Friday, October 22, 1999
Council incumbents defend records
Seven dominate election spending
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
With the seven incumbents running for Cincinnati City Council, it is not only a matter of what they say they will do, it is what they have done.
Unlike most of the 13 challengers in the council field race, the seven incumbents — three Democrats, three Republicans and one Charterite — have records that, when they go out on the campaign trail, they alternately tout and defend.
Most of them will have the resources to get that job done. When it is all said and done, the bulk of the money spent this year on TV advertising, direct mail and other sophisticated appeals to voters will be spent by the incumbents.
The nonincumbents, for their part, are using their generally more limited resources to make the case that this council has been less than effective.
Most, but not all, of the incumbents argue against that assumption. Each has gone out to the dozens of community candidate forums across the city making the case that he or she deserves two more years on council. The incumbents are:
• Paul Booth: Mr. Booth, appointed to council last December when Dwight Tillery resigned, survived a scare this summer when the Hamilton County Republican Party tried to force him off the ballot, saying he lived in a home he owns in Amberley Village instead of an apartment he rents in Oakley.
But the board of elections rejected the Republicans' complaint, and the Democratic councilman has been running a campaign he says runs counter to the “anti-incumbent rhetoric” of the challengers.
“I'm proud of the work I've done on council,” said Mr. Booth, 44.
Mr. Booth said that, as a council member, he focuses on what he calls the “three E's” of city government: “effective, efficient and equitable delivery of services.”
“We need to be sure that all of our neighborhoods, regardless of income level, are getting the same level, the same quality of services,” Mr. Booth said.
• Jeanette Cissell: Mrs. Cissell, who joined council three years ago, says that job training, downtown development and neighborhood revitalization are the issues she specializes in on council.
The 54-year-old North Avondale Republican says in campaign speeches that she wants to be a “consensus builder” on council, working with council members of other parties to solve problems.
“We have to work together if this city is going to move forward,” Mrs. Cissell said.
• Minette Cooper: The 52-year-old North Avondale Democrat is seeking her third term on Cincinnati City Council, spending the last two years as vice mayor.
Two years ago, she ran on a “children first” platform and, on the campaign trail this year, she is telling community council groups and candidate forum audiences that she has made good on her promise to focus on family issues.
She takes credit for increasing the number of Cincinnati Health Department nurses assigned to Cincinnati Public Schools, saying the schools are where “many children end up getting the first medical care of their lives.”
In speeches in African-American neighborhoods, she points out that she is the council member who pointed out the disparities in health care for African-Americans and the rest of the population.
• Phil Heimlich: The Republican incumbent, running for his fourth two-year term, scored political points this month when council, on a 7-2 vote, passed the rollback he had proposed of the city's portion of the property tax.
The Republican Party touted Mr. Heimlich's plan in mailings to Cincinnati voters, even though the rollback was a minimal one — the owner of a $90,000 home in Cincinnati will save about $14.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Heimlich has continued a theme that helped elect him to council six years ago — that of a crime-battling advocate for the Cincinnati Police Division.
Mr. Heimlich is telling voters that he led the battle on council to add 119 police officers to the force and was responsible for putting video surveillance cameras on street corners in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
The 46-year-old Mount Washington resident has made much of the fact that he founded two charter schools and helped raise $2 million in scholarships for low-income children.
• Todd Portune: The 41-year-old Westwood Democrat is running for his fourth term on council and, some say, to be mayor.
In campaign appearances, Mr. Portune takes credit for the plan to pay the Cincinnati Public Schools $100 million that the city had promised without raising taxes.
He is also council's leading advocate of campaign finance reform, having sponsored the 1995 campaign spending limit law that was ultimately struck down by the courts and the 1995 campaign contribution limits law that council repealed on a 5-4 vote just in time for the 1999 council campaign.
Mr. Portune has also been the principal supporter on council of a proposed regional commuter rail line.
• Jim Tarbell: The 57-year-old Clifton resident ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1997, but, last year, he was appointed to council after Bobbie Sterne's retirement.
He is not only the only Charterite on City Council, but also the Charter Committee's only endorsed candidate in the 1999 council election.
Mr. Tarbell is one of those incumbent council members who has been a critic of the present council, saying he wants to return to council to “play a part in establishing some consistency in decision-making.”
“One of the things that has to happen is for council members to get out of the city manager's hair and let the professionals do their jobs,” Mr. Tarbell said, echoing the principle tenet of the Charter philosophy. “Council's job to make policy and set the direction.”
Mr. Tarbell said he would work for what he calls the “economic integration” of Cincinnati's neighborhoods, where neighborhoods would have a mix of low- and upper-income housing and the kind of business development that would make the neighborhoods better places to live.
• Charlie Winburn: Like Mr. Heimlich, the 48-year-old Mount Airy Republican is running for his fourth term on council.
Mr. Winburn has used his chairmanship of council's Neighborhood, Small Business and Environment Committee to position himself as an advocate for Cincinnati's neighborhoods.
As committee chairman, Mr. Winburn says he is responsible for creating new neighborhood business districts and seeing to it that the city put up $5.8 million in seed money that generated another $71 million in private investments in Cincinnati neighborhoods in 1998.
Mr. Winburn organized a group called Fight Against Crack Trafficking (FACT), which stages marches in front of suspected crack houses and other drug-dealing areas in an effort to push drug traffickers out of neighborhoods.
He opposes most gun control legislation and voted against the city's lawsuit against gun manufacturers. He also talked Provident Bank officials into donating $60,000 to provide free handgun locks to city residents.
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