CINCINNATI -- Cincinnati City Council, Mayor John Cranley and the Hamilton County commissioners all stepped up when asked to provide some public financing to make a new stadium for FC Cincinnati happen. But did the public get enough of a chance to have its say?
WCPO's editorial board doesn't think so, and published this opinion on WCPO.com:
Editorial: Stadium debate snubbed the public
But we wanted to know what our audience thinks, so we asked our What You Said question this week:
Did the public have enough say on the soccer stadium?
Our online, completely unscientific pollresulted in 46 percent who said no, we didn't, and 24 percent who said yes, we did. (A full 30 percent opted for the third choice, which was "I hate soccer.")
But hold on, posted Christopher Roth, it's just not that hard to make your views known to your elected representatives:
And that's how democracy works, wrote Marc Emral. If you don't like it, there's always the next election:
But others, like Dale Weiler, said they did not have enough opportunity to make their opinions known on one of the biggest, most expensive deals in Cincinnati history:
Dale Witzeman emailed:
No, the public and even the politicians did not have enough time to vet all scenarios.
The public should have had more opportunities, posted Tony Strader and Nancy Harper Beeker:
Taxpayers, who will be financing some of the stadium complex, were treated badly, said Carol Miller:
"An Angry Oakley Resident" emailed about the potential impact on that neighborhood:
As a 26 year resident (former happy resident) of Oakley I could not agree with the editorial more. The public was not consulted or considered. Traffic congestion in Oakley is already like Fields Ertel. Only we don't have corn fields to build new and expand infrastructure like they do in Warren County. Professional sports should be near or in downtown with the other stadiums. 20,000 people in and out at the same time! No local families will be walking or hanging out in those traffic messes!
"Harassment!" shouted Clyde Parrish, tongue firmly in cheek:
And Ant Jordan does not have a high opinion of the responsiveness of elected officials to regular people:
But Lori Davenport took the optimistic view, favorably contrasting the soccer club's success to the inhabitants of our two current major-league stadiums.
Next week, we'll ask your opinion on another topic. In the meantime, you can go to our Facebook page or Twitter and share your thoughts there. You can share your opinions in the form of text, photos, video, drawings or audio recordings.
And take a look at our Feedback Friday pagefor another way to express your what's on your mind.
