Brutus_buckeye

Nothing is exactly guaranteed. If N&S would go out of business that $37 million a year goes to $0.00. If N&S ever has to file bankruptcy (which is not that unreasonable of a possibility if you give enough incidents like you had in E. Liverpool last year) then the $37 million becomes a lot less (although it is complicated how it all sorts out and the city would certainly see an interruption of payments). In that sense, you are putting all your eggs in the N&S basket and hoping they would pay over the life of the lease or diversifying under a mix of stable securities and fixed income assets designed to generate an 8% return on average.

^Someone a few days ago floated around the concept of being able to issue bonds off the railroad proceeds. Apparently, based on the Biz Courier article, that is not an option as you cannot borrow against the railroad proceeds per state law.

I understand that. I think the key would be to make sure that the governing trust documents in place make it very difficult to change and that it would take more than a simple board majority to exercise significant changes, maybe even unanimity. Does not solve all your concerns but could at least offer a decent amount of protection. Unfortunately, those decisions are not made until after this would pass

You need to allow some type of flexibility here. You do not want to tie the hands of the investor managers in such a way that it harms the potential returns and actually causes the portfolio to not only under perform but to lose money if the rules on investments are too stringent. You need to offer some flexibility to allow the investment managers to use their best knowledge to direct the investments. They are also governed by fiduciary rules that mean that they cannot take extra ordinary risks that would create exposure to the portfolio that a reasonable investor would not do. This means that they cannot go 100% in on equities or 100% on fixed (if the goal is to generate a 5.5% distribution. There will be guidelines and certain grades of investments that they can use, so it will not be a blank slate, but they will have some discretion. Given how most endowments seem to be set up, you likely get a mix of equity/fixed in the range of 65-85% Equity with remaining fixed and a small component held in cash or cash equivilant. The majority will be weighted toward equities if it is set up like an endowment fund. The board will sign off on the investment manager and the guidelines that the manager will be governed under. There are a lot of guardrails that would prevent the board from authorizing any undue risks in these cases.

Forgot about the liquor store there. I always still think of that as a Walgreens still.

That block of 5th street from Walnut to Main (essentially government sq) is now my least favorite block to walk because it always reeks of weed.

Do you have any updates on the Kimpton?

when is this project expected to be complete?

Not just apartments. Although they are expensive for an apartment owner to install regardless. However, there are a lot of renters who live in urban areas without parking and have no easy access to a charger. Go to CHicago. How many people live in 3-4 unit flats and have no driveway. The residential streets are often lined with parked cars. These people cannot charge up overnight because you cant place chargers on every meter or parking spot on the street. So they must charge in a large commercial parking lot if one is available. Spending 1-3 hours to give your car a full charge is quite a pain in the butt compared to spending 5 minutes at the gas station.

While much of this may be in the preference of the driver or the owner, the biggest flaw that the EV has is delivery and the inefficiencies in charging vehicles. Ultimately, the lack of efficient charging stations that can be provided to serve the masses, especially more lower income and middle income people who do not have ability to put an EV charger on their property is a significant flaw with the whole EV infrastructure, unless the goal is to make sure that lower income individuals can no longer have cars.

Remember when Congress in the 90s passed welfare reform and it actually worked. THis is what you are describing. It only took a generation for the progressive class to tear it down though.

I urge you to learn about about EV’s and charging from actual unbiased sources. It’s about 300 miles from Cincinnati to Chicago, so a long-range Tesla could theoretically make the trip with zero stops. One stop is more likely, and a supercharger would probably take on the order of 30 minutes, so maybe 5.5 hours. Even 2 stops (maybe it’s extremely cold and a short range Tesla) would take under 6 hours. as a matter of fact, i have spoken to a number of unbiased people on the matter. I have people who love their EV but still lament how it takes longer to make a drive to a place like Chicago because of the charging situation and the lack of infrastructure. Yes, in an ideal world you could make it on one charge, but that does not take into account potential cold weather shortening battery life, lack of available charging stations on the ride, and time to charge. If you hit traffic and you are at 20% do you want to risk a long back up and having your battery die or is it best to be on a full battery? THese are all issues and concerns that are often overlooked by many EV enthusiasts. It will take longer to drive with the EV. Charging is another issue. THe SUperchargers are nice, but if you use them too much they will harm your battery life. I learned this from the people that actually make these charging stations because we were looking at installing them at some commercial properties and realize that these charges (on top of the costs) may not be the ideal solution either. So those are not great for those who travel a lot since they will hurt the long term battery life. Yes, but you look at weekly charging is something that people can build into their busy schedules and it will be no issue. how many of these people rent? How many landlords are going to want to invest in the equipment. DC fast chargers as mentioned above, are bad for battery life, so you do not want to make a habit of using them. Also, DC fast chargers cost over $100k per station to install. Many property owners, especially owners of working class properties will not pay for this amenity. High end apartment owners will, but that again does not help the poorer working class individual. Your flippant response about bias, shows you really know little about the infrastructure problem and are willing to just gloss over the significant problems to lower income individuals because their problems do not really effect you, and you like the idea of EV's despite their issues.

That is the problem, many of the programs are subsidies and do not actually address the problem in a sustainable way. A subsidy can be a short way to spur demand, but a permanent subsidy (one that could go on a number of years or longer) is not great policy because ultimately, it is just the government (taxpayer) offsetting the cost of a product that would not be able to economically stand on its own otherwise. It is economically inefficient. Now there are times where a subsidy is a good idea but how it is used by many in the democratic spectrum, they are not efficient. What people want is they want independence. They want to be able to have the means to make it on their own if they have to do so. They do not want to be stuck under heavy regulation and rely on subsidies they may not want. Wouldn't it be better if policies could be in place to allow people to solve their own problems in the ways they see may be best for them? Now, this does not mean we get rid of free lunch programs or tuition grants or housing vouchers completely, but we need to be more discerning how they are used. Housing vouchers are a perfect example. So many people are stuck in their situation and do not want to take the steps to improve upon it because they do not want to lose their voucher. They work under the table jobs to scrape for extra cash because they do not want to risk their income rising to a level that would cost them their voucher. THis is an example of inefficiency and it keeps people poor. This is a solution that the Dems promote but in the long run leads to more poverty and not less.

Based on historical returns, it should. Just because in one or two years, the returns are down significantly where a distribution cannot be made, over the course of 30 years or longer the returns should meet or exceed their mark. Plus when you only distribute 5% of the returns to the city and hold back say 2-3% in many years, the principal will grow over time and that helps offset against down years OR it grows significantly large enough where the returns paid out each year to the city increase. These would be considered assets that a bondholder would deem safe collateral.

I dont dispute this, but again, 1) We can accommodate some of this in our forecasts and 2) this race to net zero IMO is not going to change anything because whatever is going to happen is pretty much baked in in one sense so we really have no choice but to learn to live with things. Too many times over the last 100 years we were told the end is coming in 2-3 years if we do not act now, these charlatans were treated as experts on the issue only to be shown to be nothing more than headline chasing frauds. I do not doubt that there is some merit to what they are saying, but unfortunately, those in power do not want to allow reasonable debate and discourse on the issue to forge a more realistic path, instead, we get pushed the narrative that we need to act now and faster or we will all die. I am all for clean energy, but we cannot cut off our nose to spite our face in our attempts to get there. What Europe has done by closing down nuclear and coal plants and relying on Russia to try and provide them gas for heating as they raced toward net zero was extremely foolish. Nuclear clearly has risks. However, it has proven safe over the years if you have a plant that operates according to the safety standards established and it burns cleanly. Yes, you are right, the miners of uranium certainly carry risks, but the same can be said for the miners of the Lithium for EV batteries. To me, this is not any better. Wind and solar are nice, but they are not stable enough. You need a lot of solar panels and a lot of windmills to generate the electricity you need to significantly power industrial plants and major cities. With wind you are reliant on the weather and in the event of a lull in the wind, you are screwed as the windmill does not turn enough. WIth solar, you need to be in a part of the country where you get enough sunlight. Ohio is not the best place for that given the current limits on solar technology. So I go back to nuclear, it is a way to generate sufficient power at the right price point, that will not actively pollute the air. It can bridge the gap for 30-50 years until we develop better efficiencies in more sustainable products. The answer is not subsidies for electric cars for ordinary citizens. That may seem like an easy solution from afar, but it is not at all practical. The problem with EV's is not the cost of the vehicle, they may be expensive, but the biggest limitations are the delivery. Younger, less upwardly mobile individuals tend to live in more urban areas or areas that do not have access to a garage. Go down to University Circle, or whatever college is near where you live and you see hundreds of cars parked at night along the street. In any big city this is an issue, where you have thousands of cars fighting for spots in the overnight hours. You do not have a charger next to each parking spot, and you are never going to build that amount of chargers (it would be expensive and also unsightly). If we have a long term EV future, where are these cars going to charge? It often takes hours to charge a car not minutes like gas cars. People who live in cities generally cant have an EV for this reason. EV's have battery limitations making it difficult to drive cross country and efficiently charge your vehicle. A trip in a gas car from Cincinnati to Chicago takes 5 hours in a regular car but 8 hours in a Tesla. That is not ideal for many travelers. This limits the practicality of an EV to a suburban family who just uses the vehicle to drive around town during the day and has a garage or driveway where they can plug in at night. This is one reason why the urban working class or much of the working class cannot afford an EV even with subsidies, it is just not practical where they live or rent from. So then the answer is better public transportation. In New York or DC or Boston, they have a robust public transportation system in place. you can live there without a car. Many medium sized metros, that is not the case. Even places like Cleveland with rail systems would need so much significant capital to expand the lines. To do that in every city really is not economically feasible in the short term. So subsidies may seem like an easy solution from an upper class or upper middle class viewpoint, but they really would not help ordinary working people. THis is why the working class has turned against the Democrats over the last 10 years. It is because they choose not to understand what they actually need to help their lives and all these great "benefits" that are supposed to make things better actually end up pushing down on the working poor and average middle class individual because it makes their day to day life experience more difficult.

but in the end, money is fungible. So if you have a $50 million budget obligation that you need to budget for every year to pay for the roads and you have a $60-70 million inflow from the railroad sale, then you no longer have to fund that budget obligation and those funds that would otherwise go to fixing the roads from the general fund can go somewhere else.

is there a bigger risk than climate change?? Really?? I remember AL Gore saying that by 2012 1/2 of New York would be underwater, SOmeone else said by 2018, and then 2022. Now, I am not denying Climate Change, of course the climate is changing, but to call is the most extreme existential threat to humanity is a load of crap. And no, this does not mean that maybe, someday, some time from now, the sea levels may rise and flood Tampa or Miami or somewhere else. BUt you know what, life will go on. We will adapt and people will figure out how to make it work. This is not going to be some biblical moment that people could not prepare for. Buildings will not suddenly collapse in the sea, people will not die en-masse. The wrath of God will not come down suddenly on people over fossil fuels. We all need to take a deep breath, we will be ok. The climate alarmism is driving up prices in many cases when it does not need to happen. A gradual shift toward renewables that work is what people should do. Bring back nuclear energy. It is clean and does not pollute the environment, it can increase generation capacity without the issues and problems that come from solar and wind, and it is also clean too. This will bring down prices that people feel everyday. Keep using oil, but continue to work on better alternative fuels. Battery cars may not be the best as they have limitations, why push them so hard, there are better solutions out there that may be better and do not pollute the environment by mining the rare metals or even through the generation of power to charge the battery. Oil is not the long term answer, but it is still better than the alternatives we have now, so why create such pain for the average citizens. It is the poor that feel the most pain by these arbitrary regulations. The people complaining the most about the high cost of electric, cars, heat, food, etc. are the ones who can least afford it, and the regulatory state, especially the myopic bureaucrats who chase the dreams of a perfect society are not the ones who actually struggle under the day to day labors of their decisions.

Funny how you say that. I never have a problem with those who disagree with my position. I even disagree with others on this issue and still highly respect their positions and where they come from. It is when you attack my position as fallacy or wrongheaded where i take issue with your comprehension or analysis. On this issue, it is highly charged and people have a wide range of opinions. You and I certainly disagree on the issue, but our opinions are personal to us and I know I will not change your opinion on the matter just like you wont change mine. As i mentioned to Brian earlier, we will just need to agree to disagree on this.

The fund manager will determine the distribution. However, the distribution must be spent solely on infrastructure projects. Council will not be able to vote to spend $60 million of the distribution in 2028 on a new arena or convention center renovation or new public housing. They are limited there. The Railway trustees will oversee the fund manager

The railway board will control the money and approve its uses under the available terms of uses. Back in the Spring, when the State allowed the sale to go forward, they put guardrails on the deal to ensure it is only used for infrastructure projects. Therefore, unless the State changes the law, the railway board will only be able to approve actual infrastructure projects on the annual income from the sale. They may not use it to build an arena or for park projects or housing. Not sure where FWW Caps would fall under in the criteria, the devil is in the details there. However, it would be fairly difficult to get an allocation for say a new arena or Streetcar expansion in the funds. Obviously, that could change over time, but you need to get the state to change the restrictive language to open up other options to spend the money.

pretty harsh considering you do not know me. Listen, there is a lot of nuance on the issue and those who draw red lines with their position no matter what side you may be on only contribute to the problem. SO yes, both sides contribute to this. Planned Parenthood is a big part of the problem too. They are disingenuous, otherwise, they would come to the table with reasonable proposals, but they do not want that either, just like the hard right does not want to actually solve the problem.

I do, which is why it is such a nuanced issue and should be treated that way. BOth sides should be ashamed of themselves in this process.

I do not see how you can say that killing babies saves lives but in your bizzarro world, go ahead and celebrate it. Now, I certainly think there should be guardrails around the procedure and should be a very last resort for people who may have a physical medical condition or rape or incest of the like, but it should not be treated as if it is just like going in and getting a nose job. It is not, and as moral individuals, that distinction is important.

Tell that to the crowd that wants to "Shout their abortion" that is pretty sick and disgusting if you ask me.

One way to get these under control which we have full control over is less regulation and more supply. Drill for more oil will bring down the price, refine more gasoline will bring down prices, build more power plants, natural gas plants, etc. Build more non-electric cars will keep cars affordable, Build more housing with less restrictions from NIMBY's These will all bring prices down