Some Cincinnati police officers claimed to be in two places at once so they could double-bill the city and the public housing authority, Leslie Blade reported in CityBeat on Dec. 10. Now the Cincinnati City Council wants to ask her questions about the scandal so badly it voted 5-4 last week to subpoena her. CityBeat Editor/Co-Publisher John Fox criticizes the decision to make a journalist an investigative tool of government.
Gregory Flannery says it took about 30 seconds for him to be arrested in a March 20 peace march in Cincinnati. "That's how long my feet were embedded on a Fifth Street crosswalk before a police officer ordered me to move. I declined, and he charged me with obstructing official business," he writes. Flannery says his five hours in the slammer were worth it, even though, "Handcuffs hurt the wrists and the shoulders. Jail is boring."
Cincinnati Vice Mayor Alicia Reece (pictured here) has threatened to call out the firefighters to intimidate a political rival and a Cincinnati CityBeat staff writer, the paper's Gregory Flannery reports. "Your Negro Tour Guide" columnist Kathy Y. Wilson has filed a complaint with police about the alleged threat. Editor John Fox says Reece visited him to complain about Wilson's coverage. "She said, 'If you can't control her, I will ... I have 150 firefighters who are willing to do anything I ask them.'"
Cincinnati CityBeat has purchased a six-story downtown building and is now looking for "like-minded" tenants to share the space, the Cincinnati Business Courier reports. CityBeat will pay $790,000 for the building where Hank Williams once recorded. "We just thought it would be better to buy. It was a good deal. It's a really good building, and we wanted to stay downtown," Co-Publisher and Editor John Fox tells the business paper.
Across the country, alternative newsweeklies ditched their planned front pages as the awesome events of Tuesday unfolded. East Coast papers like The Village Voice and Washington City Paper are sharing stories and pictures with colleagues from Maine to California.
