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According to my sources, the local Democrats have once again set in place a series of out-of-sight deals to insure that certain players get to hold certain positions of power—and if true, by doing this behind closed doors and off the ballot, they have therefore sacrificed voter choice and voter empowerment for the maintenance of the status quo.  The details of this deal seek to place certain interests into key City positions, sometimes for reasons that hardly even seem political or to the benefit of any particular ideology.  This is an example of the dark, underbelly of the political process.

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In the event that no one else bothers to at least report on all the candidates running for President who have achieved ballot status in Ohio, here is how our ballots will actually look:

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Some will refuse to believe it, but there is a part of me committed to being an undecided voter until the moment I cast my ballot.  I remain open to someone persuading me one way or another until the moment of my vote.  That said, I still advocate for whomever happens to be my favorite candidate at the time.  And, at this time, I am enjoying the candidacy of Ralph Nader.  So I decided to exhibit my enjoyment of Ralph Nader’s campaign at the recent open-to-the-public party Democrats held in Oakley to watch the Vice Presidential debates.  I was surprised by my rough treatment by the Democrats.

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The deadline is Monday, October 6th...

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In this week’s Business Courier, Councilman Jeff Berding wrote a response to the Courier’s endorsement of Issue 8 (Proportional Representation) in their paper the week prior.  Berding has had a very poor voting record in supporting African American issues even though he is defined as a democrat and the African American community is the base of his local party.  For example, some of his votes included decreasing resources to health clinics, decreasing resources for keeping swimming pools open, and supporting the building of a mega jail.  The proponents for the mega jail were misleading the public to believe that the jail was necessary to reduce inmate overcrowding.  It is now clear that the jail overcrowding argument was a lie. 

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Brother Steven Gerard Sidlovsky from the St. Anthony Secular Franciscan Order has recently been circulating a petition hoping to establish “Life Peace Zones” in Cincinnati.  These would be binding zoning designations based on Catholic family values.  And it turns out Councilmember Chris Monzel has jumped on board, asking Cincinnati’s Law Department to look into what type of wording might be acceptable for pushing some version of this concept through City Council.

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UPDATE: 9/19, 5:30 am:  Last night I was contacted by the Driehaus campaign, and I was told that not getting back to me was an oversight by the campaign, and that their response will be forthcoming today.  If true, I apologize for the miscommunication!

At committee this week, Councilmembers United Against the Health Department (CUAHD), led by former Fiscal Fascist Fiver Jeff Berding, continuously tried to pin the oversight failure related to the recently publicized nursing home raids onto the City’s Health Department.  There is only one problem with this attempt:  the State of Ohio inspected, and passed, the nursing home on March 6th—which, if you’ve been following the story and watching the dates, would be after the police first noticed the allegedly deplorable conditions, yet prior to the police raid.  All of this came out yesterday in Committee.  So if the City’s Health Department can’t do its job, neither can the State of Ohio.  Or, is something else going on here?  Does this relate to a backroom deal that Democrats might have engaged, perhaps for the benefit of an agency like Closing the Health Gap?

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In a recent letter issued from the Cincinnati Solicitor’s Office, it appears the City has cracked open both the definition of a political party and what it takes to sit on the Cincinnati Election Commission (CEC).  Earlier this year, I filed a complaint with the CEC, indicating that the word “organization” had no legal definition in Cincinnati’s Charter.  The fact suggested any “organization” that had endorsed a candidate receiving five percent of the vote qualified as a “political party” in the City of Cincinnati (which would mean that an “organization” could create a political party by just endorsing a likely winner, thereby increasing their fundraising limits next cycle—think the Lindner Party, for an example of potential abuse).  In trying to sidestep this potentially cumbersome situation, the City of Cincinnati issued a preliminary opinion on my complaint which may have unwittingly outlined membership in the CEC as now open to several organizations who do not even know they qualify as a “political party.”

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Guest article by Thomas A. Dutton, Miami University Center for Community Engagement

Exactly when did the American mind become comfortable with the notion that punishment solves deep social problems?  I suppose we should have seen this coming that, as U.S. society becomes not just a society with prisons but a veritable prison society, a kind of incarcerative logic would ooze into the social consciousness brandishing punishment—wielded as a stick to force behavioral change and exact personal responsibility—as social policy. 

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Almost a year ago, Michael Earl Patton wrote about hidden costs affiliated with the losing initiative to implement a Super Sized Jail Tax for a Super Sized Jail—specifically, he detailed how the site sat on contaminated land, and that an Environmental Site Assessment would need to be conducted.  No where in the “comprehensive” jail tax plan were such costs mentioned.  Now, in today’s Enquirer, the very costs Patton warned about have reared their head.  Congratulations, Michael, for noticing what no one else saw last year!

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It has come to the attention of the 93 year old Cincinnati Branch of the NAACP that the organization “Closing the Health Gap” has taken a position against the Cincinnati Health Department (CHD) because of the successful grant funding of its Health Disparities program for $260,000. The total grant would exceed 500,000! This is a grant to address the significant and severe health disparities in the City of Cincinnati. The Cincinnati NAACP cannot support the organization Closing the Health Gap’s perplexing position against the Cincinnati Health Department, a city resource that has historically and often provided care to African American and poor residents in Cincinnati when no other organization would do so—a city department (CHD) that has by state’s legal authority and responsibility for the health and well-being of all citizens in Cincinnati and therefore is the appropriate and legal institution to receive this health disparities grant funding.

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Whenever Joe Deters is mentioned here at The Cincinnati Beacon, we receive a fax with the title “Double Standard: Justice in Cincinnati.” The fax highlights a handful of cases of whites and blacks being prosecuted, with very different outcomes.  The comparison I find most interesting, and about which I would like more information, showcases the bank robbers Kenneth and Jewell Maples (who are white) along with bank robbers Chris Avery and Andrew Butler (who are black).  The white robbers, with a long list of former robberies across several states, apparently got just a few years in jail, while the black college students robbing banks for tuition money were given a couple decades.  Is this a good example of justice being applied unequally?

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Dear Membership and Community,

Enclosed are the financial records of Closing the Health Gap.  The Cincinnati NAACP did a public information request to gather information about Closing the Health Gap.  I have found the financial report enclosed interesting.

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So it looks like more people are thinking seriously about bicycling in Cincinnati.  And while a downtown bike center is a great idea—complete with areas for showering and changing from biking to professional clothing—I think we should take this a step further:  to really cultivate alternative transportation in Cincinnati, we should do something bold like installing The Trampe Bicycle Lift. 

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Recently, we posted this interview with Christopher Finney, where he framed the anti-tax ideology of COAST in the context of poverty and the working class.  To further the discussion, The Cincinnati Beacon is pleased to present a rebuttal by Democrat Greg Harris.  The Beacon identified four key points articulated by Finney, asking Harris to respond with detail.  Harris concludes the discussion by responding to a point of his own choice.  Enjoy!

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Whenever the local anti-tax people make news, it certainly gets people upset.  Just look at this recent post from The Cincinnati Blog for an example.  Over the years, I have heard lots of positions against groups like COAST—including that they are mostly wealthy white people who dislike the poor, and wish to destroy institutions like the public library and public schools.  But I have never seen anyone squarely present such questions and accusations to COAST, and I wondered how they might respond.  So I decided to conduct an email interview with Christopher Finney.  I wanted to ask a few questions that address the worst I’ve heard about COAST in a general sense.  Here are the results.

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On July 3rd, Miroslaw Witkowski, a singer with the Cincinnati Opera, followed Tracey Bellman into the Buddakhan restaurant on Vine St.  According to Bellman, Witkowski told her and a friend that he had been at an Opera party.  He said he didn’t really like Opera parties but he needed to find a rich American to give him a million dollars so he can buy a big house with a pool for having sex with lots of girls. “He was very strange and he wasn’t just talking about sex with girls,” explained Bellman.  Little did she know she was about to witness a verbal assault that soon lead to a vicious physical attack where the apparently intoxicated Witkowski would beat Buddakhan owner Dan Dell within an inch of his life.

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It’s been a long time coming, and the story, which started right here at The Cincinnati Beacon, didn’t end until WLWT repeatedly started doing the story, too.  But it finally looks like 3CDC is doing the right thing, making the Fountain Square parking garage more handicapped accessible.  So this is a special thanks to Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, the news room at WLWT, and even 3CDC for all coming together to do the right thing, advocating for people with disabilities so the City’s central public space can be accessible and enjoyed by everyone.

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Last week, we brought you this story, featuring details about how much money former politician Dwight Tillery makes running his healthy-living non-profit.  He works 40 hours a week, advocating for people to be healthier and less obese, pulling in six figures:  with benefits and expense accounts included, his annual take reached $157,504 in 2006.  But what do these working hours and salaries look like compared to other Executive Directors for different non-profits in Cincinnati?  What else can we learn from looking at online IRS Form 990’s?

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This week, Cincinnati NAACP President Christopher Smitherman blasted City Council for rejecting over a quarter of a million dollars in grant money.  He said the dollars could have been used through an office of minority health to remedy problems like Cincinnati’s record high infant deaths in the Black community.  According to Laketa Cole, her political mentor Dwight Tillery has a private corporation that already duplicates those services.  But what is the real deal with Tillery’s Closing the Gap?  On what does his non-profit spend their money?  We pulled the group’s IRS 2006 Form 990’s to get answers.

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Did I miss the news?  Where is The Enquirer’s coverage of the class action lawsuit against 5/3 Bank?  According to a recent press release, “The Complaint alleges that the defendants violated federal securities laws by issuing material misrepresentations to the market concerning Fifth Third Bancorp’s financial condition and prospects, thereby artificially inflating the price of Fifth Third Bancorp securities.” This could be huge news for the Cincinnati bank.  And one must wonder how it relates to the other 5/3 rumor:  Are they about to sell to another bank, like Wachovia?

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This week, CityBeat featured an article by Kevin Osborne blasting McCain’s local representative Joe Deters.  As we reported last week, Deters refused to deny his lunch dates with Jim Schifrin, the author of The Whistleblower, a newsletter filled with racist language.  He also refused to denounce the newsletter for calling Cincinnati’s first directly elected African American mayor a “gay darkie.” But now, even Alex Triantafilou, chair of the Hamilton County GOP, has taken a firm stance against the language exhibited by Schifrin and tacitly endorsed by Joe Deters. 

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Workers Speak Out About the Pain and Injuries Suffered On the Job

The Coalition of Injured Cintas Workers today announced the launching of a nationwide tour to expose the hidden human costs of keeping America’s laundry clean. This summer, the Painful Truth Tour will span the nation to show investors, community leaders and Cintas uniform wearers in the hospitality industry the effect that unsafe machinery and production quotas at Cintas plants around the country have on laundry workers’ health.

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John McCain came to Cincinnati this week to court the black vote at the national NAACP convention.  McCain has a miserable record with the NAACP, receiving multiple grades of “F” from the organization in prior years.  Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has just named Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters as its local chair, a move which has already caused Ohio Democratic State Chair Chris Redfern to issue a denunciation. 

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Prosecutor Joe Deters, McCain local rep, linked to racist ramblings

While everyone talks about John McCain’s speech to the NAACP during the national convention here in Cincinnati, the lesser known story concerns the racist ramblings apparently endorsed by his regional campaign chair for Southwest Ohio (and Hamilton County prosecutor)—Joe Deters.  During the primaries, McCain was quick to distance himself from local loudmouth Willie Cunningham after the radio personality referred to Barack Obama with his middle name, Hussein.  But aren’t the disgusting ramblings of Jim Schifrin (pictured to your right) in The Whistleblower more inappropriate than Obama’s full name?  Back in May, The Beacon attempted to contact Joe Deters about his apparent connections to Schifrin.

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Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper has unveiled a new blog entitled ”PepTalk." (Get it?  “Pep” is from Pepper!) I totally support this kind of access to the unfiltered thinking of community leaders, and I think Pepper’s blog is a great model for what more local politicians should do to foster deep discussions about the direction of our community.  Already, PepTalk has established a tone that suggests Pepper will not use the space for campaign propaganda, but for showcasing real issues facing our region. 

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