A call to the Greater Cincinnati Water Works billing department, who provides combined billing services for both the water and the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati organizations, was my next step. I explained my chat with the neighbor. She listened. I asked her to look at our bill to see if all was in order. “You seem to be billing correctly, I’m not sure why your bill would be higher, you must be using more water”, she said. I said that I highly doubted that.

Then I remembered that our house was at one time a three-family house, and several years before we’d bought it, the house had been converted back to a big single-family house. The Hamilton County Auditor’s website has showed our house as a single-family house for almost ten years.

I asked the question: “Is there a difference in rates if the house is single or multi-family?” She said yes, the sewer portion of the bill is higher for multi-family homes.

“Is our house set for a single or multi-family rate?”

“Let’s see, the water portion of your bill looks right, you’re coded as a single-family.” Again, she tried to tell me we probably just used more water than our neighbor. I pushed on. I asked if the sewer part of the bill was also coded as a single-family house. She looked. “No, it looks like MSDGC have you set as multi-family house. I’ll correct that and you’ll be billed correctly going forward. That will bring your bill down between $40-$50 per quarter.”

My aha moment. That explains it. My next question was if they would credit the overpayments, or since over three years, we’d overpaid by roughly $500, would they send a check. “Oh, you’ll have to contact the Metropolitan Sewer District and ask them for an account review. We just do their billing for them”. She gave me a number to call.

The phone number was she gave me was wrong. I made several more calls before I finally reached an MSD Accounts Receivable clerk. She directed me to an online “account review” form, a badly formatted PDF with misspellings, and submit the completed form with supporting documentation saying the house was being insured a single-family home at the time of purchase.

I asked why the sewer billing hadn’t been set up correctly to begin with, since we’d bought the house as a single-family, in fact the prior owners had bought the house as a single-family home as well. She said that an owner has to specifically request that the house would be coded as a single-family house when billing is set up. I told her that other than having a two ton giant fire escape still on the side of the house, we’d have no way of knowing the house had ever been an multi-family house. How would I know to ask that? Shouldn’t billing reflect what information is listed on the Hamilton County Auditor’s website? After all, that’s public information.

I submitted the necessary paperwork in early December. In late December, our quarterly bill came, and it was correct! But no credit. We paid the reduced bill. A week or so later, we got a robo-call asking us to pay our bill immediately. That check had already cleared, so, knowing that we were still waiting for a credit, I fumed. I called the AR clerk. “Oh, it could take a while before I can get to it”.

It’s now April. We’re still waiting for what should be roughly a $500 credit. Calls and emails are ignored.

The fact is, throughout Cincinnati, we have more housing stock than people. In the mid-20^th Century, Cincinnati’s population peaked at over 500,000 people, and it’s now down to around 300,000. That means a lot of those big houses built as single family homes might have been converted at one time to multi-family dwellings, but now many have been converted back. The MSD has never updated this information, and they know it. And they’re in no hurry to correct the situation.

There are two specific questions you must ask the water department: 1) Is my house coded as a single-family or multi-family residence on the WATER portion of my bill? 2) Is my house coded as a single-family or multi-family residence on the SEWER portion of my bill? If you don’t ask, you won’t know how your house is coded, as the information’s not included on the bill.

Since I found out about our overbilling, I’ve repeated the story to others who have called and realized their house is also being billed incorrectly. Though billings going forward are being billed correctly, no one I know has yet received any money back from the prior overbillings.

We are considering moving forward with a class action suit against the Metropolitan Sewer District to ask them to compare the county data with their billing data and to make payments to all affected parties. We need more households to participate. If you’ve been affected by this situation and have not yet received a credit from the MSD, please contact me at northside45223@gmail.com if you’d like to become a part of the class action suit. [UPDATE: Since this article was first published in the Northside/Clifton METRO newspaper, I've received probably 25 responses from homeowners who have been affected by overbilling in the same way.]

It seems as if MSD knows this is a problem, but since it will cost them money to fix it, they’re in no hurry to do the right thing.

What’s In A Name

In talking about the origins of the group, he explained there was a lot of debate surrounding the name. “Initially someone proposed Citizens Organized Against All Spending and Taxes, or COAAST, but we thought it would be too over the top.” He went on to say “I thought COAST was still too obvious. I mean come on, you aren’t going to get anywhere in life coasting, and the only direction you can coast is down hill, but I was over-ruled, and turned out to be wrong.”

According to the source, the logo was also carefully designed to hint at the prank. The trajectory of the star is clearly downhill, and even includes a dead-cat bounce at the end. The original design included a shattered star, but that was changed because they felt it was too obvious.

Shining Moments

He went on to reminisce about some of his favorite moments in the organization’s history. He felt the Streetcar was a gift from above. His favorite moment was the infamous “We don’t have signs, we can’t afford signs” press conference. He continued “What people did not realize is that this was one of the best instances of performance art in the city. Tom Luken gets a lot of flack for this, but the signs were actually his idea, and he ad-libbed that entire bit on the spot. Outsiders cannot appreciate his sense of comedic timing.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muwA5wtVu4E

Decline

When asked why he was coming clean, he admitted that it just wasn’t fun anymore. He explained that they have fallen into a rut. “There is only so many times you can retweet someone complaining about something on a streetcar before even you get tired.”

He also pointed to some mistakes. “It seemed like a good idea when we decided to compare the 9/11 tragedy to the City’s policy of browning out Fire Departments. In retrospect, we really didn’t think that one through.” But the real tragedy , he admits, was trying to connect a fire death on a browned out station. “Even if it had been true, it was in bad taste, but the fact that the responsible department was working that day put it over the edge.”

He is not sure how long the others will keep things going, but he admits he is done. “I have mixed feelings about the whole experience. It was a lot of fun at times, but it was also depressing that the general public didn’t catch on to the joke. I always felt uncomfortable when I ran into committed folks that were not in on the joke.”

He imagines that his decision to out the organization will not be popular with the group. He tried to get them to come to a consensus to reveal the prank, but in the end he decided it was time, and today was the day to announce it.

Northside at night (photo courtesy Adam Nelson)

With its eclectic mix of locally-owned businesses, the Northside neighborhood is already known as a prime Cincinnati food, retail, and arts destination in the region. But empty storefronts that would also make great restaurants have remained largely empty because of the lack of liquor licenses. Last week, all that changed. On Wednesday, February 29^th, the full Cincinnati City Council voted to give Northside its “Community Entertainment District” status after a unanimous vote the day before by the City Council’s Livability Committee.

This is a huge win for Northside. Why? For at least the last couple of years, Northside’s business district, while hanging in there in the midst of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, has had to turn away small businesses wanting to open in the neighborhood, merely because of the lack of liquor licenses available and the premium $30,000+ cost of the very few licenses that were available on the open market.

The new designation changes that game. The Northside Community Entertainment District designation gives creative tools to the Northside neighborhood to enable new growth. Rather than a business having to reach out to a broker to maybe, just maybe, find a license at a relatively huge cost, a process that often takes years, they can now call the state of Ohio directly. In our new Community Entertainment District, up to 15 additional liquor licenses are immediately available to food establishments, all at a dramatically reduced cost of $1500, all directly available from the state, and with no outside brokers involved. These licenses are not transferable. If the business with the new license were to move out of the Northside district, they would forfeit that license. Note again that these licenses are not available to a business that only wants to open a bar, these are licenses that are available only to food establishments. This is a major win for Northside and small businesses.

The original 2005 Community Entertainment District legislation was initially not really geared for anything but for-profit developers to obtain. Last year, the not-for-profit Pleasant Ridge Development Corporation couldn’t afford the Community Entertainment District’s original application fee of $15,000. Many thanks need to go to Cincinnati City Council Member Laure Quinlivan, who worked hard to change the Cincinnati municipal code to make the fee downwardly flexible, thus opening the possibility of designation to not-for-profits. This change to the fee structure allowed Pleasant Ridge to apply for the status without outside funding, making Pleasant Ridge the first Cincinnati neighborhood to apply for and win the designation.

Already, Pleasant Ridge has new businesses that wouldn’t be there if not for that designation. As well, the neighborhood of Price Hill recently won Community Entertainment District status, and several new businesses have either already opened or they are about to open. So far, the two neighborhoods that have won the designations have benefited immensely. Over-the-Rhine, Madisonville and Westwood have also applied for Community Entertainment District status but have not yet received it.

Northside's new Community Entertainment District covers not just the traditional business district, it also targets a wide area south of Blue Rock Street.

The Northside Business Association first started working with Laure Quinlivan’s city council office early last year after hearing of the possibility of Northside applying for and winning this important designation; the designation wouldn’t have been possible without Laure and her staff’s efforts. Also, Berding Surveying needs to be thanked, as they donated their services to the effort to produce the required survey and map. Once Northside’s required application package was completed, as a matter of transparency, the plan was presented at open Northside Community Council and Northside Business Association public meetings for comment. Community support was widespread, and the package was sent along to the city council’s Livability Committee for consideration.

Northside Business Association President Isaac Heintz has this to say about the designation: “The Northside Business Association pursued the entertainment district designation to provide Northside with another tool to help retain existing businesses and to attract new ones.  I believe that the designation of the entertainment district can only help to continue the positive trajectory of the neighborhood and the growth of the Northside community.”

Northside's "South Block", along Spring Grove Avenue, is ripe for redevelopment. The Landman Building, right, was recently stabilized and environmentally remediated and is ready for build-out. The building just to the left is now a LEED Silver building with several newly-occupied residential and business condos.

The new district covers much of the existing Northside business district along Hamilton Avenue from the Ludlow Viaduct in the south to just below the Northside Library in the north. In the southern end of the district, Blue Rock Street and Spring Grove Avenue are both included, roughly from Colerain Avenue on the west side, to Crawford Avenue on the east.

As you’re aware, there are currently a lot of existing empty storefronts and industrial spaces in the new entertainment district’s map. We’d love to see that change. Can’t you imagine once-forlorn Northside blocks now teeming with urban life? By enabling these new licenses, we hope to see more development in the district. This new development would include not only the new food establishments benefiting from the designation, but additional retail, arts, office and residential spaces , all serving to increase the vibrancy, diversity, and uniqueness of all that is Northside.

(Full disclosure: GeekJames, a.k.a. James Heller-Jackson, is a certifiable Northside resident shill as a member of the board for both the Northside Business Association and the Northside Community Council.)

The Cincinnati police told The Cincinnati Post their phones were “ringing off the hook” nightly about those strange bright lights in the sky. Cincinnati Police said “a mess” of frightened callers saw something just above the tree-tops around Mount Washington, Bond Hill and 14th and Vine, and that some type of machine had landed on the railroad tracks near the 2500 block of Beekman Street.

 

North of the city, in Trenton, some of the townsfolk swore a flying craft of some sort, not from around these parts, landed on Main Street, right in the middle of town. The town of Reading kept going dark due to power outages officials said were due to “equipment failure.”

 

The United Press International reported hundreds of sightings over southwest Ohio; all of them were at night. A woman, hysterical and screaming, cried to police that “some … some … thing” landed in her farm and killed two cows. Near central Ohio, a U.S. Army helicopter had been zapped in mid-air with a green beam of light. And The Enquirer was also on the beat, writing about “a radiancy of lights, frights and brights,” that were “dancing, flashing and hovering,” and “the reports were fast and they were serious.”

 

In Greenfield, police officer Sgt. Hugh, after chasing for several miles a circular white object with a yellow glow that was humming and flying just above the trees, told The Post, “I’ve never believed in UFOs until tonight.”

 

Indeed, even the Governor of Ohio, John J. Gilligan, had a close call with what he said was an amber-colored “vertical beam of light.” Shaken, he felt compelled to tell America during an emotional press conference that the UFO threat was real. “I saw one (UFO) the other night, so help me. I’m absolutely serious. I saw this.”

Now, the article goes on to (mostly) explain the incidents as a result of the kickoff of the military’s Operation Nickel Grass on October 13th. The US had elected to aid Israel in the Yom Kippur war, which meant a massive airlift effort, which meant that tremendously oversized cargo planes were landing at and taking off from Wright-Patterson AFB pretty constantly. If that’s not a good enough explanation for you, it’s also a fairly simple deduction that anyone with the technology to get from there (read: anywhere out there) to here in a reasonable amount of time would probably not have much reason to make a stop anywhere near such a comparatively backwater civilization. If you want an example of what I mean, just try to come up with an interesting conversation piece for a chance meeting with a real, live Neanderthal, and then expand the technology gap between the two of you by many orders of magnitude. In other words, Ug would probably figure out how to use an iPad a long time before we were able to wrap our brains around the physics of efficient interstellar travel.

Still, I suppose that anything is technically possible, so I’m forced to wonder exactly what would happen in Cincy if the proverbial Little Green Men did just pop the hatch on Fountain Square and ask to see our leaders. Ah, I can see the potential headlines on Cincinnati.com now…….

• FIRST CONTACT IN FOUNTAIN SQUARE: COAST points out that they’ve avoided Over-the-Rhine
• Mike Brown to demand alien assistance in renovating Paul Brown Stadium
• Aliens: “Hey, uh, we just came to pick Bootsy back up…”
• INTERSTELLAR INCIDENT: Aliens allege attempted poisoning, via goetta
• Aliens lost attempting to navigate West Side roads
• BREAKING: Aliens did not attend high school in the Cincinnati area
• UFOs attack and disable WEBN studios, citing “interstellar noise pollution”
• Aliens return Clooney: “Sorry, with all the attention, we just figured he was in charge.”
• Aliens….. shop at Furniture Fair? (ah %&&$%$#&%, another ad?!?!? Seriously?!?!?!?!)

(N.B.: This piece of playful fun-poking was also indirectly inspired by  this video, S____ People Say in Cincinnati, which you should watch if you haven’t already; it is priceless, though technically NSFW)

Image Credit: Some rights reserved by Pedro Moura Pinheiro

According to Citybeat:

A resident has filed a complaint with the city’s Law Department, alleging that Christopher Smitherman’s dual role as a Cincinnati city councilman and president of the NAACP’s local chapter constitutes an abuse of corporate powers.

 

In his complaint, resident Casey Coston states that the NAACP’s status as a 501(c)(4) organization under the federal tax code allows it to lobby City Hall and participate in political campaigns and elections without jeopardizing its tax-exempt status. Such activities are a conflict of interest with Smitherman’s council duties, Coston alleges.

 

The letter was sent today to City Solicitor John Curp by J. Thomas Hodges, Coston’s attorney. It asks Curp to review the matter and also seek an injunction preventing Smitherman from serving as chapter president. Further, it wants Curp to seek an advisory opinion from the Ohio Ethics Commission.

This is more than a little amusing because it’s the same brand of complaint that Smitherman’s COAST friends love to file  (If you’re not familiar with their relationship, Smitherman and COAST buddied up against both streetcar/transit ballot issues, and COAST has been happy to heap praise on him lately).  Just a couple of weeks ago, COAST honcho Mark Miller filed a complaint with the city over Laure Quinlivan and her city-paid staff accessing her campaign website on city time. Quinlivan was fined $1500.13 (the 13 cents was for the bandwidth; yes, I’m being completely serious), and the city was forced to pay $10,000 in legal fees. This is obviously a completely different kind of concern, but it’s certainly the sort of thing that I’d wager COAST would be pumping themselves up over while crying “Corruption!” if it were any other councilperson.

Now, following my usual I’m-not-even-close-to-being-a-lawyer disclaimer, I have to say that it’s easy for me to imagine a scenario where this is found to be a conflict of interest on some level, based on the amount of flak that the NAACP’s fellow 501(c)(4), the AARP, takes on a regular basis without any of it’s leaders actually being in government. On the other hand, if it was that cut-and-dried, I feel like it would’ve come up during the last election. I’ll leave any deeper analysis to the experts.

It will be interesting to see how this winds up playing out. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the NAACP, and I would hate to see their name muddied over a political ethics issue. That being said, though, I think Coston’s question is more than fair. Personally, I oppose just about every policy angle that’s come out of Smitherman’s mouth in the last two years, and disagreeing with him is one thing, but Smitherman’s associations with COAST make me ask some questions about how much I can trust him as an official in general, regardless of whether or not there’s actually an abuse of power occurring (and I haven’t heard anyone directly claim that there is). I was a little surprised that he didn’t just flat-out quit the presidency when he won a seat on council, thinking that this might be an obvious point of attack for opponents. Whatever the outcome winds up being, I hope for the sake of both the city and the NAACP that it’s reached with a  minimum of political mudslinging. I think the letter itself says it best (again from Citybeat):

“The NAACP is an important institution in our nation and the city of Cincinnati. My client holds such (an) institution in the highest regard and has the utmost respect for its mission and role in the community. Neither the city of Cincinnati nor the NAACP’s integrity or authority should be compromised by conflicted leadership. Therefore, it is imperative that the city of Cincinnati investigate and take action to alleviate my client’s concerns on behalf of all citizens of the city of Cincinnati”

UPDATE: 16 FEBRUARY: It turns out that there’s a good reason I’m not a lawyer. According to the Enquirer, City Solicitor John Curp says that Smitherman is not violating any ethics rules:

A letter from City Solicitor John Curp responding to streetcar advocate and blogger Casey Coston’s concerns about Smitherman said that since the city does not have any contracts with the NAACP, there is no conflict.

 

The letter, sent to Coston’s lawyer last Thursday, does note Smitherman should not vote on any issues raised in council that directly involve the NAACP.

 

Paul Nick, the executive director of the Ohio Ethics Commission, told the Enquirer last week that his staff looked into the issue after reading about Coston’s letter.

 

“It would be the same rules, for example, if someone also was a member of the board of the American Cancer Society,” Nick said. “Direct incompatibility? No. Abstentions? Yes.”

Curp said Cincinnati currently has no contracts with the NAACP.

 

“It’s not an issue because we don’t have anything that involves the NAACP in front of city council,” Curp said.

The powers-that-be have spoken on this, and while I may not be thrilled with the answer, the complaint did draw public attention to possibility of a future conflict of interest, so I wouldn’t call it a total loss.

I’ll try to keep this rant to food.

I’ve been preaching about the local foods movement and local business in general, not because it is cool but because it trumps the corporate counterparts by the presence of COMPASSION and that their bottom line isn’t the only line they care about. Have you caught any of the articles tattling on the sometimes disgusting antics of Big Ag and Big Food? Did you hear about the company that re-processed gallons of moldy applesauce to ship to schools? Or the countless recalls of E. Coli-tainted meats and vegetables that somehow still manage to get to the public? Maybe you’ve seen these corporate food lies: your “freshly” squeezed orange juice that has actually sat in a vat for up to a year, your meats that get doused with ammonia , the cellulose and other industrial by-products that find their way into more processed food than you would like to know about. Why isn’t this squawked about on mainstream news?

“So what can I do about this and why should I care?” you might say. “Eating healthy / organic / local is too expensive and I don’t have the time / desire / know-how to cook.”

My shopping reflects my values and I vote with my pocketbook. Start small and don’t try to re-invent the wheel in a week. I would rather spend an hour cooking something for my family than watching TV, but that’s me.

Don’t like factory farms? Seek out a local market and shop there. Spending money with local retailers strengthens the community and is a slap in the face of recession. Start a vegetable garden, and share your bounty with your neighbors – defy the “bedroom community” label and chat in person. Know that if we don’t start giving a damn about what we purchase, and where it comes from – that the quality of these things will continue to tank. The rich will get richer from our apathy. Our economy is based almost entirely on us buying stuff, so make every dollar count!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsNUqK6saMU

This video of a farmer addressing the NYC Occupy group nearly got me bawling. I can’t help but feel sickened and a little enraged every time I hear a sound bite about how unorganized the movement is, or the “But what do they stand for?” bullshit. The food lies are as insidious as the lies about “trickle-down economics” – don’t believe the hype. There has been a great interview with Chris Hedges making the rounds that I think hits the mark, and I will leave you with this quote from his book, Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America:
“We watch impassively as the wealthy and the elite, the huge corporations, rob us, ruin the environment, defraud consumers and taxpayers and create an exclusive American oligarchy that fuses wealth and political power. We watch passively because we believe we can enter the club. It is greed that inspires us. It is greed that keeps us silent. Our greed is devouring us.”

Cheers-

Dark Martha

Conscious Urban Living

Carriage House Farm

PS – If you are in the Cincy area, and are interested in getting that garden going, join me for my class series coming up in a few weeks.

Three cheers for the Queen City’s own Loren the Black!

Note: This is Part II of the piece that I composed with Zac from Fatal Downflaw. The article will be posted on both sites. Part I can be found here.

Portrayal in the Media
With mega-conglomerate-controlled mainstream news media being the norm for America, it comes as little surprise that  Occupy Cincinnati has some very strong feelings about their portrayal in local media. All present felt like the media was almost waiting in the wings for the group’s next big action – probably hoping for some more arrests or similar fireworks.

Sonnet: “In Cincinnati, one of the things I’ve been surprised at is how much the media picked us up in the beginning. A lot of that had to do with the fact that Wall Street had been going on for several weeks, so we didn’t get blacklisted like they did in the initial phases of Wall Street. That being said, the overall tenor I would say has been very negative as of late, but we’re still getting coverage. I mean, we still have people picking us up on a regular basis, we still get press calls all the time. One of the things that we’re going to have to constantly battle is that the Enquirer… their board is incredibly conservative… and members of their board are also members of 3CDC, so we’re gonna have to constantly battle that, but we still have great independent sources like The Beacon, StreetVibes, even CityBeat has done a pretty good job covering us, so I take heart in that.”

Chelsea: “We’re all kind of waiting to get arrested again, too”

As expected by the Occupiers, there was another round of Occupy Cincinnati arrests a few days after Chelsea made that statement. Along with their definitive feelings about local media, when asked if there was anything that they felt that the media was getting particularly wrong or particularly right when characterizing the movement, there were immediate complaints and similarly immediate dismissal of comparisons to the Tea Party, and some other issues:

Sonnet: “I’ve been asked so many times, even by you guys, ‘What’s your end goal, what’s the point, why are you out there, what’s your message’ and there was a great article on Slate.com about how journalists are either plugging their ears, closing their eyes, or just being lazy because we’ve been telling people over and over and over again that we’re out here because we’re the 99%, because we believe in putting people before profits, et cetera, but nobody can understand those large concepts, or they’re unwilling to. So that’s my little soapbox about Cincinnati media because they are so not getting it yet.”

Aaron: “Also, there are other people out in the community who have access to these media channels and influence over these media channels, so while we were occupying in the park, this narrative came out that the park was a mess, that people were pissing in the alleys, that there were rats everywhere, and that’s just not true…. That’s been a cohesive message from the people that oppose us throughout the country; that the Occupation is dirty, it has all these homeless people involved, and it’s just gross. That’s just way overblown.”

One thing that does seem to have been portrayed accurately by the media is that their relationship with the police has been pretty cordial. Aaron even described it as “good” between them and the rank-and-file officers. They emphasized that these rank-and-file officers were themselves part of the 99% that they claimed to represent, and Chelsea mentioned a couple of extremely positive personal conversations that she’d had with police.

On Location
We were curious about how the decision to Occupy Piatt Park had been made, and how their removal from that park had affected their day-to-day activities. Aaron, Josh and Justin explained that they had originally chosen to occupy Fountain Square, but had left after one night out of respect for a breast cancer benefit that was taking place the next day. Piatt Park was their second choice of location, but it stuck until they were prevented (via arrests) from being in the park after hours. While they still use the park during it’s open hours, they claim that the park was cleaner and had less crime (zero, actually) while they were staying there 24 hours a day than it does under normal circumstances.

Aaron: “(The removal) has negatively impacted the park. It’s also negatively impacted us. I mean, it’s a central organizing principle for the Occupy movement, and it’s difficult to work around not having 30-50 people in the park at all times.”

Opposition
Occupy Cincinnati was the target of it’s fair share of complaints. We asked about one in particular that was echoed by some local politicians, and given quite a bit of press in the local media: that the local businesses felt that OC’s presence in Piatt Park was detrimental to business.

Aaron: Sorry ‘bout it. I mean, really, free speech and freedom of assembly is an inherent right of Americans, and I feel like of people around the world… If they’re minorly inconvenienced by it, I think it’s a small price to pay for the First Amendment. We get a free society out of it, and sorry that your front lawn looks like crap.

Josh: But it doesn’t even, and to refer to them as “local businesses” is a little capacious, because it’s not all local businesses. There are plenty of local businesses here who like and support us. The prime people who complain are these large, money-interested property owners who have building spaces. I mean, we could name the Bortz family and their Towne Property interest as one; LPK, which is a big design and branding firm which works mainly for P&G. Those are the primary people who are concerned about our presence here, because they also don’t like our message.

We also asked about concerns that had been raised, primarily by Leslie Ghiz and Wayne Lippert, that other, less desirable protesters would have to be shown similar deference if Occupy Cincinnati were allowed to remain in Piatt Park 24/7.

Aaron: This is the whole Ku Klux Klan argument, which is “If we let you guys do this, what’s stopping the Ku Klux Klan from doing this?” And my response is: nothing. You know, as horrible and ignorant and vile as they are, I, albeit grudgingly, have to respect their First Amendment rights. I think it’s a human right, and while some of it makes me personally uncomfortable, I’ve been put in this weird position of supporting their right to say the dumbass shit that they say.

Josh: It’s a straw-man that they’ve set up. It’s not a real argument. He’s not put in the position of supporting the KKK. It’s a straw-man argument that the city likes to trot out because of their history on Fountain Square.

Justin: If you believe in free speech, you believe in free speech for everybody. You don’t just believe in free speech for people that you agree with; you agree with free speech and the freedom of people that you totally disagree with. If you’re a country that values free speech, and we are, then there’s free speech for everybody and everybody has the right to peaceably assemble.

This exchange prompted us to ask if they felt that there were any local politicians who had expressed support for their movement. Justin mentioned that Chris Smitherman and Chris Seelbach had spoken out in support of their right to occupy the park, and that they’d been visited by Cecil Thomas as well. Everyone went to great pains to point out that Occupy doesn’t endorse specific candidates, mainly because they feel that any endorsements would exclude too many people; remember, 90% of them have to agree on anything they do. The same thinking didn’t apply, however, to candidates who they felt had worked against them publicly. They spoke out against Ghiz, Lippert, Bortz, and Murray (none of the four were reelected).

Today and Tomorrow
Occupy Cincinnati’s response to the November 15th early morning removal of Occupy Wall Street’s encampment from Zucotti park was essentially immediate; that night 15 OC protesters sat, arms locked, around the James A. Garfield statue facing Vine street, and were arrested for civil disobedience – being in the park after 10:00 PM. Earlier that day, the Rev. Jesse Jackson had approached Josh Spring at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless about connecting locally, and had spoken to Occupy Cincinnati the evening of the 14th, and then again on the 15th after a participating in the Postal Worker’s Union march that day.

Aaron: “Things just fell into place that way, we had the arrests planned, and then  in the middle of the day we’re all ‘what the fuck Jesse Jackson is going to be here!?’ It says a lot that he spent the bulk of his time in the city with Occupy Cincinnati and the Postal Worker’s Union march – which is something that OC was heavily involved in.  What was remarkable was how much he means to so many people.  What he’s done, accomplished, represents… I got out of the way so some of my friends could be closer to him when he was speaking because it was literally a religious experience for some of them. I mean, the man marched with Martin Luther King, you know? He’s got all the street cred in the world.”

Some might question Adbuster’s push to start the Occupy movement in mid-September- though certainly it’s blossoming into an international phenomenon wasn’t planned. Staring down a Midwestern winter, it can’t be encouraging to imagine spending the entire winter as part of a movement that has come to be known for persistent outdoor presence.

Aaron: “We’ll wear coats, the cold sucks. We’re investigating some indoor spaces that will allow us to return to focus on organizing 24/7. We’re also looking at occupying some foreclosed homes or throughout the city, you know, direct action. We want to draw attention to what’s been going on in some of these specific situations – whatever it takes to effect people’s lives for the better.”

In early December, the Occupy movement is two and a half months old. Elections have come and gone, and none of the groups – Occupy Cincinnati included – are making daily headlines – though certainly incidents like the UC Davis pepper spraying have ensured that the public hasn’t forgotten about the Occupiers.  So what’s next for Occupy Cincinnati?

Aaron: “We won big in the local elections last month. If just one of Lippert, Ghiz, Murray, or Bortz had failed to be re-elected, it would have been huge for us. but all four? We might still be in Piatt Park if not for the motions those four supported in City Council. Chris Bortz and Towne Properties [the Bortz family has controlling interest in Towne Properties, which owns several properties around Piatt Park], how is that not a conflict of interest? Anyway, coming up we’ll be in court for the next few moths, you can count on that – a lot of stuff going on. We’ve got fresh batches of charges from recent arrests, so they’ll be even slower to come around. Our cases have already come up once, and the city asked for continuances, out through the first of the year.  Maybe they’re concerned about the rulings, you’d have to ask them. But our long term goal is what’s been said over and over: we want to get money out of politics, and have government be responsive to people, not to dollars.

Note: This profile was a collaboration between Zac from Fatal Downflaw and myself. This article will be cross-posted on both sites. Additionally, there was such an abundance of material that we opted to split it into two parts. The first runs today, the second will run tomorrow.

It’s a chilly night on Vine Street, but the Occupy Cincinnati (OC) members, gathered at the base of the Garfield statue, take little notice – they’re used to inclement weather. We sit down with Aaron, Sonnet, Chelsea, Molly, Josh, and Justin. Our first lesson about Occupy Cincinnati is that they’re tight knit, and as we quickly learn, each other’s greatest supporters. Our second lesson is that  we’re not going to get any one-on-one time with any of them – so our conversation is with the group.

All in all I’ve enjoyed my adventures in Ohio, but now it is time to move on. I was born French Creole from a family that arrived in New Orleans on the first boatload of settlers. The subtropical heat and cultural flambouyance of the Crescent City call to my blood, as do – surprisingly – more concrete economic concerns. A surprising array of new opportunities have opened up for me there recently.

There are some things I pine for. Alligator tenderloin gumbo and frog’s legs with cayenne glaze at Louisiana Bistro. The constant smell of night blooming jasmine. The constant sound of brass, even in the local punk music. And I’ll be honest there is a lot I don’t look forward to, not in the least! Let’s start with 9.5% tax on food at the grocery store and then add in the insane murder rate and post BP toxicity. It’s not ideal, but as flawed as it is it’s home.

I guess it’s a peculiarity of New Orleanians, and one repeatedly borne out by independent observation. Rebecca Corey wrote the following on Kiva: Stories From The Field, and she truly hit the nail on the head (emphasis mine):

Even after Katrina killed 1,835 people, destroyed 275,000 homes and 400,000 jobs, caused $81 billion in property damage, and forced the evacuation of 80% of the New Orleans population, over 140,000 have returned to rebuild. All of the Kiva borrowers with whom I’ve spoken left New Orleans for a while, but each one affirms the same thing: “I always knew I’d come back to New Orleans. There’s no other place like it on earth.” I’ve never seen so many people identify with and love their city with such fervent passion, with such abounding joy, and with such commitment to making it better. I’ll end with a quote from the Talmud that reflects the spirit and determination of the folks I’ve met here. I thank them for their hard work and optimism.

‘Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.’

So it is that I find myself madly packing with very few days left in the Queen City. I’ll still be posting here on occasion, but will be stepping back and allowing the other bloggers to carry the torch. I will do everything I can to make sure that CincyVoices continues to provide thoughtful and entertaining slices of Queen City life. In the meantime I’ll be back for periodic visits, we’re keeping our house in Northside.

It’s been fun. Hopefully I’ll see some of you coming down to NOLA sometime.

I’m going to close with music, as is appropriate for a New Orleanian. This song about sums it up for me.

-Loki

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZs-sHjeS8Q

Keep making waves in the Queen City, and be warned – I’ll be back!