Compiled from staff and wire reports

Zoo scares up big endorsements for levy

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, gearing up to ask Hamilton County voters to renew its levy next month, has chalked up several endorsements.

The Hamilton County Democratic and Charter parties have blessed the levy, as has the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.

The five-year renewal levy would be lower than the expiring levy - 0.40 mills, rather than the current 0.42 - and raise $6.2 million a year instead of the current levy's $6.5 million. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home less than $10 a year.

The levy campaign, headed by Chip Gerhardt, plans to spend $300,000 in private donations to spread its Renew the Zoo message, Gerhardt said.

Church celebrates new parish center

KENWOOD - St. Vincent Ferrer Parish is celebrating the dedication and blessing of the new parish center and school renovation today.

Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk will preside at a noon celebration of the Eucharist, followed by a procession to the front of the parish center for the blessing of the building at 7754 Montgomery Road.

A brief program will follow with speakers including Brother Joseph Kamis SM, superintendent of Catholic Schools, and the Rev. Terry Hamilton, pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer.

The scope of this $3 million-plus project is the first phase of a two- phase master plan. The project includes connecting the existing school and community building, which houses a new media center, multipurpose room large enough for cross-curricular learning and divisible space for parish meetings and gatherings.

Dime request leads to solicitation arrest

Cincinnati police arrested 55-year-old Melvin Goodwin of Glenmeadow Avenue, Friday on charges of improper solicitation after a man asked a plainclothes officer for 10 cents.

According to police reports, Goodwin asked the officer for the dime after dark and 20 feet from a crosswalk.

He is being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center on $500 bond.

'No shoes, no service' gets court backing

A federal appeals court in Cincinnati rejected a lawsuit Friday by a man who sued the Columbus Metropolitan Library and its administrators after he was asked to leave because he was barefoot.

Robert A. Neinast, of the Columbus suburb of Pickerington, said his constitutional right to receive information had been infringed by the policy that he could not use the library without wearing shoes. Neinast said he regularly goes barefoot.

The requirement that shoes be worn does not directly affect Neinast's right under the First Amendment to receive information, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

The appeals court affirmed U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley's March 2002 ruling that library officials are within their authority to require patrons to wear shoes.