Best Expansion of Public Access: Contrary to his former colleagues on city council, Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune pushed for televising commission's Monday staff meetings. While the commission's Wednesday meetings attract more attention, many county government decisions are made at these staff meetings.

Best Use of Electricity Before 8 a.m.: WKRC's Good Morning Cincinnati, which broadcasts from the Visitor Center on Fountain Square. The on-air folks -- Cammie Dierking, John Lomax and Steve Horstmeyer -- are down to earth, funny and social, not stiff and serious.

Best Breath of Fresh Air in the Morning: WXIX's Sheila Gray. Having seen her (and other local television personalities) out and about, she's the only one who sincerely seems surprised and appreciative of her fans' support by taking time to talk to them and by never acting as if she's being intruded upon. P.S., we also adore her Fox19 in the Morning partner, Rob Williams. Perhaps we're biased -- Gray and Williams host CityBeat's annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards.

Best Broadcast TV Special: WCPO's Visions of Vine Street, an hour-long report aired in prime time and commercial free. The documentary calmly and rationally explores a complicated topic without hype or sensationalism -- in short, violating just about every tenet of local TV news there is. Laure Quinlivan gets to the heart of what plagues Over-the-Rhine without resorting to gotcha-journalism: no hidden cameras and no typical "I-Team" melodrama.

Best Cable TV Special: Kathy Lehr's programs carried on Intercommunity Cable, Stonelick Television, Media Bridges and Anderson-Union cable television. The former WLW news director looks at public affairs issues such as deteriorating bridges and trash recycling. Sure, it's not sexy TV. That's exactly the point.

Best Single Issue Magazine: Cincinnati Magazine recently was announced as a finalist for the prestigious National Magazine Award, in the category "single-topic issue." Other finalists are Gourmet, The Nation, The New Yorker and Time. The issue in question was the August edition, which presented "Listen to Me," a well-done collection of stories of young African-American men in Cincinnati.

Best Business Angles in Riot Coverage: The Business Courier has examined dozens of angles of African-American business life in Greater Cincinnati over the past 12 months, trying to find unique ways to cover the city post-riots. They've produced responsible and thought-provoking articles while seeming not to piss off the white business establishment -- a neat trick.

Best Separate Joint Investigation: On Feb. 3, The Enquirer published an impressive series of articles on Ohio's chaotic mental retardation care system. Two reporters and a photographer spent 10 months on the story, and it showed in the extensive Sunday package. Amazingly, on the very same day, Dayton Daily News published an impressive series of articles on Ohio's chaotic mental retardation care system. Two of their reporters and a photographer spent 18 months on the story. Neither series mentioned anything about a joint venture with the other paper. Some interesting (and depressing) figures: The Enquirer said 12 metally retarded people died since 1998 under mysterious circumstances while in the state's care; DDN said 30 such people died since 1997; each story prominently featured the horrible case of Dayton resident Denise Tavner, who died last year after being neglected for years. Within a few days of the stories being published, Gov. Bob Taft announced an investigation of state procedures. The Enquirer claimed credit for getting Taft on the case -- they seem to have been only half right.

Best Little Guy: 97X Proving that the corporate overlord doesn't overlord over everything, our readers have done us right this year by choosing WOXY (a.k.a. 97X) as the best radio station in the area. The Oxford-based Modern Rock radio station has been racking up national accolades for years, thanks to its adventurous playlist and staunch independence. The station is notorious for its low-frequency transmissions -- the FCC won't allow a signal boost, due to existing radio dial clutter -- but thanks to its Web site (woxy.com), fans can now hear the station online. "Our first major area of listenership growth was the downtown Cincinnati business people in offices with high speed lines," says station GM Doug Balogh, who adds that the station's site gets a million hits a week and it's picked up thousands of new listeners thanks to the online traffic. The U.S. Copyright Office has recently announced plans to more strictly regulate online radio stations, which will essentially kill off many of the outlets and hinder ones like 97X that are simply expanding their already existing transmissions. Balogh says he agrees that copyright and other issues should be addressed when it comes to Web play, but he thinks regulations should be realistic and fair. "This is about our essential freedoms and a few big, powerful, organized and well-funded record companies who want to control the future to protect their franchise," he says. "And that's bullshit!" (MB) WOXY, 97.7 FM.

Best Candidate for Mayor Who Didn't Win: Michael Riley -- who didn't survive the nonpartisan runoff on Sept. 11 -- wanted to see Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. fired. He was against the death penalty. He believed frustration caused the riots in April and that many inner-city youth show little hope for their future and little desire to live to an old age. He saw defending people's rights as a mayor's first duty. Too bad we couldn't have a mayor like that.

Best Candidate for Council Who Didn't Win: Jane Anderson, unsuccessful Democratic candidate for city council last fall, has a doctoral degree in political science and teaches classes in state and local government at the University of Cincinnati. She knows about all the crap that comes along with being involved in politics, yet she still keeps trying to get elected and make things right. Anderson wanted a city liaison with the Cincinnati Public Schools, better programs to address the health needs of children in poverty, preservation of affordable and mid-level priced housing in the city, tax incentives for people who rehab older houses and a removal of discrimination against gays and lesbians. Cincinnati could have used such a person on council.

Best Sign of the Need for Leadership: There are so many to choose from, but it's hard to beat the Hamilton County Republican Party's failure to field a candidate for mayor last fall, especially in a year when the Democrat incumbent was vulnerable.

Best Spin Job by a Politician: In December, City Councilwoman Alicia Reece announced she had "saved the Jazz Festival." What her plan really meant was eliminating city funding for Ujima Cinci-Bration, a free festival, and giving the money to the music festival, a for-profit event.

Best Manipulation of a Politician: When African-American entertainers canceled their performances for A Taste of Cincinnati, Mayor Charlie Luken bragged he'd gotten James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, to perform instead. Brown breezed into town, collected $15,000 to appear with Luken and then sang a few stanzas at the festival before scurrying away. Not bad work if you can get it.

Best Reminder That Law Enforcement Is a Political Beast: Hamilton County Prosecutor Michael Allen expedited the indictments of 63 people on riot charges but waited a full month to indict Officer Stephen Roach over the shooting death that led to the riot in the first place.

Best Tunnel Vision: Hamilton County Municipal Judge Ralph E. Winkler's not guilty verdict in the trial of Officer Stephen Roach. Despite testimony that Roach violated police procedure by running with his finger inside the trigger guard, Winkler acquitted Roach on negligent homicide and obstructing official business concerning the shooting death of Timothy Thomas. The telling moment was Winkler's short speech that said Roach committed "no substantial lapse from due care in firing his weapon" at Thomas. Winkler also believed the defense's assertion that Roach changed his story about the shooting during an internal investigation interview because Roach was under severe, memory-affecting psychological stress. Even the police themselves didn't buy that one, as we recently found out.

Best Political Prank: A group of radicals went to Mount Adams on June 2 to declare a citizens' curfew. The only people to get arrested were the protesters themselves, but they all won later in court and then proceeded to sue the city for violating their civil rights.

Best Lie of the Year: Cincinnati Police did not go on a work slowdown last summer. Keep repeating that until you believe it ...

Best Reason to Call a Cop: The crime rate for the entire city of Cincinnati, which, in the past year, has seen a 52 percent increase in auto theft, a 22 percent increase in burglaries, a 29 percent jump in aggravated assaults, a 6.5 percent increase in rapes and a 36 percent jump in robberies. Worst of all is the 52 percent increase in homicides (61 people killed in 2001, the city's worst year since Donald Harvey roamed the hospital hallways in 1987).

 

Photo: Jymi Bolden Best Alternative Job: Courtis Fuller He's doing pretty much what he'd be doing if he had won the election for mayor last fall -- discussing social issues and working for change. In January, Courtis Fuller became a talk-show host on WCIN (AM 1480). He's also handling publicity for Harmony Community School and helping to organize a young people's forum on social issues April 9. The date, as he points out, is the anniversary of the City Council Law Committee hearing that preceded the uprising in Over-the-Rhine. One of the things Fuller wants to do is teach kids how to be politically active. "We want to train students historically about civil disobedience, boycotts and civil rights," he says. "So much greatness will come out of this cloud that is enveloping our city." (GF)

Best Timing by a Higher Ed Institution: The University of Cincinnati, now offering biological and chemical terrorism courses through its College of Applied Sciences. We understand "Anthrax 101" is not to be missed.

Best Reason to Think John Phillips Is Grounded: Cheap Channel, ah, we mean Clear Channel -- owners of WLW and most of the town's other newsradio stations -- doesn't seem to want to buy the veteran traffic pilot a new helicopter. In the days when the radio newsrooms truly competed for listeners and ad bucks, helicopters weren't an optional budget item. Now, we get skin-flinted on decent traffic updates. "This is John Phillips, reporting live from my living room armchair ..."

Best Evidence That WEBN Has a Heart: The radio station's annual sponsorship of "Run Like Hell" -- among a number of charity events it's involved in -- belies its Hard Rock, balls-to-the-wall, bad-boy image. The Halloween fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis has gotten bigger and more fun every year, and 'EBN is a major reason.

Best Evidence That Enquirer Headline Writers Have No Brains: Well, the field to choose from is so rich. Perhaps it's this headline, "That Run-down Feeling," which ran over a Bengals story in the Sports section on the day after one person was killed and five injured by a careening vehicle outside Paul Brown Stadium. Or perhaps it was "Chuck's Check-Out Line" in the Taste section, over a column paying tribute to a chili cook-off winner who'd just died. Check-out line indeed.

Best Evidence The Enquirer Hasn't Gotten Over the Chiquita Debacle: In early October, newspapers all over the country reported that Chiquita Brands International agreed to pay $100,000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle charges that company employees had tried to conceal a bribe they paid to Colombia customs officials. Most of the nation's papers told their readers that this bribery charge was originally reported in The Enquirer's infamous 1998 series on Chiquita -- the one that cost The Enquirer front-page apologies, $14 million and humiliations galore. The Enquirer, however, didn't offer that connection in its story. According to sources at the paper, the connection was in the October story as originally written but was removed by editors at the urging of Enquirer lawyers. When it comes to Chiquita, some Enquirer executives think they live in a parallel universe where the 1998 weirdness didn't happen. Memo to them: The rest of us live in the real world, and it happened.

Best Questionable Change at The Enquirer: The injection of Peter Bronson onto the Metro front as featured news columnist. The guy has spent a decade as the daily's editorial page editor, defining the newspaper's arch-conservative, take-no-prisoners tone. Now we're supposed to believe he's suddenly become the Mike Royko of Cincinnati, the friend of the down-trodden little guy? Right!

Best Questionable Change at The Post: Without much fanfare, the afternoon daily moved almost all of its reporters over to Covington to make what Editor Mike Philipps calls a "last stand" in Northern Kentucky. Post readership continues to slide -- daily circulation is under 50,000 now, down from 100,000 a decade ago -- and so executives decided to consolidate its dwindling resources into serving the heart of its readership, Northern Kentucky. CityBeat now has a larger staff in downtown Cincinnati than The Post does.

Best Reason to Think Gannett Is Buying Channels 5 and/or 12: Gannett Co., owner of The Enquirer, just sold almost $2 billion in unsecured notes and took out a $2.7 billion line of credit. Perhaps the news giant did so in anticipation that federal media cross-ownership rules are about to be lifted, allowing the firm to own, say, The Enquirer and a partner TV station in the same market. Share resources, consolidate news staffs, save money -- the Gannett way.

 

Photo: Jymi Bolden Best Talent in the Fields: Dan Carroll What are we going to do with Fox 19? Last year's Best of Cincinnati issue praised them for then-traffic reporter Dan Carroll's in-studio appearances on Fox 19 in the Morning (category: Best Helicopter Grounding). So, in return, they decide to make him a field reporter? Carroll's humor, knowledge and accessibility blended nicely when he was a prominent part of the morning show. Now he has to be stiff and serious -- and with much more limited air time -- as he covers topics such as the Ohio River rising and weekend sports. He does a fine job in his new capacity -- we just know he's capable of a whole lot more. (BB)

Best Reason to Think Scripps Is Buying Channels 5 and/or 12: No less than The Wall Street Journal speculated a few weeks ago that the Cincinnati news company would double-up in its markets -- they already own Channel 9 here -- if the aforementioned media cross-ownership rules would now allow them to do so. The question is, will Clear Channel sell 12?

Best Reason to Think Clear Channel Is Buying Channel 5: Same rule change, same thinking -- consolidate the market and the ownership. If Clear Channel won't sell 12 to Scripps, then it's probably because it wants to double-up and buy 5, thereby dominating the TV market here like it does in radio.

Best Reason to Think That, Whatever Happens, News Junkies Are Screwed: No matter what scenario proves true, the Gannett/Scripps/Clear Channel domination of the news in Cincinnati leaves viewers, listeners and readers with just three corporate "editors" and agendas to choose from in the mainstream press. Plus, it's inevitable that news reporters will be canned as the companies see opportunities for "synergy" (corporate newspeak for "why hire two reporters to cover City Hall when one can cover it for two or more newsrooms?"). Something has to go to pay back that bank loan, but fewer reporters mean more chances that meaningful stories will be overlooked.

Best Reason for Hope in Cincinnati City Hall: Councilman David Pepper replaces rhetoric and self-serving legislation with an active agenda that appears to have the city's interests in mind. OK, we know he's a blue blood who couldn't have won his seat without his dad's P&G money. The hope is that Pepper has read enough John K. Kennedy biographies to know that money can be the root for solid, liberal politics.

Best Immature Acts by a Councilman: That John Cranley, what a sweetie. He makes it so much fun to watch a council meeting. Whether he's flipping off the mayor or reading his Christmas cards when he should be paying attention, he's like the schoolkid sleeping in the back of the class time and time again.

Best Political Chant: Heard during a march against police brutality last year: "Shake your booty for justice! Shake your booty for peace! Shake your booty against the racist police!"

Best Electoral Upset: With less than 24 hours before the filing deadline, Channel 5 news anchor Courtis Fuller quit his job, gathered 5,000 signatures on candidacy petitions and then walloped incumbent Mayor Charlie Luken in the city's first mayoral runoff election. Luken ended up winning the race, but Fuller showed how thin the mayor's support was.

 

Photo: Jymi Bolden Best Laugh on the Highway: Busken's Billboards If you're sick of navigating the streets of Cincinnati and feel like road rage is coming on, just look off to the side for a little relief. Busken Bakery has posted a dizzying number of witty billboards to make us smile -- and sell a donut or two. At Valentines Day, they offered heart-shaped cookies with the slogan "Buy, buy love." Easter produced a cookie tray declaring "Happy Eater." A Halloween sign proclaimed "They're creepy and they're cookie." At Mardi Gras season we were reminded to pick up a King Cake and "Try something twisted before Lent." And then there's the perennial favorite: a photo of two sugar-coated donuts and the line "You've got that glazed look in your eyes." (MR)

Best Line From a Cop: "We're just here to ensure that all you law-abiding citizens don't do anything illegal," Cincinnati Police Lt. Col. Richard Janke said to protesters and reporters at Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park on June 2. "Because if you were to do something illegal, then we just want to be clear that we are prepared to whack you and take you out if necessary."

Best Line From a Cop, Part 2: "Change is like the boogeyman in Hamilton County," said Scotty Johnson of the Sentinels Police Association during a WVXU debate last fall on Issue 5.

Best Defender of All That's Right and Good: Attorney Bob Newman, one of the last voices of reason and sanity in the city, has pleased us with his efforts to protect that pesky old Constitution. He had the guts to fight against the willy nilly use of beanbags by police and to represent protesters and their right to free speech even when most of the city was turning a blind eye. He's the lawyer all those mean lawyer jokes don't apply to.

Best Ongoing Attempt to Undermine the U.S. Constitution (Lifetime Achievement Award): Cincinnati's crackdowns on panhandling, sexually-oriented businesses, risqué art exhibits and the ability of convicted criminals to move about Over-the-Rhine, as well as cameras in public places and the police division's almost random arrests and beanbag shootings of nonviolent protesters. Ask any First Amendment lawyer: Cincinnati is always on the cutting edge of keeping people in line.

Best Ongoing Attempt to Undermine the Ohio Constitution: The Ohio Legislature's unwillingness to rework the state's school funding system. Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky have done it. But for some reason, our leaders in Columbus haven't changed school funding from a mostly property tax-based system to one that shares revenues equitably. This despite the three rulings by the Ohio Supreme Court in the last 11 years that Ohio's system is unconstitutional because it doesn't guarantee an equal education for all. For this we can thank Senate President Richard Finan, R-Evendale, and Gov. Bob Taft, who keep talking about spending more instead of reworking this flawed property tax system, which forces school districts -- especially poorer ones -- to repeatedly ask voters to pass levies and thereby guarantees inequalities. And we thought term limits were supposed to enable politicians to make tough decisions.

Best Swing Vote: Tom Neyer Jr.'s last year on the Hamilton County Commission has turned into a tug of war for his vote between fellow commissioners Todd Portune and John Dowlin. Neyer went along with the Portune-backed convention center plan and Portune's home loan program and sided with Dowlin on not mediating a proposed Sierra Club sewage pollution lawsuit against the county and approving the Polk Run sewage plant in northeastern Hamilton County. History, however, will remember Neyer for his very first swing vote -- to build the Reds ballpark on the riverfront.

Best Panhandle from Cincinnati City Council: Saks Fifth Avenue's $6.6 million subsidy to keep operating downtown. Nordstrom was lined up for a $50 million deal to open a store, which would also have earned this coveted award, but dropped plans because of internal financial problems. Saks, however, has it down -- the city also gave Saks $2.3 million in 1996 for its downtown store. Supporters say this money, which comes from a downtown development fund, can't be spent on anything else, such as the neighborhoods, but is there anyone who really believes this is the best use of that money?

Best Example of Government That Works: Liz Blume's ongoing work in Over-the-Rhine. The Cincinnati planning director and her staff did what seemed impossible a few years ago: They gathered representatives from all parts of Over-the-Rhine -- people with longstanding disputes on housing and other issues in the neighborhood -- and navigated them through 18 months of meetings toward a neighborhood master plan that should lead OTR toward a long-overdue revitalization. It's worth noting all this began in November 2000, months before riots prompted everyone else to take a serious look at the neighborhood.