Saving Cincinnati and Hamilton County

Hamilton County and Cincinnati are both facing over the next few years what could amount to a financial collapse. Tax revenues are dropping, and people and business are moving away. We are also struggling to bring new business to the Hamilton County and Cincinnati area. What should we do to save this county and the city? 

 

The first thing we must do is recognizing that the old ways with the same elected officials isn’t working. We need to elect new people that have new ideas and that are not afraid to think outside the box and to work with more than just the people within their party.

 

We must have Cincinnati and Hamilton County governments come together with a comprehensive plan for stability and growth for the area. While there is need to reduce spending and cutting out government waste, we also must have a plan for growth and development. The city and county should be focusing on three areas’ to do this. Merging all departments that are duplicated at the city, township and county levels. The next area of focus should be making Cincinnati and Hamilton County a better place to operate a business. The third area is to have a plan to attract people to move back to Hamilton County and Cincinnati.

 

The first thing that the city and county must do is cut cost. One of the best ways to do this is to merge departments that are duplicated. There is no reason why both the city and the country should both be paying to do the same things. We need to eliminate waste not create and perpetuate more bureaucracies in this region. We need to look at all departments including Public Safety and see what makes sense. The time for business as usual must come to an end.

 

The next thing we must do is make Hamilton County and Cincinnati a better place to run a business. We have the assets with the proximity to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport plus having both Lunken and Blue Ash Airports in the County, along with the Ohio River, and two major North/South Interstates we have a great set up as far as major transportation in the region. We are easy to get to, and must use that to our advantage, whether it is by rail, plane, or car.

 

We must expand and improve on this infrastructure. We have a unique set of assets and must capitalize on this to attract new business. We must also make this area friendlier when it comes to taxes. The state of Ohio is notorious for how unfriendly it is for businesses to operate. The city and county must do everything possible within the current law to make Cincinnati and Hamilton County easy to operate a business.

 

The last major factor we must address is the fleeing of our citizens out of Hamilton County and Cincinnati. We must attract those that have moved out back to Cincinnati, and keep our young professionals that are graduating from the surrounding Universities in the city and the county. To spur this growth we must reduce property taxes in both the city and the county and attract more jobs to the region.

 

The other major area that will help bring people back to Cincinnati and Hamilton County is to improve the Cincinnati Public School system. We must hold the school board accountable and force them to come up with new approaches to teach our young people. It should no longer be acceptable that CPS only has a couple of great schools with in the district and the vast majority of the schools failing. We fix this by taking new approaches in academics and in discipline. If they are unwilling to change then our local government must vigorously support a comprehensive charter school program.

 

Our city and county governments must recognize that they must work together to turn around this economic situation in this area. It benefits no one and it would be nearly impossible for Hamilton County to prosper without Cincinnati and vice versa. With that said we must have our elected officials from both sides engage the current economic situation together to come up with a comprehensive plan. If our only response is going to be to continue to cut essential services and we have no combined plan for development and growth for both the county and city then will never recover from this free fall.