BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

City, county feud over consultant STORY

Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls accused Hamilton County commissioners Thursday of giving away Cincinnati's riverfront to the Bengals in the county's stadium deal with the team.

In a sharply worded letter released Thursday to The Enquirer, Ms. Qualls charges the county with granting the Bengals "veto power" over all riverfront development between the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge and the team's new stadium.

"The terms of this lease virtually assure that the City's central riverfront will remain a stadium parking lot, and nothing else, for a generation," she writes.

She pledges that the city "will not take any steps which would turn the riverfront over to a single private interest and abandon the community's vision of an economically vibrant district on the river."

The city's cooperation is crucial to the stadium project because the city owns land that the county needs. The Bengals' stadium must be completed by August 2000 or the county faces stiff financial penalties.

Hamilton County Commission President Bob Bedinghaus, to whom the letter was addressed, declined to comment on the letter's specifics. He did offer a stinging statement:

"Normally, I'd attribute this kind of silly nonsense to a full moon. . . . But it's this time of year in every council election when council takes a month break that a lot of these shenanigans tend to happen. I'm not going to overreact to Ms. Qualls' obvious election year political pandering."

Mr. Bedinghaus accused Ms. Qualls and City Manager John Shirey of canceling meetings with the county that could clear up what he called "misunderstandings."

"At this point, I'm going to enjoy the Fourth of July holiday and join everyone else in the region in hoping that Cincinnati City Council doesn't screw up this development," he said.

In a meeting with The Enquirer Tuesday, representatives of the county and Bengals disavowed many of the charges, which had been smoldering for weeks.

"The idea that we gave some kind of veto power to the Bengals is absolutely absurd," County Administrator David Krings said Tuesday.

Rather, Mr. Krings described the county's relationship with the team as a "partnership" that is no different than what any developer would have with a major tenant.

The mayor's letter outlines 10 specific concerns, including the following:

• She calls it "unprecedented and inappropriate to allow a private entity the rights granted by the lease." She questions whether the Bengals' rights to concessions throughout the entire area means that only team vendors will be at the Underground Railroad Freedom Center planned for the riverfront.

• She says the "stadium site" defined in the lease includes land that a city-county concept plan dedicates for parks, which she says is also "unprecedented and inappropriate."

• She charges that the Bengals' parking, concession and approval rights could make development of theaters, retail, restaurants, entertainment and projects like the Freedom Center "impossible."

• She argues that vague lease language surrounding parking revenue rights could end up granting the team parking revenues for the whole riverfront every day of the year. The language will make it "infeasible" to finance public parking garages, she writes.

• She says the Bengals have the right to specify the number of parking spaces "without limit" that they need year-round for employees and guests.

• The fact that the "stadium site" includes city-owned land, which the county has no right to lease, "brings into question the validity of the lease," she writes.

Ms. Qualls' letter is the latest in a series of disputes the city and county have had over the stadium project. The team's new $270 million Paul Brown Stadium will sit roughly between Central Avenue and Elm Street, with a curved Pete Rose Way to the north and Mehring Way to the south.

Troy Blackburn, the Bengals' director of stadium development, said earlier this week that the team wants "desperately" for the central riverfront to be developed because that would help the Bengals.

But the team also wants to make sure the stadium's prized views of the Ohio River and downtown Cincinnati are not blocked by neighboring structures, Mr. Blackburn said.

City economic development officials are negotiating to put a 20-plus screen movie house and a 3-D Theater of the Imagination on the riverfront. Such 3-D theaters can be nine stories high, Mr. Bedinghaus said Tuesday.

But as of Thursday, the county had received no detailed plans for the project, Mr. Bedinghaus said.