BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
With just 10 days until Hamilton County's vote on Issue 11, advertising in the baseball stadium campaign has taken a distinctly different turn.
The first TV ads from both sides offered competing visions for the community's future. The Broadway Commons campaign played on nostalgia for Crosley Field. The riverfront campaign tapped into the desire to transform Cincinnati's riverfront.
But new spots unveiled this week make very different pitches.
The pro-riverfront campaign's new commercial features two Over-the-Rhine residents who don't want a stadium built at Broadway and Reading Road. The new Broadway commercial shows men in suits with paper bags over their heads and tells voters "big-money suits" are behind the efforts to build a Reds ballpark on the riverfront.
"It sounds to me like both sides are pulling out additional stops, and I think that's almost inevitable," said Stephen Bennett, a University of Cincinnati political science professor who has followed the issue.
Here come spitballs
Mr. Bennett predicted in August that the debate could get "down and dirty" and said Friday that he actually expected that to happen sooner in the campaign than it has.
The Broadway Commons' "suitboys" ad appears to try to convince voters that corporate power brokers downtown -- and not a grass-roots campaign -- are behind efforts to get a new stadium on the riverfront. Riverfront campaign chairman John Schneider on Friday dismissed the "suits" ad as "silly."
"I think it's indicative of a campaign that's lost its focus."
The new riverfront ad aims to show voters who care about Over-the-Rhine that residents don't want a new ballpark there. Mr. Bennett said the strategy appears to be an effort to pick up undecided voters.
Broadway campaign coordinator Melisa Rottinghaus responded to the new riverfront ad by saying, "Forty-five thousand people, including hundreds from Over-the-Rhine, have been on record for a long time now that we do want baseball on Broadway. We wonder how deep the Wedge had to dig to scrape up two people who don't."
Issue 11, it appears, is getting hotter and hotter as Election Day draws near.
The ballot measure asks voters to create a county charter that would require any new Reds ballpark be built at Broadway and Reading Road. The county already has a deal with the Reds to build a new stadium next to the Crown at the site known as Baseball on Main or the "Wedge." The stadium siting issue has drawn passionate advocates.
The Over-the-Rhine Community Council, a residents' group, went on record about a year ago opposing a Broadway ballpark, said Berta Lambert, a community council trustee who has been volunteering for the pro-riverfront campaign by distributing "vote no" yard signs and literature throughout Over-the-Rhine.
Mr. Lambert added that he also opposes the idea of a housing development at the Broadway site, something the pro-riverfront campaign has been promoting.
The Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce supports baseball on Broadway so strongly that it gave $10,000 to the pro-Broadway campaign and sponsored full-page ads this week listing 22 reasons why the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission endorsed Broadway as the best spot for a new Reds ballpark.
Endorsements denied
Those newspaper ads have become the subject of some controversy. The ads listed 22 organizations and seven individuals that the ad says endorsed the Broadway location. Several organizations sent letters to the pro-riverfront campaign this week denying they had ever endorsed Broadway.
The director of Leadership Cincinnati wrote that he is unaware of any formal endorsement by Class XX, as listed on the ad.
The chairman of Downtown Cincinnati Inc.'s residential committee wrote that his committee supported Broadway two years ago but has since endorsed the riverfront as the best site. The DCI Small Business Development Committee chairman wrote that his committee never endorsed either site.
A local and a national representative of the Urban Land Institute both wrote to say that ULI had never endorsed Broadway.
Broadway proponents point to a 1996 report by ULI Advisory Services that says of the Broadway site, "Traffic access is good, and this location would be a positive economic influence because of the job opportunities and entertainment district business it would generate before and after ballgames."
You make the call
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