We saved this icon

Dear fellow tax hikers, our movement has come together to save one of Cincinnati's most beautiful buildings. It was scheduled for imminent demolition if we didn't put a stop to it. 

This building is a historical landmark.
It is an architectural gem.
And of course, it is a..............wait for it..............ICON!

Here is your beautiful icon which will live to see another day:

Enquirer photo of OTR's stunning icon

Our hearts would have been broken if anyone destroyed this beautiful building.  It makes so much sense to save it.  As one OTR hipster said, "What's exciting is that we have a business case to save these buildings at any cost."  When he says "any cost", he means ANY cost, and especially if it's a taxpayer cost.

We were so close to losing our favorite historical landmark.  But thanks to the work of us and our allies, this is one more icon that we (and your tax dollars) have saved. 

Adam Hoover is Ready for Hillary

Dear fellow tax hikers, we have some great news to share with you.  We escaped our kidnapper and now we're back!  Thank you for all your prayers kind thoughts to Mother Earth. 

Speaking of kidnapping victims, our fellow survivor Adam Hoover is being targeted by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy for his support of gay marriage and Hillary Clinton.

As kidnapping survivors, we are horrified by conservative attempts to blame the victim - and in this case, "victim" could refer to either Hoover or Clinton.  We will not be silenced.  Hillary will not be silenced.  And Adam Hoover will not be silenced.  We close with his words:

We've been kidnapped! HELP US!

Dear fellow tax hikers, we are in our greatest moment of need.  Upon leaving the bar after closing time, me and one of my spouses just got KIDNAPPED by The All-Purpose Scary Black Guy.  He's stuffed us into the back of a black-and-white Cadillac.  This meanie shouted anti-gay slurs and said if we don't cooperate he'd kill us. 

This could be our very last blog entry ever.  Please call the polices and let them know of our misfortune.  We don't want to die!

Mark Painter - 2014's Political Loser of the Year

Mark Painter - probably not the one on the left

Dear fellow tax hikers, after reviewing the exhaustive list of contenders we proudly name former Judge Mark Painter as our biggest loser of 2014.  Currently an employee of Democratic Chairman Tim Burke, Mark had to overcome fierce competition to win this most honorable award.

Marky Mark had a year he'd like to forget.  First he donated $1000 to our 2011 Tax Hiker of the Year Rick Bryan in his failed campaign for 28th District State Representative.  Just two days after Ricky's shocking defeat to the evil conservative Jonathan Dever, Mark gave another $500 to Dever's next opponent Micah Kamrass. 

That gave His Honor the rare distinction of losing the 28th District twice in six months. 

Painter's futility didn't stop there.  Marky Mark joined with those who believed that Hamilton County must raise its Sales Tax for up to 14 years to renovate BOTH Union Terminal and City Hall (each owned by City of Cincinnati), and that no other option was acceptable.  After the Commissioners voted to include only Union Terminal, Mark sent a legendary temper tantrum editorial to the Enquirer bashing the plan and thrashing our terrible Commissioners.

After Mark's denunciations, that TERRIBLE plan passed with 60% of the vote and that TERRIBLE, awful Monzel was re-elected with 57% in a 3-way race.  This was truly not His Honor's year to shine.

With so much great competition, we also feel compelled to give an Honorable Mention to those who earned it.

No comment

Campaign Expert PhD Julie Matheny.  C.E. Matheny's legendary losing streak makes her an annual contender for this award.  She is another one who lost the 28th District twice in 6 months, AND this great "Republican" supported Connie Pillich.  These three fine individuals did as well as every other candidate she has supported over the years. 

Peter Stautberg.  An incumbent State Representative with a significant spending advantage, who gets punked in his own primary by a guy he beat by 20 points just two years ago.  Enough said.

Cincinnati Enquirer Editorial Board.  They demanded higher taxes for Music Hall.  They loved Charlie Winburn and Connie Pillich.  They really, really wanted us to vote for Micah Kamrass.  But the voters rejected their endorsements, with more than the usual enthusiasm. 

Charlie Luken.  Great name ID in a race where name ID is everything? Check.  Access to big money? Check.  A current law license?  Check (just barely).  With all this, he still lost, and by a surprisingly big margin, to a guy who has never run for anything except judge.  Have a drink on us Charlie.  Oh what the hell, we're good for a full round. 

Blue Ash City Councilmen.  Remember the kids from the neighborhood where you grew up who would take their ball and go home whenever things didn't go their way?  Now they serve on Blue Ash City Council. 

The year started so promising for them.  Rick Bryan was going to save the 28th District for the Republicans, they told us.  Republicans needed to be unified, they told us.  Republicans needed to support the winner of the primary, they told us.  Micah Kamrass was a potential future statewide candidate who needed to be stopped, they told us. 

But when Tax Hikin' Rick Bryan lost his primary, all that went out the window.  The voters didn't respect their greatness, so the Councilmen took their ball and defected to Team Kamrass.  Dever won by 12 points anyways. 

These poor Council Members lost a very winnable race.  The nature of the loss demonstrated that every single Blue Ash Councilman is unelectable outside Blue Ash.  They lost their respect from local GOP, and the Democrats would still throw them under the bus at the first opportunity.   This was a most terrible year for these fine Members of Council. 

Jim Tarbell - 2014 Winner of the Year

- co-authored by Krista Ramsey

Dear fellow tax hikers, there were many winners in the historic 2014 election. None greater than County Commission write-in candidate Jim Tarbell.  Tarbell's candidacy was about anger - anger that the County Commissioners didn't want to raise Hamilton County's Sales Tax to renovate the Cincinnati-owned Music Hall. 

Tarbell channeled that anger to get a commanding 6.6% of the vote, losing to Chris Monzel by over 50 points.  Look at all that anger!  By achieving less than 7% of the vote and finishing a distant 3rd out of 3 candidates, Tarbell achieved many aspects of a win and demonstrated himself to be the biggest winner of 2014. 

While we're very proud of Tarbell and his 6%, we feel compelled to name Micah Kamrass as a very close second-place. He's a rising star.  He raised a ton of money.  Everyone supported him and he guaranteed to win big.  His campaign was so well run.  He was even a Student Government President.  And as Krista keeps telling is, he is sooooo dreamy!

All that was good enough to get Kamrass 44% of the vote in a landslide loss.  But as The Enquirer was quick to remind us, we'll count it as a win anyways.  If Micah could have gotten to 47 or 48%, we would have declared him the landslide victor.  Please join us in honoring these two great winners. 

2014 Winners and Losers

Jim Sumner, teaching Rick Bryan volunteers how to lose an election

Dear fellow tax hikers, it's great to be back!  This site has been dormant for the last two weeks as we have been fighting a major depression caused by the successes of State Representative Jonathan Dever and The National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes.  But we'll be fine, as long as we stay on our medication.

Our first project of the year is to honor the best (and worst) of 2014.  Those who made their mark deserve to have their efforts noted.

And unlike the Oscars, we allow minorities to be nominated.  By the end of the month we will announce our award winners.  Do you tax hikers have an opinion or two?  Just tell us!

State Representative Jonathan Dever

This was a tragic moment for us tax hikers.

How did we let this happen?

Sharonville joins Hamilton County Public Health

Dear fellow tax hikers, disturbing news has come out of Sharonville as their Mayor and City Council have decided to close the city's health department and instead utilize the services of Hamilton County Public Health.  These people don't understand - they are "losing control", whatever that means.

Even worse, this move saves Sharonville taxpayers approximately $250,000.  Instead of paying around $278,000 per year to run their own Health Department, they are paying Hamilton County $28,000 for almost exactly the same services.  That is what we tax hikers call a bad deal. 

Perhaps the most appalling part of this decision is their diss against the fine City of Springdale, one of the few left that has their own Health Department.  Mayor Hardman ruled out merging Sharonville's Health Department with Springdale's and said:

“At best, we would see a $67,000 savings per year,” the mayor said. “Springdale has some flaws and I would have concerns about getting into bed with them.”

That is an outrageous statement.  We would be delighted to jump into bed with Royal Doyle Webster. 

We stand with the citizens of Sharonville who oppose this decision and are fighting to overturn it.  Specifically, we encourage all Sharonville citizens to sign the referendum to reverse this horrible plan.  Why spend just $28,000 when you can spend $278,000 for the same thing? 

Expand the streetcar

Dear fellow tax hikers, we are finally getting our streetcar in Cincinnati!  But we can't stop there.  As we have editorialized for years, we need a network of streetcars and we need a Streetcar Tax to fund it.

We applaud the Believe in Cincinnati Ryan Messer PAC for pursuing those next steps.  Last week us pro-streetcar forces gathered to tell the City of Cincinnati that we want the streetcar expanded.

And we brought some added firepower as we were joined by some dude named Ozie Davis, AND The University of Cincinnati Student Government President Christina Beer.  You know there are few political forces on this planet more potent than a Student Government President.  Our favorite candidate of 2014 Micah Kamrass would back us 100%. 

We find it fitting that The UC Student Government President's last name is "Beer".  It made for a perfect campaign.  It's impossible to lose an election on UC's campus when all you have to do is tell people to Vote for Beer. 

We're getting a streetcar.  And we're getting drunk.  Let's keep a great thing going.  More Streetcar More Beer! 

Blue Ash Council beats another horse

Dear fellow tax hikers, Blue Ash City Council has defeated another miniature horse.  This important win, combined with the other mini-horse that they beat earlier this year, mark the only two political victories of the year for Blue Ash Council Members. 

Councilmen Lee Czerwonka and Tax Hikin' Rick Bryan can't defeat Jonathan Dever, but they will dominate a miniature horse that can't defend itself.

This horse's owner works as an aide for special needs students in the Sycamore Schools (which includes all of Blue Ash).  On weekends he retrieves the miniature horse that he keeps in Mt. Orab and comes back into the district to help the kids who respond well to the horse.

Because he stopped to take a whiz at his Blue Ash home before returning the miniature horse to Mt. Orab, he was prosecuted and convicted of "harboring" a banned animal.  This is obviously a guy who needs to be stopped.  It's ok to help disabled children, just not in Blue Ash. 

We support Blue Ash Council.  Mayor Czerwonka and Rick Bryan understand the need to put handicapped children - and those who serve them - in their place.  If this guy wants to continue helping the disabled, he can do so somewhere else. 

Wyoming's 25% Income Tax hike

Dear fellow tax hikers, one of this year's few pieces of good news comes from the City of Wyoming which recently raised its Income Tax by 25%!  The lucky citizens of Wyoming now get to pay 1% of their income to the city instead of the paltry 0.8% they were paying.  This is in addition to the 1.25% they pay to the Wyoming City Schools.

This excellent tax increase is needed for important programs.....such as giving away $713,000 subsidies to a single restaurant.  When you're a City Councilman in a smallish bedroom community and feel like giving away more $700,000 subsidies to your closest friends, you need new revenues to make it happen. 

We applaud Wyoming City Council for unanimously implementing this big tax hike.  They will do great things with this money.  In fact, we hear Mahogany's is looking for a new home. 

Dever officially whips Kamrass

Dear fellow tax hikers, the Hamilton County Board of Elections released the official results of the 2014 Election and sadly the news remains just as bad as it was on Election Night.  Our efforts to utilize Provisional Ballots and Common Core Math failed to manufacture a victory for our #1 candidate Micah Kamrass. 

In the end, our enemy Jonathan Dever earned 55.7% of the vote to defeat Kamrass by 11.4%.  We still cannot believe this happened.  Our expert sources assured us that Kamrass would win in a landslide and we believed them.

How could Kamrass lose?  He was being advised by the greatest legal mind of all time Mark Painter AND Campaign Expert PhD Julie Matheny.  He was further supported by wise, angry old men Walt Reuszer and Royal Doyle Webster, in addition to bitter old ladies Claudia Harrod, Barbara Nickol, Kerrie Hollihan, and Christine Weber.

With these incredibly brilliant people advising Micah and all the bipartisan support he said he had, we ask you tax hikers to tell us - how could Dever possibly win?