Eigth and State

The way they spun this is that he collected $33 million for one day of work. One could also spin it as Duke bought his company for $33 million.

I seem to be meeting more and more people who are living in one and commuting to the other. However, it usually doesn't last long as the long commute in I-75 traffic wears them out. Of the last two who lived in Dayton and worked in Cincinnati, one quit his job and got a new job in Dayton, and the other sold her house in Dayton and moved to Cincinnati. On a smaller scale, there is no longer any clear distinction between Cincinnati and Hamilton. They grew toward each other until all the space in the middle was filled, mostly with suburban development, and it's been that way for at least 30 years. We still think of Cincinnati and Hamilton as two different cities, though.

Welcome to the forum! You didn't mention how much the trailer is worth, but if it realy is dilapidated and not worth much, it may be easier to simply buy it from the current owner and scrap it. The purchase price may be close to the scrap value. Or, contact a scrap dealer and see if he is interested in talking with the owner.

^You think this kind of stuff doesn't happen in publicly-owned companies?

Maybe Duke had in mind to get rid of Johnson all along, and considered the $33 million part of the cost of acquiring the other company. The Bill Johnson story reminds me of the story of Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him."

If I were to guess, I'd say that both Cleveland and Cincinnati will continue to lose population. In fact, if you ignore all of the urban/suburban movement, I think that the entire states of Ohio is going to start showing a loss of population come 2030. The result of population loss, of course, is that we end up with a lot of empty houses, and they are unsightly. But is population loss really that bad? Maybe a better attitude would be to look at quality of life instead of numbers of people. I'd rather have 1000 happy, healthy people than 2000 rude, sick poor people sharing the city with me.

^I wouldn't worry about Amtrak. The Chabot amendment says "fixed guideway." The FRA definiation of "fixed guideway" specifies transit. Is Amtrak transit? Even if the amendment does apply to Amtrak, do you think that Amtrak will really avoid Cincinnati just because a politician threw a reverse earmark into the law? If Chris Finney calls up the Amtrak director and tells him that he's not allowed to use federal funds to operate through Cincinnati, don't you think the directory is going to say "Huh?" :? And doesn't the intent of the law matter? Now if that proposed hovercraft Ferry Boat on the Ohio River from Anderson Township to downtown ever gets denied by the Chabot Amendment, then we would have something to talk about. (kidding :wink:) How is a ferry boat a "fixed guidway?" :roll:

This is my take on the Chabot amendment. Assuming that the Chabot amendment even takes effect, the Chabot amendment will not affect the current streetcar project (the OTR loop) because federal funds have already been granted. The Chabot amendment will probably not affect the proposed uptown extension, because realistically it will not be built or even designed in 2013. So as far as ACTUAL federal funds expended on the streetcar go, it does almost nothing. It neither helps nor hurts Cincinnati economically. What the Chabot amendment does is places Chabot solidly on the anti-streetcar side, taking advantage of all of the anti-streetcar sentiment that is already out there, and reinforcing his anti-tax reputation, which has worked for him so far. He will of course lose some votes from streetcar supporters, but most streetcar supporters weren't going to vote for him anyway. It also puts another thorn in the side of Mallory and the City Manager, who are in the same political party as Presiden Obama. Not to mention, it gets Chabot's name in the media again. Even unpopular actions can help a political candidate due to name recognition. The risk to him is that he may alienate some of the "I'm in favor of rail transit but just not THIS project" folks that were already on his side.

^Thanks for that, KJP. So does this mean that the Chabot amendment will only stand for one year, because it is in the 2013 budget? That is, if the Chabot amendment is to last beyond FY 2013, it has to be included in subsequent budgets as well?

I was responding to Natninja's question. I thought he was asking about the 2010 Census. Sorry if I misunderstood.

The U.S. Census takes a count every ten years, and issues an estimate for the other years. The City of Cincinnati challenged the estimate, and the U.S. Census accepted the data that the city presented. However, it was just plain wrong, and was corrected in the 2010 Census. Population gain in certain areas of the city was offset by loss in other areas.

It only effects all rail to the extent that federal funding is involved. I have been saying all along that the streetcar project is risky for the very reason that it depends on funding sources that may not materialize. Just wondering, is there any precedent for a transportation bill, or any other federal bill for that matter, that excludes funding for a certain geographical area? It's sort of like a reverse earmark.

I agree with you on that. Still, there are a lot of west-siders who work in Cincinnati, including lots of City of Cincinnati employees. The Cincinnati Police Department has a high number of west-siders. You don't need to take I-75 or I-71 to get from the West Side to Downtown. Westwood is Cincinnati's largest neighborhood by population. West Siders traditionally have a high voter turnout, and West-Siders participate in government. Chabot is a West-Sider; besides being County Commissioner, he was once a Green Township trustee. West-Siders support him. After all, he shows up at Elder High School football games. Just 5 days before the presidential election between Bush and Gore, Vice President Cheney was campaigning in the West Side. It is politically important.

I will admit that the west side tends to oppose the streetcar, but opposition certainly isn't limited to the west side. Ironically, the west side is tied to downtown more so than the rest of the metro. I think that whether it makes sense and how it will benefit or not doesn't even matter anymore. The Cincinnati Streetcar project has devolved into a grudge matchbetween personalities and battle between ideologies. Why would Chabot oppose federal spening on the streetcar? After all, $1,000,000 of federal money only costs Cincinnati $1000 (based on the proportion of Cincinnat's population to the nations population). Because "the Federal Government is too big and spends too much." - Ronald Reagan Actually, it was a pretty bold move by Chabot. I wonder if it will pay off for him. Back around 1995, Chabot was County Commissioner for Hamilton County. When he was elected to the House of Representatives, Bob Bedinghaus was appointed commissioner to finish Chabot's term. (Typical Republican machine at that time.) Bob Bedinghaus boldly spearheaded the stadium campaign, which resulted both in two new stadiums, and Bob Bedinghaus losing the county commissioner's seat for the the Republicans for the first time in about 40 years. How can the electorate approve the stadiums by a vote of 60% to 40%, (or whatever it was,) and then soundly defeat the one responsible for it? This just shows how bizarre politics can be. The reason why I brought this up is because one of the personalities on WLW asked Chabot what he thought about the stadiums. Chabot replied "That's a local issue," and refused to comment on it. So, one day he was County Commissioner, and shortly thereafter he refused to even comment on the biggest project in Hamilton County history. The fact that he took a stand on the streetcar at the very least shows that the streetcar is an important issue to him, but I don't know why. Maybe he's trying to get Mallory or one of the other politicians on the streetcar side to fail, sort of like the Republicans seem to be trying to get Obama to fail? "All politics is local." - Tip O'Neal, former Speaker of the House of Representatives

On another note, it is telling that the Cincinnati Streetcar made it into a federal bill. So many transit projects in Cincinnati history were studied, showcased in the Enquirer, mentioned on WLW, and then never made it past the concept stage. Back in 2007, I never dreamed that we would be still talking about the streetcar in 2012. I thought it would attract the attention of the planner-types, discussed on UO, and then be added to the shelf of projects that never made it, next to the Kingsport Corridor, etc. Well, there's still no guarantee that it will be built, but it has attracted more attention than any other transit concept probably since the Cincinnati Subway. It is being taken seriously.

Politics is absolutely dirty, and not necessarily rational. Cost-benefit studies and the like may not even matter. On the surface, Chabot's actions seem absolutely idiotic, because they exclude Cincinnati from receiving funds. The same goes for Kasich's refusal of 3-C funds. Yet, I'm sure they had a reason for their actions. I haven't met one single person outside of UO who was in favor of the streetcar. I've met many, many people strictly opposed to it. I realize that this board has some very strong supporters, but I have to wonder if those supporters even realize how much disdain for this project exists outside of the core. Clearly, Chabot is trying to stay on the winning side. "Politics makes me sick" - William Howard Taft

In my mind, a "fixed guideway" is any route where the vehicles are confined to a track, but not necessarily on rails. Any kind of railroad, monorail, an aerial tram, a ferry that operates on wires, or a wiremobile is a guideway. A rubber-tired train, such as the Paris metro, is a fixed guideway. An elevator is a guideway. Trolley bus routes are not fixed guideways, because the vehicle must be steered by an operator. Bus rapid transit is not a fixed guideway, because it must be steered. Now that I've said that, the FRA says something different: I can't see how an HOV lane or non-fixed ferryboat could be called a 'guideway," but that's what the FRA says. According to the FRA definition, only transit services are classified as fixed guideways. Freight railroads are not fixed guideways. So, ths apparently doesn't affect freight operations of CSX, NS, or IORY. I don't know about Amtrak, but I've never heard Amtrak described as "transit," though the FRA definition does include heavy rail. I could see refusing to build a new Amtrak station or something, but disallowing Amtrak to pass through the City of Cincinnati is just ridiculous. I bet the good people at Amtrak won't know about Chabot's Cincinnati restriction, unless someone points it out to them. It might prohibit funding for the proposed 3-C line in Cincinnati, depending on how the word "transit" is interpreted. But the FRA definition clearly would prohibit federal funding for a potential streetcar extension, OASIS line, subway, aerial tram to Mt. Adams, Dayton-style trolleybus, bus rapid transit, I-75 light rail, a CVG-style cable car, and even HOV lanes. As Jake said twice already, this effort would not prohibit construction and operation of any of these things by the City of Cincinnati or any private owner; it just prohibits federal funding from being used.

Ha! You guys mock this idea, but it used to be the norm. Before 1850, only men who owned property and paid taxes could vote in many places. http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html

Not true. In a Corporation, where the owners vote in proportion to the share of equity that they own, each shareholder has representation directly proportional to the amount he has invested. During the presidential election of1992, candidate Ross Perot suggested that citizens of the United States should vote in the proportion that they pay taxes, similar to the way a Corporation works. Under Perot's scheme, residents who pay no taxes, including poor people, would get no vote at all. Residents that pay a lot of taxes would get a greater representation than they do now. This is NOT how representation in Cincinnati works. Each resident gets one vote. Sure, non residents can contribute to campaigns, which influence the election, but not in a proportional way. In one of the previous elections, the Enquirer calculated that there was an inverse relationship to campaign spending and results; the more a candidate spent, the worse he did in the election. What makes you think that suburbanites want the city to fail? I would venture to say that most suburbanites want the city to be successful.

Tomorrow? Probalby someplace pretty far north, like Duluth. They are calling for weather in the 90's in Ohio!

Sometimes I wonder if manufacturers even MADE sloppy clothing before 1950. It's strange to think that ready-made clothing was hardly available at all before the American Civil War. Back then, women made clothes at home, and few women had jobs outside the home. Wikipedia says that the T-shirt in America became popular during or after the Spanish-American War, when they were issued by the U.S. Navy. While manufacturers try to produce what the market will buy, at the same time, users will only buy what's available.

I strongly disagree. Remember Chris Monzels's campaign for Hamilton County Commissioner? He was a Cincinnati city councilman running for another office. His campaign slogan was that he was a "son of the suburbs" and NOT a city supporter. I'm not making a stand for or against Chris Monzel. I'm just saying that the political relationship between the city and the suburbs is very complex, and that folks who live outside of the municipal limits, and therefore do not vote in Cincinnati council elections, still have a huge effect on city politics. Back in the days when the Hamliton County Commission was controlled by Republicans, there was an unwritten rule that said that one commissioner was to come from a township, one from the City of Cincinnati, and one from one of the other municipalities. Usually, there is a city council member who is already eyeing the county commissioner's seat. In fact, some might view Cincinnati City Council as a stepping stone to that position from the get go. (The same thing happens in township politics). Many of the property owners that will be affected by a Cincinnati property tax increase, if there is one, live outside of the city limits and therefore do not vote. Same with workers who live outside the city and pay the city earnings tax. In my humble opinion, this is taxation without representation, and whether it is just or not, leads to a lot of poor decisions by elected officials. In my humble opinion, Cincinnati would be better off if these folks DID have the right to vote in Cincinnati elections. After all, if you owned property in the City of Cincinnati, wouldn't you want the city to succeed? But that's a topic for another thread.

This thread is about Ohio being a high growth STATE. The city / suburb debate is a whole 'nother topic.

Thanks, Jake. That's what I thought. If that's true, then the article should have said "The streetcar budget INCLUDES $46.5M for debt financing," not "financing will ADD 46.5 M to the budget." The word "add" implies that the budget is getting bigger, when apparently it is not.

"Financing will ADD $46.5M to streetcar budget" Is this a new budget, or just another way of stating it? Was Cincinnati intending to issue bonds before?