On matter of West End stadium, council, school board tell FC Cincinnati: "We will not be rushed"

As the bid to win a Major League Soccer team continues, for the most part members of Cincinnati City Council and the Cincinnati Public Schools board during a Tuesday meeting didn't tip their hand about whether they support a West End stadium.

But they did collectively say: "We will not be rushed."

"We will not be rushed in this decision," said Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, chairman of Council's Education Innovation and Growth Committee. "It's one thing to sit here and say that now. but this collective sentiment is incredibly important to maintain when a proposal does come."

The elected officials, gathered for a joint committee meeting, all said there simply isn't enough information available about what a stadium deal would look like. In particular, school board members are unclear about what FC Cincinnati plans to pay in taxes to the school district.

FC Cincinnati is hoping Major League Soccer will award the city an expansion franchise – a decision that could come any day, although MLS recently said it might not come before its early March season start. General Manager and President Jeff Berding has said sites in Oakley and Newport remain possibilities, but the club has been concentrating most of its attention on the West End.

Points made during the hour-long discussion: Councilman David Mann is calling for a community benefits agreement. Councilman Greg Landsman said council and the school board should continue to work together. School board member Mike Moroski said the school board needs to keep students as the priority.

"Nobody is going to come to me in 10 days and say make a decision," said school board member Ericka Copeland Dansby. "We don't have to make a decision so very quickly."

To that school board member Eve Bolton said: "Let's not be Pollyanna-ish. This will come quickly."

Council members Wendell Young and Chris Seelbach said they're against a West End stadium.

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The meeting marks the first time the two governments have talked publicly together about the idea of a West End stadium, a location that has raised several concerns.

Cincinnati City Council must approve any infrastructure help for a West End stadium, as they already have done in Oakley. FC Cincinnati wants the school board to give the club the current site of Taft IT High School's Stargel Stadium. The MLS stadium would where Stargel sits now and FC Cincinnati would build a new high school stadium southwest of the high school on Ezzard Charles Drive, which was going to be the site of a Citirama.

Neither body has scheduled a vote on a West End stadium deal.

There has been a lot of community discussion about whether the West End is the right place for a stadium. So last week, over four days, Cincinnati Public Schools' Board of Education conducted an unscientific survey about FC Cincinnati's proposed land swap.

Roughly, 1,700 people took the survey, which was posted on the school board's website and advertised in the media. Respondents identified these priorities:

56 percent: Potential positive economic impact for the West End

43 percent: Jobs and economic opportunity

27 percent: Gentrification of the West End neighborhood

26 percent: Legally binding community benefits agreement

Forty percent of respondents said they were a CPS taxpayer, 28 percent said they were a CPS parent and nearly 13 percent said they were a resident of the West End.

Oakley isn't out of the picture yet, though. That neighborhood's community council will discuss the idea again next week and a traffic study, being done by the FC Cincinnati, is underway.

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