Enough anti streetcar signatures put referendum on ballot, as opponent runs for council

CINCINNATI - The controversy over the proposed streetcar line for downtown Cincinnati is headed to the November ballot.

Opponents delivered petitions with 3,000 more signatures calling for a second referendum on the streetcar Wednesday.

Director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections Sally J. Krisel says 7,468 signatures were needed and anti-streetcar groups collected more than that amount.

The Cincinnati NAACP and the anti-tax group, COAST, had already delivered referendum petitions with 6,000 signatures to the Hamilton County Board of Elections office. The additional petitions helped the groups collect enough valid voter signatures before the deadline to put the referendum issue on the November ballot.

Within hours of Elections Board officials telling 9 News there were enough valid signatures to put the streetcar referendum on the November ballot, its main sponsor and most visible supporter announced he was running for his old seat on Cincinnati City Council.

Cincinnati NAACP President Christopher Smitherman announced he will resign the presidency of the organization Wednesday afternoon, to make a run for city council on the same ballot as the streetcar referendum.

He was surrounded by family, friends and supporters outside his Bond Hill office Wednesday morning for the announcement. Many of them were wearing Smitherman for Council t-shirts or holding new Smitherman signs.

Smitherman says he feels the street car is not a light rail system that he would support because he doesn't get residents from their homes to places where there are jobs. He adds that he feels his anti-streetcar referendum will win in 2011, where a similar measure lost in 2009, because he says voters are well aware the city faces a mounting budget deficit that's serious enough to require layoffs. Smitherman says that was not clear 2 years ago.

Wednesday afternoon, anti streetcar supporters brought approved petitions to the Clerk of City Council at Cincinnati City Hall. The petitions will be there for 10 days before being brought back to the Hamilton County Board of Elections offices on Broadway and East 9th Street.

Although it's a formality, Cincinnati City Hall will have to give its consent to putting the anti-streetcar referendum on the November ballot.

Cincinnati voters previously defeated a similar proposal to stop the streetcar project in 2009. Since then, the State of Ohio pulled over $52 million it had earlier committed to the project. That forced city officials to shorten the initial streetcar route from the Banks to the University of Cincinnati to just cover downtown Cincinnati and Over-the-Rhine around Findlay Market.

While Smitherman runs for a City Council seat as an independent without party affiliation, Cincinnati NAACP 1st Vice President Juanita Adams will temporarily run the Cincinnati chapter.