Ghiz: The Banks will be built

Do you consider the Banks deal to be the city's number one development priority and do you expect to support the deal the Banks Working Group has been negotiating? Does it matter to you if the deal is finished before or after Election Day?

Yes, it's the number one development priority for the city, and yes it matters if it is done before election day.

For the past 12 years, our city has complained about the Banks and why it hasn't been completed. Why do we still have dirt on the riverfront, why can't the city do anything, why is Covington booming and we are stagnant?

We are closer now than we ever have been. We need to complete this deal if this city is ever going to progress in the right direction. Unfortunately, we are in the 11th hour, and once again, too many cooks are trying to spoil the broth. Naysayers now decide to come out and complain about what it will look like, the type of development it will be, and even such trivial things as the parking it may absorb. Those are pretty poor complaints considering that the Banks Working Group has been at this for 18 months now, and no one has ever said word one except to gripe about the fact it hasn't been completed.

When I came to council, six of us worked very hard to make sure we passed a resolution that the county would mirror; a resolution that created an impartial body of private business people (the Banks Working Group); and a resolution that (the greatest thing we did) said City Council and the County could only up or down vote the plan presented by the Banks Working Group. We worked hard at getting the best and brightest people on the Banks Working Group, and they have spent hundreds of hours of their private, unpaid time, devoted to picking a developer and developing a plan with the developer. Now, in typical Cincinnati style, a few people in the business and political community come late to the party and want to slow or stop the development.

There are some concerns that are valid, but they are not worth tanking a development that will do nothing but better our city.

Cincinnati can no longer afford this kind of rhetoric. We must move on this development and we must either accept or reject what is given to us by the Banks Working Group. We have no right to red line the agreements, plans or anything else that is given to us. We, by our own legislation, can only say we accept or reject it. It is time for our political leaders to stand up, let progress happen, and stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

The Banks needs to happen before the election, as every day that passes without moving forward, is one more day of delay of development.