By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The proponents of a $480 million bond issue that will rebuild the Cincinnati Public Schools are heading into the stretch run of a campaign that will depend on places like the West End, Cheviot and College Hill.
Campaign organizers say their final commercials and messages target every neighborhood.
But interviews with campaign strategists and an examination of historical voting patterns suggest the following:
To win, campaign proponents must secure votes from predominantly African-American wards, such as those in the West End, where the majority of children attend public schools. Those voters traditionally support the schools.
They must also reach voters in less supportive areas, such as Cheviot, where a high percentage of children attend private schools and voters typically oppose levies.
Finally, there are the key swing wards in Westwood, College Hill and Northside.
The campaign, organized by Cincinnatians Active to Support Education, aims at all of them.
"You're talking about $1 billion being spent in neighborhoods in 10 years," said Eric Avner, campaign coordinator.
"I don't think there's ever been a period in Cincinnati's history that's had that kind of investment in neighborhoods."
The district plans to use the $480 million, 4.89-mill bond issue toward a $1 billion project to build 35 new schools and renovate 31 others throughout the city.
The campaign's TV ads target key demographics. One commercial shows a group of children of different races excitedly running up to a construction site. An announcer says the schools will be community centers with public and recreational space.
A second commercial shows an African-American business owner talking about how the construction project will create more jobs for the city. A third shows an elderly, retired schoolteacher sitting in her home and then walking around a school, talking about how the dilapidated school buildings need to be fixed.
The message: This is a project everyone can rally behind.
Jim Urling, chairman of the anti-tax group the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, said the low-performing district doesn't deserve the money.
"You've got schools that have been turned into nothing but under-performing, over-funded, bureaucratic money pits, and it goes back to decades of mismanagement," he said.
Tough sells important
Wards, like the one that encompasses Cheviot, will be a tough sell. Cheviot residents have opposed every levy for new money in the past five years.
Census data for 2000 showed that Cheviot has one of the highest percentages of children attending private school in Greater Cincinnati - 38.3 percent.
Swaying residents like Jean DiPilla will be critical.
Mrs. DiPilla, an 80-year-old Cheviot resident whose children attended Catholic schools, said the bond issue is just too much.
The school issue would cost owners of a $100,000 market-value home an additional $143 a year.
"I can't afford it," she said. "I don't mind a little, but I do think they are hitting the homeowners pretty hard. I'm all for the kids having decent schools and whatever they need for a good education, but it's a little high of a bill."
Helen Nostheide, a 60-year-old renter who doesn't have children, worries that landowners might increase rent if the issue passes.
"I'll probably oppose most of the issues," she said. "If they all go through, it would be quite a big increase in property taxes."
Despite years of opposition, campaign organizers can't ignore Cheviot.
Of the 3,925 Cheviot residents who cast ballots in the November 2000 levy, the majority voted against it. But a higher percentage of Cheviot voters supported the November levy for new money than those who did in March. In March, 27 percent of Cheviots voters supported the school-district levy while 33 percent did in November.
Just a few percentage points in wards like Cheviot could make a difference between a win and a loss. District officials have reached out to this community by agreeing to restore the historic Cheviot elementary school.
Don't ignore shoo-ins
Voters in the West End say the campaign's message is getting through.
"Downtown has been neglected for too long," said Ebeverheart Dawson, a 62-year-old West End resident who supports the issue. "They let the schools deteriorate. I'm glad they're building them up again."
The facilities plan includes two new schools in the West End (Hays and Porter), while two will be renovated (Lafayette Bloom Accelerated Middle School and Taft High School) for a total of $52 million.
Getting the message across in the West End is critical for a win. The three wards that include the West End and Queensgate overwhelmingly have supported the past four levies, with support reaching up to 86 percent of those voting.
There were 2,597 people who cast ballots from those wards in November, 2000. Their votes helped the school district eke out a win that the district couldn't secure in March that year.
For example, the West End and Queensgate wards supported two levies for new operating money the district attempted in 2000, the first of which failed.
But West End voters came out in greater force for the second levy, with support jumping from 81 percent to 84 percent in one ward and from 75 percent to 80 percent in another.
Jessica Carroll, a 20-year-old West End renter who graduated from Cincinnati Public Schools, said the bond issue will be good for the West End.
"The schools really need fixing up," she said. "If you don't care about education, the city is going nowhere."
Swing wards critical for win
Campaign organizers say they are sending the same message to swing wards, such as Westwood, that they're sending to Cheviot and the West End.
That doesn't mean much to 72-year-old Northside resident Harold Gohs, whose children attended Catholic schools.
"I don't care what the commercials say," he said. "The fact is that the actual number of students (in the district) keeps going down. They have to make do with what they've got."
Mr. Gohs' ward, which includes College Hill, Mount Airy and Northside, is crucial because it holds a lot of voters. In November 2000, 11,368 people cast votes there, with 56 percent supporting the levy. However, that ward opposed two of the last four levies.
The ward that includes Westwood opposed the last three levy requests for new money, but approved a levy renewal in March 2000. They opposed the last levy request in November 2000 by just 24 votes - 5,525 to 5,501.
To some, the message is a good one but the cost is too hard to handle.
Alfred Armstrong, a 71-year-old retired Cincinnati Public School teacher from Westwood, said he's undecided.
"It's a struggle because I've never voted anything down for the schools," he said. "I don't need any more taxes. I'm on a fixed income."
Campaign organizers and school supporters remain confident they can draw enough support from all over the city - even historically unsupportive wards - to pass the bond issue.
"This one is about neighborhoods," said board President Rick Williams. "We try to tell the story to as wide an audience as we can reach. Because this affects every school in the district, it has the interest of those residents who may not have children in the district."
E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com
