Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley's veto of the Over-the-Rhine residential parking permit program will stand.

City Council did not have the six votes needed Wednesday to override it, and it was Council's last opportunity to act.

Council Member Yvette Simpson supports the program and said the veto makes no sense.

“The idea that we would call out one particular neighborhood’s residential parking plan, it’s beyond anything that I can understand,” Simpson said.

Simpson said doing nothing for Over-the-Rhine residents is not a solution. She said there is a parking problem in the neighborhood.

Council approved a plan two weeks ago with 450 residential parking spaces in parts of Over-the-Rhine, and permits that would have cost $108.

But Cranley rejected the proposal.

He favored a plan that would have let the city manager determine the number of spaces and the cost of the permits.

In a press conference in his city hall office two weeks ago, Cranley said he believes that limiting those parking spaces to residents would be unfair to people who visit the neighborhood's restaurants and attractions – and to city residents in general, who pay taxes to maintain the streets in Over-the-Rhine.

“My veto means that no residential parking plan is in effect and the spots that would have been designated for residential parking will remain free for all to use for the foreseeable future,’’ Cranley said. “That is fairer than preventing those streets from being used by the people who built them.”

Cranley, in vetoing the legislation, bucked his five fellow Democrats – Vice Mayor David Mann, Chris Seelbach, Yvette Simpson, Wendell Young and P.G. Sittenfeld. The council members who voted against the ordinance were Republicans Charlie Winburn and Amy Murray, along with independent Christopher Smitherman and Charterite Kevin Flynn.

WVXU Reporter Howard Wilkinson contributed to this story.

