Republican Cincinnati Councilman Charlie Winburn: Pocketing $$$ That 'Could Be Illegal'

Refunds From City Council Members



 CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Fifteen months ago, Charlie Winburn was running for a seat on city council and said he had uncovered chicanery at City Hall.   Sitting council members were receiving health care insurance and pension fund contributions that he called "unauthorized benefits received through current budget expenditures."  And their salaries were too high.  Republican candidate Winburn was blowing the whistle on the scam.  He issued an Aug. 25, 2009 press release under this headline:  "Winburn calls upon city council to give up questionable taxpayer funded health and pension benefits."   The move would save $400,000 and end a practice that Winburn said "could be illegal."   



Fast forward to today.  Winburn appears to be taking the benefits of public office that he deemed improper at best, illegal at worst.  Despite the talk, once in office Winburn never seems to have lifted a finger to halt practices he denounced as possibly illegal.  Of course, it could be that his complaints were a scam, an effort to make something out of nothing.  In fact, he now seems to be sharing in the loot -- or what he considered loot when he was on the outside.  And though he has the option of refunding his paycheck to the city, he doesn't seem to have given much back.  Winburn appears to personify an old proverb:  Talk is cheap.      

Winburn could use the city's voluntary refund option to return all, or part, of his $60,650 annual council salary to the city.  Records (up to date through 11/18, see accompanying chart) show he returned $1,400 last January.  The same City Hall finance and accounting records show Democratic Mayor Mark Mallory refunds $165.87 out of each paycheck; Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, another Dem, returns $96.82 biweekly, and Councilman Cecil Thomas, also a Dem, gives back $50 from each paycheck.  Republican Leslie Ghiz refunded $132.80 last January.  Refunds from the three Democrats total $5,941.11 so far this year.  Together, the two Republicans have refunded $1,532.80. 

Both Winburn and Ghiz have complained that council's pay package is too much -- yet they haven't shown much interest in voluntarily rebating sums they consider excess.  Winburn in particular was opposed to the salary, health insurance and pension contributions benefits for council members, whom he described as part-time workers.  He said council members got a full-time salary for a part-time job.  From his press release 15 months ago (when he was running for office):

"Current city policy for part time employees who work less than 30 hours per week does not provide health care benefits.  This decision to cut benefits would put all part time employees, including council members, on the same playing field as it applies to health care benefits.

"Winburn said Councilwoman Ghiz's (she, too. was running for office at the time) proposal to cut council pay is a good start but doesn't go far enough in reforming the total council compensation package for city council members . . ."

Winburn said any savings should go to prevent the layoffs of fire and police.  Now it looks like it was all talk.  Winburn, who complained last week that the city misspent $5,000 on a streetcar display on Fountain Square, is silent about his own complicity this year in activities he labeled possible misfeasance last year.  After all, it was he who said council's payroll package "could be illegal."  Meanwhile, he hasn't noted that the money refunded by the mayor, Qualls and Thomas exceeds the cost of the streetcar display.  And city officials who handle Cincinnati's payroll and budgeting say they haven't heard very much this year from Winburn about cutting his own salary, or reducing benefits packages.

Chris Bigham, superintendent of accounts and auditing over payroll at City Hall, said Winburn has taken the full amount of every council paycheck since January:  "I have not heard one word from him about refunds or anything like that.  He did make a donation earlier this year."

Budget Director Lea Eriksen said she has no memory of Winburn contacting her about reducing his council salary and benefits.   "No, he's not brought that up to me,'' Eriksen told The Daily Bellwwether.  "I follow Council items closely.  If he would have done anything, I would have seen it."

So what could Winburn voluntarily cut from his own pocket?  Here's the list of things that he wanted slashed:  $65,670 in salary; $9,198 annual pension benefits; $5,000-$8,000 annual health benefits.  He said council's compensation package was "$83,268 approximate total of annual compensation."   And in Winburn's world every penny was "questionable" and "could be illegal" and "misinterpretation of what they are entitled to under the term 'compensation.'"

[UPDATE: 4:55 pm -- Winburn copied The Daily Bellwether on an e-mail he sent out today that explains why he's taking city benefits:  "Regarding your inquiry, I based my original question upon a plain reading of the Cincinnati City Charter. We asked and the city administration answered. They determined that the benefits paid for council members were considered compensation and were not a violation of the Charter. When I joined Cincinnati City Council in December, 2009, I opted out of the City-provided benefits because I was covered under another plan. I was subsequently told by the City that I could not opt out of their plan and was required to be covered. If you can provide any further information to me on whether these benefits are illegal, please let me know so that I can opt out altogether."]

Cincinnati Councilman Chris Bortz Harassed By Mental Midgets: Ethics Panel Should Toss Complaint In Shredder

Lawyer Ties Bortz To Tracks

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Somebody should nickname the ethics complaint filed by lawyer Tim Mara a "streetcar named esquire." Because that's what it really is, a rail job by someone licensed to practice law.  Mara wants the Ohio Ethics Commission to remove a Cincinnati City Council member, a move akin to impeachment.  Chris Bortz's sin -- he has performed his public duties.  And it is all about street cars, and misguided allegations that Chris Bortz somehow is secretly taking a range of actions to build a $128 million streetcar project in Cincinnati.  Somehow the secret moves will enrich his relatives.  Bortz has recused himself from all decisions about the streetcars to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.  He has not facilitated a discussion, nor has he voted to build the system.  There is no evidence, not a scintilla, that he has the power or juice -- or to borrow a Chicago term "clout" -- to sway closed-door decisions about how the streetcar project proceeds.  Mara's attack seems designed only to debase an elected official, a mean-spirited swipe akin to the SLAP suits that corporations are notorious for filing against their critics.  Mara may not be abusing process, but the smell is there.

Members of the Bortz family are real estate developers with interests and holdings throughout SW Ohio.  A handful of the properties are near the proposed streetcar line that would run from downtown, through Over-the-Rhine to near the University of Cincinnati campus.  There are many people who believe the $128 million project -- funded by city bonds and federal transit grants -- will be an economic disaster.  Proponents believe it will stimulate commercial development in a largely depressed area.  Truth is, nobody knows for sure what will happen if the streetcars actually start to run.

And that is why the Ohio Ethics Commission should toss Mara's complaint into the nearest shredder.  If they do not have one, The Daily Bellwether will make a donation.  One wonders what is the motivation behind the complaint.  Anti-Semitism perhaps?  The Bortz's are Jewish.  They have a long record of public service in Cincinnati.  They are model citizens, role model citizens.  Nobody knows if the streetcar project will open up the door to commercial prosperity, or if it will be a catastrophe.  Logic is clear -- Bortz cannot be promoting his private financial interests even if he were taking official actions to back a project that might suck millions out of the city budget.  There is no commercial advantage to running an unused, heavily subsidized streetcar through neighborhoods that won't have cops or firemen or building inspectors to enforce the codes.  Mara seems to be on the side that believes the streetcars are doomed to failure, and he said in his formal ethics complaint (filed Oct. 25):

"I believe Mr. Bortz . . . not only has displayed an utter disregard for Ohio ethics laws . . . but a general disdain for the public he is supposed to serve."

Wrong, Mr. Mara.  You contend Bortz is supposed to adopt a policy of complete aloofness.  I say there is no sense of menace, no demonstrated self-dealing that rubs uncomfortably against the public interest.  His family does not have a commercial monopoly over the streetcars, nor does it have a commerical monopoly over real estate along the proposed streetcar route.  And there is absolutely no evidence that the streetcars will become a well-worn path of travel leading to the Bortz family holdings.  Mara's complaint is largely based on a pretension.  For Bortz to knowingly profit from his City Council office, he would have to know the future -- that the streetcar line would make nearly all garrets on the route rented, every chair in every restaurant packed, every garden party tour booked, every property coveted by hungry investors.

Ethics laws in Ohio were designed to eliminate conflicts of interest.  A city councilman, for example, should not vote to purchase goods or services from a company he owns, or has a stake in.  But they were never intended to stop elected officials from promoting the public good in a broader manner.  For example, a council member would be allowed to vote for schools even if he were a teacher, or if his family had someone on the school system payroll.  He could not vote to buy a school from himself or his family -- a bright line conflict.  That is not the case with Cincinnati's street cars.  There is only a chance that streetcars will benefit the city.  If they succeed, there is a chance that some of that benefit could spill over to the Bortz family interests.  But chance is not a guaranteed pay off.

Let's take another angle.  What if there were a fire station at stake?  Would Bortz be wrong to vote to add fire protection in a neighborhood where his family has real estate?  And what if there were a medical disaster -- an outbreak of cholera near the Bortz family holdings?  Would Bortz violate the ethics laws to vote to send medical aid into disease-stricken neighborhoods where the family's commercial interests were located?  Of course not.  With fire halls and inoculations, the public good would outweigh any private interest.

Sobering Data For Cincinnati's Streetcar Plan? In Portland, The Real Estate Bubble Has Burst

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Advocates of building a streetcar line in Cincinnati could be right. The $182 million project might trigger a housing and commercial revival. But real estate prices have collapsed in Portland, the Oregon city whose 9-year-old streetcar system has been held up as a model. The Portland Real Estate Blog reported earlier this month the city's real estate market is miserable:

"Issued building permits through October declined across the country with Portland and other Oregon markets fairing worse than the national and regional averages." (The data in the graph above is from the National Association of Home Builders.)

And The Cincy Blog noted this week that Portland's home prices have deflated at rates few U.S. metropolitan areas have seen: "Good news for property owners around greater Cincinnati- we’re not listed in the recent Forbes Magazine article naming U.S. cities with the fastest-falling housing prices."

Where have home prices fallen the most? Here's the list:

1. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Cal.

2. Salt Lake City, Ut.

3. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, N.C.-S.C.

4. Denver-Aurora, Co.

5. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Or.-Wa.

6. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, Ga.

7. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Cal.

8. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Cal.

9. Austin-Round Rock, Tex.

10. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.

None of this suggests that a Cincinnati streetcar won't be economically viable. Nor does it mean that it won't be fun to ride. But the real estate data from Portland shows property values fluctuate based upon macroeconomic conditions. Reckless lending, Wall Street excess, financial shenanigans and high leverage presaged an overheated real estate market and the biggest economic blowup since the Great Depression. Streetcars didn't create the boom in Portland, and they didn't let the air out. Blame and credit seems to belong to a speculative bubble.

Cincinnati Street Car Boosters: Have They Studied Cleveland's $70 Million Waterfront Line?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The 2.2-mile Waterfront Line is a light-rail loop built with state funds in 1996 that connects Cleveland's downtown to the Flats and Lake Erie waterfront. By 2002, ridership was so sparse that trips were cut. Cleveland's RTA director called it "a transportation manager's nightmare." Now, streetcar boosters in Cincinnati are pushing a $102 million plan for a loop from the Ohio River to Over-the-Rhine. They say: Look at Portland, Oregon. Nothing seems to be mentioned about Cleveland's experience. Some supporters in Cincinanti appear to be angry that anyone would even dare question the wisdom of putting streetcars back on the tracks.

[UPDATE: 2:57 PM 2/2/08 -- At the Cincinnati Beacon today there is more about streetcars, along with a sensible suggestion for an experiment. The test: Paint lines on the street matching the width of tracks and run a trolley on the path to see if people ride it. "With a painted line, people can physically see the route -- as with a streetcar line. And Metro already has some buses designed to look like trolley cars . . . Would there be substantive ridership?"]

But Democratic City Councilman John Cranley -- who is asking the hard questions -- probably knows something about what happened in Cleveland. Ridership plummeted by nearly 40 percent after two years. The Flats didn't grow -- in fact, it faded out as an entertainment district. Cranley has some Cleveland ties; his roommate at John Carroll University there was Joe Cimperman, a Dem Cleveland councilman who represents the city's downtown ward. This year, Cimperman is challenging U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the OH-10 primary, and actually has a chance of knocking him off on March 4.

Cincinnati's envisioned streetcars are not quite the same as Cleveland's RAPID, but they both are designed to haul passengers on rails. In Cincinnati, boosters point to Portland, Ore., where they say the downtown streetcars helped trigger $2 billion in residential and commercial development along a 4.2 mile loop. In Cleveland, despite initial hopes, that hasn't happened 11 years later. By January 2002, The Plain Dealer's Rich Exner found a third fewer trains were running on the line than at the start. He also found Norman Krumholz, Cleveland's former planning director and a professor at Cleveland State University, who said:

"Nobody should be surprised that it is not carrying many passengers. It doesn't go through any areas of very dense residential development. It doesn't go through any areas of high-density employment. What RTA has got to do is try to urge the city to build more housing close to the line, develop more opportunities close to the line."

In contrast, the State of Ohio's 1997 transportation system report was rosy about the Waterfront Line and its prospect for making Cleveland grow:

"The Waterfront Line provides a wide range of economic and environmental benefits. The rail line's potential to move people from one downtown destination to another is advancing some long-delayed development projects, increasing property values along the route and creating new opportunities for urban development. Since its opening, developers have completed or announced plans for new development. New apartments, restaurants and other buildings have already opened and plans for a new hotel are underay. Many older buildings in the old warehouse district are also scheduled for major renovation."

But five years later, the Waterfront Line was called the city's "transportation manager's nightmare." Rather than 785,000 riders, it was down to 471,000.