Tuesday, December 17 2013
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MLK Interchange Project Held to Different Standard?
While Mayor Cranley has repeatedly and publicly expressed his fervent opposition to the streetcar, his passion for the MLK interchange has to some, represented a double standard. At Monday's council meeting, members posed some of the same questions to supporters of the interchange as were lobbied at streetcar proponents. Among them, whether the maintenance costs for the interchange will be paid by the city vs. private funds, whether the project will affect property tax rates and what is the overall economic impact of the project.
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City Council Budget Committee Advances MLK and 71 Interchange Project
A Cincinnati City Council Budget Committee effectively voted to prevent the city from lowering property taxes as planned by unanimously approving the allocation of $20 million in capital funding to the Martin Luther King Drive and Interstate 71 interchange project. The $106-million project is expected to produce somewhere between 5,900 and 7,300 jobs in and around the uptown area. The property tax savings to residents would have been an annual $10 per $100,000 home valuation after 2017.
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Merry Christmas: Congress Could Let 36,000 Ohioans Lose Unemployment Benefits
More than 36,000 Ohioans could lose unemployment benefits in December if Congress doesn’t vote to extend emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed past Dec. 28. Another 128,600 would lose benefits in 2014 if Congress doesn’t take action on the issue. The benefits currently cost the country more than $25 billion a year and would sustain or create more than 310,000 jobs by allowing the unemployed to buy goods and services.
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Bengals Punter Injured in Last Sunday’s Game
During Sunday's loss to the Pittsburg Steelers, Bengals punter Kevin Huber suffered a hit that will force him onto the sidelines for the remainder of the season. As a result of the hit by Steelers linebacker Terrance Garvin, which many have deemed wholly unnecessary, Huber sustained a broken jaw and cracked vertebrae in his neck. Garvin is expected to be fined by the NFL this week.
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Controversy and Debate Surround the Kentucky Gas Pipeline
The Cincinnati Enquirer has an in-depth story about what’s at stake for the proposed Bluegrass Pipeline that’s designed to carry natural gas liquids through Kentucky into refining facilities in the northeastern United States. The controversial project is slated to be up and running by 2015 and is set to pay out more than $140 million in easement payments to Ohio residents and another $40 million to those in Kentucky. The proposed route for the pipeline is pitting neighbor against neighbor and carries with it a range of environmental concerns, including risk for explosion or spilling. About 6,000 to 7,000 temporary jobs will be created during construction of the pipeline.
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