Sunday, January 03, 1999
Plenty of big news awaits Tristate
The expected stuff alone includes zingers
BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Nobody can accuse 1998 of being a dull year, what with a presidential impeachment, John Glenn's historic return to space and the local fight over the Reds stadium location.
While nobody can promise that kind of excitement in 1999, there are events, trends and ideas virtually certain to make news.
There will, of course, be the unexpected names and issues. (After all, the nation didn't know the name Monica Lewinsky this time last year.)
But Cincinnati Enquirer reporters have used the best available crystal balls, tea leaves and press releases to predict at least some of what will make news in 1999.
Politics
This month, Hamilton Countians will take over Columbus. That means Cincinnati streets soon will be paved with gold.
OK, having local guys as governor, secretary of state, treasurer and state Senate president won't be that good for Southwestern Ohio.
But local officeholders are licking their chops at the prospect of having the ears of homegrown Gov.-elect Bob Taft and Scott Borgemenke, his senior policy adviser.
“It's about more than just money. It's about the ability to get out from underneath hard-and-fast state and federal rules,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Bob Beding-
haus. “It's our ability to do our job better for the taxpayer.”
Still, Mr. Bedinghaus acknowledged, “We are always anxious to relieve the state of additional funds if they find it necessary to lessen their bank accounts.”
Charges that George Voinovich knowingly violated Ohio
election law will be resolved in 1999. If affidavits by either the governor's brother or campaign treasurer are proven to be correct, Mr. Voinovich could find himself facing accusations that he lied — the same accusations that President Clinton will confront at a trial decided by Sen. Voinovich and his 99 colleagues.
Closer to home, it's a Cincinnati City Council election year. That means the airwaves and news pages soon will be filled with incumbents and newcomers trying to make the voters love them best.
Council members Todd Portune and Charlie Winburn are thought to be the front-runners to become the city's next mayor — the prize for the highest vote-getter in the field race.
Of course, there's a group in town working to dump the way city government has functioned in Cincinnati for more than 70 years.
Build Cincinnati, a coalition of Republican and Democratic party activists, favors a directly elected “strong mayor” and council members elected from districts. The group hopes to have the change on the May primary ballot.
If the plan makes the ballot and is passed by voters, it would go into effect in the 2001 — making the 1999 city council election possibly the last one in which council is elected in an at-large field race.
Other local communities face big political changes in 1999, too.
Lebanon will see City Manager Richard Hayward, an 11-year veteran, step down by May 31.
And in Silverton, a new municipal administrator will go to work July 1. Voters approved a charter change that provides for the appointment of a manager after struggling with a financial crisis that kept Silverton in the news for much of 1998.
Riverfront face lift
News about stadium construction and the transformation of Cincinnati's central riverfront won't go away any time soon.
The Bengals' new Paul Brown Stadium will continue to rise from the western riverfront, and work on Fort Washington Way will continue to drive motorists to other local roads.
In February, city park planners will unveil a design for a new riverfront park, and they'll tell taxpayers how much green all that green space will cost.
In April, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is expected to unveil a design for its riverfront museum.
By midyear, a new advisory group will recommend a plan for what kinds of shops and restaurants to build along the riverfront between the new football stadium and a new Reds ballpark west of the Crown.
In the summer, construction crews will break ground on an $18 million, two-level transit center near the riverfront that will help cars, buses and someday, maybe, trains get people to and from downtown and the riverfront.
And by summer, Hamilton County and the Reds will give the region a peek at how the new Reds ballpark will look on the riverfront.
Still, none of it will be finished in 1999. It will be August 2000 before the Bengals stadium and the new Fort Washington Way are finished, and 2003 before the rest of the riverfront puzzle falls into place.
Cincinnati City Councilman Jim Tarbell hopes his colleagues spend energy and resources in other parts of town, too.
“We are absolutely crazy if we hang our hopes for the city of Cincinnati on what we expect to happen on the riverfront in 1999,” he said.
All the work depends on cooperation between Cincinnati and Hamilton County elected officials. The politicians have been known in the past for bickering and name-calling. But recent city-county meetings have been virtual love-fests.
“It's good to dust off the peace pipe,” said Hamilton County Commission President Tom Neyer Jr., who predicted the spirit of cooperation will continue in 1999. “I think you have a shared sense of urgency.”
Convention center push
Early this year, the big push for expansion of the Albert B. Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center will begin.
The expansion is destined to be the next megaproject for the community now that the stadium decisions will be settled, and it's bound to be pricey.
Estimates for an old expansion plan carried a price tag of $300 million. If the stadium project taught anything, the community learned that those numbers tend to go up as time goes by.
Expect a big-time sales pitch on why an expanded convention center is needed. Political and business leaders are sold on the need, but they'll need to convince taxpayers, too.
Suburban growth
Hamilton County's neighbors to the north will continue growing at breakneck speed.
As the state's second-fastest growing county, Warren County showed in 1998 that it has what it takes to continue its strong growth through 1999 and well into the beginning of the next century.
Even as that growth brings building booms and jobs, it also promises to bring some of the problems of sprawl: burdened infrastructure, less available land, and crowded roads and schools.
“It just doesn't slow down here. I don't feel it will change in 1999,” said Robert Craig, director of planning for the Warren County Regional Planning Commission.
Residential and commercial growth in Butler County is expected to continue in 1999, too, as work continues on major highway projects in the county.
Education
That growth has a tremendous impact on schools.
Some Warren County school officials are trying to manage their rapidly growing districts. Three new school buildings are in the works after three opened this fall.
Two Warren County districts, Ma son and Springboro, were among the top 10 fastest-growing in the Tristate over the last year in terms of new students.
In Cincinnati, expect more charter schools to be approved, forcing Cincinnati Public Schools officials to step up reforms and possibly close more schools than anticipated — or come up with an aggressive strategy to win students back.
Also, controversy will continue over the Cincinnati Public Schools' $697 million facilities master plan, a blueprint to guide building improvements for the next 15 years.
While improvements aren't expected to start for three to five years, district leaders will start searching for funding sources and land sites.
And CPS could face state sanctions this year. Ohio will release its first official version of school district report cards this year, ranking schools based on proficiency data, attendance, dropout rates and other figures.
In a draft version of the report cards last year, CPS was declared in a state of academic emergency. If the same holds true this year, the district could face state-mandated intervention or assistance.
The big education news in Ohio will come when the Ohio Supreme Court decides whether the new school-funding plan enacted by state lawmakers is constitutional.
If the justices scrap the plan, expect a free-for-all that could have major implications on the state budget and taxes.
Health care
Managed-care issues will continue to dominate health-care news in 1999. Congress is expected to reconsider allowing patients to sue health-maintenance organizations as part of a health-care bill of rights.
And senior citizens in Ohio who got stung by Medicare HMOs in 1998 will be watching to see if Congress does anything about it in 1999.
Cincinnati hospitals will keep consolidating and rearranging their services, with far-reaching implications for jobs and patient care. The moves will affect everything from the length of hospital stays to the type of prescription drugs they get.
Medical research will continue to pump out better medicines and treatments. Advancements in genetic research will keep narrowing the gap between science fiction and reality.
And plenty of smoke will blow this year as Ohio health agencies and politicians argue over how to spend money from the nationwide settlement with the tobacco industry.
The courts
Larry Flynt will be back. He'll be brazen. And he'll be in the news fighting for free speech and the right of all good people to buy magazines and videos filled with dirty pictures.
The Larry and Jimmy Flynt trial promises to be one of the nation's biggest obscenity trials since their last court fight here in 1977.
In March, Ralph Lynch faces a possible death sentence when he goes to trial on charges that he raped and murdered 6-year-old Mary Jennifer Love.
The girl was the subject of a search for nine days this past summer before Mr. Lynch led Hamilton County Sheriff's officers to her body.
And in April, a former lawyer for Chiquita Brands International Inc. goes to trial on charges of stealing voice-mail messages from the company.
He's accused of providing the secret codes that helped a reporter for The Enquirer access the system for stories about the company. The newspaper's stories and subsequent apologies made national news in 1998.
The lead reporter on the series was fired, the other reporter left for another job, and the paper's editor left for a job at the Enquirer's parent company. The newspaper expects to get a new editor in 1999.
Criminal justice
This year, Cincinnati City Council is expected to decide whether the city should create a police-civilian review board to check on police investigations of misconduct.
The final decision will come two years after the controversial police shooting death of Lorenzo Collins. A Justice Department mediator was called in by council to examine community concerns after the fatal shooting.
After several public hearings in 1998, council is preparing to act.
“It is the hardest work that council has done in the last 10 years,” said Councilman Tyrone Yates, chairman of council's Law and Public Safety Committee.
Also, this month, a 911 steering committee is expected to recommend improvements to staffing, training and equipment.
The committee was formed by Cincinnati Safety Director Kent Ryan after the deaths of two Cincinnati police officers shot in the line of duty.
The city fired two 911 workers because of mistakes made when Spc. Ronald Jeter and Officer Daniel Pope were killed in December 1997.
Environment
In mid-1999, communities throughout the Tristate will get shocking news from their corporate neighbors.
Every firm that falls under the federal “right to know” law must reveal the worst possible accident that could be caused by hazardous and toxic materials that they store or use.
If they've complied, those companies already are on record for what those materials are.
Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires them to have risk-management programs that reveal what could happen to neighbors if everything went wrong ... and how they plan to cope.
Enquirer reporters Tanya Albert, Tim Bonfield, Tanya Bricking, Michael D. Clark, Lisa Donovan, Dana DiFilippo, Amy Higgins, Michael Hawthorne, Dan Horn, Allen Howard, Julie Irwin, Ben L. Kaufman, Steve Kemme, Miriam Smith, Sandy Theis, Richelle Thompson and Howard Wilkinson contributed.
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TRISTATE DIGEST
Some politicians to watch for
