Another benefit of incumbency

It's widely accepted that incumbents keep getting re-elected to Cincinnati City Council because of their huge advantage in name recognition. And that's no doubt true.

But attend any of the dozens of community council forums across the city in a campaign year, and another advantage becomes obvious: The incumbents know their stuff.

While challengers have to spend most of their two- to five-minute speeches just introducing themselves, incumbents dive right into the issues.

Charterite Jim Tarbell and Democrat Laketa Cole are two council members who use their positions to their advantage. Both have a good command of neighborhood problems -- Tarbell a member of the Planning Commission, and Cole is chairwoman of the Neighborhoods & Public Services Committee.

Take Monday night's Northside Community Council candidate forum. Tarbell picked three hot-button local issues:

• On the redevelopment of the Kirby Road School: "Buildings of that quality always have another life."
• On the former Colerain Connector site at Virginia and Colerain: "It's one of the key components in the future of Northside."
• On the proposed Walgreens store at Hamilton Avenue and Blue Rock Road: "You have to stay focused on what is the highest and best use of that corner.... If they knew what this neighborhood was all about -- if they knew the energy in this neighborhood -- they couldn't help but make the right decision."

Cole was less specific -- she spoke generically of housing and homeownership -- but was able to boast that she had recently brought a busload of city officials to Northside for a neighborhood tour.

Democratic challenger Eve Bolton, a College Hill resident, tried her best to show her local colors. "I would not be able to drive to City Hall without going through Northside," she said. "This city is so divided -- east and west, black and white -- maybe we need someone from the north-central corridor."