I sent a lteer to the Board of Trustees of the Cincinnati Southern Railway Trust about the issue reported by Local 12 news on December 10, 2025. This the link to the Local 12 report:
This is the letter followed by a screenshot of an excerpt from the meeting minutes from the Board’s February meeting where this issue was raised directly with the Board
Excerpt of meeting minutes CSRT 2.11.25
Public comments follow up email 12.1.25
I offered public comments at yesterday’s meeting (12.1.25) of the City Council’s Budget & Finance Committee. As far as I know, public comments are not included in the minutes of city council meetings. So, I sent a follow up email to the committee last night to document my comments. I included a statement on my email about a provision in the municpal code that requires the internal audit manager submit her budget request directly to th city council, bypassing the city manager. Unfortunately, the city does not comply wih this requirement.
Earlier today, I sent a letter to the City Council with my assessment of the city’s contracts with Iris Roley LLC. The letter details five observations:
Ethics Letter to City Hall 92325_compressed
City of Cincinnati Budget Book Update Approved FY25 Leveraged Support
I sent a letter to the mayor and city hall today with a concern about a conflict of interest created by the Mayor’s membership on the Board of Directors of Cintrifuse.
During Mayor Pureval’s term, Cintrifuse has received more than $1 million from the city .
When I first saw the “Leveraged Support” table in the city’s budget, alarms went off, asking myself, “How can the city possibly oversee all of those Leveraged Support and Program Support recipients (54) and assure themselves that the millions of dollars in public funds are being properly spent?” Since that time, I found that there are even more nonprofit organizations receiving city funding – nearly 200, as a result of the Green Cincinnati Plan (71) and Act for Cincy (64).
When I looked at the list of leveraged support recipients, two organizations stood out. One was Cintrifuse, a 501c3 nonprofit that helps start-ups and entrepreneurs. The other is CincyTech, a 501c4 non-profit, which is actually a venture capitalist. It seemed unusual for those particular nonprofits to be receiving substantial funds from the city.
So, that is where I started. As a 501c3 nonprofit, Cintrifuse files public financial reports with the IRS. As a 501c4, CincyTech’s IRS filings are not public.
I visited Cintrifuse and examined the documents that 501c3 organizations are required to make public upon request.
That is when I found that Mayor Pureval was a member of the Cintrifuse Board of Directors. The most recent IRS filing available at Cintrifuse at the time was for 2023, so I sent a letter to Cintrifuse on September 3rd and received confirmation that the mayor remains a member of the Board.
My letter to the mayor and city council suggests corrective action that the city council and mayor could take to remedy the situation.
On September 11, 2025, after some back and forth with the city, I received a traunch of 51 documents. The response referred to these documents as a “partial” response. I provide a fuller report about the city’s disclosure on my Blog and include a complete copy of the 2nd amendment to Ms. Roley’s 2024 contract, which is valued at $570,000. Overtime, I will be posting all the documents disclosed by the city in the Reasearch Library.
I submitted a public records request concerning the city’s consultant who was hired in 2022 by Mayor Pureval for the “Collaborative Agreement Refresh.”
https://www.wlwt.com/article/cincinnati-collaborative-agreement-police-force-review/39094038
A violent felon on post-release control (parole) has been charged with the murder of Patrick Heringer in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of downtown Cincinnati. Patrick’s murder has exposed serious gaps in the post-release control program. The accused was released from prison in January 2025, cut off his GPS ankle monitor in February 2025, and remained a fugitive for four months prior to Patrick’s murder on June 4, 2025.
The post-release control program needs to be reformed. My letter requests that the Governor undertake an independent oversight investigation of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, the Adult Parole Authority and the Cincinnati Police Department to establish the facts about the failures of these state and local public safety agencies.
Note: I originnaly wrote to Attorney General Yost. His office recommended I send my letter to Governor DeWine noting that the Governor has broader authorities over the administrative offices of the state government. So., that is what I did.
Vice-Mayor Kearney and Councilmember Albi got together and proposed a “pilot program”using railway money to repair sidewalks in 7 “Rising 15” neighborhoods. I opposed this motion for several reasons outlined in a letter to the mayor and city council.
Under the municipal code, there is already a “sidewalk safety” program that establishes joint reponsibilites for the city and the property owners abutting a condemned sidewalk. The city repairs curbs and gutters and the property owner is responsible for the sidewalk repair.
The Vice-Mayor and Councilmember Albi wanted to use railroad money for those who were delinquent in reimbursing the city for repairs. In the end, the council approved the pilot program but did not approve using railroad money.
This was not the first attempt to use railroad money for the pet project of council members and unfortunately it will not be the last.
If you are like me and you look at the city’s Connected Communities process; the 2023 “Green Cincinnati Plan;” as well as, the “Financial Freedom Blueprint,” you must be wondering how much it cost in staff time and resources to produce these elaborate government plans. They obviously cost a lot. For example, there was a report in the Columbus Dispatch where someone reported that the Columbus version of Connected Communities, caled “Zone-In,” cost $3 million, so far. So, I submitted a records request seeking cost information for Connected Communities and the Green Cincinnati Plan.
The city responded with their standard legalistic denial but I got the impression that they truly did not know what I was talking about.
It is hard to believe that the city manager is making decisions without a process for capturing the costs of various projects. I wound up sending a letter to the city attempting to explain the value of a cost accounting system.
The letter also notified them that based on the response to my records request, I was going to report that the city does not know how much Connected Communities and the Green Cincinnati Plan cost the taxpayers. Believe me, it was a lot of money.
Zinser cost accounting letter to council 6.4.25
When former city council member P.G. Sittenfeld was pardoned by President Trump for his federal corruption conviction, there was a lot of discussion of the pardon and all the political and prosecutorial angles.
I decided to use the pardon instead to remind people about the corruption that tarnished the city’s reputation so terribly and review what the city has done in terms of anti-corruption reforms under Mayor Pureval. (Which is very little). My Op-Ed included actions that I thought the mayor and the council should each take. So, I decided I should send the Op-Ed to them.
The entire episode with Crowe LLP, the audit firm brought in by the outgoing city council to do an anti-corruption audit, was highly irregular and badly handled. And who knows if any of elected officials have read the report and recommendations from the Economic Development Reform Panel.
Two podcast episodes cover the topic, Episodes 12 &17.
Yahoo Mail – Transmitting Anti-corruption Op-Ed to the mayor and city council
Cincinnati falls short in response to corruption scandal _ Opinion