“The Genius of Bill Donabedian” courtesy of here.

As reported earlier in The Cincinnati Beacon, the city agreed to pay all the construction costs for what became the Via Vite restaurant building.  The Beacon has further examined the deal and it appears that the city’s commitment to fund the restaurant is written in such a way that they cannot wiggle out of it.

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Posted by Michael Earl Patton
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I have read the material on Barack Obama’s Fight the Smears campaign page.  And I had pondered the circus that is American politics, wondering at the emails that would cause Obama’s campaign to make such a page in the first place.  Then, I got what appeared to be one of the “smear” emails.  It was sent to me and a long list of others.  So, I decided to respond to the whole list, engaging the sender in a dialogue—to see what might happen.  Here are the results so far…

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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On February 28th, 2007, City Council unanimously voted to enter into a Ground Lease agreement with 5/3 Bank regarding property on Fountain Square.  In the lease, the City of Cincinnati agreed to pay all hard and soft construction costs for the building that houses Via Vite restaurant.  Those costs were around $2.5 million dollars.  When asked, everyone at City Hall denies that the City had such an expenditure—despite the clear language from the 2007 ground lease—but no one has been able to provide documentation to discredit our claim.  Today, the City attempted to send The Beacon a document which shows no such expenditure, but it’s several months too early!

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Melva Gweyn and her merry band of bandits have done it again!  They are so worried about their fabricated fear of Westwood being taken over by Section 8, that they can’t even think like normal human beings if the words “rental” and “assistance” are uttered in the same sentence.  Apparently, the phrase makes their Section 8 radars go haywire.  So much so, that this week the Westwood Civic Association allegedly voted to oppose funding for handicapped people in a program that didn’t even target Westwood in the first place.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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About a week ago, I got an anonymous brown envelope sent to my home, inside of which was a flyer entitled “Join the Sea Arrrgh!” It got lost in a stack, and I just pulled it out—only to discover that I have missed the Cincinnati Sea Arrrgh.  (It was scheduled for this past Saturday.) And I’m betting a whole bunch of other people missed the Sea Arrrgh, too.  So what is it?  Why did it come to Cincinnati?  Should we have heard about it over the weekend?

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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How Many More Hidden Deals Are There?

If a deal is so good for the city, why would council appear to go to such lengths to hide it?

Did council hide other deals?  How many, to whom, and for how much?

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Posted by Michael Earl Patton
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Jeff Coryell over at the Ohio Daily Blog recently posted an item about how the Ohio Medical Board closed the complaint against Vic Wulsin.  That prompted Tom Blumer at BizzyBlog to post a response to the news.  We decided to contact the Wulsin campaign to get a copy of the press statement, and what we found was belligerence from Kevin Franck, Wulsin campaign spokesperson.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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If Jesus were alive in Cincinnati today, he’d live in Westwood in Section 8 apartments.  And from that unlikely pool of baggy panted candidates, a gang of apostles would begin the modern day movement of the urban messiah.  This fact—yes, I’m calling it a “fact,” based on what we know from The Bible, and I don’t even care if you believe in those stories or not—anyway, this fact demonstrates how disconnected modern Christians, particularly modern white Christians, have become from the fundamentals of their faith.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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A few weeks ago, Melva Gweyn and her merry band of bandits were on the front page of the Enquirer’s local news section.  Their Westwood Civic group was awarded $1,000,000 by City Hall for their pet project:  buying properties they don’t like, such as apartments buildings where poor people live, and demolishing them. 

But what is the mathematical breakdown of this money from the perspective of population?  According to 2000 census numbers, how much money did City Council give per Westwood resident?  And furthermore, how much money would other neighborhoods receive were all things fair in terms of money transfers from City Hall to community groups?

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Changes to Cincinnati Municipal Code (CMC) introduced by Cecil Thomas grant higher power to Cincinnati police officers, even when said officers might not be the most logical or objective experts to make decisions on a particular matter.  A comparison between the language of his proposed alterations to current Cincinnati law about Staffordshire Terriers demonstrates his intent.

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Fountain Square used to be Cincinnati’s central public space, but increasingly it seems to have been colonized by 3CDC—who recently booked almost every evening of the summer with events that will allow them to sell beer.  Every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday has been booked with the PNC Summer Music Series.  Political activism and grassroots movements only get Mondays and Wednesdays for using public space—arguably the two most boring evenings of the week:  first day back to work, and “hump day” mid-week.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Last night, I saw a story on WCPO about the busted sex-spas in Dearborn County Indiana.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the WCPO story online—so my writing will be based on my memories, and not the specific details I hoped to find online.  But there were some really strange details about the televised story.  An officer investigating the sex ring informed the viewing audience how to find sex online, and he made a threat encouraging any men who visited any of these spas in the past several years to turn themselves in.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Malcolm Little was born eighty-three years ago yesterday, on May 19th, 1925, assassinated February 21, 1965, in Harlem. He was just thirty-nine years old when he was murdered in a hail of bullets. Malcolm’s life was full of reinvention and he was a man ahead of his time.  This speech, entitled “By Any Means Necessary,” was given in the last year of his life.  To find out more about his assassination, his plans to unite the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements, and three missing chapters of his autobiography click here.

Posted by Justin Jeffre
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The other day, for no reason in particular, I remembered all those allegations of Republicans voting in the Democratic primary to stack the deck, so to speak, for John McCain.  I also remembered those stories about how people wanted Rush Limbaugh to face charges for encouraging people to vote in the opposite party’s primary.  And while it turns out that Limbaugh’s ”Operation Chaos” did not land him in court, what about those Republicans who maliciously changed party?  Did anyone in Hamilton County write something like “For one day only” on their statement of party affiliation?  It turns out those forms are a matter of public record.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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As first announced by reporter Bill Sloat’s Daily Bellwether blog, last Saturday marked the debut of Phil Heimlich’s radio talk show. As Beacon readers know (perhaps too well), we have a special fascination with Phil, a once-influential public official whose fall from power was hard and fast.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Law enforcement officers are charged with a simple, but noble, assignment:  protect and serve.  And while people may debate the degree to which red-light cameras protect motorists, the fact remains that City Hall wishes to implement these cameras downtown—not because they hope to make our streets more safe, but because they hope to generate revenue for the struggling budget.  This is a violation of that simple assignment with which our law enforcement officers are charged.  Instead of protecting, and serving, the red-light cameras are just a scam for ticketing people at a distance for profit.

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I looked at the arrest statistics for the Cincinnati marijuana ordinance for the first 3 months of this year.  As the Beacon reported earlier, there is a vast difference in the numbers of arrests for African-Americans and Whites.

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Posted by Michael Earl Patton
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Does The Enquirer exhibit an editorial bias designed to advance their own business interests, particularly as they pertain to things like The Freedom Center, the Streetcar proposal, and 3CDC’s redevelopment in Over-The-Rhine?  No matter one’s political position on these topics, what does it mean if Cincinnati’s major daily paper inserts itself into the business of the City to push for development for the purpose of self-profit?  Is that the kind of thing we expect from so-called professional journalists?  What does The Enquirer have to say, if anything, in response to such allegations?

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Worldfest proudly presents the 2008 keynote: Dr. Vandana Shiva (May 2, 4pm, TUC Great Hall, free and open to the public)

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, editor, prolific author and one of the most important activists of our time.  She is founder of *Navdanya*, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers’ rights and is the Founding Director of Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, a network of researchers specializing in ecology, health and sustainability.  She has also established a school for sustainability Bija Vidyapeeth on the Navdanya Biodiversity Farm in Doon Valley.

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Yesterday, I had an opportunity to speak with former Cincinnati Councilman Charlie Winburn about the Rapid Purge Process Proposal he has co-authored with Judge Nadine Allen.  Winburn actually makes tons of sense on this issue, and let’s not forget that we’re talking about lock-em-up Charlie—who used to do things such as holding up handcuffs on the campaign trail to talk about how he wants to be tough on crime.  I don’t think he’s suddenly gone soft on crime.  On the contrary, he simply realizes that people with ten year old warrants for petty crimes are not a threat, and instead they are costing money and plugging up the system.  Everyone should be on board with this proposal.

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For years, I have heard rumblings that there exists some kind of systemic racism to how the Metro bus routes are designed.  I’ve heard how unreasonable it is, for example, for people from black neighborhoods to have to go all the way to Government Square for a transfer out to a white neighborhood.  Or how it is impossible to get from places like schools to jobs in the necessary amount of time.  I never knew, however, the best way to substantiate these rumors one way or another.  At least, not until now.  I just realized that the Metro site has this trip planner, kind of like MapQuest for the local bus routes.  So does anyone feel like thinking up sample locations for departures and arrivals, to see what the go-Metro trip planner returns?

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Kudos to Mayor Mark Mallory for his youth job and opportunity fair yesterday at the Duke Energy Center.  The event was well organized and it provided over two thousand youth the chance to link up with area employers at a one-stop shop.  I think the job fair a great example of the kind of leadership one can exhibit through the position of Mayor, and I commend Mallory for the work he engaged to get employers to set up at the convention. 

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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Bipartisan County-City Effort Showing Results; Citizens Can Call 211 for Help

In 2007, housing counselors through the County-supported Homeowner Preservation Partnership saved over 436 homes from foreclosure, well ahead of the one year goal of saving 300 homes. All together, the five partnering counseling agencies assisted 1,177 homeowners, with hundreds of additional homeowners in the process of receiving help. With the estimated community cost of a foreclosure being as much as $60,000, the initiative has preserved up to $26 million in property value.

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“Leave No Child Inside of Greater Cincinnati” is an organization that seeks to release captive Cincinnati students from the confines of their classrooms.  And since April is “Children & Nature Awareness Month,” what better time to draw attention to a great organization that seeks to reconnect children with the world outside?  Everyone knows that more authentic learning happens, for students of any age, when the environment is hands-on and holistic, not limited to textbook questions, worksheets, and tests.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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So what have I been doing the past few days?  In addition to having pink eye—which makes it really difficult to redesign web pages, by the way—I have brought a new look for The Beacon.  So here’s a space to leave suggestions.  There are still some bugs, and I haven’t moved all the old features over yet.  But for now, I’ve got the old site still active.  I hope you enjoy the new theme!

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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In 1999, in an underreported and historic event, the family of Martin Luther King filed a lawsuit against “unknown co-conspirators” in the assassination of MLK.  The jury found that governmental agencies were party to the assassination conspiracy.  So, when Cincinnati blogs filled recently with those blasting local NAACP president Christopher Smitherman for suggesting the government had a role in killing King (check here, or here), one must wonder if anyone had ever heard of this 1999 Memphis suit.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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What does the Cincinnati Enquirer, our city’s newspaper of record, have in common with The Whistleblower, the longtime local political tattler sheet which traffics in a seemingly endless stream of look-what’s-under-my-dirty-raincoat innuendo? Based on our recent experience, both publications appear to publish fiction as news. When asked to substantiate their facts, both play dumb.

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Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
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