Ram23

Early in the season w/ a new coach...that's the only explanation I can come up with, other than "any given Saturday." The USF loss was obviously more detrimental. Otherwise UCF wouldn't be sitting so pretty. It's beyond frustrating UCF is likely to get the BCS nod without having to prove themselves against UC. Munchie went down in the middle of the Illinois game, and then a controversial call (that the Big 10 later admitted to being incorrect) took away a TD and any chance at gaining momentum disappeared, not to mention a fumble recovery that UC should have had that the Big 10 also admitted to calling incorrectly at the time. That, and being on the road seems to hurt UC - which explains the loss to USF and several games that were closer than they should have been. I almost believe that the Big 10 officiating crew was a bit angry UC beat up on Purdue earlier in the season and fudged a few calls. Good points. My memory was a little fuzzy on the game. That bad call on Munchie's TD was devastating, then a few minutes later he injured his leg...which was REALLY devastating. Those few minutes were incredibly painful to watch. I even mentioned that earlier in this thread: Yeah, it was pretty brutal, and people might point to the score and say it was a blowout so that one wrong TD call wasn’t a big deal – but it would have made the game close at the half and given UC momentum to finish the game. Momentum is a huge factor in college football, and nothing destroys it like a blatantly wrong call followed up by an injury to the QB.

Because it is a question of interpretation of state code, not local code. The best source would be an Ohio elections law expert, regardless of where in the state that expert is located. Knowing the Enquirer they asked experts until they got the answer they wanted, or they went to the guy they knew would give them that answer.

It would be great to pit the Republicans against Cranley on this issue, all in the name of fiscal responsibility, but ultimately just to hamper him so as to make him less likely to succeed in future political campaigns. He'd have a tough 4 years ahead of him with basically Mann and maybe Flynn being his only "friends" on council.

Legally, it comes down to whether or not he was "separated" from his wife (per the ORC section selectively quoted in the article). They were not "legally separated" so far as I read as that involves a court order, and I'm not sure why that OSU professor thinks a legal term like that should have a broad interpreation, nor am I sure why they went to an OSU professor other than not being able to find anyone closer that had that interpretation. I don't see this going anywhere, it's just Burke continuing to be a giant useless tool. Also, there's a pretty big difference between this and the cases that were prosecuted - voting for your dead sibling is a much bigger deal.

Early in the season w/ a new coach...that's the only explanation I can come up with, other than "any given Saturday." The USF loss was obviously more detrimental. Otherwise UCF wouldn't be sitting so pretty. It's beyond frustrating UCF is likely to get the BCS nod without having to prove themselves against UC. Munchie went down in the middle of the Illinois game, and then a controversial call (that the Big 10 later admitted to being incorrect) took away a TD and any chance at gaining momentum disappeared, not to mention a fumble recovery that UC should have had that the Big 10 also admitted to calling incorrectly at the time. That, and being on the road seems to hurt UC - which explains the loss to USF and several games that were closer than they should have been. I almost believe that the Big 10 officiating crew was a bit angry UC beat up on Purdue earlier in the season and fudged a few calls.

He reiterated everything in the letter: a pause would require the feds to immediately request their money be returned, SORTA funding could be cut if the money isn't repaid, no other city has ever done anything like that, he's never had to meet a legislature this far into a project before, the FTA would look into the failure of the streetcar when considering future requests, etc. It really made it even more painfully obvious that quitting now would be unprecedented, yet John Cranley marches on.

Yeah, I fly it to Charlotte often for business. I love flying out of Lunken because of how easy it is, I'd rather not mess with CVG and I'm not sure how Ultimate will do there as everyone I know would rather use it from Lunken. Aside from the fares being competitive with US Airways or Delta (especially on short notice), the fact that you can fly in for a meeting, have the meeting, and fly out later that night makes it far cheaper overall than staying the night (considering hotel, meals, and rental car for an extra day).

3CDC, Drop Inn Center reach deal to move homeless shelter out of Over-the-Rhine http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/3cdc-drop-inn-center-reach-deal-to-move-homeless-shelter-out-of-over-the-rhine It's going on the site of the old Butternut Bread factory adjacent the abandoned Hudepohl brewery.

It's one thing to be skeptical, and it's another to be obtuse. Unfortunately, I don't think we're dealing with any skeptics amongst the newcomers.

That seems like a fairly concrete reason to not cancel the project, but I'm sure Cranley (he's probably not in attendance, right?) will find a way to make himself believe his opinion is more accurate than actual quotes from the people actually involved with the project.

Yeah, it's an awesome view in a general aesthetic sense from that building, but it's a terrible view for actually watching the football game.

Nice gif, I was at that game, I've celebrated the crashing and burning of Tebow's career ever since.

That seems to leave a window, although I'm not a lawyer either. If that doesn't work, it should be pretty easy to pass a petition to allow the state recall rules to apply to Cincinnati's elected officials, in light of the Rob Ford/Toronto situation.

That is a question that I would hope every single council member would ask before voting to pause construction and reconsider. Even Winburn, Slitherman, and Murray should want to know that. I would imagine the "standby" costs are over $10,000 a day, if not $15,000. Council would be wasting almost as much as the average Cincinnatians annual income every day they halt construction to “reconsider.” I don't know how anyone could think the streetcar is a waste of money but that isn't.

Wasn't the issue there that the person working the counter wasn't the person who was listed on the petition? A lot of shops around OTR are owner-operated, so long as they're the one at the counter they should be able to have the petition there. They could at least have a sign that says "See so-and-so to sign streetcar petition" I agree that COAST will be trying to find any and all faults/technicalities that they can should a petition get started.

Yeah, that was a fun game – some old school Tuberville play calling. It was a pleasure outright dismantling Rutgers on all fronts, I hope they enjoy their time in the Big 10! They should at least be competitive with Purdue.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20131115/NEWS01/311150060 Halting the streetcar, as David Mann suggest, means canceling the streetcar The feds made that 100% crystal clear in the letter. Whenever someone mentions 'halting the streetcar to look at costs' that effectively means canceling it due to the progress report checkpoints. We have to make this crystal clear. Also, as with any construction project, if the city were to halt work to “evaluate options” as some council members want it to do, the contractor will charge a daily fee. It could be a huge cost to pay the contractor to sit around and do nothing. It’s scary that there are people on council who are going to vote to stop construction without knowing even the basic contractual obligations of the city. We could waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to reevaluate the costs of a project that has been scrutinized to death.

Likely because he knows that when gas prices hit $5 or $6 some day, we will all have no choice but to travel via bike thanks to his policies.

That letter is a good start to swaying the council members who wanted to look into the cost of cancelling a bit more. Not only does it clearly state all the federal dollars are going back and those spent need to be reimbursed, but it alludes to the high cost of paying to get out of existing contracts.

Agreed, and I think it would give the streetcar the best chances if the election were the general election in November as opposed to any special election. There should be some coordination between the contractors lawyers and people in charge of getting a ballot initiative together to save the streetcar. It would be ideal to get a temporary injunction allowing current contracts to be executed until a November 2014 election. Although the rules surrounding signature turn ins may make that impossible, and require it be voted on earlier.

If there’s going to be a special district of any type, downtown corporate property owners would be the ones to get on board. A few hundred extra dollars in tax on a condo in OTR is nothing compared to the increase in tax on a skyscraper downtown.

He’s egotistical enough to stop both at any cost. He thinks he can cover the costs as capital costs. See this quote: “Who said this? Some kid? What citation did they cite to make this absurd argument?” he asked. “If the federal funds are paying for something, presumably capital-related, and we’re paying them back, in essence, buying the goods that the federal government paid for, and that good is a capital good. So of course the capital budget can be used. The city’s allowed to build a road and tear up the road. Just because we don’t end up using the road doesn’t mean we can’t consider it a capital expense.” Streetcar supporters are just “some kids,” in his mind. Yet he doesn’t realize that he’s really only referring to sunk capital costs, and that all the litigation, breach of contract, federal reimbursements, etc. aren’t capital expenditures at all. The quote above is the one that put me firmly into the “do anything and everything to make Cranley’s mission as difficult as possible” camp, by the way.

Here's a link with an email address to which to submit your questions: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2013/11/11/cranley-to-face-questions-thursday/ Although they're firmly in Cranley's pocket, the Enquirer does like to stir things up a bit, at least during their little online chats. Hopefully they let some tough questions through, although I'll expect Cranley's ego to be big enough to dismiss any facts that aren't in line with his opinion.

Do we know the exact person/group of people he is meeting with? It seems smart to contact them directly.

Indeed, I remember he ran against Chabot once before but I suppose he's moved since then. His moving toward the right side of the political spectrum would make an election against Wenstrup interesting, though the second is usually pretty safe Republican territory.