brian korte

KPMG still hasn't been hired. According to Politics Extra Blog: No mention of return on investment of finishing vs ROI of canceling.

Saying what? That the costs of going uptown have to be considered.

Correct. Any ordinance to be voted upon must have "three readings." Usually two in committee and one at the council meeting where it is voted upon. They can suspend the rule that states they need three readings (why you often hear "on the question of suspension" when voting on items in council) but this would still require, I believe, six votes to suspend that rule.

Include in that letter that now is the time to convince a fifth member of council to come out and "stop the madness" and move on. End the debate before the new council is sworn into office.

^And in that blog post: Cranley is of course completely ignoring the fact the project is on-time and budget since construction started and J Deatrick was hired to run it.

The presentation today stated the streetcar increases tax revenue by $237M over 35 years, or $6.77M per year. Of that $237M, $123M is due to the city, or $3.5M per year. It costs $3.5M per year to operate the streetcar. What's the issue? Supposing the city has to pay the entire cost to operate (which it would not have to) the project still pays for itself so there is no added $100M that Cranley likes to talk about.

Streetcar Cancellation Cost Presentation from J. Deatrick Thursday at Noon in Council Chambers. Look for the Mayor-Elect to once again not believe numbers. His likely excuse will be, "Of course it sounds bad, John Deatrick's job is on the line." Foreshadowed in this tweet from Pete Witte: "On Friday Bob Bedinghaus is going to tell us the cost for the county to get out of the Stadium deal. #ConsiderSource"

PG's 9 Streetcar Determining Questions (supposedly asked to and answered by JDeatrick this morning): Are the federal funds fungible/transferrable? 1) To date, what are the separate buckets of already spent money? 2) What would be the concrete steps - legal, logistical, legislative, etc - for scrapping the project? And what are the most up-to-date projections for close-out costs if the project were canceled? 3) What's the best guess of what law suits would ensue if the project were scrapped, and how they would play out over what time line? 4) What are the separate buckets of remaining expenses, and what are the specified sources for funding those expenses? 5) What is the most up-to-date projection for annual operating expenses (based on what assumption of ridership, ticket prices, etc.) 6) Are there any numbers for how much money a Special Improvement District (self-taxing zone around streetcar) could raise for the project? 7) What efforts, led by whom and when, have there been to engage the private sector, and with what results? 8) What are the costs per month to delay the project, and please break down exactly how/where that number comes from? (Regarding Question 8, it seems Feds might see any delay as grounds for asking for their $ back). 9) Aside from economic develop projections for private investment, are there numbers for how much increased revenue from the increased development would end up in city coffers (add'l property taxes; earnings taxes from new jobs created, etc)?

Text of the letter is up on Politics Extra blog. I'm sure Cranley will dismiss it since the Feds don't directly address him and he wasn't the one asking the questions.

Not that we all didn't already know this, but maybe it'll help sink into the Mayor Elect's head. From Kevin Osbourne on Twitter:

My takeaway from the ed board meeting: Cranley doesn't believe in numbers. Doesn't believe Duke relocation costs will be $15M Doesn't believe Streetcar costs have been "truthful" Also disagreed with the Enquirer's own reporting that Cincinnati has a higher officer per capita rate than other local jurisdictions. Welcome to Cincinnati where 2+2 no longer equals 4.

Now in the Business Courier:

^But are those folks going to be motivated enough by this issue to come out and vote in favor of canceling a public infrastructure project in their third election in 6 months? Either way. Tough, unfortunate road ahead if we can't convince enough council-members that canceling the project is a worse idea than starting it.

I actually think the vote will be easier than the collection of signatures. While we'll certainly need to do a better job of getting out the vote than the Hamilton County Democratic Party did in the most recent election, a special election will have far worse turnout than the mayoral election. Those folks who don't care one way or another won't show up and you'll have the rabid anti/pro crowds that turn out. Lucky for us, most of the rabid anti-streetcar crowd doesn't live in the city.

About 9,000 valid signatures are needed. 75 folks gathering signatures means 120 valid signatures per person. In order to get 9,000 valid signatures we'll probably need to collect (conservatively) 1.5x that amount, or 13,500 total signatures, which amounts to 180 signatures per person. I'm not here to discourage, but rather encourage and note that this is a difficult endeavor.

Gathering signatures for a petition effort is VERY HARD WORK. When it comes time for this, the best strategy is getting a list of registered voters from the BoE and going door-to-door in your neighborhood. Gathering signatures in crowded places (Bengals games, etc) is easier but unfortunately only a small percentage of those folks are registered city voters. All hands on deck for 30 straight days will be required to gather the requisite number of signatures. Of course, convincing PG, Mann and/or Flynn that cancellation is an even worse idea than starting the project (since they already think starting it was a bad idea) is the preferred route.

From Politics Extra Blog:

Lobby the more level-headed council members who have the most likelihood to agree that canceling the project at this juncture is a bad idea. They are: PG Sittenfeld, Kevin Flynn, David Mann. Write letters. Call. Show up to meetings. While the hope of growing the system throughout the city may be on the back burner, completing phase 1a is still very much a possibility.