Queen’s City Hall

More Cincinnati City Council endorsements came out late last week and over the weekend. In particular, the Enquirer posted their endorsements on Saturday. They are:
Chris Bortz
Laketa Cole
John Cranley
David Crowley
John Eby
Leslie Ghiz
Greg Harris
Chris Monzel
Cecil Thomas

The Enquirer also listed "a second group of candidates as well worth consideration by voters. While they didn't quite make our top nine, we feel any of them would be valuable, productive members of City Council." They were:
Jeff Berding
Pat Fischer
Joan Kaup
Roxanne Qualls
Charlie Winburn
Wendell Young

Cincinnati Blog has a great write up on his perspective on the endorsements.

I also happened to catch "Alternating Currents" on WAIF 88.3 on Saturday. They had a quest columnist pontificating on the political season. An excerpt from the piece entitled "Scary":

"A white lesbian wins by winning all the liberal democrats, straight-ticket
democrats, and by playing ball with enough conservative power brokers to meet
their needs, sometimes by masquerading in Charterite drag…Scary."

Ouch. Council Candidate Joan Kaup was on after. And while the comment was obviously not about Joan, she is a Charterite and she eventually had to follow that. One issue that the columnist brought up was the idea of having direct neighborhood representational voting, a lá Wards. I think if that was done (and I am not sure I agree) some at-large seats would be required. I am afraid it would fractionalize council beyond effectiveness. A council member from the Westside votes "no" on a streetcar because it doesn’t help his or her ward and constituency for example.

City Beat endorsements come out on October 31st. I can't wait!