The Illegitimacy of Cincinnati City Council
Council member Scotty Johnson taking a snooze during public comments, Nov. 29, 2023.
For the past couple of months, Cincinnati Socialists, Students for Justice in Palestine, University of Cincinnati (SJP UC) and other members of the general public have attended Cincinnati City Council Meetings and condemned City Council for their complicity in Palestinian genocide. We demanded the City Council do three things: 1) replace the definition of antisemitism that City Council adopted in March 2023, which includes “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” as an example, with the Jerusalem Declaration definition of antisemitism, 2) stop Cincinnati police from training in Israel and using Israeli Occupation Force policing tactics, and 3) release an official statement condemning the atrocities committed by Israel and calling for a permanent ceasefire.
Cincinnati Socialists stands firmly against Israeli occupation and the genocide of Palestinians. The second Nakba is upon Gaza and the West Bank. Since October 7th when the Palestinian resistance bravely broke out of the open-air prison surrounding the Gaza Strip, up to 1.9 million Palestinians have been forced from their homes, sometimes multiple times, by the IDF. Israel has killed over 23,000 people, and wounded over 59,000. This does not account for those crushed and missing under the rubble of their homes. Israel has been charged by South Africa for these acts of genocide in the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The destruction and seizure of homes is of course nothing new to Cincinnatians, especially those living in the West End.
Cincinnati City Council refused to listen to us, just as they refused to listen to most of their constituents. Many members of the public spoke on their own behalf, criticizing the City Council for a blatant disregard for their wellbeing, their neighborhoods, and their communities. Members of City Council overtly ignored our comments, paying closer attention to trivial distractions or watching with glazed eyes. Evidence collected at the meeting by some of our members includes City Manager Sheryl Long perusing a binder, Councilmember Scotty Johnson apparently sleeping, and Deputy Clerk Nicole Crawford gazing at her computer while the community pleaded their cases. Some City Council members carried on conversations with their aides. The man giving the tickets to the mayor did so while community members were speaking, an obvious diversion of attention.
Cincinnati Socialists is appalled—but not surprised—that our City Council doesn’t care what their constituents have to say. It shows in their procedures and policies. They have a general meeting open to public comment at a time that is inaccessible to the people they claim to represent. They know very well that most people can’t leave work in the middle of the day. Council erects a facade that we can see right through. They know we don’t want tax money that should be used to build up our community to go to rich developers and cops, whom we all know don’t need any more funding than they already have. Under capitalism—with its characteristic class antagonisms—the state primarily protects and serves the interests and continued power of the ruling capitalist class, and Cincinnati City Council exemplifies that perfectly.
City Council approved an emergency ordinance with a two million dollar budget, one million dollars each going to two separate development corporations (HomeBase and Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses) to “support” West End reconciliation. HomeBase will be given $1,000,000 to support and oversee community development corporation Quickstrike Capital Acquisition. In Madisonville, Madamore Apartments was built by HomeBase which included 316 housing units with only 41 (13%) affordable housing units for those making 80% of the area median income. We could not find any information on Quickstrike Capital Acquisition. The other $1 million is going to Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses to support West End Reconciliation capital projects, a social services resource and community gathering space. The Neighborhood House is located at 901 Findlay Street in an 18,000 square foot building. It is the safe-haven and second home for approximately 2,500 – 3,000 at-risk children, teens, families, seniors, and disadvantaged citizens annually.
Rather than providing funds for new development projects that will ultimately be unaffordable for the people who currently reside in the West End, City Council should give all of the funds to community members and organizations whose mission is to restore the already established residences which, in turn, would not result in displacement and gentrification. It would also give a sense of self-determination to those in the West End who have had their community and homes stripped from them.
Many West End community members condemned City Council for funding developers who build exclusively new, unaffordable homes and businesses, raising rents and displacing residents who have been there for decades. If City Council really wants to reconcile with the West End community, they should listen to what people have to say at these public forums. As we have seen, however, they don’t even pretend to listen. Constituents requested government funds be used to restore the homes and businesses that already exist which have been suffering due to lack of funding and resources. We are all aware that this is the status quo in Cincinnati, and it has been for over seventy years. The West End neighborhood has been an ongoing victim of gentrification and “urban renewal.”
Cincinnati prides itself to this day on keeping this city “beautiful.” What that means to our City Council is bulldozing and flattening underfunded and underdeveloped black communities to bring in white upper class housing, businesses, and mixed-use developments to make the area more visually appealing and “safer." City Council has no concern for the Cincinnatians who actually live in these areas. Not only that, but these attitudes and policies of Cincinnati City government are historically consistent. This same institution purposely built I-75 through the heart of the West End in the 1950s, destroying a black neighborhood with a rich culture and several historical sites. About 3,000 buildings were demolished and more than 20,000 residents, nearly all Black, were displaced to neighborhoods like Avondale, Over-the-Rhine, and Walnut Hills. The public housing that was eventually built was insufficient to house everyone who was displaced, and some of the new housing was segregated. To demonstrate Cincinnati’s further history of gentrification, U.S. Census Bureau data shows that, from 2010 to 2020, OTR’s Black population decreased by 44%, while its white population grew by 74.9%!
The history of violent displacement of Black people in Cincinnati goes as at least as far back to the Cincinnati Riots of 1829, when white mobs assaulted and violently drove out over 1,000 black residents (nearly half of Cincinnati’s black population at the time) from the riverfront area. According to the article sourced above, “The mob burned shelters and homes and assaulted a number of individuals. African Americans fought back but the attacks persuaded many in the black population to evacuate Cincinnati. A number of them emigrated to Canada to a community they named Wilberforce. Those who stayed behind attempted to rebuild their lives but experienced further white assaults in 1836 and beyond.”
On top of that, we need only acknowledge the history of the violent displacement and genocide of the indigenous peoples who lived in this region before it was claimed by European settlers. Cincinnati’s history is not so different from the history of Palestine.
In Cincinnati today, different means are employed to achieve the same result. Our City Council has done nothing but exacerbate the displacement of working class people and minorities, and will continue to do so, no matter how much they try to placate us with lofty liberal slogans and false promises. Those who live in the West End are still cut off from Downtown Cincinnati with little to no access to quality housing, jobs, public transit, and other necessary resources. There isn’t one grocery store in the West End! This displacement continues with the development of TQL Stadium and its mixed-use district. On Dec. 5, 2023, City Manager Sheryl Long executed a property sale and development agreement with West End Development, LCC, an affiliate of FC Cincinnati holdings, in which the city will vacate and give portions of the West End neighborhood for a 1,272,000 square foot mixed-use project that will cost $264,000,000. The project will consist of residential, commercial, retail, and office spaces. Given historical precedent it’s likely that none of this will be affordable for West End residents.
When TQL Stadium was originally built in 2021, many residents and business owners negotiated for compensation from the team and the city. Some who were more fortunate were able to move elsewhere. Others were left on the streets. According to Engineering News-Record, a former West End resident struggled to find a new wheelchair-accessible home and ended up in “a crackhouse drug den” with “no security, no locks” in a food desert further north. The owner of Ollie’s Trolley on Liberty Street, Marvin Smith, told WLWT that the development caused many businesses and homes to be lost in the process. “Businesses that have been here for years seem like they didn't get any help," Smith said. "But they're going to bring all these new restaurants in here and all these new businesses, and the restaurants that have been here for 30 plus years are just kind of moving out of the way. That's the only problem I have with the whole thing. It's kind of like displacement, you know, of housing units,” said Smith. In 2021, WCPO 9 News reported that housing sales in the West End went up by around $95,000 between 2017 and 2020. Three years later, that price has only increased.
According to Engineering News-Record, FC Cincinnati’s previous Vice President of Facilities and Stadium General Manager Dan Lolli said the team picked the site to create a “European feel” even though the club had a couple other location options. Let’s just call it what it is: gentrification and displacement. According to the Brookings Institute, “Gentrification has a very clear racial component, as higher income white households replace lower income minority households, sometimes in the very same neighborhoods that experienced ‘white flight’ and traumatic urban renewal in the ‘50s and ‘60s.” Sound familiar?
The West End and OTR neighborhood councils in 2018 explicitly and emphatically objected to the proposition to build the stadium. The city and organization received mass push-back from residents of the West End about the stadium, yet it was approved by City Council through an emergency ordinance. According to Local 12 News, “The people’s voices are loud and clear, but all signs point to a stadium coming to the West End.”(!) It would almost be comical if it weren’t so disgusting how out of touch and racist Cincinnati City Council is and has always been. They can’t house people on the street or make sure food is accessible in every neighborhood, but they can hastily push through a city ordinance that gives money and land to rich white people with a dream that deliberately destroys the history, community and culture of working class neighborhoods in Cincinnati. As if all this weren’t enough, they don’t even give Cincinnati residents a modicum of respect to hide their intentions. The reason they use emergency ordinances is because they know the public doesn’t approve.
FC Cincinnati’s mixed-use site is causing more trouble than it’s worth. In an interview with WVXU, Nikki Ramey, the owner of the building next to Brown’s, stated “I already know how it’s going to change when they put in that $300,000,000 hotel. I already know it’s probably not going to be for the benefit of the people who live here.” The construction work shakes her house. Neighbors have already had to move out of their homes. The club demolished many buildings, including Revelation Baptist Church, a historic Black church in the West End.
Liberty Used Tires owner Ahmad Hmoud is being forced to move his business. He said, “It’s like stabbing me in the heart. I’ve been building this business. We have our regular customers, and all of a sudden, I’m going to be losing all that.” His business was not given a lot of time to move, and he worries it’ll never get back to the level it’s at in the West End. Hmoud also gave an interview with WCPO 9 News where he talked about the eviction notice he received in February 2023 that stated he had to be out by the end of the month as a condition of FC Cincinnati’s purchase of the building. “I don’t know how they can sleep, just kicking me on the street and they got millions,” Hmoud said. “They cannot offer anything to me to support me or to move my business to a different location.”
In light of all this, it’s obvious that our City Council doesn’t see a problem with the violent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by the genocidal Israeli regime. To them, this is business as usual! It is not surprising to us that they do not listen to the voices of the people advocating not only for themselves and their communities here in Cincinnati, but for the rights of the Palestinians as well. Despite what they claim, Cincinnati City Council does not represent or serve the poor and working class people in Cincinnati. Their facade is cracking. People in Cincinnati realize how illegitimate the so-called “democratic” institution that is Cincinnati City Council really is. This is why we must organize and fight for the rights of Cincinnatians ourselves, as well as do what our City Council refuses to do – call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and declare loudly that Cincinnati stands with the people of Palestine.