I suspect some businesses to leave now.

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20131112/BIZ/311120064?nclick_check=1

 

Big risks.  That is what people will start associating with the name Cincinnati.  Why waste one's time trying to deal with it?

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2013/11/12/as-port-authority-delays-bond-sale.html

 

In this, it says that the way it will work means that we will be defaulting on the lease.  This could mean legal fees and other negative repercussions.  I am so confused as to why Cranley thinks that this is an ok thing to do.  How is this saving money and helping out the tax payer?  I can only see this costing the tax payers more in the long run, when it comes time to balance the budget and there is no other answer other than raising taxes or cutting services.  I honestly don't understand Cranley's logic here.  Why try to save the city money with the streetcar on one hand, and then throw money right back out with cancelling this?

 

Face Palm.

I think he did it to preempt the current council stopping it in order to yank the money from his grip. He'd rather take control of the situation and have it look like making good on a campaign promise, and getting to work quickly. Call it a hunch.

When I originally heard about the parking meter lease I thought it was a terrible idea.  But the plan the administration actually came up with was pretty decent.  I presume that Cranley moved quickly on this in order to fulfill a campaign promise which was much more in his power to fulfill.  So if he eventually loses on the Streetcar, at least he won on this and established his bona fides.

 

The thing that bothers me the most about this cancellation is how much bullshit surrounds it.  The public opposition to the lease is the fear it would raise rates, increase enforcement & be a disaster like Chicago's lease, tempered with a bit of distaste for privatization.  Given that Cranley himself stated that he would be willing to raise parking rates, the only real reason to oppose the lease is because, once again, City assets are being used to fund the Port, which is a County-wide entity.  Most of that economic development will happen in the City, but it's a legitimate problem (just like with Metro).  Nevertheless, there's no way the City is not going to have higher parking rates & increased enforcement in the future.

Cranley says city parking plan retains local control

 

Mayor John Cranley formally unveiled his parking plan Wednesday afternoon, saying the No. 1 priority is that the city retains control of its assets.

 

“For example, even some people who are supportive of these principles are asking questions about meters until 9 p.m. around UC,” he said. “The good news for the public is that’s an ongoing discussion.”

 

That particular detail isn’t definite, Cranley said, and in fact local control enables the city to make any number of changes at any time.

 

“We can have more enforcement when the economy is good, less enforcement when the economy is bad,” he said.

 

Cont

New parking deal: All of the pain without the one-time windfall

 

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/02/12/new-parking-deal-all-of-the-pain.html?page=all

Dumb dumb dumb.

 

Cranley: $1 million to get out of current parking deal

Chris Wetterich Staff reporter- Cincinnati Business Courier  

 

It will cost $1 million for the city of Cincinnati to get out of the deal to lease its parking assets to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, Mayor John Cranley said on Wednesday.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/02/12/cranley-1-million-to-get-out-of.html

This guy is terrible.

I didn't really agree with the former parking plan, and felt that it was rushed - but deciding to cancel the plan in progress in haste without consideration of future termination costs - well, it comes back to bite. Let's see if Dan Monk at WCPO can whip us up another story on this one.

Yeah I'm really surprised he thinks he can get this through when there really not much difference from the plan he campaigned against.  This plan is definitely less fiscally responsible than the prior one.  The primary flaw with keeping control of the system means keeping the burden of upkeep right?

Cranley’s plan seems to combine all the negatives of Mallory’s plan (increased rates, stricter enforcement, increased hours of operation, etc.) with none of the positives (millions of dollars, efficiency of privatization).

Is anyone surprised?  It's just like the streetcar.  He doesn't "believe" the current plan is workable, but when he actually tries to get out of it, to do something else, etc., of course he can't do any better.  He's an ideologue.

Cranley keeps yapping about 'massaging' rates & hours. Maybe this is what he thinks an open door policy is.

As long as there's a happy ending.

Cranley’s plan seems to combine all the negatives of Mallory’s plan (increased rates, stricter enforcement, increased hours of operation, etc.) with none of the positives (millions of dollars, efficiency of privatization).

 

Another positive of the old plan was taking the salaries of the enforcement officers and lot attendants off the books.  Yes, that would have meant laying people off or transferring them to Xerox (not sure of the details), but in addition upfront payments, annual payments, efficiency, and tech upgrades, you eliminate some salaries/benefits from the other side of the ledger. 

 

So, is this officially over?  I thought the "parking lease" was already fried, but it sounds like they'll need to pay $1M to get out of it.  If council won't go along with Cranley's plan, is it possible that they'll revert back to the lease?  My main issue was the streetcar, not the parking lease, but I'd love to see Cranley get another black eye.

The employees were supposed to be transferred.

Cranley’s plan seems to combine all the negatives of Mallory’s plan (increased rates, stricter enforcement, increased hours of operation, etc.) with none of the positives (millions of dollars, efficiency of privatization).

 

I understand what you are saying, but isn't it sort of weird how the negatives are the positives when you set them next to each other?  And then of course, the negatives are only the negatives when viewed from a particular perspective (i.e. the individual who is parking) whereas the positives are only positives when viewed from a particular perspective (i.e. the City of Cincinnati as a corporation).

 

Cranley's stance is different, and much more like bullshit- his plan retains local control, whereas the previous one didn't.  Fair enough.  But part of his plan involves a loss of local control just like the previous plan (the leasing of the Fountain Square Garage to the Port) and it loses both the upfront payment and the technological improvements.  Also there's this weird component where people using city parking spaces (but not bus riders, for example) are worthy of subsidy when times are hard.

 

The real way in which "local control" would have been met would have been for the City to invest in all the technology and hiring to improve parking flow and enforcement, and then jacking up the rates.  But that would have taken an upfront payment from the City that they don't have at the moment.

Does having smartphone capable meters make that much of a difference? Will people simply add money via their phone or text message as has been toted? We are receiving upgrades to the meter's so that they can accept debit/credit cards, which is a huge leap, but I'm not sure the case can be made for anything more. I also have not been able to find usage stats on those types of meters - so who knows how much they have been used.

The smartphone capability allows you to refill the meter after you've left your car. Eliminating the need to go back to refill the meter for more time.

Does having smartphone capable meters make that much of a difference? Will people simply add money via their phone or text message as has been toted? We are receiving upgrades to the meter's so that they can accept debit/credit cards, which is a huge leap, but I'm not sure the case can be made for anything more. I also have not been able to find usage stats on those types of meters - so who knows how much they have been used.

 

The reason I liked the phone idea was because it would have required hooking the meters into a network, which opened up the possibility of other improvements (e.g. variable, demand-based rates).

The smartphone capability allows you to refill the meter after you've left your car. Eliminating the need to go back to refill the meter for more time.

 

Exactly... if dinner's taking longer than expected, you can just add more time to the meter after you get an alert saying "5 minutes remaining". No need to rush out to refill the meter, which is especially nice if you've parked far away or it's freezing cold outside.

Cranley's stance is different, and much more like bullshit- his plan retains local control, whereas the previous one didn't.  Fair enough.  But part of his plan involves a loss of local control just like the previous plan (the leasing of the Fountain Square Garage to the Port) and it loses both the upfront payment and the technological improvements.  Also there's this weird component where people using city parking spaces (but not bus riders, for example) are worthy of subsidy when times are hard.

 

Why doesn't Cranley try a 3-month experiment where we don't enforce any parking meters in the city, publicize it, and see what happens. All of the businesses that were against Dohoney's parking plan will see how great all of this "free parking" really is for their sales.

 

Residents are now parking their car in the neighborhood business districts? And paying customers don't have anywhere to park? Too bad.

I thought the biggest problem was unpaid tickets?  How exactly would that be addressed? Putting leans on property for unpaid tickets? Or as usual added to your vehicle registration?

Isn't it technically illegal to add time to the meter?  I seem to recall that the law (city ordinance?) states that the time limit isn't really for the meter per se, but how long you're allowed to park in that space.  So if that's the case, then smartphone-enabled meters just make it easier to break the law.  If this is in fact the case then it's certainly easy enough to change the law, but I can see how it would influence the decisions on what sort of features to pursue.  After all, the easier it is to refill meters or pay or whatever means people will stay parked in those spaces longer, and the whole point of metered parking is to ensure there's high turnover and available spots. 

The previous parking plan was explicitly designed to cover previous budget shortfalls with the upfront payment, as well as to give a stable funding stream to the Port.  If you thought these were bad priorities, that's perfectly reasonable.  Cranley's plans, on the other hand, don't seem to have specific ends; they aren't designed to accomplish anything.  Instead they are designed in opposition to someone elses's plan, and they are self-justifying: the other guy's plan didn't have local control; this plan does (despite having the fact that both plans contain leases to the Port).  It's a really silly way to lead a City.

Cr anley is doing what we all knew he wanted to do.  He used the parking deal as a wedge issue solely to get elected & now realized he needs a 'new' parking deal to pay for all the spending he's doing with mlk, cops, ff.  He has recently publicly stated that he wants to eliminate entire departments to balance the budget and pay for more cops/ff.

 

Everything with Cranley is politics first, Cincinnati second. Forget mann, Smitherman is his right hand man So the state of the city relies on these two men and their political ambitions

Cr anley is doing what we all knew he wanted to do.  He used the parking deal as a wedge issue solely to get elected & now realized he needs a 'new' parking deal to pay for all the spending he's doing with mlk, cops, ff.  He has recently publicly stated that he wants to eliminate entire departments to balance the budget and pay for more cops/ff.

 

Everything with Cranley is politics first, Cincinnati second. Forget mann, Smitherman is his right hand man So the state of the city relies on these two men and their political ambitions

 

Which is why The Ditherman is out promoting strong mayor all of a sudden.  He didn't like the outcome of the Streetcar vote, and he's still pissed.

While the original parking plan was not perfect and there were definitely some negatives to it, the positives far outweighed the negatives.  For example the liability of upgrading the parking infrastructure was completely taken off of the cities books which is a large liability. And the whole Cranley notion of selective enforcement on the new plan when "the economy is good" is just ridiculous. People saving .50 cents on parking when the market is down will really save the economy..

 

The new plan actually creates more debt.  The whole "keeping local control" is a fear tactic... Using words like "selling too rich wall street brokers" is just to create emotion.. where do people think the other cities bonds are sold?

 

Using one time budget fillers (such as the original parking windfall money to fill the budget gap) is definitely a bad habit to get into, and a balanced budget is something that 100% needs to happen, but just slashing and burning your way to that is not the way to do it.  I am worried that the cities planing department as well as its economic development department will have massive cuts to it.  Both of which promote much of the urban growth in the city.. Cranley views these as unnecessary.

Anyone know how a port is able to get a loan? Are they ever declined?

Maybe these parking proposals need a 3rd party analysis/audit from KPMG?

Cr anley is doing what we all knew he wanted to do.  He used the parking deal as a wedge issue solely to get elected & now realized he needs a 'new' parking deal to pay for all the spending he's doing with mlk, cops, ff.  He has recently publicly stated that he wants to eliminate entire departments to balance the budget and pay for more cops/ff.

 

These priorities aren't new with Cranley.  Let's stop trying to comfort ourselves that Cranley won the election through some sort of tactical brilliance.  He won because he'd spent a his post-riots career cozying up to those conservative voters who are few but come out for every election.  And Qualls lost because she presumed her ability to get votes in a field race would carry over in a head to head race.  If the issues that clown campaigned on actually mattered, then how come he got crushed on the streetcar a month after his election mandate?

 

The only thing I find surprising is the idea that this dude keeps getting away with maintaining the perception that he's a proponent of fiscal restraint, when his efforts to undo things done by the previous council has cost the City a ton with no benefit to show for it.  And, the most crazy thing, is how these jokers keep harping on a "structurally balanced budget", when the budgets ceased being structurally balanced in 2002, the year John became chair of the finance committee!

 

I am worried that the cities planing department as well as its economic development department will have massive cuts to it.  Both of which promote much of the urban growth in the city.. Cranley views these as unnecessary.

There's plenty of legitimate reasons to complain about how economic development is done in this City.  But like I said earlier, Cranley isn't actually addressing issues like that, he's just saying that the right way to do economic development is a function of his decisions- if it's something he's choosing to do, it's the right policy, end of story.  Ted Cruz-HLS logic, I guess.

Part of city's new parking plan shelved

Parking rates won’t rise near the University of Cincinnati and in the Short Vine Street entertainment district because of public opposition, Mayor John

Chris Wetterich Staff reporter- Cincinnati Business Courier

 

Parking rates won’t rise near the University of Cincinnati and in the Short Vine Street entertainment district because of public opposition, Mayor John Cranley said Friday.

 

Cranley met with UC President Santa Ono this week, and Ono told him the student body president opposed the plan.

 

“That is a common sentiment that is being expressed. It makes sense to pull back from that proposal. My guess is that will be abandoned,” Cranley said.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2014/02/14/part-of-citys-new-parking-plan-shelved.html

The underlying issue is that while longer enforcement hours are not popular, they actually help businesses because it increases turnover and it keeps residents from taking up valuable parking spaces in business districts during the evening hours. If the mayor wants to actually be a leader, he will need to make a decision that is unpopular in the short term but will benefit those businesses in the long term.

 

As Jeff Speck once put it, "Merchants are the NIMBYs that are most often wrong."

The smartphone capability allows you to refill the meter after you've left your car. Eliminating the need to go back to refill the meter for more time.

 

Exactly... if dinner's taking longer than expected, you can just add more time to the meter after you get an alert saying "5 minutes remaining". No need to rush out to refill the meter, which is especially nice if you've parked far away or it's freezing cold outside.

 

I'm thinking the idea of hooking into a network would help enforcement as well.  I'm not sure how that works, but I assume that you would be able to see the meters on the network and check for unpaids etc.  Does anyone have more knowledge of this?

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20140215/EDIT02/302150025/OPINION-Cranley-needs-rethink-his-parking-plan

Wow.  Scathing and accurate.  Good for the Enquirer for printing it, and you for writing it.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20140215/EDIT02/302150025/OPINION-Cranley-needs-rethink-his-parking-plan

 

Periodic check: Does the Enquirer have buyer's remorse yet?

It all strangely goes back to that endorsement editorial they wrote on him....

Looks like they wiped the reader comments.  It must suck having subscribers who you banned from commenting being right about everything. 

EDITORIAL: Parking plan needs serious, public conversation

 

It’s one of those simple Cincinnati pleasures, a comfortable quirk that’s part of the experience of living here. Park on a downtown street after 5 PM and it’s free, no need to plug the meter. You can go to a nighttime Reds game and find a free place to park on the street, saving your money for one of those expensive ballpark beers.

 

But soon that might be only a good memory as Cincinnati City Hall could move toward extending the meter enforcement hours to 9 p.m. It’s part of the latest Cincinnati parking plan, this one proposed by Mayor John Cranley.

 

The new mayor is finding that governing is tougher than campaigning. He made a campaign issue of the previous administration’s parking deal, labeling it “stealing from the future.” When he took office, he called a halt to that plan, and then last week, announced his own, which, in significant ways, is similar to the old one.

 

Cont

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20140215/EDIT02/302150025/OPINION-Cranley-needs-rethink-his-parking-plan

 

Man, the Enquirer is absolute garbage: "As the mayor and city council pause now to deliberate the future of parking in Cincinnati, it would be smart to re-examine the original deal. It should be analyzed in light of the tough realities the city faces today – chronic budget deficits, slow growth, stagnant revenue."  Why endorse someone who campaigns explicitly against this deal if you are actually in favor of it?

 

Also, the article completely missed the detailing the costs that the City will be on the hook for if it wants to maintain "local control" (i.e. run the thing).  Pathetic.

 

The "local control" issue is stupid.  The fact that the President of UC can call up the Mayor and get enforcement change around the University shows the folly of "local control".

 

I see two legitimate issues regarding the parking deal:

-The Port.  This is the Pete Witte complaint.  Basically the Port is an incestuous group of local developers and big-wigs.  In addition, the revenue source is coming from the City, but the Port's mandate is County-wide.  Once again, just like Metro, the City is subsidizing the region (Contra to this argument is that if one believes the Port's economic development plan, then these concerns disappear).

-The up-front payment and the fact that the revenue stream isn't dedicated to funding anything.  This is the complaint that the City is simply raising rates to "make more money".  While a general complaint like that is stupid (mostly because the complainer isn't articulating the fact that present rates are so low that they arguably subsidize drivers), I would argue that most people don't trust the present group of politicians to make good, structural choices. 

 

Unfortunately with Cranley and Smitherman at the helm, there's simply no way that a positive compromise agreement can be reached regarding increased parking revenue.  Something like increased funding for the pension liability for several years then switching to a transportation fund, where all transportation related revenues go and all transportation projects are funded, would be a gentlemanly compromise.

 

Given that the City needs more revenue, and we know that 70% of the City's revenue comes from the earnings tax, the quetion is how can the City actually increase the amount of people living and working in the City in order to increase the revenue from the earnings tax.  Trying to lure businesses, in my opinion, isn't terribly effective, so the City should focus on luring residents, and then expecting the businesses to follow their employees.

 

Anyway, the original parking deal seemed to me to be the best administrative way forward.  Have all the funds that result from the deal plowed back into a dedicated fund for street maintenance and expansion of the streetcar network would be the best way to keep from squandering the up-front payment.  Then add to this fund an increase in the property tax so that the areas most benefited by the garages and the streetcar pay more, and we might start to see some structural balance that actually leads to economic development.

I still can't believe they went through with scrapping the original deal. They were going to get all that money to play with, and the blow-back for going back on that campaign promise would have been less than the blow-back from reconstructing most parts of the deal people didn't like (longer hours, increased rates) and owning them as your own, which is essentially what's happened. It would have been pretty simple to argue things were too far along to back out.

 

I can't imagine a better position for Cranley's opponents. He doesn't get play money bought with others' political capital. He has to look like an idiot by killing the deal then taking ownership of something substantially identical. Meanwhile, his opponents get to hammer him for taking on $50m in debt ($30m for new meters, $20m for MLK interchange) rather than taking the $85m windfall, they get to stoke the flames of outrage at rate & hour increases, and it's not unlikely someone will collect signatures to bring this to referendum. It will also likely become a fight in City Council, further fracturing what once was thought to be Cranley's coalition.

 

Still, it's not all roses. Cranley is spending us deeper into the hole, without making high-ROI investments for the future.

Looks like Cranky is caving on late night hours

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2014/02/19/exclusive-cranley-drops-evening-meter-hours/

Did any of the later parking times come with longer limits at the parking space?

I still can't believe they went through with scrapping the original deal. They were going to get all that money to play with, and the blow-back for going back on that campaign promise would have been less than the blow-back from reconstructing most parts of the deal people didn't like (longer hours, increased rates) and owning them as your own, which is essentially what's happened. It would have been pretty simple to argue things were too far along to back out.

 

I can't imagine a better position for Cranley's opponents. He doesn't get play money bought with others' political capital. He has to look like an idiot by killing the deal then taking ownership of something substantially identical. Meanwhile, his opponents get to hammer him for taking on $50m in debt ($30m for new meters, $20m for MLK interchange) rather than taking the $85m windfall, they get to stoke the flames of outrage at rate & hour increases, and it's not unlikely someone will collect signatures to bring this to referendum. It will also likely become a fight in City Council, further fracturing what once was thought to be Cranley's coalition.

 

Still, it's not all roses. Cranley is spending us deeper into the hole, without making high-ROI investments for the future.

 

And his actions will probably result in the loss of the city's planning department.

I still can't believe they went through with scrapping the original deal.

 

I'm still unclear as to whether that actually, officially happened yet.  Did they decide to pay that $1M penalty?  Or is there just a majority opposed to the original plan, so it's likely dead?

Cranley has now gotten rid of extra hours and increased rates. He just wants to pay for new meters and more enforcement

 

He also has already rejected another offer from Xerox who is offering city control, more money and saying they have 'better technology'

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20140219/NEWS010801/302190127

 

Its cranley and smitherman's world, were just living in it

A deal with Xerox via City Council would be the way to go about it. My objections to the original deal was that it used the Port Authority as a middle man, had increased hours and rates, and with the amount of cash involved would have undoubtedly led to massive fine prices, towing, etc. Increased patrols are the way to go, but not increased ticket prices. I’ve never gotten a parking ticket before, but I think it’s only $35 or so at an expired meter depending upon the location. Keep that rate, but write tickets more often. 

 

Ideally, ticket revenue shoots way up for several months, and then returns to normal rates as people learn to not park illegally because of the 90% likelihood they'd get a ticket. I don’t think it is something we should be anticipating profit off of for the next 30 years, though. We want to discourage illegal parking, not profit off of it.

 

^Agreed.  Technology upgrades would be huge as well, though.  You have to make it as easy as possible to pay.  Sort of like iTunes.  If it's easy to pay and the rate is reasonable, people don't mind.  But if the meter only takes coins, a lot of people are going to chance it, simply because they don't have any change.

A new wrinkle...

 

 

3CDC plan aims to cure Over-the-Rhine parking woes: EXCLUSIVE

 

Every parking space in Over-the-Rhine south of Liberty Street would have a parking meter, be designated for resident-only parking or have no parking under a Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) plan to alleviate parking problems in the increasingly popular neighborhood.

 

The proposal, which has the support of Mayor John Cranley, would require the Cincinnati City Council to tweak its parking ordinances to allow for on-street neighborhood parking permits in neighborhoods with mixed residential and commercial zoning, according to 3CDC.

 

Today, residential parking permits are only allowed in areas where zoning is 100 percent residential. There are only two such residential parking zones in Cincinnati: the Pendleton neighborhood east of Over-the-Rhine and north of downtown, and Clifton Hills Avenue and Old Ludlow Avenue in Clifton near Cincinnati State.

 

Cont