WTF IS THIS!?!?!?!

 

 

Satire

WTF IS THIS!?!?!?!

 

 

That's pretty funny.  I love how they managed to call it communist if we had both a streetcar and a hard rock cafe.  Even though we all get this as a completely ridiculous and funny video, its not that different then the sort of things we actually heard the opposition saying about the streetcar all along. 

They make a great point.  I'm rethinking my positions on the streetcar.... Hard Rock Cafe's NEVER fail....

I hear the economic impact of a HRC is about 3,000 to 1. By the way nothing comes as close, not even putting sound walls along highways!

Can't you just paint a sound wall to look like a Hard Rock Cafe?

^As long as there is a T-shirt vendor to go with it, it might just work!  :banger:

That's pretty funny.  I love how they managed to call it communist if we had both a streetcar and a hard rock cafe.  Even though we all get this as a completely ridiculous and funny video, its not that different then the sort of things we actually heard the opposition saying about the streetcar all along. 

 

The best satire is based on absurd truths.

Can Blue Ash Airport funds go to Cincinnati’s streetcar?

Business Courier by Dan Monk, Senior Staff Reporter

 

Cincinnati might be in violation of federal law and expose itself to more than $30 million in penalties if it goes ahead with a plan to pay off streetcar bonds with sale proceeds from Blue Ash Airport acreage. That’s what the Federal Aviation Administration    told Mayor Mark Mallory in a letter last December.

 

“The city of Cincinnati is bound by an enduring obligation to keep all airport revenue within its airport system,” wrote John Mayfield, manager of the FAA’s Detroit district. City Manager Milton Dohoney and three city officials were copied on the letter.

 

The downtown streetcar system is the hallmark project of the Mallory-Dohoney administration. A $99.5 million starter line with 16 stops has managed to survive grant rejections, ballot referenda and cost uncertainties. The loss of Blue Ash funding would pose another threat. Blue Ash proceeds are expected to cover payments for $11 million in bonds, or 17 percent of the $64 million to be issued.

 

Cont (Premium Article)

The longer we wait for construction, the more angry, outrageous, and active the opponents get. 

 

Don't know about this Blue Ash Airport issue other than Smitherman was crying foul against it so I assume its him behind the accusations....

 

Either way, nothing good can come from continuous delays of construction

 

 

“The city of Cincinnati is bound by an enduring obligation to keep all airport revenue within its airport system,”

 

Assuming this turns out to be true, can we just put the money toward a light rail line between downtown and CVG?  CVG is technically KY's, but it is definitely the "Cincinnati" airport.

The longer we wait for construction, the more angry, outrageous, and active the opponents get. 

 

Don't know about this Blue Ash Airport issue other than Smitherman was crying foul against it so I assume its him behind the accusations....

 

I know we all pretty much dislike Smitherman, but this came from the FAA. If the city is bound legally to use the money for other airport operations, such as Luken, then it should not divert the money to other projects.

The longer we wait for construction, the more angry, outrageous, and active the opponents get. 

 

Don't know about this Blue Ash Airport issue other than Smitherman was crying foul against it so I assume its him behind the accusations....

 

I know we all pretty much dislike Smitherman, but this came from the FAA. If the city is bound legally to use the money for other airport operations, such as Luken, then it should not divert the money to other projects.

And it also dismisses other (former?) councilpersons' ideas for using that money for neighborhood development or whatever.

The longer we wait for construction, the more angry, outrageous, and active the opponents get. 

 

Don't know about this Blue Ash Airport issue other than Smitherman was crying foul against it so I assume its him behind the accusations....

 

I know we all pretty much dislike Smitherman, but this came from the FAA. If the city is bound legally to use the money for other airport operations, such as Luken, then it should not divert the money to other projects.

 

But why now? Why did this just come to light now?  Obviously the opponents were not aware of the letter sent to Mallory last December or else they'd be screaming this at the top of their lungs for the last year. 

 

There's gotta be more to this

 

How is selling the airport "airport revenue?"  It seems like it was nothing more than selling of real estate.  It shouldn't matter what was on it.

Selling of airport property is considered revenue by the FAA. Read here: http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/media/5190_6b_chap15.pdf

 

 

Why not re-cast the streetcar project as the first phase of a rail transit link to the Blue Ash Airport to reach the jobs in that area?

They've been planning to sell the Blue Ash airport for 10 years, and in fact did sell excess property back in the 60s and 70s, and somehow this issue appeared just recently.  Yeah, something's fishy. 

Selling of airport property is considered revenue by the FAA. Read here: http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/media/5190_6b_chap15.pdf

 

 

 

Under section 15.9 Permitted Uses of Airport Revenue, item "i" is "Ground Access Projects," which specifically references intermodal transportation.  The streetcar doesn't go to the airport, but subsequent rail projects certainly will, namely the forthcoming Eastern Corridor rail project which has a stop at Lunken.

 

I wasn't aware that the city still intends to use airport money for the streetcar. I know they did at one time, but I thought this issue had been resolved. If there's anything fishy, it is that the City of Cincinnati knew about this issue and continues to count on airport money.

 

Here's the story:

 

At one time, it was thought that private aviation would be much more popular than it is now, and that cities should invest in airports. The 1948 Metropolitan Master Plan called for 9 airports, either new or upgrades.

 

As it turned out, the City of Cincinnati ended up owning and operating two airports, Lunken and Blue Ash, of which Blue Ash of course isn't even located within the city limits.

 

Aviation is controlled by the FAA, a branch of the federal government. Not only does the FAA write rules concerning air safety, but they also provide funding for airport improvements in the form of grants. The City of Cincinnati took advantage of these grants to fund improvements at Lunken and Blue Ash. (The city is seeking grants for the streetcar too!)

 

Well, a condition of these grants was that they could only be used for aviation. The grants specifically say that if the property is ever sold, the proceeds have to go to aviation. The City of Cincinnati could, for example, sell the Blue Ash Airport and use the proceeds to expand Lunken Airport.

 

Over the years, the City of Cincinnati has considered selling Blue Ash airport to raise revenue for other projects. (Another piece of real estate that the City owns is French Park in Amberly Village, but that's another story.) At the same time, the City of Blue Ash has been eyeing that airport property for other projects. It seems an easy deal, since both parties get what they want, with the only issue being the price.

 

Because of this talk many years ago, the FAA has made it explicity clear in the terms of the grants that if the property is ever sold, the proceeds have to go to aviation. The City of Cincinnati could have chosen to forgo the grant and pay for it some other way, but they chose to accept the grant.

 

If you drive by the Blue Ash airport, you might notice that it is not particularly well developed as an airport. It is used mostly by private pilots who fly small planes. You can take flying lessons there. But if you happen to be one of those private pilots, it is great because it is conveniently located, and not crowded. Private pilots probably can't afford to fly from CVG (or would rather spend their money on flight time instead of landing fees,) and Lunken has always been a challenging airport due to topography and fog from the river, and there's not much room at Lunken to park planes.

 

In 2007 or 2008 (I can't remember exactly when,) the Enquirer published a story about the proposed streetcar, and mentioned that the city was counting on money from sale of the Blue Ash Airport. The city airport manager (he has an office at Lunken) saw this in the paper and called City Hall, and told them of the FAA requirement. There was also a concept plan that may or may not have related to the streetcar which showed sale and development for other uses of the a portion of the property. The concept plan did not take aviation into account, because it developed the property in such a way that it was no longer useful for aviation. Although they saved the runway, they did not take into account fueling, maintenance, etc.

 

The Blue Ash airport it is used by few people, but the aviation lobby is a strong one, and they intend to enforce the terms of the grant.

 

What is surprising to me is that airport issue has come up again at all, because I thought it was settled years  ago.

 

Another interesting piece of information is that operation of Cincinnati's two airports is self-supporting.

 

The source of all of this information is a conversation I had with the airport manager at Lunken in 2009.

 

 

 

 

Can Blue Ash Airport funds go to Cincinnati’s streetcar?

Business Courier by Dan Monk, Senior Staff Reporter

 

The downtown streetcar system is the hallmark project of the Mallory-Dohoney administration.

 

Cont (Premium Article)

 

This quote is telling.

 

 

That's not a quote, unless you count using the quote function on this forum as constituting a quote. 

 

Your premise is further flawed because the City of Cincinnati bought the Blue Ash property WITH ITS OWN MONEY, way back in the 1930s-40s.  The FAA grants would have ONLY covered the value of the airport infrastructure, NOT the land. 

 

The FAA was created in 1958, after which time all of the LAND on which the Blue Ash airport sits had already been acquired.  What's there now is a bunch of rusty crap -- there is no control tower, lighted runway, or any of the things that, say, Lunken has.   

 

Also, the terminal buildings and other improvements at Lunken were built with New Deal funds and the levee system was likely built with Army Corps of Engineers grants or some source OTHER than the FAA. 

 

 

http://www.faa.gov/about/history/brief_history/

 

Always something.

^ This was not my premise. I'm passing along what the airport manager told me. The aviation lobby does not want to lose the Blue Ash airport, and they are prepared to fight it in court. They have (according to the airport manager) some kind of paper (grant restrictions) that tie the land to the improvements.

 

Don't hold me to this because I'm going by memory, but if I remember correctly the grants in question date from 1985.

 

The Lunken Airport Levee is not part of any work by the Army Corps of Engineers so I doubt that the ACOE had any money in it.

All levees go through an approval process and might even be required to be built by the corps of engineers even when funded by local governments or by private businesses.

 

The city worked to downsize the blue ash airport when the area was developed into office parks so that it coulnt serve private jets.  If there is some absurd stipulation tying the value of the airports improvements to the value of the land it sits on then it was most likely the city itself who did it so as to prevent the airport from being redeveloped as office parks that could poach the city.  Further those proceeds would have to be spent at lunken so would be resisted by mt washington, etc. 

 

Incidentally, if you look at lunken on satellite imagery, you can see that a 10,000 runway could be builf beechmont ave were moved.

^There are three sections of the Lunken Airport Levee:

1. The north side of the Levee was built as an embankment to carry Beechmont Avenue over the Little Miami River floodplain. It was apparently not designed to hold water.

2. The south side of the Levee was built to carry the Cincinnati, Georgetown, and Portsmouth Railroad over the Little Miaim River floodplain. It was apparently not designed to hold water.

3. The east side of the Levee was intially built prior to 1920, and was subtaintially upgraded about 1938. The only purpose of this section was to protect against flooding, but it was NOT designed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

 

Today, the Army Corps of Engineers has to approve any kind of flood control works along rivers in it's jurisdiction, of which the Ohio is one. However, this wasn't always the case, and there are works out there that were not approved. After hurricane Katrina, FEMA reviewed all of it's flood maps and wrote a letter to the City of Cincinnati asking to provide certifacation that the Lunken Airport levee system will protect the airport from flooding. The City of Cincinnati was not able to do so.

 

The Lunken airport main runway was flooded during the 1997 flood. It is still vulnerable to flooding.

 

By contrast, the levees protecting the Mill Creek valley in Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport were built under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers. The flood control works in Hamilton and Dayton were built by the Miami Conservancy District, which is separate from the ACOE.

 

The City of Cincinnati wants to sell the Blue Ash Airport. The City of Blue Ash wants to purchase it. So what's the hangup? The aviation lobby wants to keep access to it, they have done all they can to protect it, and they have the FAA to back them up. I'm not saying it's fair, but that's the way it is.

This too shall pass.

Let's say that Lunken Airport didn't exist, and that the City of Cincinnati had no other aviation assets. What would this agreement mean then? Would Cincinnati be forced to sell a city-owned asset and invest that money in another jurisdiction?

Opponents are desperate and will try any and everything:

 

^Note that the aviation lobby is not necessary opposed to the streetcar. Therefore, I wouldn't label them "opponents".

 

The airport issue is analagous to the City of Cincinnati selling any other asset that is appreciated by someone. Say, for example, that the City of Cincinnati decided to sell Burnet Woods park to the University of Cincinnati to raise revenue for the streetcar. Is it legal? I don't know, but it will definitely upset the Clifton neighborhood, and they will resist it.

 

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."  - Woodrow Wilson

 

If it's a city asset the FAA shouldn't be able to dictate what happens to the funds generated by its sale. I do, however, understand the argument that they would want the value of their grants spent on other aviation assets. But as Jake pointed out, very little value of this nature exists. The majority of the Blue Ash Airport value is the land which the city purchased with its own money long before the FAA even existed.

 

If the FAA gave $40,000 for runway improvements, then it would make sense for them to mandate that value be transferred to another aviation asset; not $11 million.

^Note that the aviation lobby is not necessary opposed to the streetcar. Therefore, I wouldn't label them "opponents".

 

So when I was talking to that same airport manager in the airport's aviation lobby (turns out he's Pauline Van der Haar's brother), he was telling me about all these crazy 100 year-old pipes under the airport they're going to have to move if the streetcar is built. 

 

For the benefit of those reading this site from out of town who might not be familiar with the Blue Ash Airport, here are some photos I took of it while flying out of it on a helicopter a few years ago:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^The real world doesn't necessarily make sense.

 

In any construction project, the more people that have a say, the more difficult the project becomes. Now, in a round about way, we have the FAA involved. The City of Cincinnati could have avoided the whole issue by coming up with the money in some other way besides selling the Blue Ash airport. 

No, because it doesn't matter how it's funded, you're always going to oppose it.  After OTR is completely rehabbed in 10 years more quickly and at a density higher than would have been possible without rail public transportation that permits new residential units with reduced or zero parking, you'll attribute it to the casino, or maybe expansion of the Creation Museum, or they put reruns of ALF on Channel 64.

 

During Mallory's 2005 mayoral campaign, he said that he would divide the proceeds of the sale equally between the city's 52 neighborhoods.  This is before he even knew what a modern streetcar was and two years before the sale was finalized. 

I'm not following why anyone would think pipes need to be moved under the airport, which is in Blue Ash, if a streetcar is built downtown.

 

Is van der Haar the one who owns the Glencoe site and is in cahoots with Smitherman?

No, because it doesn't matter how it's funded, you're always going to oppose it.  After OTR is completely rehabbed in 10 years more quickly and at a density higher than would have been possible without rail public transportation that permits new residential units with reduced or zero parking, you'll attribute it to the casino, or maybe expansion of the Creation Museum, or they put reruns of ALF on Channel 64.

 

During Mallory's 2005 mayoral campaign, he said that he would divide the proceeds of the sale equally between the city's 52 neighborhoods.  This is before he even knew what a modern streetcar was and two years before the sale was finalized. 

Are you saying the Airport is sold already? Who's holding the money?

Yeah, it's been sold for four years:

 

http://www.blueash.com/filestorage/81/91/1108/1112/NewsRelease-Property_PurchaseClosing-August2007-Final.pdf

So, it looks like the City sold a PORTION of the Blue Ash Airport to the City of Blue Ash?????  The presser says Cincy sold 130 of the 230 acres to Blue Ash, while moving all airport operations onto the remaining 100 acres.

Right, the whole airport is being reconfigured from a triangular shape with a lot of unused land in the middle of the triangle to a strip, kind of like that little airport up near Hamilton. 

 

You can see from the press release that a)Blue Ash raised its earnings tax to buy the airport (boondoggle!) and b)it has presumably been paying Cincinnati $1~ million each year since 2007 or 2008. 

 

Look at that earnings tax figure -- up to 1.25%, or about one cent less than Cincinnati, of which .3% pays for Metro.  So take metro out of the equation -- which it would have under various countywide transit tax proposals dating to 1979 -- and the difference in earnings taxes between Cincinnati and its competitors within the county becomes negligible.  And I think *there* you see where some of the resistance to a county tax comes from. 

 

worst case scenario, I don't think it will be difficult to find a replacement for the $11 million if the Blue Ash Airport funds can't be used.

worst case scenario, I don't think it will be difficult to find a replacement for the $11 million if the Blue Ash Airport funds can't be used.

 

How do you figure?  The last thing this project needs is more delays and negative PR in  my opinion

No, because it doesn't matter how it's funded, you're always going to oppose it. 

 

I'm not sure whether this comment was directed at me or not, but I should say again that I'm not opposed to the streetcar. Here's where I stand:

 

1. I am skeptical on whether or not it will actually get built. It is not uncommon for projects to be postponed indefinitely, especially if the political situation changes or if there's a funding issue. That said, I think now that it has a better chance of being built than I used to think.

 

2. In the event that it does get built, I am skeptical on whether it will result in redevelopment of Over-the-Rhine like it is supposed to. The lack of a streetcar is not the only factor holding  back potential development.

 

3. This project has not been run particularly well so far, as typical construction projects go. The biggest single problem in my opinion is that there has not been a viable funding plan. I consider the current funding plan risky, counting on funds from sources that may not materialize, etc, and even at that I think that the anticipated funding was not enough.

 

Thanks everyone for tolerating me on this board. I wish the best for Cincinnati.

 

And thanks everyone for the comments. I enjoy them. Special thanks to Jake for posting photos and for sharing so much original research.

Maybe the $4.4m for the city hall renovation could go to the streetcar. Hmm...

 

Anyone else notice we're on page 513?

 

 

>The biggest single problem in my opinion is that there has not been a viable funding plan.

 

 

WWWWWHAT?!  Where have you been the past 513 pages?  It has been fully funded, completely designed, and totally ready for the word go FOR TWO OR THREE YEARS.  Everyone here knows that except you. 

 

 

^ I think he meant the operating funds. Which is kind of true, there is still a real risk that operating funds will eat into the city budget. The line in the sand is whether you think that's OK. I do, because I believe in the ROI of the project. But others don't, and unfortunately at this time their skepticism is not totally baseless.

 

 

PS Where the hell are the TIGER grant announcements? It's the middle of the month and soon everyone is going home for Christmas.

PS Where the hell are the TIGER grant announcements? It's the middle of the month and soon everyone is going home for Christmas.

 

This week! http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/usdot-tiger-iii-grant-awards-announced/

worst case scenario, I don't think it will be difficult to find a replacement for the $11 million if the Blue Ash Airport funds can't be used.

 

How do you figure?  The last thing this project needs is more delays and negative PR in  my opinion

 

call it a hunch

>Which is kind of true, there is still a real risk that operating funds will eat into the city budget. The line in the sand is whether you think that's OK.

 

Tom Luken says the project sill cost $2 billion, except when he says it will cost $1 billion.  Smitherman, Miller, et al say it will bankrupt the city.

 

Now, even if zero casino revenue is used to pay the operating expense, it will still cost in the neighborhood of just 1% of the city's annual operating budget.  Talk radio wants the people to believe that "luxuries" like the streetcar and recycling bins and new windows for City Hall are causing budget strains, when basic services (especially police) are the entire source of the problem.   With all the republicans who kept 100 extra police officers on the payroll (left over from the post-riot Charlie Luken years) to create a fake financial crisis they could exploit on their daily talk radio call-ins, look for police layoffs in the next two years, zero change in public safety, and a much healthier budget situation. 

worst case scenario, I don't think it will be difficult to find a replacement for the $11 million if the Blue Ash Airport funds can't be used.

 

How do you figure?  The last thing this project needs is more delays and negative PR in  my opinion

 

call it a hunch

 

Brad, do you know something the rest of us don't?  Is the project getting a TIGER grant?

Cincinnati streetcar wins $10.9M from feds

 

The Cincinnati streetcar project will get a $10.9 million grant from the Tiger III federal program, a Congressional source tells the Business Courier...