Freedom Center: $$ or Not?

Now that City Council's fight over arts funding has been somewhat settled, there's a new question:


What happens with funding for the Underground Railroad Freedom Center?


The first plan, which supporters say dates back to late last year when council members finalized the budget, called for the center getting $1 million in capital funds, just like the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati History Museum and Music Hall.


But that plan didn't have a five-vote majority. Jim Tarbell's plan did. But it called for something different - $800,000 for each of the four, plus $600,00 for smaller arts groups to share. That money also would pay for festivals and parades.


But Chris Monzel was clear from the start - he wouldn't support the freedom center, no matter what. So to get Tarbell's plan to pass, the vice mayor had to take the freedom center out of it.


So Wednesday, the Tarbell plan passed. With no other council members expressing non-support for the freedom center, it had been assumed that the center would get its money, just separately and later. The ordinance to give it $800,000 got a first reading at council Wednesday.


But after the meeting, Bortz said he was considering voting against the money for the freedom center - a "principle vote," he called it, because he still wants the center to get the full $1 million he says was discussed during budgeting. Leslie Ghiz said something similar, that she might have to consider voting against it also. "We had a deal," she said, referring to what she said were prior commitments to give the freedom center more than $800,000.


Laketa Cole, who was out of town and missed the meeting, said later she wanted to talk to her colleagues to find out more about what happened at Wednesday's meeting before saying what she might do regarding the center. Jeff Berding left the meeting early to pick up his daughter from school and couldn't be reached later on how he plans to vote.

This morning, Monzel tossed another plan out there - redirecting the $800,000 now pending for the freedom center into a fund to put speed humps on residential streets. The city gets a bunch of request for the humps but has no money to do them anymore.

Bortz called that idea just another example of the kind of reneging he says has gone on ever since all nine council members agreed to the current budget, which called for $4 million for arts facilities, and since six of them - including Tarbell and Cecil Thomas, who later changed their votes - signed a motion agreeing to divide that $4 million four ways, giving $1 million each to the two museums, Music Hall and the freedom center.