Ram23

If a court does decide a bump stock isn't a component, expect the state law to be rewritten posthaste. The whole point of the law was to create one uniform set of gun regulations (the law pretty clearly states as much). If local governments can ban after market parts that opens a huge can of worms. Most gun owners have after market parts like scopes, magazines, etc. A lot of people custom build guns by purchasing the parts, as well. So if you buy a lower receiver and a bump stock for it to begin with, it's an integral part. Right - and I think I've posted this previously, but bump stocks are so rare that I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there wasn't a single one in the City of Cincinnati to begin with. This ordinance was completely unnecessary.

I like a couple of things about this listing. First, the first picture was obviously taken in the rain and then someone photoshopped in a pretty blue sky. Second, you can still get a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, move-in ready house in Cincinnati for $79,000: https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/oh/cincinnati/1809-dallas-avenue/pid_25551479/

Gun groups sue Cincinnati over Council's bump stock ban https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/06/22/gun-groups-sue-city-bump-stock-ban/724902002/ Gun groups are taking Cincinnati to court over City Council's recent bump stock ban. Buckeye Firearms Foundation and Ohioans for Concealed Carry filed a suit against the city Thursday, claiming an ordinance regulating firearms violates a state law that citizens may own, keep and sell "any firearm, part of a firearm, its components, and its ammunition."

Do I have every local tax increase accounted for here? New parking tax Increase to the admissions tax .2% increase to the county sales tax Potential .5% to 1% increase to the county sales tax for SORTA Potential hike to the city earnings tax I know some of these make sense and I'm not opposed to them all (for example, I don't mind taxing luxury items like ticket admissions) but having all of this in the news at the same time is bad form.

I think I've posted this before, but that intersection needs to eliminate a cycle by having northbound and southbound Vine move at the same time. Arrows or no left turns could be worked in if needed. The walk signals need to be better integrated, as well. Right now you can only get a walk signal if you hit the request button. The button triggers ALL of the walk signs, and all the traffic lights go to red. It's a strange setup. Half the time people end up crossing against the signal because they don't see the button and get sick of waiting around.

Cheapside taking heat in the Enquirer for having the gall to tell a belligerent homeless guy to take a hike: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/06/21/cheapside-cafe-owner-responds-complaints-after-facebook-posts/720724002/

The Hamilton County GOP is going to attempt to get the .2% tax hike on the ballot. Property tax hikes in Hamilton County have been doing well recently, but I'm not so sure a regressive sales tax hike that doesn't pay for anything new is going to fly. Especially at a time when Cincinnati is talking about an income tax hike that will similarly not provide anything new. Unfortunately, there's only about a month to get everything in place and gather 23,000+ signatures - a short time frame that was almost certainly by design. I'm curious to see how this impacts SORTA's decision regarding their proposed sales tax hike. I think two separate property tax hikes on the ballot at the same time would scare people away from both, though it would confuse the "tax hike for nothing" argument.

And only 11 more days till the owner of Isadore's across the street retires. June 30th is the last day Is it closing when he retires? I haven't been there in awhile but it's always ranked pretty highly on my list of lunch buffets. I'll have to remember to swing by again.

^ Another factor is the homeownership rate. It bottomed out in 2016 and has been on the rise the past two years. In a market like Cincinnati, with plentiful cheap housing, that means stagnant rents as more young people opt for $1000 monthly mortgage payments instead of $1200 rents. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N According to this article on Zillow, the rate increased in Cincinnati by 4% from February 2017 to February 2018, putting it among the fastest growing metros in the country: https://www.zillow.com/research/homeownership-household-formation-18556/

And it looked much, much better, too:

In Taiwan you can check your baggage, check in for your flight, and print your boarding pass at the train station in downtown Taipei, and then take the train out to the airport. The express train stops twice on the way to the airport though, so they can't try to pull of security. That seems like it would have a lot more liability issues. Here's a description of how it works: https://www.tymetro.com.tw/tymetro-new/en/_pages/checkin/index.html

I never got the feeling Midpoint lost money, I felt it just didn't make enough for MEMI to bother with it. They make more money with their other ventures. The reason this whole ordeal leaves a sour taste in peoples' mouths is because the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is ostensibly an arts organization dedicated to seeking and sharing inspiration with the community. A music festival that pays for itself while putting local and national up and coming acts on stages at locally owned bars all over town seems like something they'd want to sponsor.

Quite a few Ohio cities made the list: Least livable: 50 worst US cities to reside in https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/06/13/50-worst-cities-to-live-in/35909271/

I think any guy who's willing to nearly kill a random woman with a cheap shot to the face, over something as trivial as her having witnessed a fender bender is probably a violent person regardless of the alcohol. I'm glad this is staying in the news now, and I'm glad that article has a picture of the guy and of the car - hopefully he'll get caught just like the guy who almost killed the Lachey's bartender over some trivial nonsense. CPD and the media never really mention it, but there are tons of cameras all over OTR (between the actual police cameras and businesses/residents) so CPD probably knows a lot more than the news has been mentioning.

^ It's in pretty good shape. I think the Reds are purposefully taking things slow for a few years because there are 3 playoff contenders in the division who are sort-of peeking, so there's no real reason to waste money and talent last year nor this year. The good news is that aside from Joey Votto, there really aren't many people in the system that are old enough to rent a car, so if they can get the right mix, things should be good for awhile.

^ Yeah, I remember moms bringing coolers full of apple sauce and bologna sandwiches when I was a kid. I haven't seen binoculars in awhile, they were pretty much a necessity in the red seats at Riverfront. GABP is set up much better for baseball so you really don't need binoculars even from the cheap seats. The same can't be said for some other parks, even if they're similarly sized. I used to get cheap seats at Citi Field and even though it has a similar capacity the seats are seemingly much further away from the action. Also, this weekend saw a Reds first - someone finally (almost) hit the "Red hits sign, fan wins Toyota" sign. It was close enough that Toyota counted it anyway:

A simple solution would be that anyone living in a failing school district could opt for any number of private schools (religious or secular), but not other community schools. Community schools are not inherently a bad thing - many of the best school districts in the state are in smaller communities - there's no reason to meddle with those and you'd be facing an unwinnable uphill battle if you attempted to do so. Ohio's EdChoice program is a good start at this, IMO. Regardless of income, if your kids would be enrolled in a failing community school, you can get tuition assistance for a private school of your choice. That's huge if your goal is repopulating the urban cores of Ohio's cities with more people, specifically more families.

^ Yeah, it's probably one of the best kept secrets in town because whenever I mention it, most people are shocked. You can't bring booze, glasses, or cans, but anything in a closed plastic bottle and any food smaller than 16x16x8 is allowed. I've brought in entire pizzas before, Chipotle burritos, etc.

The good news is that you can get some really good seats for < $10 on Stubhub. I've been going more than usual this year because it's cheaper than it's been in a long time. The fact that you can bring your own food, water, etc. in makes the whole night cheap - some peanuts on the street, a Jimmy John's sandwich, and 3 hours of baseball for $15, max.

^ I noticed that this past weekend - did part of the facade fall off or was it voluntarily rebuilt? The way the cornice was precariously floating there looks like part of the facade may have collapsed.

Here's an example from the Enquirer today with an apparently erroneous usage of "Clifton Heights" (I think they meant the Daniels Street in Corryville: Police attempted to arrest Lamar Allen of Avondale on open warrants Daniels Avenue in Clifton Heights at approximate 9:30 a.m. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/crime/crime-and-courts/2018/06/07/wanted-man-escaped-police-handcuffs-near-uc-45-minutes/681152002

I don't think it's actually a park, I think it's athletic fields used by Hughes High School. I went down there once maybe 10 years ago because a few friends wanted to play a pickup game of baseball, and we saw a baseball field there on Google Earth. The whole place is fenced and locked up. There's some playground equipment off of Marshall, but the driveway there is gated at the street and there's no sidewalk, so it's similarly uninviting.

^ Most of it is weed. Years ago when I lived on Walnut and Liberty, that corner (and 15th Street where Mecca is now) was all crack. I had to call in what I assumed was an OD once, but unfortunately it was almost 8:00AM and the guy looked like he'd been there for hours. He was half wrapped around the old payphone that used to be by Grammer's. There was/is one of those big CPD cameras on top of Grammer's - I guess no one actively watches those, they just go back to review them if/when something happens.

I think the Bengals are using this as a bargaining chip of some sort. They probably want to use it for pregame/postgame concerts - some sort of arrangement that allows them to keep all the revenue but forces the operator to put on the show for free. Something along the lines of "If we can't tailgate there, you have to put on concerts for us."

They should just call it Uptown. It would make the most sense to merge Clifton and CUF (and maybe even Corryville) and call the whole area "Clifton" and use "Gaslight" and "Uptown" to distinguish the two halves, but something tells me the "real" Clifton residents would never let that fly. I'm curious what the actual legal process is for changing a neighborhood name - is there one? If a community council votes to change their name, is that it? Could CUF just vote to call themselves "Clifton" and de facto merge? In the grand scheme of things, Cincinnati could probably merge half of its neighborhoods. Is there really a good reason to have two Fairmounts? Does Millvale really need to be distinguished from South Cumminsville? Why even have a South Cumminsville if the rest of Cumminsville rebranded as Northside? We should have 10-15 actual neighborhoods and keep the place names casual. That would give a bit more credence to fake neighborhoods like Brighton and Prospect Hill - places that somehow didn't manage to make the cut despite the fact that Cincinnati is inexplicably divided into 52 neighborhoods.