Those that didn't quite make the cut

The toughest thing about endorsing candidates for City Council is making the decision not to endorse someone. When a person decides to dedicate a portion of their life to public service, they are taking a huge selfless step to be the change that they would like to see in the community. We recognize that and we would love to work closely with all candidates interested in a seat on council and to include them into our group to affect real change in our city. These are the candidates that sent in questionnaires and that we surveyed.

Mitch Painter is a YP himself and running for Council for the first time. He started a real estate business with his brother and lives in Clifton. Mitch’s #1 priority would be to ensure that Council is spurring the growth of business and home ownership in the city, with the idea that this would expand the economic base of the city and generate funding for other key initiatives to reduce crime and develop a more robust public transportation system. In our conversation with Mitch, it’s clear he has a passion for the city and his goals are well-aligned with CincyPAC; however, he was limited in providing details as to how to accomplish some of these goals. Mitch may well be a candidate CincyPAC supports in the future and we'd like to keep him on our radar.

George Zamary is a downtown resident and sees great potential for the center city. He shares many of the same values as CincyPAC and had some unique proposals for funding the public transportation initiatives. However, George was limited in providing details for executing some of his ideas. CincyPAC looks forward to the development of his ideas in the future and hopes that he can lend his knowledge of the arts community to help improve on the marketing and funding.

Melanie Bates has a long record of public service to Cincinnati, which includes several years on the Cincinnati Public School Board. While her responses to the CincyPAC questionnaire appeared to align with the goals of our membership in some ways, she was not able to sell those ideas during the interview as well as other candidates. Her experience is an asset, but her ability to push key YP issues through Council would be a concern. We also feel as though she has some unfinished business with the school board.

Charlie Winburn has a great deal of experience in public service and as a past member of Council, it’s clear that Charlie possesses the “electability” factor. Though we felt he would be able to get some things done on council, we feel as though he lacked innovative ideas, particularly with his level of experience. Quite honestly we were also a little alarmed when it appeared that Mr. Winburn agreed to everything we asked for. It was hard to gauge whether or not he took us seriously.

Andre Harper is a YP himself and running for Council for the first time. His time in the military and current role as District Representative for Senator Voinovich proves at a young age Andre’s passion for serving the public. From reading Andre's questionnaire and his interview, we felt like he would be a little slow to react to makig decisions that would progressively move our city in the right direction. We're looking for bold leadership and unconventional ways of getting us what we need to attract and retain young professionals. Like Mitch, he is someone that we want to bring into our organization and potentially support Andre in the future.

John Eby's interview and questionnaire response indicates he would bring a keen business sense to City Hall that may not already exist. While John indicated support for many CincyPAC priorities, he also indicated being somewhat out-of-touch with the YP constituency. CincyPAC looks forward to endorsing candidates, and continuing frequent contact to hold them accountable, and feels as though there are other candidates that can better facilitate this long-term working relationship.

Wendell Young is also a long-term public servant to the city, with much of his experience coming in the police department. He ran a strong council campaign in 2005 but fell a little short. He had some unique ideas as to how to attract and retain young professionals in the city, such as building stronger bonds with local universities and each councilmember having a YP committee to ensure that voice is heard. However, Wendell’s opinions differed with our membership around some key issues related to public transportation and the environment.

Steve Pavelish is recently retired from the property rental business and believes strongly that a councilmember position should be full-time. His “pro-business” approach wants the city to take a hands-off approach to the private sector as much as possible. He indicated that he’s not a “green” guy and that light rail is not a priority, which is in conflict to some of CincyPAC’s key initiatives. Steve also indicated that he doesn’t care about a CincyPAC endorsement, which was interesting nonetheless.

Justin Jeffre has traveled the world and feels as though he has a lot to bring to shaping the future of Cincinnati. He’s a strong supporter of the Arts but sees the Street Cars and city-wide wireless initiatives going in a different direction than many CincyPAC members. During the interview with Justin, he mentioned some ideas unique to other candidates, but we didn't feel that he was a strong enough candidate to get things done.

Although we didn't identify the candidates listed above as those that we would endorse, they did make themselves available for interview and paid members of CincyPAC still have a chance of voting for their candidates and potentially changing the outcome of our picks. You have until Friday to fill out this ballot and vote. Remember you must be a paid member and you can do so by clicking here and contributing at least $25.