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Dear Friend,

Below is the text of the letter I delivered to Mayor Mallory today:

March 18, 2011

Mark Mallory
Mayor
City of Cincinnati
801 Plum Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202

Re: Streetcar Support

Dear Mark:

City Council passed its 2011/2012 Biennial Budget last night. I did not vote for this budget because it is nothing more than a status quo budget. It makes no substantive change to the way our City operates. Furthermore, it relies much too heavily on the use of one-time sources to fill in the hole. By choosing to use $27 million in one-time funds, this budget simply pushes the problem a little farther down the road and ensures that we will be in the same place next year.

Unfortunately, the groups involved here have misinformed the public about my position on the streetcar. I have always been in favor of the streetcar project, and I have made my view public -- in the press and even to streetcar opponents (who criticized my pro-streetcar position on their websites during the last election). Based on my research from other cities and conversations with local business leaders, I believe the streetcar will help us retain our largest companies and help Cincinnati attract new investment and jobs which expand the City’s tax base.

Greenacres sees no value in the James N. Gamble House and wishes to demolish it. Others in the community see tremendous value in the Gamble House and wish to acquire and preserve it. So it appears callous to disregard the value that other see and the desires of the community to preserve this historic structure. The wish of Greenacres to simply discard the Gamble House is an ironic decision, given the charitable history of the Gamble family.

Yesterday the Budget and Finance committee approved a loan of $2.75 million to the developers of The Banks with no strings attached, repealing an ordinance that we had passed last week requiring the developers to accelerate their construction schedule by one year in order to receive the loan. I opposed the ordinance today because it it not a good deal for the City or for the taxpayers who are funding this loan. This loan represents a cost overrun by the developers that is being passed on to the tax payers, who are getting nothing in return.

The City of Cincinnati has a projected $60 million budget deficit for 2011--about 1/6th of last year's expenses in the general operating fund.

Over the past several weeks, Cincinnati City Council has been 1) holding special budget hearings to ask questions of department heads and the City Manager, and 2) submitting ideas for budget cuts to Finance Chair Qualls.

Below is an excerpt from an email received by the Cincinnati Regional USA Chamber from a visitor to Cincinnati that perfectly highlights the negative image that the panhandling problem in our city creates.

Today we began the first of our department-by-department budget working groups by hearing a presentation from the Planning Department. I posed several questions to the Department's representatives, attempting to understand the true costs, especially the personnel and employee benefits, of the Planning Department. I also asked about areas that either overlap or are performed by both the City and the County. As a city we must seek to achieve our needs in the most efficient manner.