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.

Written by Thomas Maddox, a senior at the University of Cincinnati

Cincinnati just made a decision that almost no American city will ever get to make. The city sold a railroad built by past generations and created a financial engine expected to generate roughly $1.6 billion over time—an opportunity capable of shaping Cincinnati long after today’s politicians are gone.

The question now isn’t simply what we fix.

The question is what kind of city we choose to become.

For years, local politics has revolved around scarcity—how to patch potholes, maintain aging buildings, and stretch limited budgets a little further. The railway proceeds change that conversation. For the first time in a long time, Cincinnati has the chance to think in decades instead of election cycles.

That opportunity is bigger than partisan politics. It’s bigger than any mayor or council member. And it carries a risk cities rarely talk about openly: when sudden money appears, the instinct is to spend quickly rather than think carefully.

The railway trust should absolutely support core infrastructure. Roads matter. Public facilities matter. Reliable services matter. Every resident feels the difference when basic systems work—and when they don’t.

But this moment demands more than maintenance.

Because maintenance preserves a city. Vision defines one.

Across Ohio, cities are competing for talent, energy, and relevance. Young workers choose where to live based on quality of life, opportunity, and identity—not just job availability. Cities that stand still slowly fade, even when they are financially stable. Cities that build boldly create momentum that lasts for generations.

Cincinnati has a rare advantage: a financial resource capable of funding long-term investments without constantly raising taxes or chasing short-term grants. That should allow us to think bigger—not just about repairs, but about the civic backbone that will define how this city feels twenty or thirty years from now.

The temptation will be to divide the money into safe, politically agreeable pieces. Small projects. Incremental upgrades. Things no one can oppose because no one notices them.

That approach feels responsible. It also risks wasting the moment.

Cities become memorable when they decide to build something that signals confidence—something that tells residents and outsiders alike that this is a place moving forward. Chicago has Millennium Park. Indianapolis invested heavily in sports infrastructure. Pittsburgh reinvented itself through innovation corridors and waterfront redevelopment.

Cincinnati doesn’t need to copy anyone else. But it does need one bold, unmistakable project that signals ambition.

Imagine a public-facing civic tower—perhaps the tallest in Ohio—not a corporate monument, but a space designed for people. Shops. Gathering areas. Entertainment. Workspaces. Places that residents actually use rather than buildings we only hear about in press conferences or see on television. A landmark that becomes part of everyday life.

Yes, it would go viral—but not for virality’s sake. The goal wouldn’t be attention. The goal would be gravity. To bring people downtown. To attract visitors. To give young professionals and entrepreneurs a reason to build their lives here instead of leaving for somewhere that feels more alive.

That doesn’t mean reckless spending or vanity projects. It means asking a simple question before every major decision:

Will this still matter in fifty years?

If the answer is no, it probably doesn’t belong at the center of the railway strategy.

The smartest use of this money will blend two ideas that often feel opposed: practical infrastructure and ambitious identity-building. Fix what must be fixed—but also invest in civic assets that make people want to stay, build families, start businesses, and grow roots here.

The biggest risk isn’t making a bold decision. The biggest risk is drifting into small decisions that feel safe but leave no lasting legacy.

Cities are judged by what they build when they have the chance.

And chances like this are rare. Most cities spend decades trying to recover from financial mistakes or shrinking populations. Cincinnati has been handed something different—a clean opportunity to think long-term.

That requires discipline. The money should be managed with transparency and clear standards. Citizens should be able to see where it’s going and why. Projects should be evaluated not just for political appeal but for measurable long-term value.

But discipline doesn’t mean thinking small.

If we only use this moment to patch problems, we will look back in twenty years and realize we protected stability without creating momentum. Future generations won’t remember that we maintained what we already had. They’ll remember whether we built something worthy of the opportunity.

The railway sale created more than a fund. It created a test.

Do we view this as a cushion—or as a launchpad?

Cincinnati has spent decades balancing tradition and reinvention. We know how to preserve history. The challenge now is proving we can build the future with the same confidence.

Because cities don’t become legendary by playing defense.

They become legendary when someone decides to build something that lasts.

And this may be the moment when Cincinnati decides whether it wants to be merely stable—or unmistakable.

The post Opinion: Cincinnati just hit the jackpot—now don’t blow it appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

CityBeat was born in November 1994 with a simple but powerful idea: Cincinnati deserved an independent voice. One willing to tell the stories of communities too often overlooked and conversations that didn’t fit neatly into anyone else’s pages, and it quickly became a home for stories that were bold, unexpected and unapologetically local.

For 31 years, CityBeat has covered Cincinnati’s wins and losses, its music and meals, its politics and protests, its artists and agitators. They did it with a wink when it was warranted, a raised eyebrow when it was necessary and a full heart always. Along the way, they earned national, statewide and local journalism and design awards (including being named Ohio’s Best Weekly Paper by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2005) but what has mattered most isn’t the awards. It’s the trust.

Through multiple ownership changes — the first sale to SouthComm Communications in 2012, another to Euclid Media Group in 2018 and finally, to Big Lou Holdings in 2023 — the mission never wavered. CityBeat’s editorial staff remained committed to fearless local storytelling and a stubborn belief that independent journalism is critical to community health.

In December, LINK Media, the company I run, bought CityBeat, returning it to local ownership for the first time in more than a decade.

That matters.

Local journalism works best when it is rooted in the community it serves. LINK Media’s corporate mission is simple: strengthen vibrant communities through independent, sustainable local journalism. For CityBeat, that means doubling down on what they’ve always done best, while sharpening our focus on what Cincinnati needs most right now.

Our mission is clear: CityBeat serves Cincinnati with independent local journalism that informs our readers, elevates unheard voices and keeps our community vibrant.

That isn’t just a sentence we framed and hung on a wall. It’s a daily charge.

It means we don’t just report what happened. We ask why it happened, and what happens next. We believe in solutions-focused journalism, digging into not only the problems facing Cincinnati but how this community might solve them. We know our readers are smart. You don’t just want outrage. You want information you can act on.

It means we are unapologetic Cincinnati fans. We believe in this city — in what it is and what it can be. Loving a place doesn’t mean ignoring its flaws. It means caring enough to hold it accountable and investing in its future. We want to see Cincinnati advance, and we understand the role independent journalism plays in that progress.

It means being inclusive—not as a buzzword, but as a responsibility. Cincinnati is not one story. It is many stories, and those stories have changed significantly in the past 31 years. Our job is to reflect the full complexity of this place: across neighborhoods, across backgrounds, across perspectives. We are committed to giving voice to communities that have too often been spoken about instead of listened to.

It means being good stewards. Strong local journalism doesn’t exist without sustainability. The CityBeat we bought was struggling mightily. We are committed to rebuilding a business model that allows CityBeat to serve this community not just this year, but decades from now. Independence requires durability.

And yes, it means being independent. CityBeat does not make political endorsements. We are committed to fact-based reporting on the issues facing Cincinnati. We will seek outside opinions from multiple viewpoints and clearly label them as such. Our role is not to tell you what to think. It is to provide the information (and the robust debate) our community needs to make informed decisions about our shared future.

Some things, though, will never change.

We’ll still cover the restaurant openings and the up-and-coming bands. We’ll still spotlight the artists, organizers and everyday Cincinnatians who make this place vibrant. We’ll still be curious. We’ll still be a little irreverent. We’ll still call it like we see it.

But at the core of everything is this: CityBeat belongs to Cincinnati.

It belongs to the readers who have picked it up for three decades. It belongs to the small businesses that have advertised in its pages. It belongs to the musicians, chefs, activists and public servants who have trusted us to tell their stories. And it belongs to the next generation of Cincinnatians who deserve a strong, independent publication covering the city they’re inheriting.

Thirty-one years in, we are proud of where CityBeat has been.

And we’re even more excited about where we’re headed.

The post The Inside Beat: Our mission, our values and our future appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Written by Noah Dormady, Associate Professor of Public Policy, The Ohio State University

American families are feeling the pinch of rising electricity prices. In the past five years alone, the generation portion of the standard service residential electric bill in Columbus, Ohio, has increased by 110%. This is one data point in a national trend.

Energy affordability is quickly shaping up to be a key election issue at all levels of American politics. And more than half of U.S. adults surveyed in January 2026 reported being very concerned about the price of electricity.

Experts in the energy industry are fiercely conflicted on what, or who, is to blame. People have sought to blame geopolitical events like the war in Ukraine, dramatic changes in U.S. energy policies, power grid operators, regulators and artificial intelligence and data centers.

But new research from The Ohio State University’s Energy Markets and Policy Group, where I serve as principal investigator, provides new insights about another factor you were probably not thinking about – middlemen introduced by deregulation.

How deregulation brought middlemen instead of competition

Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, several state legislatures deregulated their electricity systems. Deregulation was originally sold as a way to replace inefficient regulation and reduce bureaucracy. People were told that competition would deliver lower prices.

Under the old system, a state regulatory commission set prices for all electricity services – generation, transmission and distribution – which were supplied by the same monopoly utility company. Each state commission was required by federal law to ensure that rates were “just and reasonable.” Under deregulation, that same commission rate-setting process still holds for transmission and distribution, but the generation part was split off.

Deregulation created competitive wholesale markets for generation, but price competition did not spread widely at the retail level. In states with active retail deregulation, there are two ways the retail generation price can be set. Consumers get to pick which one – buy from a marketer on the open market, or do nothing. Most people choose to do nothing.

Rather than introducing efficiency, this system of retail deregulation created a new complexity: middlemen marketers. In most cases, no matter which choice people make, it’s hard for them to understand how their electricity rates are set. That’s where our research comes in.

Option A: The open market

Electricity customers in deregulated retail markets can choose a company that buys the electricity on their behalf. People who live in these states may be familiar with energy salespeople who come to their homes, approach them in a convenience store, or use telemarketers.

For example, people who live in the Cincinnati area can contract with one of more than 50 suppliers to buy electricity on their behalf from the wholesale market. Their monthly bill would still come from Duke Energy, a regulated distribution utility, and would still include regulated charges for distribution and transmission set by state and federal officials. But it would also include charges from an unregulated retail supplier, for the generation part of their bill – their electric supply.

Some locations also have community choice aggregation, in which their municipality participates in the open market on their behalf unless they opt out.

Our research has found that these markets are not working as intended.

Option B: Do nothing – default service

For people who choose not to shop on the open market, by doing nothing they remain on what is called the “standard offer” or “default service.” Sometimes it is also called “provider of last resort” service because it is not meant to be the best option.

For these people, state law generally requires each distribution utility to hold auctions or use a procurement process like a request for proposals to determine which middlemen companies get to be their supplier, and of course, at what price.

People in this category still buy from middleman marketers. But rather than choosing their own middleman, they get the middleman the utility company selects for them.

Problems in the open market

People who live in states with deregulated electricity markets know that these open markets have many problems. There have been investigations into unfair trade practices, lawsuits and regulatory penalties for misleading sales practices.

Other problems include deceptive marketing, a process called “slamming” in which companies change customers’ suppliers without their knowledge, contract loopholes that increase prices, and outright fraud.

Help for consumers usually comes after problems have arisen, rather than preventing them in the first place.

Our research team sought to determine whether, and how much, electricity consumers would save money if they used the supposedly competitive open market, rather than going with the default rate. To answer this question, we developed a detailed database of every daily retail choice offer filed by every supplier in all service territories in Ohio for a decade – which meant compiling millions of records.

We found that 72.1% of the open-market offers exceeded the utility’s default rate. In some years, there was not even one single cost-saving offer for the entire year, or longer. The vast majority of these supposedly competitive electricity prices were higher than customers would get by doing nothing. Taking the time to research the market and compare prices was often not worth consumers’ time.

Importantly, the study found that suppliers in the open market were not setting their prices based on market fundamentals – like the underlying wholesale price of electricity. Instead, they were setting prices based on the results of the utility’s default supply selection. In a competitive market, that is not supposed to happen.

Is default service really competitive?

In a separate study, our team evaluated every default service auction in every utility service territory in Ohio since 2011, nearly 15 years. We found that the number of companies competing with one another in these auctions is a key determinant of the retail markup consumers have to pay.

In some of the default-option rate auctions, as few as five suppliers placed bids. In others, there were as many as 15 companies vying to provide default-option electricity. Our analysis found that in situations when the underlying costs of generating electricity were the same, default supply auctions with fewer bidders delivered significantly higher prices for consumers than auctions with more bidders.

The study included numerous statistical controls for other factors that could otherwise help explain the prices, including natural gas prices and market volatility. The number of bidders was the key factor. Having just three additional bidders could reduce consumers’ default-option rates by 18% to 23%. Nine additional bidders, the analysis found, could deliver savings of as much as 60%.

It’s important to note that Ohio’s process for setting default service rates is more robust than many other states. In some states, it is not uncommon for even fewer companies to bid. So Ohio’s situation is not actually a worst-case scenario for consumers. Rather, it’s probably better than many other states with deregulated electricity markets.

Putting it all together

The first study showed that the open market is not setting efficient retail rates and is not working as intended. Most of the offers made available to consumers are not worth their time, and the suppliers in those markets are not setting their prices based upon market fundamentals. Instead, these companies are taking their cues from the local distribution utility’s default supply auctions. That is not how deregulation was envisioned.

The second study showed that the process which sets the default supply rate is also not very competitive. Less competition means the middleman companies bidding in those auctions can bid, and win, higher prices – raising electric bills and increasing their profit margin.

Energy deregulation promised lower prices through competition. But instead, consumers got an army of middleman marketers. And, those middlemen have been taking their cues from a bidding process that often has too few participants to keep prices low.

Noah Dormady, Associate Professor of Public Policy, The Ohio State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Opinion: How deregulation made electricity more expensive in Ohio and the nation, not cheaper appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

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.

Thomas Key Maddox is a senior at the University of Cincinnati studying finance.

Cincinnati’s residents are paying the price for decisions they didn’t make.

Under Mayor Aftab Pureval and a one-party City Council, City Hall has developed a habit of passing the bill off—away from the people who approved the spending and straight to the taxpayers who didn’t.

When a decision fails, it doesn’t land on the people who made it. When a program collapses, nobody steps forward to own it. When millions disappear into settlements, consultant contracts, and quiet write-offs, the cost doesn’t stay inside City Hall. It gets passed along—slowly, quietly and reliably—to the middle class.

Over the past few years, Cincinnati taxpayers have watched costs rise without any clear connection to better outcomes. Property taxes increase. Assessments jump. City-related fees stack up. People didn’t move. They didn’t renovate. There was no corresponding increase in wages or household income. The bill just went up. Officials call it “growth.” Families experience it as fewer groceries, less stability, and more stress—the hidden cost of sloppy governance.

This isn’t about ideology. It’s about accountability.

Start with the city paying more than $8 million to settle claims tied to the mass arrest of nonviolent protesters in 2020. Whatever your politics, that money didn’t come from nowhere. It came from taxpayers already stretched thin. What followed wasn’t a reckoning or serious accounting. It was silence, then business as usual.

The same pattern shows up in discretionary spending—the kind residents only learn about after digging through reports. In December, WCPO reported that city consultant Iris Roley received a $664,300 contract signed two days after the election, with nearly $100,000 paid for work completed months earlier. She also hired her son for $4,400 a month in a city-funded position.

Say that out loud. No one hears that and thinks it’s normal.

In the real world, retroactive invoices get rejected. Nepotistic hires raise alarms. In City Hall, it gets defended. Officials say it was legal. That defense alone shows how low the standard has fallen. Legality is the minimum, not a governing philosophy. Judgment matters. Competence is what people feel. Accountability is what’s missing.

City Hall insists this is normal. That’s the problem. What’s routine inside the building doesn’t resemble normal life anywhere else.

The money was supposed to stabilize Downtown and reduce violence. Instead, residents watched disorder escalate until curfews and SWAT deployments became unavoidable anyway. At that point, the questions aren’t political. They’re unavoidable. What were the goals? How was success measured? When would someone have said, “This isn’t working?”

If there were no benchmarks and no consequences, that isn’t compassion. It’s a surrender of responsibility.

While City Hall explains and reorganizes, residents deal with the basics: crime rising, disorder spreading, and the sense that no one is actually in charge when it matters.

The city is drowning in task forces, vision statements and polished language about progress. What it lacks is discomfort—real accountability for people in charge. When leaders explain outcomes instead of owning them, costs rise, trust erodes, and problems don’t get solved. They get managed, reframed, and pushed into the next budget cycle.

Cities don’t fall behind because no one cares. They fall behind because no one clearly owns results. When everyone is responsible, no one is. A functional city has someone who wakes up knowing that if things go wrong, it’s on them—not a consultant or a committee.

So here’s a proposal City Hall would despise—which is how you know it’s the right one.

For the next two years, Cincinnati should freeze all new consultant contracts. Every one. No exceptions. If a project can’t be explained, managed, and defended by people already on payroll, it doesn’t deserve to exist. Instead, the city should publish a live, public dashboard listing every active contract, settlement, and development deal—one page, searchable, updated monthly.

Each project should list four things: the original budget, the current cost, the percentage over or under budget, and the official who approved it. No summaries. No press releases. Just numbers.

Projects under budget are green. Over budget are yellow. Anything more than 10 percent over is red—clearly labeled, impossible to miss.

Residents shouldn’t need records requests or buried PDFs to see where their money went. If City Hall is proud of its decisions, it should post the receipts.

If a project goes more than 10 percent over budget, the people who approved it don’t get promoted, reassigned, or “transitioned.” They’re out. Fired. Replaced. The way it works everywhere else.

If that sounds harsh, good. The middle class doesn’t get a grace period when bills go up. They get penalties.

City Hall says governing is complicated. So is running a business. So is raising a family. Somehow everyone else manages constraints without press conferences that rebrand failure as progress.

This city doesn’t have a money problem. It has a responsibility problem. Too many people have permission to overspend quietly, fail upward, and explain it all away later.

People aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking for adults—adults who own results, publish the numbers, and accept consequences when things go wrong.

Cincinnati works very well for the people who run it. It just doesn’t work very well for everyone else.

That’s why the middle class keeps paying for City Hall’s bad mistakes.

The post Opinion: We’re paying for City Hall’s mistakes appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

It’s been two months since CityBeat joined LINK Media, and in that time, we’ve made a number of important behind-the-scenes improvements.

Our goal during that time was to stabilize operations, get everything back under one (local) roof, and ensure that systems and processes were in place so we could continue publishing without interruption.

There’s still some work to do (improving our events calendar experience, for instance) but for the most part, the behind-the-scenes work is done. Now, it’s time to work on the part you do see: our coverage.

The purpose of independent or “alternative” news organizations is to fill coverage gaps left by “traditional” media outlets. I put alternative and traditional in quotation marks because, honestly, the media landscape has changed so much in the past 20 years that I’m not sure those terms mean much anymore.

The major media corporations have gutted newsrooms, slashed coverage and no longer operate the robust reporting organizations they used to, and what used to be considered alternative media is now often the first source of information for communities, not the second or third.

In Northern Kentucky, our first publication, LINK nky, was founded because none of the Cincinnati media outlets were covering NKY the way it deserved to be covered. Now with CityBeat, we’re going to work hard to identify and fill coverage gaps wherever they exist in Cincinnati (and boy, do they exist.)

We’ve gotten some feedback from readers already, but in order to find out more, we’ve launched our first CityBeat reader survey. This short, anonymous survey gives our readers – new and old – a chance to tell us why they read CityBeat, what we’re doing well and what we can do better in the future. We take these responses very seriously, and the information we get from this survey will be used to inform our coverage moving forward.

So please, spend three minutes taking the survey and let us know what you’d like to see in the pages of our print edition and on the website. And if you have more to add, you can always email me at lacy@citybeat.com.

The post The Inside Beat: What do YOU want from CityBeat? appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

According to the Ohio Department of Development, Ohio’s population will shrink from 11.8 million people in 2020 to 11.1 million people in 2050.

To many policymakers in Ohio, this is a key public policy issue. Last year, Gov. Mike DeWine urged university officials to ramp-up recruitment efforts to “keep more talent in the state of Ohio.”

There is some truth to the benefits of population growth to population vitality.

New people means new ideas, new businesses, new consumers. I like living in a city with a vibrant immigrant community where I can eat foods from places like the Philippines and go to karaoke nights where people sing Brazilian standards.

I also like having friends from states ranging from Pennsylvania to California who have different backgrounds and life experiences from me.

But population decline can be a symptom as much as a cause of quality of life problems, if not more.

The slowest-growing states in the country, West Virginia and Mississippi, are also states that struggle with the highest poverty rates, lowest educational attainment, and lowest life expectancies.

Understanding causality is hard here, though.

Surely people with higher education and income have more ability to move from state to state, meaning part of what is causing these poor statistics is just losing people who are better off.

On the other hand, there are reasons they are leaving, too, that could be attributed to quality of life.

Then there are the exceptional states like Vermont, which is one of the slowest growing states in the country despite having one of the lowest poverty rates and some of the highest educational attainment and life expectancies among U.S. states.

Clearly there is something happening with Vermont. Meanwhile, Montana had bottom-five population growth in 2024, but is around the middle of the country when it comes to poverty, education, and life expectancy.

So what should we make of Ohio’s population growth trajectory?

Compared to the rest of the country, Ohio has a high poverty rate (top half of U.S. states), low bachelor’s degree attainment (bottom half of U.S. states), and low life expectancy (bottom half of U.S. states). That means Ohio looks a lot more like the Mississippis and West Virginias of the country than it looks like Vermont and Montana.

If this is the case, population decline could be an indicator for deeper quality of life problems in the state.

Ultimately, these other statistics matter more to Ohio’s trajectory than population growth.

If Ohio lost 700,000 residents on net due to births, natural deaths, and migration rates but the poverty rate declined, bachelor’s degree attainment improved, and life expectancies rose, I think pretty much everyone would agree the state would be better off than it was before.

Targeting public policy toward reducing poverty, increasing educational attainment, and improving public health will likely lead to a more well-off state population than one that focuses squarely on population growth.

Let’s realize that quality of life is the most important consideration for Ohio residents, not how many people decide to move in or out of the state.

This commentary was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal and republished here with permission.

The post Is Ohio’s population decline overrated? appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Today is my last day as CityBeat’s editor-in-chief.

For nearly four years, I have been at the helm of a publication I’ve long admired. This job has completely changed my life — it introduced me to some of the best people I’ve ever known and pushed me to become a better journalist and citizen.

Since 1994, CityBeat has occupied a unique space in the media landscape as a truly independent publication — an alternative to the daily papers, with fantastic investigative reporting on underrepresented topics and essential coverage of the arts, culture, music, food and much more. As former editor-in-chief Maija Zummo said in her goodbye message when I took over her role, I was only able to run a thriving alt-weekly — in an era when alt-weeklies are shuttering left and right — thanks to the CityBeat staffers who came before me. They navigated the turbulent waters of the 2008 recession, the COVID-19 pandemic and countless other curveballs to keep CityBeat standing strong today.

Of course, as you likely know, things are a bit different now. Since I was hired in 2022, CityBeat ownership has changed hands three times. Most recently, in December, LINK Media acquired CityBeat, becoming the first local company to own CityBeat since its inception.

Though I faced plenty of challenges as editor-in-chief of a small publication, those hardships are outweighed by the important work I was able to do alongside my fellow staffers. This job has been the most rewarding experience of my life.

So why am I leaving if this has been so rewarding? First, I truly believe I’ve done everything I can to help secure CityBeat’s future. CityBeat is in far better shape than it was even a few months ago, and I have every confidence that LINK Media will preserve — and strengthen — CityBeat’s unique legacy. Second, I have accepted a position at the Dayton Daily News, which means I’ll be able to move back home and be closer to my family as I prepare to give birth to my first child.

It’s no secret that the media is struggling to cope with major challenges — from funding cuts to changing consumption habits to outright antagonism from the Trump administration. If I can ask one thing of our readers, it’s this: Stay engaged with local news and local politics. Many of us feel disconnected — from each other and from our communities — and, in my opinion, there is no better way back to civic life than paying attention to what’s happening where you live, work and play. Local news is one of the best antidotes to apathy.

Meghan Goth, an incredibly talented journalist and the executive editor of LINK nky, will take over my duties after today. She can be reached at mgoth@linknky.com.

Thank you for supporting CityBeat and local, independent journalism. Your support has truly changed my life for the better.

The post Ashley Moor Ends Her Tenure as CityBeat’s Editor-in-Chief appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Is everything amazing in Ohio?

Is that your experience?

Do Ohio politicians have an outstanding record of winning big for Ohio residents? Do you feel like they are looking out for you?

Have they turned Ohio into a destination among our 50 states? Making life affordable for Ohio families? Providing top-notch education? Access to health care? Access to opportunity? A thriving climate for both entrepreneurs and workers? The best roads, bridges, and transportation infrastructure? Public safety, quality of life?

Is Ohio a beacon of democracy for voters? Are voters respected? Are our elected officials accountable, mindful, and responsive to the needs and wishes of everyday Ohioans, and not beholden to narrow special interests or corporate influence?

Perhaps you think yes. Perhaps you think no.

You’re in luck either way.

This year, you will get to decide, Ohio voter.

You get to decide whether the Buckeye State is “on the right track” or “heading in the wrong direction,” as the pollsters love to put it.

Every single statewide executive office is up for open election: Ohio governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, and treasurer.

We also have two Ohio Supreme Court races to decide, and another U.S. Senate election for the third congressional cycle in a row.

Ohio Republicans are trying to hold onto the control over all three branches of state government they’ve had since 2011.

Ohio Democrats are trying to win their first statewide executive branch offices since 2006.

It’s been eight years since we last had open races for these executive offices.

Each of the current incumbents won reelection in 2022, but all are term-limited out of seeking reelection again, though three are attempting to shuffle from their current position into a different statewide executive office.

So what are the big highlights in Ohio over the last seven years?

I’ll just get out of the way and share some significant headlines from the Ohio Capital Journal and other news outlets throughout Ohio, and you can decide for yourselves what you make of it, as you consider what you think ought to happen next.

The Headlines

2019

A Bill Banning Most Abortions Becomes Law In Ohio

Nuclear bailout bill passes Ohio legislature, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine

Ohio nuclear bailout foes take initial steps toward statewide referendum

Pro-bailout figure tries to keep HB 6 off ballot

Yost rejects summary of HB6 petition

Proposed anti-House Bill 6 referendum clears initial hurdle

Fliers Push Anti-Chinese Government Message To Save Nuclear Bailout

House Bill 6 referendum signatures not filed, leaving its fate to judge

Judge rejects appeal for more time to gather HB 6 referendum signatures

Judge blocks Ohio abortion law, allowing clinics to remain open

Dayton shooting: Nine confirmed killed, gunman also dead

Gov. DeWine Proposes Red Flag Law, Expanded Background Checks After Dayton Shooting

DeWine scales back gun proposals

2020

Nuclear Bailout Opponents End Referendum Attempt

DeWine issues state order prohibiting general spectators from Arnold Sports Festival

How Ohio has responded to COVID-19: The first cases

Ohio House speaker, four others arrested amid massive dark-money, pay-to-play allegations

FirstEnergy Fires CEO Chuck Jones After Internal Investigation

As coronavirus continues to hit Ohio, public health officials take the heat

The grim calculus behind Ohio’s economic reopening

Ohio House Republican unloads COVID-19 conspiracy theories to Senate committee

Hundreds of millions in budget cuts to hit all areas of education

Ohio’s K-12 public schools got cuts. Private, charter schools got cash.

Two men tied to Householder corruption probe plead guilty

FBI raids home of PUCO chairman, possibly connected to House Bill 6 investigation

2020 in Ohio: COVID-19 Killed Almost 9,000 Ohioans And Left Millions Unemployed

2021

Ohio House votes to ax nuclear subsidies in partial repeal of House Bill 6

Generation Now, the nonprofit that prosecutors say received millions in bribes, pleads guilty to racketeering charge involving House Bill 6

FirstEnergy said it bribed a regulator for $4.3 million. Here’s how it worked.

Ohio governor won’t say he regrets picking regulator now at the center of historic utility scandal

FirstEnergy admits it controlled dark money group started by DeWine aide

DeWine aide’s organization was link to now-guilty dark money group

DeWine refuses to explain aide’s role in bailout scandal

Ohio House expels former Republican speaker in historic vote

Columbus lobbyist accused in HB 6 scandal died by suicide, autopsy confirms

Anti-mask, anti-vax Ohioans support bill targeting health dept. authority

Ohio politicians condemned for pandemic comparisons to Nazi Germany

DeWine vetoes bill targeting his pandemic authority; override awaits

Ohio legislature overrides DeWine veto of pandemic authority bill

Ohio ballots will list party affiliations for top judicial candidates

Dayton mayor unhappy as Gov. Mike DeWine signs ‘stand your ground’ legislation into law

How an Ohio representative’s business could profit off the ‘stand your ground’ bill he co-sponsors

Ohio lawmakers reintroduce medically unproven ‘abortion reversal’ bill

2022

Former DeWine aide warned governor about utility regulator before the FBI raided his home

FirstEnergy text messages say Lt. Gov. Husted pushed for more money for nuclear plants

Ohio’s response to Uvalde? Armed teachers and $117 million

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs bill allowing teachers, staff to carry guns in schools

Ohio lawmaker who wrote bill requiring gun training for teachers owns gun training business

Gun lobbyist wrote GOP lawmakers’ ‘permitless carry’ speech, document data shows

DeWine signs law removing training, background check, permitting requirement to conceal carry

‘Our voices are not heard’ — Ohio’s largest police union slams new GOP gun bills

U.S. Supreme Court overturns right to abortion in landmark decision

Ohio abortion bans on the way following death of Roe

10-year-old rape victim forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for abortion

Arrest confirms Indiana abortion for Ohio 10-year-old. Republicans questioned her existence

After raising doubts about rape victim, AG’s office won’t say if he supports abortion law

DeWine: No comment on abortion ban that forced a child to Indiana

Affidavits: More pregnant minors who were raped denied Ohio abortions

Despite reports of harm, DeWine refuses comment on abortion ban law

Lawmakers move to weaken Ohio Board of Education, give power to governor

School district coalition files lawsuit challenging Ohio’s private school voucher program

Bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court majority rejects partisan Statehouse redistricting maps for fifth time

Republicans ignore redistricting order from Ohio Supreme Court, signaling they intend to run out the clock

Group of GOP voters sue to force Ohio legislative map fix

Federal court implements Statehouse maps declared unconstitutional by Ohio Supreme Court

Republicans take victory lap after federal redistricting ruling, prospects unclear for future redistricting progress

Discussions underway to propose new redistricting reform to Ohio voters

Ohio activists plan abortion rights ballot initiative

Ohio Republicans launch effort to make citizen-led amendments harder to pass for voters

LaRose wants to make it harder for voters to amend constitution but evidence of a problem is lacking

Ohio legislature passes bill opening all state land to fracking, labeling natural gas ‘green energy’

2023

With stroke of his pen, Gov. Mike DeWine defines natural gas as green energy

Ohio pulls out of voter registration database targeted by conservative election skeptics

Ohio Republicans quietly enact ‘alarming’ new voting restrictions: Law puts Ohio among states with strictest voter ID rules and will make it harder for elderly people, the disabled and the poor to vote

A behind-the-scenes look at how Ohio enacted the most restrictive voter photo ID law in America

Ohio board of education loses most of its powers in state budget

Former chair of Ohio utility regulator surrenders in $60 million bribery scheme linked to energy bill

Swanky D.C. dinners between FirstEnergy execs and Householder led to corrupt scheme, prosecutors say

Former GOP Ohio speaker, lobbyist guilty in $60 million bribery scheme

Former Ohio House Speaker Householder sentenced to 20 years for state’s largest bribery scheme

Former GOP Chair Borges chair sentenced to five years in massive corruption case

Final Ohio education budget expands vouchers, limits board of ed powers

Ohio approves fracking under state park and wildlife areas at contentious meeting

Ohio lawmakers send 60% supermajority amendment to the ballot

Bipartisan former Ohio governors against raising constitutional threshold to 60% and August vote

Ohio Sec. of State LaRose admits making constitution harder to amend is ‘100% about… abortion’

Issue 1 falls: Ohio voters reject raising voter approval threshold to amend constitution

Split ballot board approves reproductive rights amendment summary written by Ohio Sec. of State

Secretary of State Frank LaRose says abortion opponents helped craft ballot language to aid defeat of Issue 1

Ohio Republicans accused of trying to mislead voters with abortion ballot wording

Ohio voters pass Issue 1 constitutional amendment to protect abortion and reproductive rights

Ohioans vote to legalize recreational marijuana by passing Issue 2 law

2024

FirstEnergy gave $1 million to boost Ohio Lt Gov Husted’s campaign before scandal, document shows

Ohio Lt. Gov. Husted won’t say if he knew about $1M dark-money contribution

FirstEnergy gave $2.5M to GOP governors’ dark money group backing DeWine’s 2018 bid

Ex-First Energy executives, Ohio utility regulator charged by state in bailout and bribery scandal

Indicted former Ohio utility chair reported dead by suicide

Former Ohio Speaker Larry Householder seeks pardon from Trump for bribery conviction

HB 6 scandal: Shell company pleads guilty, agrees to forfeit over $2.1 million

How state legislation led to the banning of big wind and solar projects in a fourth of Ohio’s counties

“Who’s gonna want to move here?” How fracking around Ohio’s Salt Fork State Park is changing area

Ohio spent nearly a billion dollars on private school voucher scholarships in 2024

DeWine wants to fight gun violence, but GOP lawmakers don’t want gun regulations

Ohio Ballot Board approves controversial language to describe anti-gerrymandering amendment

Anti-gerrymandering groups warn that Ohio’s ballot language is misleading voters

As Some Ohioans Make Confused Votes on Issue 1, Critics Say That’s By Republican Design

Ohio voters reject Issue 1, leaving politicians in control over map-making process

Ohioans Reject Redistricting Reform, Protecting GOP Gerrymanders

2025

Ohio Republican leader says strategy to confuse voters helped defeat redistricting amendment

Ohio Republicans weigh how ruthless to be in redistricting

Opponents speak out for more than three hours against making changes to Ohio’s marijuana law

Ohio budget cuts income taxes to historic lows; almost all savings go to those making more than $138,000

Ohio House Republicans pass higher education overhaul to ban diversity efforts and faculty strikes

Ohio Gov. DeWine signs higher ed bill regulating classroom discussion and banning diversity efforts

High school students reconsidering applying to Ohio universities due to new higher education law

As SB 1 impacts ripple across Ohio college campuses, students, faculty say ‘the chill is real’

DEI offices shuttered, degrees cut, discussions tiptoed: What Senate Bill 1 changed in higher ed

Ohio’s largest community colleges cut programs under Senate Bill 1

Ohio spent more than a billion dollars on private school vouchers in fiscal year 2025

New funding for public schools the smallest increase in decade — Look up your district.

As federal cuts finalized, state lawmakers in Ohio also gave cuts to public broadcasting

Ohio’s new state budget brings an estimated $25M cut to public libraries, prompting concern over services

Ohio’s Medicaid expansion group survives federal budget, but cuts still coming

At an Ohio food bank, fears that Republican cuts will overwhelm an overstretched program

Two former FirstEnergy execs indicted on federal racketeering charges

Federal appeals court upholds conviction of Householder in public corruption case

Attorneys for Householder, Borges ‘hopeful’ following pardon for Cincinnati politician

Ohio finally ends subsidies for two scandal-linked coal plants

Ohio adopts new congressional map with 12-3 GOP advantage

Ohio Republican lawmakers look to regulate abortion, push against constitutional amendment

Republican-approved Ohio House budget erases commission that handles campaign finance cases

Why it Matters: The end of the Ohio Elections Commission

Ohio bill to ban intoxicating hemp products and make changes to marijuana law goes to Gov. DeWine

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs intoxicating hemp ban, new marijuana regulations into law

Ohio Gov. DeWine signs property tax bills, ‘reluctantly’ approves new voting restrictions

Ohio Gov. DeWine signs bill ending mail-in ballot grace period for voters

This commentary was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal and republished here with permission.

The post Ohio Voters Face Major Decisions in the 2026 Election About the Future of Our State appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.