Hey Dusty, most forward-thinking cities (you know, the ones where Cincinnati's residents and jobs have been going for the past 50 years) would consider public transit investment a "basic service".

 

Greater Cincinnati will never thrive as long as small-minded troglodytes like Mr. Rhodes are holding the reins of power.

Hamilton County debt rating affirmed

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2009/06/15/daily70.html

 

Moody’s Investors Service cited the Tri-State’s “relatively stable economy” and Hamilton County’s “willingness to make difficult budgetary decisions” in maintaining its Aa3 bond rating on Hamilton County debt. Moody’s assigned its Aa3 with a stable outlook on Friday. The rating applies to $12.5 million in general-obligation bonds to be sold next week to pay for public improvements at the Banks riverfront development project.

 

“The Aa3 rating is based on the county’s diverse and substantial local economy that Moodys believes will continue to exhibit long-term stability, although experiencing current economic challenges,” said the June 19 report.

Thankfully this failed! It's one thing to ban smoking in restaurants/bars, but it is another to use them to milk money for a project that has no relevance to cigarettes. Stick this to the taxpayers and put it up to a VOTE or increase the fare at the stadium to pay off the deficit.

 

Legislators won't support cigarette tax

County commissioners running out of ideas to bail out stadium fund

By Jessica Brown, Cincinnati Enquirer, January 5, 2010

 

One of the last options Hamilton County commissioners have to fix a fast-approaching debt in the stadium fund appears to be fading fast.

 

A proposal for a countywide cigarette tax was met with a lukewarm reception Tuesday by several local legislators, leaving the county with dwindling options. A cigarette tax requires approval by the General Assembly, and several local state legislators Tuesday said they don’t support it.

The under performing sales tax and the over budget stadiums seem to be the primary problems.  As a result, I would say increase the sales tax by 1/4 cent and then creating a ticket tax at both the Reds and Bengals stadiums.  If you could pull it off legally, I would tax the tickets according to the percentage overruns which would then tax Bengals tickets more than Reds.