I think the bigger issue is that Hamilton County government needs a complete overhaul. We are no longer a rural county where it makes sense for the citizens to directly elect the coroner, auditor, etc. We are a largely urbanized county. Imagine what we could accomplish if we had professionals in these leadership roles instead of random people who get elected based on name recognition or party affiliation.

 

Here's what Cuyahoga County did:

 

On November 3, 2009, county voters overwhelmingly approved the adoption of a new county charter which replaced the three-commissioner form of county government with an elected county executive and county prosecutor, and an 11-member county council. Each council member represents a single geographic district; there are no at-large districts. The elected offices of auditor, clerk of courts, coroner, engineer, recorder, sheriff, and treasurer were abolished. The county executive was given authority to appoint individuals to these offices, which became part of the executive branch of the county. Summit County is the only other Ohio county with this form of government. (From Wikipedia.)

 

Pretty much the only way large reforms like this happen is when there is a preceding scandal of some sort. There was massive corruption in Cuyahoga County that prompted the creation of a new county charter. (http://www.cleveland.com/countyincrisis/)

^I agree completely. I generally vote for Dems because they generally side with my ideology the most, but certain races like those mentioned I throw out the party affiliation entirely.

 

Dusty has had some pretty bad issues in the past. IIRC he messed up and accidentally gave some cities too much money for something, and Cincinnati was on the hook for paying back a bunch of money they hadn't budgeted for. I don't recall the specifics, but a lot of communities were affected negatively by this.

 

 

What happened was that one of the Proctor heirs died with an address on Oak St. in Glendale.  The money to be returned to that locality through the local government fund was $6 million and Dusty gave it to Cincinnati because he thought it was Oak St. in Cincinnati (in Walnut Hills).  That's not possible anymore because Kasich eliminated the state inheritance tax, which means the great-great-great-great (or whatever) grandkids of Proctor would have inherited $6 million more than the $100+ million they did. 

 

The local government fund was a bit ridiculous in the way that it was set up because a lot of money from the biggest estates went to small communities that already had plenty of money like Glendale and Indian Hill. 

 

It also required a county auditor to check addresses and make sure he sent huge sums of money to the correct municipality, and Dusty was too busy harassing the streetcar project on Facebook to do that. 

 

 

Denise Driehaus (D) wins election, beating out Dennis "Joseph" Deters. Todd Portune (D) wins reelection.

 

It remains to be seen what this new 2/3 Democratic majority means for county issues.

This is a really big deal.  First Democrat majority in over 100 years. 

This is a really big deal.  First Democrat majority in over 100 years.

 

Weren't Pepper and Portune on at the same time in the late aughts?

There was a term where Peper and Portune were there the same time. I think Pepper was only there 2 years because stepped down to run for state office.

Democrats should've gotten the majority back in 2008 when Tim Burke agreed with the Republican Party not to run anyone against Greg Hartmann. Surely would've won in the Obama wave year.

Burke needs to go.

This is a really big deal.  First Democrat majority in over 100 years.

 

Weren't Pepper and Portune on at the same time in the late aughts?

 

You might be right.  I wasn't living here when Pepper was on.  But the difference now is that Portune and Driehaus are there for four years concurrently, not staggered. 

 

 

^This four years includes 2018, when the 1968 agreement expires.

 

The 1968 agreement is a contract between Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati that governs the operation of the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD). It expires after 50 years, in 2018. At that time, it is extendable upon agreement of both parties. No one really knows what's going to happen to it in 2018.

It's worth mentioning that the battle over MSD is a battle over who gets to spend the money. We have to spend huge sums to repair our aging sewer infrastructure. Harry Black wants to write big checks to his buddies from Baltimore but the County Commissioners would rather write those checks to their campaign contributors.

Dusty apparently has so much free time on his hands that he's going to pick up a weekly radio shift.

The new Clerk of Courts, Aftab Pureval, shook things up today by firing a few of the deputies appointed by the previous clerk. Aftab is the first Dem to hold this office in a long time, as it's been controlled by Republicans for over 100 years!

 

Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou tweeted out his reaction: "The new Clerk of Courts is off to an inauspicious start. Firing career civil servants who know the job is a rookie error. Careful young man."

 

You know, it's funny. One of Republican's top slogans this year was "drain the swamp," but when a newly elected Dem starts to clean house, the reaction from Republicans is to defend the "career civil servants". Hmmmm....

 

Anyway, Triantafilou deleted his tweet when I replied to it and a bunch of other people started piling on.

 

I really think it's a big shame elections for county administration offices are partisan. These jobs should be held by professionals that should be hired based on their resumes, not their political affiliation.

 

Crime has been slowly improving in Cincinnati since the post-riot peak, I really hope Aftab doesn't screw things up too badly by going lax at the courthouse and hiring inexperienced people because they align with his political views.

On that topic, I've never understood why jobs like coroner are partisan. Does it really matter if your county coroner is a democrat or republican, and better yet, shouldn't the most qualified doctor get that job?

Completely agree with the two of you.

 

I think the bigger issue is that Hamilton County government needs a complete overhaul. We are no longer a rural county where it makes sense for the citizens to directly elect the coroner, auditor, etc. We are a largely urbanized county. Imagine what we could accomplish if we had professionals in these leadership roles instead of random people who get elected based on name recognition or party affiliation.

 

Here's what Cuyahoga County did:

 

On November 3, 2009, county voters overwhelmingly approved the adoption of a new county charter which replaced the three-commissioner form of county government with an elected county executive and county prosecutor, and an 11-member county council. Each council member represents a single geographic district; there are no at-large districts. The elected offices of auditor, clerk of courts, coroner, engineer, recorder, sheriff, and treasurer were abolished. The county executive was given authority to appoint individuals to these offices, which became part of the executive branch of the county. Summit County is the only other Ohio county with this form of government. (From Wikipedia.)

I voted for a Republican coroner one time and people still kept dying

Yeah I thought that too but I remember I was reading Aftab's resume against Winkler's and it was almost comical how much more qualified he was to do the job and honestly I know a lot of people without much schooling who do great work but I don't think Winkler even had a bachelors degree

Here's a good article on some Local GOP politics from 2010

 

http://www.citybeat.com/news/porkopolis/article/13013785/hiring-of-gop-chairmans-wife-smells-odd

^ Before Kevin Osborne jumped the shark.

Now that Dennis Deters has lost his seat on the Hamilton County Commission, he has been appointed by Kasich to the Court of Appeals!

He is also now back to being Dennis Deters, not D. Joseph Deters. 

It's almost like he never actually went by the name "D. Joseph Deters" and only had it put on the ballot like that in order to trick people...

Too many Deters to keep track of

Too many Deters to keep track of

 

Eric Deters is not related to Joe Deters or D. Joseph Deters.  They are also all unrelated to Steve "Red Sweater" Deters, the ubiquitous Enquirer commenter. 

 

It's almost like he never actually went by the name "D. Joseph Deters" and only had it put on the ballot like that in order to trick people...

 

To be fair, he never went by "D. Joseph Deters." His name on the ballot was "Dennis Joseph Deters." Also ridiculous and ultimately a pointless bit of sketchy gamesmanship. I always marvel at the ability of politicians to reconcile their own massive egos with their reliance on the prior success and notoriety of family members.

On a related note, did we ever find out why Alexander Paul George Sittenfeld only goes by "P.G. Sittenfeld" instead of "A.P.G. Sittenfeld"?

I feel like he just goes by PG...

^^ Likely the result of numerous focus group sessions.

 

I'd be surprised if one of our many local branding experts weren't involved in his rise to fame in one way or another.

Oddly his name sounds like an author's name whereas his sister, who is an author of some notoriety, has a man's first name but writes for women. 

Oddly his name sounds like an author's name whereas his sister, who is an author of some notoriety, has a man's first name but writes for women.

 

P.G. Wodehouse to be precise. The Sittenfelds have a bit of a Royal Tenenbaums vibe going on, without the falls from grace.

Moved all Aftab and 1st Congressional District talk to the appropriate thread.

Hamilton County sales tax going up .2%:

https://www.wcpo.com/news/government/hamilton-county-sales-tax-will-go-up-through-2020-then-down

The takeaway here is that Hamilton County's sales tax rate is still lower than many other Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Lucas (Toledo), Montgomery (Dayton), and Franklin (Columbus). However this isn't a pure apples-to-apples comparison because Cuyahoga, Montgomery, and Franklin fund their local transit systems out of their county sales tax. So if Hamilton County actually passes a 0.9% sales tax for Metro, that would put us at 8.1% (thru 2020, then dropping to 7.85%), a tad higher than Cuyahoga (8%). However, Cleveland has a 2% income tax where Cincinnati would have a 1.7% income tax under this scenario.

Columbus' income tax is 2.5% and property taxes are very high.

 

The issue around Cleveland is that a lot of the communities don't have reciprocity in their income taxes so if you work in once city but live in another you have to pay full taxes to both cities.

The Hamilton County GOP is going to attempt to get the .2% tax hike on the ballot. Property tax hikes in Hamilton County have been doing well recently, but I'm not so sure a regressive sales tax hike that doesn't pay for anything new is going to fly. Especially at a time when Cincinnati is talking about an income tax hike that will similarly not provide anything new. Unfortunately, there's only about a month to get everything in place and gather 23,000+ signatures - a short time frame that was almost certainly by design. 

 

I'm curious to see how this impacts SORTA's decision regarding their proposed sales tax hike. I think two separate property tax hikes on the ballot at the same time would scare people away from both, though it would confuse the "tax hike for nothing" argument.

To clarify, Hamilton County has had a .5% sales tax for many decades.  The stadium sales tax was also .5%.  The 5-year Union Terminal tax is .25%.  Also, the state sales tax went up .25% in early 2013 but nobody noticed. 

 

The state sales tax hike was a direct response to the elimination of the state inheritance tax.  This current tax is a direct response to Kasich's attack on the local government fund. 

 

So taxes are not actually going up (with the exception of the temporary union terminal tax), it's merely a tax shift.   

The Hamilton County Commissioners sure did throw a wrench in the works, making it pretty hard to predict what's going to happen this November. Even before this announcement, I think it was up in the air whether SORTA would put a bus tax on the ballot this year, and if they did, what size tax they would propose. Now that HamCo has approved this increase, SORTA board members are probably deciding whether they want to consider a smaller proposal or just wait until another year altogether. Additionally, if the GOP or COAST do start collecting signatures to get it on the ballot, we could end up with a situation where both the general tax and bus tax are on the ballot this November, and who knows what that will do for voter turnout for different groups. Additionally, City Council is considering several charter amendment proposals that would also go on the ballot in November, including two different, competing changes to City Council terms — one that would take us back to two-year terms, and another that would keep the four-year terms but stagger them. So we could end up with a really confusing mess of competing ballot issues during a year that the federal mid-terms are already expected to amplify voter turnout.

County commissioners really screwed SORTA and even themselves by doing this. Sales taxes never go over well and this one will go over like a lead balloon because residents cant see the tangible value. It is not like Union Terminal or a stadium or something in return for it. SORTA was at least something of tangible value. But voters will not go for a .5 or higher sales tax increase on top of an additional .2 sales tax increase.

If SORTA moves ahead on it now, they are just going into the firing squad.

 

Of course, the Commissioners had advised them not to move ahead, which maybe their action yesterday was another action to keep SORTA from putting their increase on the ballot.

I'll vote against a 0.5% sales tax for SORTA. The new fund would raise almost the same amount of money as the City income tax, but it loses value over time which means routes would continue to be cut and fares would continue to rise. If the city is going to cut its funding of SORTA with the passage of a sales tax, I won't vote for anything lower than 0.7%.

^ I doubt the SORTA tax is going to be on the ballot now anyway. What the Commissioners did on Monday was ensure that the SORTA tax does not see the light of day. If SORTA goes through with it, it is giving a big F you to the county and ensuring that the .2% tax goes down too. No way the voters go for .7% in sales taxes.

 

Go back to the music Hall/Union Terminal tax a few years ago. Didn't it take stripping Music Hall from the tax to get the Union Terminal one passed? 

 

 

It took stripping Music Hall from the tax to get a Republican on the commission to back the proposal. The people probably would have approved it regardless of whether both were funded, but the commissioners wanted to give the impression they were being good with the public's money.

 

If both the county and transit tax are on the ballot in November, I could see people overwhelmingly support the transit tax and overwhelmingly shoot down the general county budget tax.

 

0.5% is status quo for our bus system. maybe even worse.

No, that was just some Chris Monzel stuntwork.  Then they made the tax only 5 years so that they couldn't bond against it.  That's why it took 2 years for anything to get started at UT -- they had to wait until they actually had the cash, which was silly in the lowest interest rate environment of all-time. 

No way people approve .7% tax hike and no way they approve a .5% for anything. The last .5% was the stadium tax and you see how that still resonates. It has become a dirty word now. That amount is doomed to fail for many reasons. The .2% will also go down at the polls because it is not typically what sales taxes are designed to fund. Voters loathe sales taxes more than anything so it better be a compelling story to get them to vote for it. Balancing the county books is not compelling enough.

To clarify, Hamilton County has had a .5% sales tax for many decades.  The stadium sales tax was also .5%.  The 5-year Union Terminal tax is .25%.  Also, the state sales tax went up .25% in early 2013 but nobody noticed. 

 

The state sales tax hike was a direct response to the elimination of the state inheritance tax.  This current tax is a direct response to Kasich's attack on the local government fund. 

 

So taxes are not actually going up (with the exception of the temporary union terminal tax), it's merely a tax shift.   

 

State income and state business taxes have tanked as compared to the early-mid 2000s. State income taxes are aggressively progressive.

All we can hope for is a Democratic winning the governors race to restore back the local contributions, and hopefully dramatically increase transit funds.  Does anyone know what Cordray's stance is on this, I haven't seen anything?

 

Also, I think if Metro is going to put something on the ballot, they need to have a clear and concise plan.  They need to have maps, drawings, etc., saying with this, we can build this out, etc.

 

I don't think as others have alluded to that just fixing the budget is going to be enough. They need to fix the budget PLUS add more options / better reliability / better routing / at least 2-3 BRT routes (Two N-S and one E-W), and then they need to come up with an economics report.

 

I think the best report could be something along the lines of: We are spending this much per year on crime / subsidized housing / etc., and with this new mobility opition, more can get to work, get them in better housing, better lives for their children. And then shorten it up with the biggest business heads pitching it that this is what Cincinnati NEEDS to move forward as a competitive, world class city.

The Cincinnati business community absolutely has to get behind a transit tax. Without them, COAST is going to control the narrative.

All we can hope for is a Democratic winning the governors race to restore back the local contributions, and hopefully dramatically increase transit funds.  Does anyone know what Cordray's stance is on this, I haven't seen anything?

 

No, I don't.  The whole point of the local government fund was so that localities could benefit from forms of taxation that they weren't authorized to implement, like the inheritance tax. 

 

This whole cascade is just another Tea Party trick.  They tricked the middle class into thinking that eliminating the state inheritance tax for the super-wealthy was fair and was going to "trickle-down".  The only thing that trickled down was rising bills for all of Ohio's localities.  For a few years they were able to plug the budget hole with one-time sources but now they're forced to raise taxes. 

 

I don't know off the top of my head how much this has affected the county budget, but I believe it has taken away 5-7% of the City of Cincinnati's general fund budget since 2013, so at this point over $100 million. 

 

So at this point over $100 million more has gone to the heirs of the super-wealthy who were already going to inherit tens of millions. 

 

 

 

 

 

^And the heirs whom I would guess aren't spending their inheritance in Cincinnati or that extra inheritance back into the company. Maybe some are shifting it to charity but I doubt that since it isn't taxed anyways

^And the heirs whom I would guess aren't spending their inheritance in Cincinnati or that extra inheritance back into the company. Maybe some are shifting it to charity but I doubt that since it isn't taxed anyways

 

The thing that was dumb about the local government fund was that a percentage of the inheritances went to the fund and a percentage came back to the locality where the rich person died.  Few people were aware of this until Dusty Rhodes errantly sent $6 million to Cincinnati instead of Glendale.  Does anyone think Arlington Heights, Lockland, Lincoln Heights, etc., ever had a $6 million windfall like that?