League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area Education Fund
Hamilton County, OH November 3, 2009 Election
	Jeff Berding Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Cincinnati

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What are your Qualifications for Office? (50 word limit)

I am a lifelong Cincinnatian with a firm grasp of the main issues facing the City. I have a steadfast commitment to making Cincinnati a place where I can raise my children and where they can raise theirs, and I am willing to make tough choices to make Cincinnati better.

2. What plans do you have to address your top three priorities? (100 word limit)

I plan to continue defending the jobs of police officers and firefighters, and working to make public safety the top priority in the City's budget.

I have a series of reforms that I will release soon that will provide a local economic stimulus through tax reform, workforce development and business recruitment.

I remain committed to preventing foreclosures and turning around abandoned properties, and I constantly look for new methods of code enforcement, homeowner assistance funding and continue the challenging process of forming a special housing court to service Hamilton County and Cincinnati.

3. What two actions would you promote to enhance city revenue or decrease city expenditures in order to balance the city budget, given the current economic conditions? (100 word limit)

I would recommend an expansion of the tax incentives we offer to businesses that would like to relocate or expand in Cincinnati, so that we can benefit from increased income and corporate withholding tax revenues. The best way to increase city revenues, in the short and long term, is to draw more businesses and more residents into the city.

The best way for Cincinnati to reduce its expenditures is to aggressively pursue shared service agreements with Hamilton County and surrounding jurisdictions for bus service, emergency communications and health care services.

4. What steps should the local government take to ensure that the quality of rental property meets minimum legal standards? (100 word limit)

Strict enforcement of the City's health and zoning codes will help ensure a baseline quality of rental properties. The City's lead abatement efforts and code enforcement have had mixed results in the past and I will support any efforts to increase the effectiveness of those endeavors.

Additionally, City Council can be selective, through formal legislative action or through expressed policy priorities, in the criteria used to allocate federal and state assistance for rental housing development. If the City is more discriminate in funding only reliable, high-quality developers, we will have fewer issues to deal with in the long term.

5. What actions should Cincinnati take to ensure a range of housing choices for residents, including affordable housing? (100 word limit)

Cincinnati serves as a conduit for many federal and state grant programs that allow us to offer diverse housing options to our residents. It is our role as a City Council to ensure that those dollars are spent for maximum impact in our neighborhoods.

By carefully allocating dollars to neighborhoods and organizations with the capacity to create quality, low-cost housing options, we can stretch our resources to have an impact beyond the individual units created or rehabilitated by our dollars, and extend to the entire neighborhood to provide quality living spaces for entire communities, rather than individual residents.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. Word limits apply for each question. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 27, 2009 14:53
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