PAlexander

Obviously the plan is for the City to recoup the money through the increase in payroll tax, sales tax and property values that will result from having a successful business where there was no business previously. It's the same theory underlying every City expenditure from Convergys to the Streetcar. It's not that hard to figure out. I think you're completely misunderstanding investment works. You say, "I'm sure there are any number of places that could locate at the Banks, without a huge grant, and drive just as much economic benefit." But what evidence do you actual have for this belief? There are plenty of possibilities to test your theory. Toby Keith's got a subsidy. Did Holy Grail get a subsidy? Did Johnny Rockets get a subsidy? The stadium across the street got a subsidy (albeit from the County). The whole Banks project sat empty for years after the highway was rebuilt until finally a deal was worked out in which, I suspect, Carter/Dawson got grants, tax credits or guaranteed loans (or some combination of all three) in order to build. While I think the Banks project has been pretty good, anyone who remembers what was down there prior to 1996 can't honestly say that some private developer should just swoop in to do X. The opportunity to do just that has been there for decades and it never happened. These are facts.

The problem with this argument is that "bad governance" which, in this example is defined as "giving money to restaurants", is in fact a natural outgrowth of "leading the redevelopment of a flood-prone riverfront". What's the point of the massive subsidies used to create the buildings in the Banks if you don't have any tenants? Also, think about how small this loan is relative to the loans and subsidies used to create all other aspects of the Banks. Isn't it a bit counter-intuitive to argue that the more money the government spends on a given item, the less likely the expenditure constitutes "bad governance"? Ultimately the only objective standard for what's good or bad about a given project is how well the project accomplishes its purported purpose. To be frank, I don't understand why Qualls is against this package but voted in favor of the $2.5 million event space at City Hall, or the virtual giveaway of the Kroger garage. There might be good reasons for any of those things in the detail, but on the surface, they strike me as far more questionably profitable for the City than this venture. Regarding race, the fact that Pettus-Brown was brought up is pretty indicative that such issues are never far from the surface. Not talking about them doesn't make them go away. We're all adults here. Finally if Toby Keith's restaurant is getting a $5 million subsidy, I don't see why anyone who is truly bullish on local growth can object to a subsidy to help a local owner expand.

Yeah, tax incentives are far less effective than loans or grants. Let's think about it for a moment. What do you get when you give someone money? Well, you get whatever you pay for. The loan or grant is characterized by the fixed amount you are transferring, as well as the fixed number of recipients. A tax incentive has no fixed number of recipients, or at least a highly variable one. the mortgage deduction, for example, and how much federal tax revenue is foregone because of it, depends on how many individuals choose to engage in the activity that qualifies for the deduction. So as an attempt to influence economic behavior, tax incentives are less effective than direct payments, because the amount being expended can easily be over or under shot. Now, of course a City's tax incentives are typically targeted to a specific company, in which case, they would function almost identically to a grant or loan, although tax incentives are only good if you have tax liability. Oftentimes people trying to start restaurants have a year or two of initial unprofitability in their business plans because they understand it takes time to develop a customer base. If your tax credits aren't transferable to a later taxable year, what good are they for the business owner in this scenario. Exactly. Plenty of examples abound-look at "first months rent free" incentives from large residential rental developments. These types of private deals don't pan out all the time. Look at the unfinished hulk at the north end of Kenwood Mall.

Because Duke is used to throwing its weight around. They are not obligated to provide documentation. They do if they want a court to force the City to pay for moving the utilities 8 ft., or if they want to avoid damages to the City if the City ends up moving the utilities 8 ft. and suing Duke for the difference. That's how the law works. This is such a great project for the City. I can't wait for it to be up and running.

Who is the guy with John in that last picture? Project manager for the streetcar? That's Jason Barron, Mallory's press aide.

Swish. I'd say that the biggest concern once the streetcar is up and running is resting on our laurels. The biggest worry I have is that we will continue to see suburban style building in downtown, OTR, and Uptown/Corryville. We need infill on parking lots and empty lots around the streetcar, buildings that front the street, and buildings that are taller. Basically, we need to double-down. Not only is it the right thing to do (it's also doubling down on 3CDC's investments) but it will give Cincinnati a distinctive edge vis-a-vis Indy and Columbus. It's important for those cities to do well for Cincinnati to do well, but its also important to make sure we are pushing the assets we have that they don't to deal with the advantages they have but we don't (state capitols, unigovs [if you're into that. The streetcar is a good example of a situation where a unigov would have probably been detrimental]).

^^Making a non-sense argument coupled with an argument premised on a '"I didn't get my way" so I'm going to show you' argument is the new waffling. He doesn't understand it goes to 2nd Street? It's funny how City politicians go to the county and then forget that the County includes the City. If Portune really believes the Eastern Corridor is substantially in the interest of the County, but the City leadership doesn't believe it is the interest of the City, that's one thing. But if Portune thinks that the Streetcar is in the interest of the City, then it is by default in the interest of the County. Bringing up the Eastern Corridor doesn't make any sense. Of course, this is the same guy who thought it was in the interest of the County to undersell Drake Hospital in order to fund the Bengals stadium, so we kind of already know what to expect from him.

As part of the way to sell the stadium sales tax increase, the commissioners created a property tax rollback as an inducement for homeowners to vote for the sales tax increase. But since the public schools are funded through property taxes (and the leeway of the commission to remove funds from local school districts is likely controled by state law), the commissioners had to make up the lost percentage of revenue that property tax revenue to the school districts. The City owned Union Terminal. At a certain point, the Cincinnati Museum Center decided that it was wrong/unsustainable to rely upon City funding when its visitation numbers indicated a considerable amount of in-county but out-of-City visitors. So the Museum Center derived a county-wide supportive tax, similar to that enjoyed by Mental Health, etc. (the County seems to have more control over the nature of these extraordinary levies and how they are funded than school districts). My understanding is that the deal worked out between the City, the County and the Museum Center was that in exchange for the supportive tax, the County gets an increasing amount of ownership in the physical assets owned by the City, which would be the building. This structure has been in place for some time, I believe, at least for a decade. If one recalls the 2009 election season, the Museum Center had asked the County for an increase in the supportive tax in order to undertake major structural repairs to the building. They were unable to get the full amount they wanted, largely because the Commissioners did not want to raise the overal tax rate at the time, and other institutions were hurting for operational funds due to the incredibly depressed economy; for example, the Library System asked for and received its first ever county-wide supportive tax that year.

Right, but the whole argument is that while general taxes pay for the street as a thoroughfare, an individual parking his car on the thoroughfare is monopolizing a public good for private use. Consequently, if that sort of activity is to be allowed, the benefit provided should have a logical price. Maybe this argument is always made because it's actually the reason it's been implemented. Once again, it seems as though you've just made up this whole position to argue against it. Is there anyone connected with the Washington Park redevelopment who is actually saying this? Also, isn't the streetcar supposed to run north and south on either end of the park? If so, perhaps that's why there won't be any parking there.

Right, I park on the street in OTR, I parked on the street in Clifton before that, and even parked on the street when I lived in New York City. It'd take a lot to convince me to pay to park in a garage somewhere. And that's what one calls a sense of entitlement. Those parking spaces on the street aren't free to build and maintain after all. Since they're not charged directly to those who use them (most of the time), it's yet another subsidy to automobile use. Everyone pays for it, but only some benefit, and those benefits are entirely internalized, it doesn't really benefit society as a whole. Thank you. An ideal OTR would have limited on-street parking that is priced similarly to the hourly garage rate, and two or three large public underground garages like the one under Washington Park. It would combine maximum use of livable space with enough parking to allow the proper churn of activity and to accomodate events at venues like Music Hall. It's incredible how entitled people feel to have a parking space they don't have to pay for. I admit, I get annoyed when I get back home downtown after five and all the close spots are taken. But a reduction of parking spots combined with the Streetcar will be a great thing for OTR. But no one is making the argument that everyone should give up cars immediately in Cincinnati except the people who want to set that argument up as a straw man. Seriously. Find someone on this board who is advocating that. jjakucyk is saying that using lanes for on-street parking means that you aren't using it for something else. Everything that falls in that something else is the opportunity cost. If the opportunity cost is greater than the amount the City is charging people to parking on street, than the parkers are getting a subsidy. It's as simple as that. On street parking seems to help encourage the natural of people and products a neighborhood needs to be thriving economically. Same as the streetcar will. And maybe the most effecient way to capture those costs isn't through the farebox or meter (e.g., getting them back through sales tax). But those are issues about process. There's no right to cheap on street parking.

That headline is, not surprisingly, misleading at best, because the article is about breaking down the costs of the streetcar, not about funding it. Anyway it was useful in showing exactly that, how the different costs break down. How come design costs are so high? What do they entail?

Okay, this is just egregiously wrong. First, comparing starting an infrastructure project (the entire streetcar network and all its attendant infrastructure) to upgrading major capital expenses in a previously existing organization (SORTA replacing old buses for newer buses that are also bigger and articulated) and then comparing the differing political fallout is absurd. As JohnSchneider said above, and all the world can observe, one is widely recognized as starting something new. The other isn't. Second, the fight over who would pay for Metro when SORTA was created was just as big as this fight. The organization was set up to have county wide reach and governance but the City was the largest funder of it because all attempts at creating a dedicated county-wide tax failed. This has been described plenty of times on this thread. Third, it's patently stupid to say a system that was designed to be funded through taxation is "losing money" and your conclusive proof that it is losing money is that it is being funded the way it was planned to be funded (and even though the county wide tax conceived at the inception didn't pass, at some point a new taxable funding source has been put into place. Even then it was always planned to be funded through tax revenue). Aside from fares and ad revenue, are you bothering to even think about calculating the tax revenue from other sources (the opportunity cost, e.g. payroll or property taxes) that may be lost if the bus system vanishes? Finally, what on earth do you think politics is if it isn't making decisions about how to allocate limited resources? Look, dude, you seem like a nice enough guy. You certainly have larger reserves of good humor and patience than most people on this thread, since you take a lot of abuse and don't ever seem to give any back. But I honestly don't see how anyone can think that you are arguing in good faith.

This isn't exactly right. There were several American cities that are older than the federal government. The big change happened in the late 19th century, when the law in the U.S. changed considerably because of both the U.S. economy became more of a national economy and the federal supremacy had been definitively established post civil war. Laws of general incorporation, which actually became typical in the 1830s and 1840s also probably had something to do with the changing legal view. Ultimately though, cities became viewed as wholly creatures of the state government, which really was a remarkable change but sort of went unnoticed because what really was different in those days were those powerful railroad companies and then the trusts.

I guess I just don't put as much stock in the content of that article. It seems to me that all the other stuff that goes into building the system is more important than LaHood's presence at the groundbreaking. The reason I mentioned the silliness of the Burke quote was because I thought it demonstrated the sloppiness of the article. The author wanted a counterbalancing quote, yet he couldn't be bothered to get one from a knowledgeable source. He basically quotes Burke saying that this issue isn't Burke's area of expertise. I also think the streetcar seems to have gained support over time, so I don't share your concern over that. The weakness of this last vote versus the previous one shows the lack of support the project has had in the African-American community, which is a problem that Streetcar supporters never really seemed to be able to address. The real issues with the delays is the potential that changes in political leadership can cause to the project, as we saw with Kasich's election.

If contracts are signed and funds are allocated, the timing of a photo-op doesn't seem like it will change anything. It's not going to change Finney's opportunities to get an injunction, the only thing that matters is the equity judge and the merits of his argument. That's why this article was kind of crappy. With all due respect to Tim Burke, couldn't the Business Courier have gotten a lawyer with some familiarity with municipal law to respond in the article?

P.G.'s stance on the Streetcar is stupid and craven, but CityBeat calling attention to this is clearly meant to be derisive. Let's say it was done on purpose; what information does the public gain by knowing that Sittenfeld aspires to be a Congressman? Could we not already infer that someone who raises over $300,000 to become a City Councilor at 27 without any sort of theory to his candidacy (what I got from him was, "I passed up better opportunities at Google and in the private sector to come back home. Vote for me because I love the City!") is ambitious for higher office? This story is just as worthless as any Enquirer story because it doesn't give the reader any new information that he can do anything with. The gist of the story is: Sittenfeld is ambitious. Wow, great job breaking that one wide open. And the title of the story, as well as the line, "Thanks partially to a series of TV commercials that appeared to air nearly nonstop this fall" are pretty clear indicators that the only joke the author wants us to laugh at is P.G. It's a very petty and shows clearly why CityBeat is just as much a piece of trash as the Enquirer. They could have written an interesting story on an actual issue, such as P.G.'s difference with the mayor on the City Hall atrium project (which Seelbach also voted against) but instead they decided to talk about how silly and self-absorbed politicians are, and consequently aren't we all so much better than these snake oil salesmen?

Haven't seen this discussed in a while but why exactly is the streetcar being built up to Henry rather than stopping at Findlay Street? Are the car barns going to be off Henry at the old Moerlein site? Do they have a space yet for the car barns?

I always thought one had to show specific damages (generally in the form of some sort of economic loss) unique to the individual in order for a suit such as this to move forward. That's why, "I don't want my taxes to pay for such and such" suits don't move forward. I don't see how an individual taxpayer can show this. Also, the County and the various local governments share concurrent jurisdiction; as your example pointed out, the distinction that Monzel talks about is meaningless and doesn't seem to have any legal relevance. Cincinnati residents didn't "vote on the streetcar" either, they voted on two charter amendments that would have forbidden, etc. This all seems like bunk, but if they file with a sympathetic judge I suppose anything can happen. Obviously it is just a delaying tactic.

I thought it was funny you said someone "looks worse" everytime you "hear" them. That, combined with your handle, suggested you may have certain powers. Anyway, it's presumptuous to assume the demolishing includes historic buildings. I suppose you could argue that every building that exists is more historic than the one which would replace it, but at that point the case for historic preservation becomes a bit ridiculous. There are plenty of buildings in Cincinnati that are in terrible shape and have little historic or aesthetic value and would be worth replacing. Also, there are plenty of good buildings that are located in high traffic corridors which could be torn down and replaced with more density, which would likely benefit the City. Also, on a sadder note, there are plenty of wonderful historic buildings, particularly in OTR, which are presently being torn down by CPS or 3CDC or other people regardless of what Sittenfeld suggests. I suspect that the money for demolition that he's referring to is a sop to Westwood folks, since that is the only neighborhood in the City that has residents who actually want to demo derelict buildings. But they also want to save the Gamble House, so I suspect that the demo money wouldn't be and isn't intended to be budgeted for historic properties. The event space at City Hall might be a great thing. I'd definitely be skeptical that it will bring in much revenue. I also find it very hard to believe that a $4.4 million investment in an event space downtown is going to return the money invested, let alone bring in new revenue. There are plenty of event spaces available downtown as it is, most in areas that are much livelier than the area around City Hall. It seems perfectly reasonable to be skeptical about that. You want to talk about terrible "investments" that were priced around $4 million, let's not forget the recent sale of the Kroger garage. So incredibly stupid and short-sighted. Jmecklenborg had a great comment about Sittenfeld's candidacy, something to the effect that: he raised more money, took no positions and stood for nothing. That's spot on. But the fact is that his presence on Council is 1000 times better than Lippert or Murray or Ghiz or even Bortz being there, at least from a progressive and pro-urbanist perspective. It's an uphill battle to get things done the right way in this City, and its far better to have someone who has some incentive to listen and respond to that perspective. Still think improving neighborhood business districts (particularly trying to make them more dense and with better public space) particularly those in Oakley, Pleasant Ridge or Walnut Hills is the best use with the best potential ROI for $4.4 million.

Are you a bat?

Whatever one's opinion of Sittenfeld, and his vaguely to clearly anti-streetcar position was stupid, his suggestion that any of the four suggestions would be more valuable to the City than the atrium idea are perfectly reasonable. Particularly improvements to neighborhood business districts, if done right, would probably be the best. Though I have no idea what Mt. Lookout "rebranding" is about, and it sounds pretty worthless.

It's unlikely Smitherman has suffered any injury the courts can redress. Municipal governments are different from the federal and state legislatures, but a representative can't sue to change the rules of those bodies. It's unlikely that a citizen could sue to enjoin Smitherman or any council member to attend council meetings if they were refusing to show up (remember when those legislators left Wisconsin and Texas), which is far more of a dereliction of duty than a procedural rule change, so it seems hard to believe that this lawsuit wouldn't simply get tossed out for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, even if he does actually file it, which is doubtful. It's more likely he just said he was suing to bring attention to the press release. Frankly this "power" seems worthless. As was noted above, six councilors can vote to change the rule at any time. In addition, the issue has to be voted out of committee to be put in line for the calendar. With seven Democratic council members, there's nothing that Smitherman and Winburn could do in committee if a majority of Democrats don't want to report it out. And if he really is that paranoid, the mayor could just not appoint Winburn or Smitherman to the same committees. There are any number of ways to box out Smitherman, ways that are far more effective than this, frankly. It's probably just something the mayor has personally wanted done for awhile, and now had his chance to get.

This hasn't been my experience at all. I attended probably eight Reds games this season and walked up Main Street after every single one of them. I remember the cops preventing people from walking on the street between 2nd and 3rd. The crowds would clear up a bit after that because a decent amount of people would break east and west after getting to 3rd. I went to three games at old (middle?) Yankee stadium in 2008 when the Reds were playing there. There were plenty of people leaving early to beat traffic. The big difference between Cincinnatians and New Yorkers in this regard was that in NYC, just as you described, there was actual traffic to beat.

^Exactly. I never understood why they were even thinking of bringing it south of 2nd. Let's hope that once it goes up the hill it stays both ways on Short Vine.

The first time I was ever in Paris I had just been to London and I distinctly remember thinking that Paris had a better look but London had better individual buildings. I'm mostly surprised at how poorly the Mercer Commons concept came down for two reasons: (1) it should be taller and (2) I had thought that part of what 3CDC was doing was branding the neighborhood. 3CDC is refurbishing these old buildings because, despite the expense, there is value that can be extracted (even if maybe the time frame is long). So it strikes me that, to make up for the costs of refurbishing, when presented with a fresh site like Mercer Commons, they would want to build as many units as possible without taking away from the value that exists in the surrounding refurbished buildings. To me that means keeping with the same aesthetic principles (basically facades, since even people refurbishing old buildings often want modern looking interiors). Keeping a similar aesthetic constant throughout a neighborhood is a pretty typical marketing idea.