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City Council Approves Appropriations for Revenue of 2013 Casino

Posted on October 4th, 2010

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A casino that doesn’t even have walls or pillars has its revenue not only scrutinized, but already appropriated for several projects of the city. The city of Cincinnati is expecting revenues of $20 million a year from the casino that will not be opening until, if projections are to be believed, 2013. However, the date has not discouraged the council from already pushing for projects that it wants the casino income to be funneled into. At the start of the week, the Council already announced that it would be appropriating half of the income to come from the casino to the Port Authority, which is seen to attract a lot of investors and generate a lot of income opportunities for the area’s residents. Now, the council has thought of another project again to where income from the casino can be spent – the operations of the city’s streetcars. The council set the budget to be a quarter of the projected casino income in a meeting in the middle of last week, which was full of confusion, negotiations and delays.

Half of the projected revenue will be going to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority. The port authority will be spending such funds for projects that will spur economic development. The measure was announced Monday, but a number of observers noted that the appropriations for the other half of the income were not yet divulged, that is until Wednesday. After the meeting on Wednesday, the whole income was budgeted, with the council not seeking any public approval or input. Among the other items the council has forwarded as the beneficiaries of the budget are city facilities, which will be given 14 percent, Fort Washington Way decks, which will be given 10 percent of the income, and improvement and maintenance of the city’s outdoor sculptures at 1 percent.

Where the money will go was finally agreed upon after a meeting behind closed doors among the members of the council and the city’s mayor, Mark Mallory. It was the mayor who pushed for the budget for the streetcars, as he said that this move would be more of an impetus for federal agencies to have the request for additional money for streetcars finally granted. Meanwhile, the push for budget for the sculptures was done by Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan. With the budget, she wants to hold a contest for the sculptures where the public can be the judges.

Not everyone is excited about these developments, though. Jack Greiner, a lawyer for the Enquirer commented that the meetings among the mayor and council members have been a violation of the meetings law of the state. The mayor, according to Ohio’s meetings law, can only meet with up to four council members at one time. He is not allowed by the law to hold a series of meetings like what happened last Wednesday with the purpose of building a consensus. Greiner said, “That needs to happen in public.” Those serial or round-robin meetings have been considered illegal since 1995 by the Supreme Court of the state. The editors of the Enquirer have stated that they are planning to make their objection about how the meeting took place public.

Aside from the casino budget, the council has also approved the appropriation of $1 million of the capital budget of the city to the port authority for 2 years, 2011 and 2012. With that money, the officials of the port can now do a nationwide search for an executive director which they could have at the start of the year. The meeting bought a number of very good antics from each of the council members. For example, Leslie Ghiz a councilwoman wanted some of the money to go to public safety, so she just approved for the port authority measure. When it was time to vote, she missed it as she was in the ladies’ room.

Meanwhile, Councilman Cecil Thomas was hot and cold about the whole issue. The whole time, he was against everything, but then voted for the measures, and finally decided to vote no on some of the items. But then he voted for it. Then he changed his mind and voted no on some of it. The mayor, who was present in the proceedings, started getting frustrated, but became amused when, after making a passionate speech about how the whole appropriations matter, was making him sick, Councilman Thomas voted in the affirmative.