Meeting summary:

  • Two of the three Hamilton County commissioners OK’d spending more than $207 million on upgrades and renovations at Paycor Stadium to maintain the lease agreement that is keeping the Cincinnati Bengals in town for at least another decade.
  • A prospective buyer of 222 Central Parkway in downtown Cincinnati is offering $12.1 million for the county office building. The buyer plans to convert it into apartments offering market-rate and workforce rents.
  • A public commenter accused Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich of wasting taxpayer dollars on two highly publicized criminal cases. The commissioners have been asked to review that spending, in light of her request for more money in 2026.

Documenter’s follow-up question:

  • What amount of money would be considered wasteful in the prosecution of a highly public criminal trial? 
    Has the low-income population been passed over again with the planned conversion of 222 Central Parkway into apartments?
  • When will the new executive board members be active?
  • When and how will the CBA be approved?

Notes

This week’s regular meeting of the Hamilton County Commissioners was held, as it usually is, on the sixth floor of the Todd B. Portune Center of County Government, 138 East Court St., in downtown Cincinnati. This meeting, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., started at 10:03 a.m. with silent prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, introductions and approval of the last minutes. The meeting was adjourned by unanimous vote at 11:32 a.m.

Attendance

Commission President Denise Driehaus

Commission Vice President Stephanie Summerow Dumas

Commissioner Alicia Reece

Commission Administrator Jeff Aluotto

County Assistant Prosecutor Ann Schooley

Public Comments  

Nathaniel Livingston Jr., via Zoom: He asked the board to instruct Prosecutor Connie Pillich to provide figures detailing how much money was spent on prosecuting former Juvenile Court Judge Tracie Hunter and convicted murder defendant Elwood Jones.  Pillich dropped Jones’ case after an investigation revealed prosecutors withheld key evidence that would have helped in Jones’ defense. Pillich has asked the commissioners for more money in her 2026 budget request. Livingston accused Pillich of wasting county money after she campaigned on promises of ending the Hunter and Jones cases. Livingston asked the board to consider using the power of the purse to adjust the prosecutor’s 2026 budget.

Larry Falken, who was in the audience, asked the board to focus on unbilled flow (everything that comes to the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati sewer system). Runoff from large roofs and parking lots could be included in unbilled flow, he said in asking the board to add to MSD’s 2026 budget request a pilot project that would bill for excessive flow

Comments/Motions [52 minutes, 47 sec]

Commission Vice President Stephanie Summerow Dumas said she is against expanding any county department, including the Department of Jobs & Family Services, whose director has requested an additional $34 million over 2025 in order to balance the 2026 JFS budget. Dumas said the board could not guarantee supporting Cradle Cincinnati, which JFS warned would be cut by $100,000 in 2026. 

She discovered, through research, that 4.6 more babies would possibly die in 2026 because of a lack of funding and lack of vaccines. Dumas also pointed to two entertainment events — Blink and the Cincinnati Music Festival – as potential losers in the 2026 budget. The county has given both events millions of dollars, she said, and there are other, more pressing initiatives, such as homelessness and hunger, that the county needs to focus on in its capital budget.

Reece thanked operators of the 513 Relief Bus Mobile Food Pantry, which responded quickly to help people during the government shutdown and the stoppage of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. She acknowledged dozens of church congregations as well. Affordability of property taxes and safety are key issues for her, she said “Everybody’s going through it right now.” 

Reece expressed concern that the county landbank pays no taxes on homes taken from homeowners because of unpaid property taxes. “We have to be creative. We have to comb every fund,” she said, noting that the county lost $7 million from its interest-earning fund for backing bids to bring Sundance Film Festival and a women’s soccer franchise to Cincinnati.

Driehaus said the city passed a resolution this week to name a street at the new county administration building in Bond Hill after Pat McCollum, who fostered an estimated 70 children in her lifetime. McCollum was stabbed to death in a College Hill home in October 2024.

The Regular Agenda contained 62 items, including five By-Leaves   

BL 3: The board voted 2-0 (Reece abstaining) to spend $2.215 million with AVI Systems, dba Forte, out of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, to upgrade the audio portion of the “Jungle Vision” computer system that operates the scoreboards at Paycor. The computer system is “extremely old, original to the stadium,” Aluotto said. The $2.215 million and the $3,658,190 in By-leave 4 are financed by debt service payments from the stadium fund.

BL- 4: The board voted 2-0 (Reece abstaining) to spend $3,658,190 to hire Graybach LLC and United Electric Co., both of Cincinnati, for general construction and electric work as part of the “Jungle Vision” upgrades, Aluotto said.

BL- 5: The board was unanimous in approving a resolution authorizing the sale of the county building at 222 Central Parkway to Alms & Doepke LLC for $12,131,951. Aluotto said the county didn’t want to sell the property to just anyone, but the sale was driven by board policy focused on addressing the housing issue. Two-thirds of the new project will be for workforce housing, he said. The rest will be for affordable housing. 

The buyer’s plans include converting the building into more than 150 residential apartments on six floors, as well as adding a lobby café and rooftop deck, according to the resolution. The plan is to create a mix of market-rate and workforce housing, with rents affordable to those earning 80% to 120% of the area median income within a geographically designated area, according to the resolution. 

The project is expected to be an integral housing development connecting Over-the-Rhine  to the downtown business district south of Central Parkway, according to the resolution. The Department of Jobs and Family Services and other county offices are in the Central Parkway building until early 2026, when the county will move departments and offices to the former Mercy Health building in Bond Hill.

Consent Agenda

1. Item 1: The board, by a 2-0 vote, consented to spend $207 million to support selling $211.5 million in notes for Paycor Stadium renovations, and $190.5 million for project revisions. The money raised will be used for upgrades and renovations.. The county has agreed in its lease with the Cincinnati Bengals to chip in $350 million of the total $470 million in renovation costs. The board will be asked to approve more project funding at a future meeting, county Administrator Jeff Aluotto said. (Reece abstained)

 Items 2 through 8 (unanimous approval)

Items 9 and 10 (unanimous approval)

Items 11 through 57 (unanimous approval)

These notes can also be viewed on the Documenters webpage.

If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@signalcincinnati.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line.

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