Thus far, there are a few issues to be listed on a voter’s ballot for the upcoming May primary.

While the ballot language won’t be official until approval from the secretary of state on March 6 at 4 p.m., there are several school, township and city issues you may be coming across.

Why is the ballot not final until that date?

“The reason that we have to wait for that is that there’s still a possibility that someone could file a charter amendment, and so that might change the order of the issues, and therefore change the number [of each issue],” said Director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections Sherry Poland.

Below is a PDF of the current issues on the ballot. The ballot will be made official 60 days before the election on March 6.

School Issues

There are three school districts seeking money to aid their current expenses.

Mt. Healthy City School District is seeking an indefinite .75 earnings tax on residents within their school district. 

The Board of Education believes an income tax on taxable income may be the best means to adequately meet the necessary requirements of  the school district, according to a resolution declaring it necessary to annually raise an additional amount for school districts purposes. This document is written by Mt. Healthy School board.

The document states the amount of taxes which may be raised within the 10-mill limitation tax levies they currently receive will be insufficient to provide an adequate amount of money for necessary requirements.

The North College Hill City School District is also looking to aid their current expenses. They are seeking 1.25% of earnings tax over the following five years.

Southwest Local City School District is seeking a new tax levy lasting five years. This levy is for four mills. A four-mill tax levy generates $4 in tax revenue for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

City issues

The City of Reading is seeking a tax levy of 5.89 mills. This tax levy asks $5.89 in revenue for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

The money will be used for the issuance of bonds for municipal facilities, the levy, if passed, would last 28 years.

In section 1 of the resolution declaring the necessity of issuing bonds, it declares this tax levy is necessary to issue bonds of Reading’s city council in the principal amount of $27,000,000 for the purpose of site acquisition, new construction, improvements, renovations and additions to municipal facilities, and providing equipment, furnishings and site improvements.

Township Issues

Delhi Township is seeking a 3.2-mill tax levy, providing $3.2 for each $1,000 of assessed property, indefinitely from residents.

The money would support fire and emergency services within Delhi. 

“This is an emergency resolution for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety or welfare of the township,” states section 3 of the township’s resolution declaring the necessity of this levy.

The post What issues will be on the ballot for the May primary? appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

A reward is being offered for anyone with information that could lead to the identification and arrest of suspects involved in Sunday night’s shooting at Riverfront Live, where nine people were injured.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced Monday on Facebook that a $5,000 reward is being offered; anyone with information can call 1.888.283.8477 or email ATFTips@atf.gov.

“We are devastated by the violence that occurred in the early hours of March 1st at Riverfront Live,” read a Facebook post the venue, located at 4343 Kellogg Ave. in Cincinnati, posted Sunday. “Our hearts are with the victims and their families. We are profoundly grateful that, at this time, all of the victims are reportedly in a safe and stable condition.”

The post went on to thank staff, first responders and the community.

“The immediate reaction from CPD helped to prevent further casualties,” the post said. “To those brave men and women- THANK YOU. To the community that we are proud to be a part of, Thank You.”

UC Medical Center Director of Media Relations Heather Chura Smith said the hospital had received eight patients from the incident.

“As of this morning, six have been treated and released, and two remain in stable condition,” Chura Smith said in a statement to CityBeat. The other injured person was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital.

The incident occurred at a party featuring several DJs that started around 10 p.m., police said.

Cincinnati Police and local leaders held a press conference Sunday morning to give the community an update.

“This is a challenging day for our community, a challenging day for the region,” Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said at the press conference, “but we will fight together for public safety and continue to hold these violent aggressors accountable.”

Purveal was one of several people to express how grateful they were no one lost their lives.

“I can only thank God that no one was killed,” said Cincinnati City Manager Sheryl Long. “Our Cincinnati police, firefighters, and EMS, along with other first responders, are heroes of the highest order. Time and time again, they run towards chaotic and dangerous situations like this. Their work saves lives last night in an ultimate act of public service.”

Interim Police Chief Adam Henie assured the public that those responsible will be held accountable.

“This is a tragedy that is going to be investigated to our fullest abilities and I’m very confident we will find those responsible and bring them to justice,” Henie said.

The post ATF offers $5,000 reward in capture of Sunday morning’s  mass shooters appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

What’s more universal to the human experience than food?

We share food together, we make food for each other, we even spend hours arguing about our favorite foods. (Don’t believe me? Just go take a look at CityBeat’s Facebook comments.)

If you don’t know me, I’m our new Arts & Culture reporter, which means I cover everything from theater to music to visual arts. But my real passion—and my favorite thing to write about—is food.

Over the course of my career as a journalist, I’ve covered everything you can think of: vibrant openings, unique pop-ups, crazy cocktails, delicious desserts, elaborate sandwiches, restaurant labor investigations and more. One time, I even had to review 20 different breakfast restaurants in a two-week span. My stomach hurt almost as much as my wallet.

Having now joined CityBeat, I looked at our most popular pages over the past year and every single one is about food—specifically, the BEST food. It doesn’t matter if the article is a week old or 10 years old: people want to know what to eat!

I’ve enlisted Noah Jones, our Community Vibrancy reporter, to discuss our individual picks for the top five restaurants in the Cincinnati area. While my picks skew toward fine dining and his picks lean more toward fast-casual, all 10 are worth the trip. Let’s get to it.

Noah’s #5: The Echo, Hyde Park

The Echo is the kind of place that makes you feel like a regular customer from the minute you sit in a booth or the swivel seats at the bar. From young adults picking up a quick meal to the older diners slugging back coffee and conversation, this joint has a magical way of bringing eaters back to when diners were America’s peak food destination. The food is perfect for breakfast or brunch, with seasonal specials—crabby benedict, anyone?—and staple foods like hearty omelets.

Kane’s #5: Nolia, Over-the-Rhine

It’s a common misconception that Nolia is strictly a Cajun or Creole restaurant. Sure, owner Jeff Harris is from New Orleans, and yes, the ever-changing menu regularly sports cornbread, crab and crawfish. But this is a showcase for the flavors of the South and the entire world, with plenty of Indian and West African-inspired dishes adorning its menu across the years. Really, all you need to know is that Nolia is the best Southern restaurant in the Cincinnati area, and nothing soothes the soul like good Southern cooking.

Noah’s #4: Heyday, East Walnut Hills

This joint has a place in the heart of any Cincinnati burger lover. Heyday makes fantastic bar food, whether you’re enjoying a quiet summer day on their patio or carrying over a burger to the Growler House to watch an FC Cincinnati game. Plus, who doesn’t love the option of tater tots on the side?

Kane’s #4: Kiki, Clifton

I would pay a ridiculous amount of money to know what Kiki puts in their broth. Try as I might (and I have tried), I’ve never been able to replicate anything close to the savory-smooth chicken flavor in the broth of their Shio ramen, which also sports pork belly, rayu, nori, green onions, and a tea-marinated egg. And when it comes to their excellent nigiri, there’s no fresher fish to be had in the Cincinnati area—except at Kiki’s sister omakase joint Roji, located downtown. One day, maybe I’ll be able to make ramen that’s even half as good as this. But for now, I’ll just keep giving them my money.

Noah’s #3: Café Mochiko, Walnut Hills

There’s something exciting about waiting in a line out the door for food when you already know the wait is worth it. Mornings at Mochiko are always the start of a great day, thanks to their Beard-nominated pastries (like an ube halaya croissant) and weekly baked specials. At night, they serve udon, karaage and other entrees in spectacular fashion, with standout weekly specials like their Cincinnati chili ramen. This beloved Asian-American eatery always serves up perfection and is a must-try when you’ve got out-of-town visitors.

Kane’s #3: Abigail Street, Over-the-Rhine

It’s fun to share food, but it’s even more fun to be surprised. Abigail Street’s Mediterranean-inspired menu is filled with incredible renditions of falafel, dates, scallops, short rib, octopus, and more. So it’s really fun when I get to take someone new there and I watch their face scrunch up as I tell them we’re ordering broccoli. ‘All this amazing food and we’re getting broccoli?’ their facial expression reads. Then they take a bite and the look of surprise makes me think they’ve seen the face of God.

The restaurant’s Moroccan-spiced broccoli—fried extra-crispy and served with berbere, sesame seeds, miso and tahini—is my favorite appetizer in the city. It’s got such a legendary reputation among my friends that I recently took a photo of it and sent it to someone as a playful attempt at making him jealous. His response? “I’ve been dreaming about that broccoli for months.” Which begs the question: if even the broccoli is this good, what’s the rest of the food taste like?

Noah’s #2: Your Mom’s Pizzeria, Mount Adams

This literal mom-and-pop pizzeria excels at making fantastic pies. Take my favorite: the Shiesty, a pie with excellent tomato sauce and a damn good crust, topped with pepperoni, ricotta cheese, peppadews, and one of the greatest inventions of all time in hot honey. Excuse me while I go wipe my chin.

Kane’s #2: Mita’s, downtown

Mita’s is probably the most critically lauded restaurant in the city: among countless other awards, chef/owner Jose Salazar has been nominated as the best chef in the region by the James Beard Foundation a whopping six times. One visit makes it obvious why. 

The Latin-focused cuisine at the restaurant, named as an homage to Salazar’s Colombian grandmother (his “mita”), has something that’s missing from a lot of fine dining: it’s fun. That might sound cliche, but each item on the menu—like the chicken skewers or the blistered shishito peppers—invites friendly conversation in a way that too many restaurants lack, making it my top pick anytime I’m dining out with a big group. Everything at Mita’s is always so ridiculously well-executed that I regularly order their shrimp ceviche as a side even though I’m allergic. Food this great is worth a fuzzy tongue.

Noah’s #1: Ambar India, Clifton

Indian food is in abundance in Cincinnati, but Ambar India stands out. Their unusually large portions, even for Indian spots, have left me with meals for days. The chicken saag slaps. The lamb curry slaps too. It’s hard to go wrong here. In fact, the only wrong decision you could make at Ambar is not placing an order for garlic naan.

Kane’s #1: Wildweed, Over-the-Rhine

At first glance, with the punk rock blasting over the speakers and plating so fancy it’s just begging to go on your Instagram story, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Wildweed is the kind of place they’d skewer on FX’s The Bear. But Wildweed’s ethos isn’t one of fine-dining snobbery. If anything, the place exhibits a freedom to experiment that you’d only see in Michelin-starred restaurants.

Here’s an example from my favorite dining experience ever: as their current location was being built, chefs David and Lydia Jackman hosted several pop-ups. During a winter 2023 edition, I ravenously consumed several dishes that would later become mainstays at the full restaurant—like quark-stuffed culurgiones and Dungeness crab risotto, the latter of which is probably the last meal I’d request if I was ever on Death Row.

As we finished the meal, Chef Jackman walked over and said he had a surprise for us while handing me a mysterious bowl of ice cream. I took a bite and gasped as he explained it was made from melted-down pine needles from his Christmas tree, then sat in stunned silence wondering how he even came up with something that bizarre. If you’re looking for food that will challenge your taste buds, Wildweed is your first stop. And if you’re averse to fine-dining, Wildweed will make you a believer.

The post Ten must-try restaurants in Cincinnati, according to CityBeat’s newest writers appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Cincinnati Bengals’ Center Ted Karras has spent his NFL career protecting his ball carriers and guiding them forward.

Now Karras is looking out for a different community and helping to guide a path for the city to put a dent in the housing crisis.

Karras’ Cincy Hat Foundation broke ground on a five-unit apartment building for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, sometimes referred to as I/DD, on Thursday.

“That is the main goal of our foundation,” Karras said at the groundbreaking, “to provide affordable infrastructure in a climate where housing and the rental market are very high and inaccessible to a lot of people, and it’s even exacerbated in the I/DD community.”

Matt Renie, executive director of the foundation, said Ted has always been a protector.

Part of the reason is that Karras has a personal connection to this community.

“I have two cousins with nonverbal autism, so I’ve known about families and what families face since I was a child,” Karras said. “Colleen Renie, Matt’s mother, founded the Village of Merici back when we were in high school in Indianapolis. I think no one does better work than the Village of Merici, and we are just going to try to emulate that. Emulate that and provide the same type of independence to this community.”

The Village of Merici is a Medicaid service provider that offers independent living opportunities to adults with developmental disabilities. When Ted became an NFL athlete, he chose this organization as his charity of support from 2016 to 2022. In October 2024, the Cincy Hat Foundation was founded. Karas became the president of the organization and Colleen Renie serves as an advisor.

“It’s beyond my own comprehension how the Cincy hat has taken off, and that is because of the generosity and goodwill and spirit of the Cincinnati community, Whodey Nation, and everyone who’s donated and bought hats. It was really important for us to get something done in Cincinnati,” Karras said.

Working with the Port of Greater Cincinnati, the Cincy Hat Foundation purchased a plot of land in Madisonville. Renie said the project is about a $1.1 million endeavor.

The Madisonville development will include:

• Five total units
  • Two 2-bedroom / 2-bathroom apartments
  • Three 1-bedroom / 1-bathroom apartments
• Full kitchens
• In-unit laundry
• Fully functioning private living spaces

The move-in date is expected to be fall 2026.

“We’re aiming for fall 2026,” Karras said, “so this upcoming football season, we’d like to move our residents in.”

The project used the money provided by those who have purchased hats through The Cincy Hat Foundation. Additionally, the project is being funded by Ted Karras’ personal $500,000 gift. That investment allows rents to remain well below market rate, ranging from $700–$900 per bedroom.

Residents will bring their own service providers and retain full freedom of choice, an earlier press release said. The Foundation does not provide services — it creates housing that allows adults with disabilities to live autonomously while remaining close to family and community support systems.

A part-time, on-site community manager will also live in the building and serve as a resource and safety net to help integrate residents into the Madisonville neighborhood.

This, Karras said, is just the beginning.

“Hopefully, we’re getting everyone on the same page, and everyone works together to be the number one city in the country for these adults,” he said.

The post Bengals player’s foundation breaks ground on housing for people with developmental disabilities appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

A ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday morning at  St. John’s Westminster Union Church in Delhi signified hope for members of the intellectual and developmental disabilities community.

The opening of Hope Cottage, a former parsonage, was worth the wait, said Emily Kendall, co-founder and president of EmpowerMe Living, a vital partner in the project.

“When we can bring together a church that has contributed this beautiful home that was sitting empty for residents with conditions like this at an affordable rate, it’s exciting,” Kendall said. 

A parsonage is a home maintained by a church that is provided for a minister or priest to live in.

The four men chosen to live in Hope Cottage will be provided services from the Ohio Valley Residential Services, an organization that works with intellectual and developmental disabilities to offer support based on what the individuals need. 

“We help them at their level of independence,” said Chris Alexander, chief financial officer at OVRS. “We support a wide level of individuals throughout Hamilton County, from minimal staffing at the home to the more 24/7 total care.”

In the state of Ohio, there are 292,000 people living with intellectual or developmental disabilities, according to Kendall, and 77,000 adults living with caretakers older than the age of 60. Across the four counties in the Cincinnati area, Hamilton, Butler, Clermont and Warren, there are 12,000 adults living with caretakers over 60.

“Caregivers age,” Kendall said. “They have to take care of their own needs; they may slip and fall and have to go to a rehabilitation facility. Unfortunately it’s estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the homeless population in this country has a developmental issue. They ended up facing housing insecurity because they lost their primary caregivers.”

Hope Cottage could be an example of what could be for other churches with parsonages or other homes on their property, Kendall said.

 The home was built in the 1960s and was rarely used.

“Pastors don’t want to live in our house, they want to live in their own houses,” said Carol Thomas, president of the board at St. John’s United Church of Christ. “The house sat vacant for 20 years.”

She said eventually, the church had to decide what to do with the property. 

“One of the options was to tear it down. That was unacceptable,” she said. “It was a perfectly good house. So why tear it down?”

The board was determined to find use for it, exploring options with organizations across the county.

“We spoke with all kinds of people, and heard all kinds of ideas,” Thomas said. “Finally, we spoke with the Hamilton County board of developmental disabilities. They said, ‘This is exactly what we’ve been praying for.’”

The home needed some renovations: refinishing the floors, new roof, new water heater, New HVAC,  mold removal, and new paint.

Rent for the units will be $400 a person. Thomas said the money collected will go toward the upkeep of the home. The Church has a 20 year lease with Ohio Valley Residential Services, also known as OVRS.

“Right now, that kind of housing is unheard of,” Thomas said. “The church owns the building and will work with OVRS. The folks who will be living here will be placed by them and cared for by them, should they need any care.

“It’s supposed to be independent living. A lot of young adults, middle-aged adults who have developmental disabilities and lived at home all their lives and then mom dies, dad dies,” Thomas said. “Nobody wants to have them in their house; nobody knows where to go with them. Places like this are necessary and needed. When we found out about that, it was a revelation. We as a church council and congregation made a vote that this is what the building would be.”

This ribbon cutting was a big deal for the intellectual and developmental disability community. 

Alexander said this was the first home they opened in about six years.

“I want you to think about how many parsonages there are sitting empty in the county,” Kendall said. “So now, you have a faith-based community that welcomes all members of the community with open arms. This is a unique offering compared to a random house in a neighborhood. We’ve figured out a pretty turn-key solution to use under-utilized assets across our city, across our county, across our state.”

The post Home represents hope for people with developmental disabilities appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

A state agency went to the Ohio Supreme Court after the court said Duke Energy is passing a $14 million bill to its customers for a mistake the agency says Duke made. 

The issue began in 2022, when Duke Energy and 15 other state partners (including the City of Cincinnati and the Ohio Energy Group) agreed to a $23 million rate increase for customers.  This negotiated agreement allowed for a $23 million distribution rate increase to its nearly 700,000 Duke consumers.

In a separate, later “rider” case filed in 2023, a $14 million error from the rate case surfaced. The math error related to Duke not counting accumulated deferred taxes correctly in the rate case.  If a correction could be made, Duke would be able to collect an additional $14 million above and beyond the $23 million increase approved in the 2022 case.

In oral arguments to the state supreme court on Feb. 11, the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Council presented an audit completed in 2023 that found Duke had essentially under-billed its customers $14 million due to a mathematical error.

Jon Blackwood of the Ohio Consumers’ Council said the state’s public utilities commission allowed Duke to tack the $14 million onto the already agreed upon rate hike in 2022, for a new total of $37 million. 

Duke made a correction to its quarterly rider filing on Nov. 29, 2023 where it placed the $14 million charge in rider rates, with a one-year collection period.  Duke’s rider rates took effect on January 2, 2024.

On January 8, 2025, PUCO approved Duke’s rider filing in its order.

That, Blackwood said, is illegal in Ohio.

“That’s what we consider to be retroactive ratemaking,” Blackwood said in documents filed with the supreme court. The rate hike agreement, Blackwood argued, was made in 2022. Duke should not then be allowed to increase that amount after the fact, especially for a mistake the company itself made, the consumers’ council argued to the supreme court. 

The Ohio Supreme Court is now working through a decision, which could take months. 

Duke Energy did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission said it cannot comment because the case is ongoing. 

Click here to watch the Ohio Consumers’ Council’s oral arguments to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The post Ohio Supreme Court weighs $14M Duke Energy charge that could impact Cincinnati electric bills appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

The first time Joe Moeller sat in the balcony of Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center for the Arts, he wasn’t onstage. The then-young boy watching Thoroughly Modern Millie with his mother stared down at the stage and wondered what it might feel like to stand there himself.

Years later, he returned to that same stage as a lead actor.

When the curtain closed on Shucked’s Sunday performance in his hometown, Moeller’s full-circle moment was complete.

His musical journey began in seventh grade, thanks to his sister, Nikki Fromm. She was running sound for Ursuline Academy’s performance of The Sound of Music when she invited her younger brother to tag along.

“I had a friend get sick, so I asked Joe to come with me,” Fromm said.

Moeller barely remembers touching the soundboard.

“I don’t remember adjusting a single knob,” he said, laughing. “I just sat there and watched the show and became completely enamored. Seeing people transform into different characters right before your eyes. It just felt like the coolest thing in the world.”

Fromm remembers seeing her brother fall for theater.

“There are moments that define our lives,” she said. “That was one of them for Joe.”

By eighth grade, Moeller was onstage himself, joining the ensemble in The Music Man before landing the title role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat later that year.

For the first time, his family heard him sing solo.

“My grandparents were like, ‘We need to get Joe voice lessons,’” Moeller said. “That was when it became real.”

With his family’s encouragement, he threw himself into musical theater at St. Xavier High School and later at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.

Many CCM graduates land on Broadway quickly. Moeller took an alternative route.

Instead, he built his career the long way with regional theaters and then national tours. Within a year and a half of graduating, he booked his first tour, a milestone he once considered the ultimate goal.

“I was successful,” he said. “I made a living doing what I loved. Not everyone gets that, especially in theater.”

He worked consistently at regional theaters, including North Shore Music Theatre outside Boston and the now-closed Westchester Broadway Theatre in New York. When he joined the national tour of Mary Poppins, a dream show of his, he felt he had reached a new level.

But Broadway still lingered in the background.

“It was 10 years before I finally got there,” Moeller said. “By that point, I’d made peace with the idea that it might never happen.”

Then a friend texted him a dance audition video for & Juliet, asking for feedback.

“I was like, ‘What is this for? This is exactly what I do,’” he recalled. “Why don’t I have an audition for this?”

His agent had already tried to get him an audition. The production wasn’t interested.

Moeller recorded the material anyway and asked his agent to submit it on the off chance they’d accept his video.

They did. He was cast in his first Broadway show as a member of the ensemble.

“I cried the whole time watching him in & Juliet,” Fromm said.

Broadway, he quickly learned, is as unpredictable as it is glamorous. After his debut, he joined The Heart of Rock and Roll, the Huey Lewis musical that closed in 2024 after a short run.

“That’s the reality,” Moeller said. “Broadway is a commercial business.”

Still, he kept working. He worked as a member of the ensemble or an understudy. Roles he appreciated, but ones that didn’t always put him center stage.

“I trained to take on leading roles,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be at the front of the stage, singing the song, having the moment.”

The opportunity came through a connection. His dance partner in The Heart of Rock and Roll, Robin Masella, associate choreographer for Shucked, connected him to the audition.

This time, he landed the role of storyteller 2 in the Tony Award-winning musical’s national tour, a leading part packed with rapid-fire dad jokes and high-energy narration.

“It’s my favorite role I’ve ever done,” Moeller said. “When I saw Grey Henson do it on Broadway in 2022, I remember thinking, ‘I would love to play that part.’ And now I get to do it.”

For Moeller, the role feels personal.

“I get to be a silly, gay comedian,” he said. “That’s who I am. It’s perfect.”

When the tour prepared to stop in Cincinnati, Moeller spent weeks hyping up his castmates.

“I told them, ‘You’re going to love the audiences here,’” he said. “Cincinnati didn’t disappoint.”

He describes the city as “farm-adjacent” and deeply rooted in the arts — a perfect match for Shucked’s corny humor and big-hearted storytelling.

But performing at the Aronoff meant more than just a strong crowd. This was a theater he had been able to work at once before in an ensemble, but now as a lead actor, it meant so much more.

“There’s something special about wanting to be out there for the kid sitting in the balcony,” he said. “The way I was.”

Fromm says the hometown pride runs deep.

“All of us feel it,” she said. “Joe getting the lead and doing what he loves in the place that made him who he is, that’s everything.”

Moeller agrees.

“Cincinnati is the kind of place where you’re from Cincinnati, even if you’re from Milford or Fairfield,” he said. “And when something good happens, the city rallies around you.”

On Sunday night, as the curtain fell and applause filled the Aronoff Theatre, Moeller stood center stage — no longer the kid in the balcony, but the performer under the lights.

Somewhere up there, another kid might have been watching, wondering what it felt like.

The post Cincinnati Actor reflects on career, performing Shucked appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

In Olympic curling, the target where stones are thrown toward is called ‘the house,’ but Cincinnati Curling Club is doing their best to create a true home for its athletes.

“It’s a recreational sport unlike any other,” said Brody White, vice president of the club’s board. “One of the great things about curling is that there are so many ways to adapt to curling [for individuals]. You can always play to the best of your abilities. It doesn’t matter how good you are. We can all be on the ice and playing to our abilities.”

It’s that openness that attracted Justin Swann, who moved to the U.S. from Australia in 2023, to join the Cincinnati Curling Club last month.

“I saw the Olympics on TV, and I always enjoy watching it,” Swann said. “But when my parents came from Australia to visit, we thought it’d be a fun sort of activity to do one of these learn to curl classes. It is something you don’t really get to do in Australia. So we took a class, and we really enjoyed it.”

Brody said this year’s Winter Olympic Games has helped the club see rapid growth. 

The Cincinnati Curling Club hosts five two-hour Learn to Curl classes, which teach the essentials of curling, including ice safety, etiquette, basic skills development (delivering a stone, sweeping, etc), and scoring and strategy. Equipment is included before classmates play a game together.

“One of the best things about being an Olympic sport is that every four years we see surges in participation,” he said, adding that their classes are fully booked until early March.

In their curling club rules, there’s a mandate for the winning team to buy the losing team a drink. White said this helps create community amongst the players.

“They get to meet other people who they may not know much about other than they like curling,” he said. “This rule helps them meet new friends and create new bonds.”

Swann agreed. He and his husband have gone from taking the Learn to Curl class and enjoying the class to taking the four-week Instructional League to learn more about curling.

“Anyone who struggles to meet people should give this a try,” Swann said. “There’s no pressure here.  Everybody is enjoying themselves, having a good time, playing a weird sport, and it’s fun. I think that’s the main thing: there’s no pressure. It’s just for a fun place to sport together and hang out.”

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In 2014, while earning my journalism degree at Bowling Green State University, I sat in on a lecture from John Quiñones, host of the TV show, What Would You Do?

During his lecture to journalism students, he offered a piece of advice that has stayed with me ever since: “Good stories seek the moved and shaken, not just the movers and shakers. That’s how you shine light in the dark.”

Those words have guided my reporting ever since. They’ve shaped the way I approach interviews, the questions I ask, and the stories I pursue. That’s what has ultimately led me to the role of Community Vibrancy Reporter at Cincinnati CityBeat.

Good journalism isn’t about amplifying the loudest voices in the room; it’s about illuminating the voices that might otherwise go unheard. I believe strong local journalism can unite communities by providing not just reaction, but context and clarity. 

As Community Vibrancy reporter, I plan to dig deep and to understand neighborhoods’ stories; I want to understand before writing. It’s not my job to solve Cincinnati’s challenges, but it is my responsibility to help bring them to light.

That’s work I’ve been doing since the beginning of my career.

Since my first newspaper job in Nevada, Missouri and as an award-winning digital reporter in Mansfield, Ohio, I’ve covered stories at the intersection of crime, arts and culture, education and government.

When I moved to Cincinnati at the start of the pandemic, I wasn’t sure there was still a place for me in journalism, but instead of stepping away from storytelling, I shifted. I founded NoJo Creative, a podcasting company where I worked with clients to produce, edit and host podcast shows. That included Brutally Informed, one of the first weekly news podcasts for Audible, and working with LINK nky, now owners of this publication.

Even outside traditional newsrooms, my focus has remained the same: telling the community’s stories.

While living in Cincinnati, I’ve also worked with several nonprofits, most recently as the social media guy at La Soupe, an organization reducing food waste while feeding neighbors facing food insecurity. That experience deepened my understanding of the city — not just its challenges, but the people actively working to solve them.

All of it has brought me here.

I love Cincinnati and its communities. I’m eager to tell the stories that make them vibrant. If you know of a story that deserves light, I’d love to hear from you; shoot me an email at NJones@citybeat.com. 

The post Introducing CityBeat’s new Community Vibrancy Reporter, Noah Jones appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.