A Letter to Cincinnati, 2109

Today, I had the honor of participating in the burying of a time capsule at the Museum Center to be opened in 100 years. I also submitted a letter in the time capsule to the citizens of our region in 2109. It was a very interesting task, but also a great reminder of how much work we all have to do to ensure that we leave this world and this community better than it was when he inherited it.

For those interested, here's what I wrote . . . (warning -- it's pretty long).

March 29, 2009

Dear Cincinnatians of 2109:

Greetings from 2009. I write this at what is a historic time for our country.

Just two months ago, the nation swore in President Barack Obama, our first African American President. To win that election, he defeated (in the Democratic primary) Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who would have been the country’s first female president. For us, the prospect that the President would either be a woman or an African American made it one of the most momentous elections in our nation’s history. By 2109, I am assuming such outcomes are far less dramatic.

As you read this, I can only hope that we have left you a community and country that is even better and stronger than the one we inherited from our forbears. But as I write this, there are many challenges we must address if we are to succeed.

Economically, we are facing short- and long-term challenges. Short-term, we are experiencing economic difficulties (the deep 2008-2009 recession) that I am confident we will get through if we work hard and learn from our mistakes . But long-term, we are seeing great competition from countries such as India and China, and will have to work hard, and work very smart, to maintain the economic preeminence and high standard of living this country has become accustomed to. You will know better than we if we made the right strategic decisions—to invest in education, technology, infrastructure, transportation, new energy alternatives, worker training and other key priorities—to position ourselves to succeed over the next 100 years.

In recent years, we have also begun to understand the damage many of our past (and current) practices and bad habits have done to our planet. Most citizens are greatly concerned about a trend in recent years of “global warming,” and the widespread and damaging effect it might have if it continues, both on human beings and where we live today, as well as the entire planet and its millions of species. We are struggling to come up with widescale solutions and global cooperation to solve these climate challenges. But we know we must.

One of the key solutions is exploring ways we can provide and use energy without so heavily relying on oil from other countries or energy sources that contribute to global warming and pollute our air. Specifically, we are looking to see if we might do a better job using solar power, wind, hydropower, biomass, and other forms of renewable and clean energy to fuel all the activities we have grown accustomed to. We are also looking into all sorts of ways to travel, live, and conduct business that demand less energy, and create less negative impacts on our environment. Indeed, many governments such as Cincinnati and Hamilton County have recently passed mandates to reduce our “carbon footprint” through 2050. These will require great changes in how we do things in 2009.

Hopefully by 2109, these solutions are in full effect. Even better, I can only hope that they were the first generation of all sorts of other solutions we couldn’t even imagine today—solutions that have allowed our country to thrive economically without damaging our environment and climate any further. (And hopefully as you read this, the temperature of Cincinnati generally varies between 25 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, with anything over 90 seeming rare and very hot. That’s how it is today, and it’s quite comfortable.)

Another major challenge is the state of relations among the world’s countries, religions and ethnic groups. As there has always been, there remains a lot of tension among nations, cultures and religions—particularly at the extremes. But unlike in the past, more and more nations are developing weapons, or trying to, that could wipe out entire cities and regions at once. The United States and the world have a lot of work to do to address these threats and tensions.

While there are many challenges, in other areas, there is also great excitement and progress being made. Over the last several decades, the world has gotten a lot smaller due to new technologies and networks. Rapid development of the computer, the dawn of the internet, cellphones, instant messaging, social networking webpages (more recently), and other changes in recent decades and years have allowed us to communicate quickly, across our planet, in ways few could have imagined even 20 to 30 years ago. They are also having major consequences on how we used to do things—more people, for instance, are reading books and newspapers on computers and smaller hand-held devices, as opposed to paper versions. As fast as these technologies have developed in the past 10 years, we can only imagine what they will be like in 2109. In fact, most of the change that will take place is well beyond our imagination.

Here in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, our view is that those regions that best position themselves to take advantage of these long-term trends will see great opportunity as communities and for individuals. But that those that do not will likely become the “ghost towns” of the future.

Needless to say, we are doing our best to position ourselves to benefit from these new opportunities. It is a tough global competition these days, and our ability to compete will stem directly from our success in 1) creating a quality of life where people and families want to live (this is only getting more important over time), 2) an infrastructure, technology, private sector, and education system that allows us to most effectively compete in this global economy, and 3) a system of government that can effectively help us tackle all these challenges successfully and efficiently. (And my guess is that our forms of government will be dramatically different by 2109 in order to help us accomplish this).

In closing, my hope is that despite all the changes, even in one hundred years, some great local traditions that have withstood the test of time remain unchanged.

Among them, I trust that Graeter’s ice cream (started in 1870) will have grown into a worldwide chain of the best-tasting ice cream on the planet, still based in Cincinnati, and into its 10th generation of leadership.

I am confident that our largest local company, Procter & Gamble, will be in its 272nd year of business, producing and sending across the world products that we can not even imagine today.

I imagine that the friendly rivalry between Cincinnati’s West Side and East side will continue as it has for generations, and only hope we have discovered new and better ways to get across town by then.

And I fully anticipate that Cincinnati will soon open the 240th season of Cincinnati Reds baseball, and we will continue to proudly hold ourselves out as the birthplace of professional baseball all those years ago. Who knows, maybe the Reds will be taking on Tokyo on Opening Day, 2109.

And on a more serious note, I can only hope that the citizens of 2109, when attending Reds’ baseball games and other public events, still stand and sing our National Anthem, hand over heart, with the same national pride we do now. And that you will do so because in all the years between when I write this and when you read this, through thick and thin, we as a nation have continued to live up to our nation’s founding principles of freedom, equality and opportunity for all.

Sincerely,

David Pepper
President
Hamilton County, Board of County Commissioners

Dealing with Jail Overcrowding

There are many things we are working on to try to deal with the safety and jail overcrowding problem amid a tough budget. I've talked about many of them at this blog. Examples include:

• Find ways to get homeless people in shelters and transitional housing, as opposed to jail
• Identify veterans that can be appropriately diverted and receive treatment, paid for by benefits they earned through their service.
• Get citizens with mental illnesses and substance abuse the treatment they need, and out of the revolving door of the jail.
• Improve and reform processes so we move cases more quickly, and house fewer felons waiting for trial.
• Use more electronic monitoring units, and more fully utilize the River City (state-funded) facility.
• Use pretrial services to do "reentry planning" to reduce recidivism.
• Use federal gun laws (Project Disarm) to get the worst offenders into the federal system.

Even in our tight budget, we are working on all these, and many more solutions. They are all important steps.

But even with all these solutions being pursued, there remains a jailspace crunch. Specifically, with a great percentage of jail beds being taken up by accused felons waiting for trial (who, if convicted, will go to the state penitentiary), there are very few spaces left for convicted criminals (misdemeanants) to serve any sentence at all. (Note: Misdemeanor sentences are served at the county jails, while felony sentences are serves at state penitentiaries). And nothing more frustrates judges, police officers or citizens than convicted criminals walking away from sentences because there's no room at the inn.

Which is why, after discussions with Campbell County officials, I offered a plan to the City that was reported in the Enquirer today. Campbell County is willing to house convicted misdemeanants at a far lower rate (under $44 per bed ber day) than is available in Ohio. They are willing to pay to transport these offenders to and from our court. And unlike past agreements, there is no "guaranteed minimum" of beds that must be paid for. So the City would only pay for the beds it uses.

But the point is, through the Campbell County option, the City (or any municipality) could guarantee itself a number of beds for convicted misdemeanants (arrested through their police agency) to actually serve their time.

My role has been simply to facilitate another option. It will up to each jurisdiction to determine if it's worth taking advantage of.

A Real Boost: County Lands $45M+ in Stimulus

Today we received some fantastic news.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland announced his priority transportation projects to be funded by Federal Recovery Act Resources (aka “The Stimulus”). In that announcement, Cincinnati and Hamilton County are slated to receive a total investment of $23.2 million in stimulus funds for the Banks Project. We also received an additional $25 million for other key transportation priorities.

In our stimulus request, we chose to be strategic, and the City and County worked in close collaboration —and we’re thrilled this approach received so much support from the Governor. Overall, we received more than almost all other counties and regions in Ohio.

The result of these investments will be job creation and economic stimulus in the short run, and the transformation of our Riverfront in the long run.

Little Known Fact: Hamilton County Taxes Lower Than Our Peers

Sometimes politics can get in the way of some basic facts. And sometimes politicians don't even look at the facts before they start arguing.

As we try to compete for jobs and businesses in Hamilton County, one fact that always gets bandied about is our rate of taxes. Is it high? Is it low? Especially around property taxes, this has been a highly contested question.

Well, a recent Forbes survey studied property taxes (as a percentage of income) across the state and country, and the results might surprise you.

Of Ohio's six largest urban counties (400,000 people and up), Hamilton County had the lowest property tax, as a percentage of income, in the state. We were 26% lower than Cuyahoga County, 16% lower than Franklin County and 8.5% lower than Summit County.

Of Ohio's 10 largest counties (250,000 and up), we were tied for the third lowest property tax.

Again, these are the results of Forbes research, and a nonpartisan group called the Tax Foundation--not me or Hamilton County.

In addition to this, few people realize that our sales tax is also relatively low.

Of the top 6 urban Ohio counties, we are tied for the lowest sales tax with Summit County. We are 16.5% lower than Cuyahoga County, 7% less than Montgomery County and 4% less than Franklin County. (And don't forget, .5% of our sales tax goes for stadiums, etc., while most of these other Counties' taxes go directly to their governments).

This data does not suggest we should not be tax sensitive. We definitely should be, especially at this challenging economic time for families and businesses.

But what we should also do is realize that, as we compete for jobs and businesses to come our way, we actually have a pretty competitive tax burden when we compare ourselves to the other major counties in Ohio.

UPDATE: Here's a great example of the misinformation that this study rebuts. Americans for Prosperity recently wrote that "Hamilton County . . . has the 2nd highest county property taxes in Ohio." I believe they got that from local sources--looks from this website that then-Commissioner DeWine wrote the same in an editorial. Problem is, it's totally false.

Making Transportation Truly Regional

Today, the Commission approved three new appointees to the Board of the newly reformed Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA). These appointments are historic because they represent the first time this transportation board has had true, regional representation--representing all four Ohio counties from the region.

Equally importantly, the three individuals we appointed will greatly enhance the board because of their personal experience, background, and interest in the area of regional transportation.

To represent Clermont County on the SORTA Board, we selected Ed Humphrey, the President of the Clermont County Board of County Commissioners, who has a strong interest in regional transportation. To represent Butler County, we selected Liberty Township Trustee Christine Matacic, who has been a long-time leader at OKI, our regional transportation planning organization. And to represent Warren County, we selected Gregg Hothem, a private realtor and former developer who also is a member of the Warren County Planning Commission, and an appointee to the Loveland Finance Committee.

These individuals will not only represent their counties well, but they will help lead us into a far more regional approach to public transportation in the coming years.

Community Tour #2: Forest Park

We had an incredibly substantive discussion last night in Forest Park, for our second "community tour" meeting of the year.

The Mayor (Chuck Johnson), City Manager, Vice Mayors and Councilmembers put a lot of time into a presentation that highlighted their priorities of economic development, infrastructure, blighted and foreclosed properties, and public safety.

Needless to say, any regular reader of this blog knows that those priorities align directly with the County's priorities. While we don't have the resources to address these issues as much as we'd like, we look forward to working with Forest Park leaders and other communities to take on these very challenges, and we will follow up on many of their concrete suggestions.

Thanks to Forest Park leaders and citizens for making last night's meeting such a successful and productive session.

Brownfields, Infrastructure and Public Safety

We had a busy week last week--and today the Enquirer posted stories on three items we worked on.

First, we have finalized a list of brownfield revitalization projects for the County, and we are looking for resources to do this work through both stimulus funds and other opportunities. This is a priority for me, because turning these locations into development-ready sites is a critical step to better compete with "greenfields" in other counties for new and expanding businesses. If we don't have good locations, we won't drive the business and job growth we need within the County.

Second, the Enquirer provided nice updates on the Project Disarm and road improvement work I also discussed last week on this blog.