their community leaders to achieve progressive development.
Today, I feel Cincinnati is at a crossroad. It will either go backwards or SOAR to new heights. With your support on Nov. 6th I hope to make it SOAR.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this blog. I look forward to your questions.
George Zamary
www.GeorgeZamary.com
I appreciate the Enquirer providing this opportunity for candidates and readers to engage in a healthy dialogue about Cincinnati and the region as a whole.
Here are my priorities:
A. A clean, green, and safe City. This includes a City safe from crime, blight and also maintaining a clean environment including land, water and air.
B. Encourage economic development opportunities for all segments of the community. This includes incentives to bring new businesses to the City, maintaining the businesses we have and encouraging major development projects
such as the Banks, Fountain Square revitalization and neighborhood business district projects.
C. Continue the population gain. Cincinnati has gained population in each of the last two years after many consecutive years of losing population and this is a trend we need to continue.
--Vice Mayor David Crowley
Why is no one talking about privatizing services and managed competition? It has been proven to save money--OUR money.
Yet nobody seems to want to follow up on this... Right now, I see a city with a Billion-dollar half finished river front and a declining tax base facing demands for a 3/4 Billion-dollar Jail to house largely non-violent, un-tried alleged offenders, and yet nobody wants to talk about cutting waste and requiring city employees to do what the rest of us do--compete to provide the best service at the best price?
Why should a candidate consider themselves a viable public servant if they don't?
The most important issue facing Cincinnati is creating value and generating more net worth for our city to provide more services for all residents. Many leaders feel that cutting costs is being fiscally responsible. A city, just like a company, can only cut costs so far before there is damage to the infrastructure of the very entity you are trying to protect and grow. Instead of doing less and cutting more, I suggest doing more. Three ways to increase the funds and budget for the city are:
1. Broaden the tax base. The more people who live and/or work in the city, the more taxes we generate for general funds. The more money we take in and the more efficiently we invest it, the more we have for short-term needs and long-term plans.
2. Encourage tourism. Tourists are great. They save their money all year to come and spend it in a few days in Cincinnati’s hotels, restaurants, cabs, theaters, museums, zoo, amusement parks, stadiums and stores. Tourism is an industry that generates more than revenue; it generates pride. Research shows that cultural tourists stay longer and spend more.
3. Market and sell our expertise and services to generate revenue. Did you know that Cincinnati Water Works sells more filtered water to people living outside of Cincinnati than we do to people living inside the city? It is an enterprising, entrepreneurial approach that can be applied in other departments as well.
Come to one of my events and we can talk more about thinking differently.
Joan Kaup, Charter Candidate for Cincinnati City Council www.KAUPforCOUNCIL.com
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