12/20/11 Workbook

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According to the agenda, the City Manager will be presenting a “Cincinnati State Update”, but it gives no further clue as to what that update will include. Let’s hope that it finally includes some concrete information instead of the usual “We expect a deal by____________ (fill in whatever date you want to guess)”.
The City Manager’s report on “local preferences” contains some interesting comments:

“local vendors already enjoy natural advantages, including a more intimate knowledge of their municipality’s needs,…”
Hmm…the very same could be said about local Realtors and commercial developers, couldn’t it??? So why don’t we let them handle the local real estate and commercial development instead of City Hall???
I find it laughable that the City Manager finalizes her argument AGAINST local preferences with the following quote:

“…the existence of preference programs upsets the free market forces that set prices and ensure adequate competition. It can also be argued that establishing any manner of preference in the public procurement process challenges an organization’s ethics by defining a new process to express favoritism in how tax revenues are spent and to establish a market that is no longer fair to all interested parties.”

So...why is it that she, and the City Council, can’t see that this is exactly what they are doing when they subsidize a single enterprise (for example, Pendleton), with tax money, giving them an insurmountable advantage over any possible competitor (and thus establishing a monopoly)??? I guess that she only understands free market economics when one of her pals isn’t involved, or when her significant other or friends do not have a personal interest in the business area involved. The very words that SHE quoted sure indicate that SHE “gets it”. Yet, she is proposing that we upset the free market again with the Sorg Opera building and the other white elephants MMF and Verdin have their sights on. And the free-market, supposedly financial and law educated Republicans on Council appear ready to go along with her anti-free market binge. This seems more like the National-Socialists approach to me.
I might remind the Manager and the members of Council what the Manager says under the “CONFORMITY TO CITY POLICY” of this report on local preferences:

“It is the City’s policy to be responsive to the citizens of Middletown in a cost-effective way that will reduce the amount of tax dollars needed to operate the City.”
I hope that each and every council member will keep this City Policy in mind when they cast their votes on providing money for the purchase of the Sorg Opera building, and similar structures.

From the minutes of the November 2, 2011, Airport Commission meeting:

“Aeronca has offered to help pay for a sign made of steel for the airport. Designs have been discussed and submitted to Marty Kohler.”

I have to wonder if our city sign ordinances will be applied as stringently to this sign as they are to the signs of businesses that Kohler does not favor??? I hope so. Perhaps then it will become obvious how stupid these ordinances actually are, and perhaps they will finally be thrown out. But I doubt it. Kohler will somehow find a way to allow a proper sign for the airport while keeping the stifling ordinances in effect to apply to any business he deems as “tacky”.

The only controversial legislation on the agenda appears to be Agenda Item 3, the $75K for MMF (which I already discussed briefly above).
We already know where this is going: According to the Middletown Journal, MMF has made an offer to buy the former Sorg Opera house. We already know that this is to please the same small group that we already have wasted spent millions to please. 
We also know that $75K is just the start. This building was forced into foreclosure by the City. They did not like the business plan that the former owner was following (too tacky for one of the “sacred” buildings) nor did they like the color scheme (too tacky to be across the street from the historical society), so they constantly harassed them until they could no longer operate. So, not only will the City have to bring all of the items for which they cited the previous owner up to snuff, at a cost that we taxpayers cannot afford, we know that the Historic Commission will delight in asking for a full restoration (to be supervised by a local “historian”, of course) at a cost of millions to we taxpayers before the coveted “certificate of appropriateness” can be granted. (No…I doubt if junk auto hoods will be deemed “appropriate” as a façade for this building. After all, this will be at the taxpayers’ expense---money is no object!!!) 
What I can’t understand is: We are a city that is supposedly going bankrupt. We cannot afford our police, or our firefighters, nor can we afford to maintain our crumbling infrastructure. Our City’s debt is increasing EVERY year!!! Where in the heck are we going to get all of this money???