Life in "Progress" City - Cincinnati edition

The city of Cincinnati has a lot of money to throw around on trolley rail programs but if you need a real city service like pothole fills, not so much..........

Winter chopped more potholes into Cincinnati streets this year - at least 2,257 of them - but budget cuts have left fewer workers to fill them.

Callers reported 2,257 potholes to the Public Services department between Jan. 1 and the end of June. That's more than the number reported in 2009 (1,941) and in 2008 (2,150). That's as far back as city records currently go.

• DataCenter: Find Cincinnati potholes

The same city department, which also handles trash collection and snow removal, lost 27 workers last year after some AFSCME union members declined to take the city's request of 10 unpaid days. Another 10 workers were demoted and reassigned, nine of them to other departments.

Those who left either had direct involvement in pothole-filling or their departures prompted moves that affected the pothole progress, said Diana Frey, president of the Cincinnati Organized and Dedicated Employees (CODE) union.

The city doesn't keep comparative records to show how long pothole-filling has taken this lean year compared to the times in fatter years, but officials don't dispute longer wait times now.

"We're working as efficiently as we can, but the budgeting does have an impact," said Larry Whitaker, spokesman for the public services department.

Spending money for a few and ignoring problems for all?

Now that's "progressive"!

More......