food for thought: the Cincinnati City Council states they have a $40 mill deficit. Why hasn't a full City Audit been issued to verify this? Considering it points in the direction of making people jobless, it would seen reasonable that verification of facts stated are accurate and without error.

WOW AND GRBAGE SITS FOR 2 WEEKS DRAWING ALL KINDS OF ANIMAILS AND BUGS AND CUTTING BACK ON THINGS ARE WORSE CUT THE CITY WORKERS WHO FIX THE ROADS AS WHEN THEY DO THEM AND FILL IN POTHOLES THEY HAVE TO REDO THEM AGAIN AS THEY DO A BAD JOB THE FIRST TIME

Disabling Police and Fire depts, closing jails..etc..Taking away the essentials of what a "city goverment" should be providing for!..We are infact not fighting Blight but bowing down to it. Iam guessing that at least 75% of EMS runs are for non-urgent needs..they often more of a taxi service. . The council spoke of getting a Nurse in the call center who would define and direct non urgent callers to set up appts. at clinics to help solve on theses wasteful trips..You and I can understand that idea but for the others(non productive, lazy, self centered people..of every color!) in our community..they just expect Entitlement..they wont follow up on clinic appts..They want things Now and for Free..lets try a new conept..trying saying..NO to give aways and Yes to Responcbility.....(wheres a spell check when you need it)

TAX THE HELL OUT OF PEOPLE, GET MORE MONEY OR PRINT MORE MONEY

I don't normally respond to others comments, but asaylor76 has some facts that are very misleading. The City of Cincinnati was not just voted as Americas #1 spot for crime. There is a tiny spot of OTR that was identified as the number 1 spot in an obscure study that was done. I agree that it is not a positive thing to even be on that list, but the study even states that it is not representative of an entire City. In addition, I have driven through parts of OTR and it amazes me just how many officers are around and just how obvious it is that criminal activity is underway. I know this community has been through a lot and the police may be afraid of false accusations from harassment, but if Rudy was able to clean up the streets of NYC I would think someone could clean this little section up if they really really wanted to. Just wanted to add the facts to the statement.

Furloughs for the fire department don't work without closing firehouses. This is why... There HAVE to be a minimum number of firefighters on the apparatus' for them to do their job. It's mandated that way. So, if you furlough firefighters for a day, then those positions have to be filled with others on overtime. The only other solution is to brown out companies. There is no other way to have furloughs work. None. So, if the council wants furloughs for firefighters, they are basically wanting to take firefighters out of the firehouses and slow response times. They are taking the men and women off the streets, it's as simple as that.

I hope that when voters go to the polls understand that City Council is entirely responsible for this deficit. It is not the administration that runs the City. Council members make all the major budgetary decisions and also weigh in on most of the small ones, where in most communities the administration handles the operations. Not the case in Cincinnati. This group knew there were budget issues prior to passing the last budget. They did not deal with the problems then and are now shifting the blame on others. In addition, I have been told they did not apply the mandatory holiday furloughs to themselves. If that is accurate, it is the most pathetic example of leadership that I have ever heard of.

As regaurd to the government stimulus money, that money comes with stipulations. Such as,, no lay offs for three years after you accept the money or you have to pay it back. So yeah they could take the 20 mil now to slow the bleeding, but, in the long run it would only be a temporary fix. As they said they are looking at a 40 mil short next year. There will be layoffs and therefor, they would have to pay everything back putting us 60 mil in the hole.

Unfortunately they miss-worded the plan when they said everybody would "have to take six unpaid days off before the end of 2008" That's either easy or impossible depending on how you look at it.

City Hall needs to make cuts beginning in their own offices. The city also needs to stay out of the City's Retirement System! Stop dipping into it.