Excerpts of Cincinnati City Council's three-hour debate on tax incentives for the Convergys Corp. Friday:

Y. Laketa Cole

I'm at a much better place than I was previously. We do have some accountability, which was a huge concern of mine. I want to make sure the citizens know that the money we're using is not money we can use for neighborhoods. I am happy we have slowed the process down, which has allowed council members to have some say and for the public to become better informed.

I will also say that I am tired of corporations coming to us and the only criteria we have to work with is, give us the money or else we're leaving.

Minette Cooper

I said two weeks ago that I was in support of trying to keep Convergys with the original plan, and it's because downtown is that important. As new information came forward, it made it much easier to support and actually get excited about.

When we do things like this, it's very important to explain how much money you're giving, and how much you're getting back.

John Cranley

I'm supporting this deal because I think it's the only deal that can pass. Sometimes we get in these debates and we lose sight of the big picture. So my comments here are meant internally to council and not the business community or Convergys.

What we are doing today is a horrible precedent for a variety of reasons. We were told 10 days ago that the deal that we spent a year negotiating was horrible, was terrible and the sky was going to fall. And now we have a deal that's worth exactly the same to Convergys. And I find it a little odd that we went through this whole exercise just to get back to the same number.

If the deal was as bad as we were told, it reminds me of the ending scene in Dr. Strangelove when the whole world is blowing up, and Peter Sellers was more concerned about a 'mineshaft gap.'

At best the deal we have today is the same deal as we had 12 days ago, which sends a bad message to the business community: You can negotiate a deal with the city manager, and then city council will work for two weeks, rearrange the chairs, and give you the same message back.

I want people to understand very clearly what's at stake here. What we are limiting in this deal is our imagination, by limiting our ability to invest in downtown. Make no mistake about it, Newport-on-the-Levee didn't happen just with private dollars.

Today, we have decided not to have the discipline to stomach a 0.4 percent reduction in the general fund in order to forego growth opportunities for downtown investment. I believe there's still plenty of waste in our operating budget. It's a big shame.

David Crowley

This process has not been easy. It's been done in a fishbowl and with some intense feelings. It is a difficult decision that we have to make. When we had the earlier proposal before us, I found that one relatively easy to oppose.

I would much rather be spending that money on health clinics or senior citizen centers or getting guns and drugs off the street. But that's not the issue before us today.

I have had a lot of conversations with small business owners about their inability to get even small services like garbage cans or a stop sign on their street. I have changed my mind. I intend to vote for this proposal today, and I intend to do it because it's the right thing to do. This one, while it doesn't feel perfect, it does feel better.

Also, this one uses income and resources generated in the downtown area for the downtown area. As much as anything, this proposal is probably as good as we're going to get.

We have been viewing two separate proposals in a vacuum, a policy vacuum. Not only does the city of Cincinnati need to develop its policies, but we need to do it as part of the region. We need to do something to reduce the cannibalism. Having been through this process and seeing its weaknesses, hopefully we can move forward and take a leadership role.

Pat DeWine

Quite frankly, I think this is a difficult issue. I believe as a matter of philosophy that the way cities compete in the long run is to have low taxes and provide quality city services. I think in this case, we're where we are because we haven't done what we should. Taxes are too high, downtown isn't safe, and we haven't made it easy for businesses to do business here....

We can't do this for everyone. But at the end of the day, we are where we are, and I just don't think we can afford to lose these 1,400 jobs. If we lose this company, it will cost a lot more to bring this kind of company and these kinds of jobs back to Cincinnati.

I am concerned that after council rejected the original deal, too much time was spent trying to shoot down competing proposals, and not enough time trying to get the best deal for the taxpayers.

Chris Monzel

I look at council's role as setting policy for the city administration. We need to be responsible how we handle development in the neighborhoods and downtown, and this proposal does that. We're going to have downtown development paid for by downtown, and that's key when our residents want to know that their neighborhood services are going to be there for them.

David Pepper

It's a good decision to keep a critical corporate citizen in our downtown. It's a strategic company because of technology. It doesn't just maintain the status quo, but creates new jobs and new investment.

This project, in a lot of ways, will pay for itself. But not completely.

I know there are comments that this will rob from the neighborhoods. This will not. We've actually created a wall between the neighborhoods and downtown.

Alicia Reece

Mr. President, I ask your indulgence. By just being here today, we've broken every rule council has on process. I guess the rules are out the window.

I hear a lot of talk in this room this morning about the future. The future is now. We're rushing on a vote here today. I met with people in the community, and what they said was, "Alicia, this is about jobs, and we want jobs in the community."

I want in black and white that if this is about jobs, I think we should have put stronger language in, and it's not here today. It has not worked in the past, because if it did, we wouldn't have 40,000 people on the street without jobs.

People ask me: Alicia, why are you doing this publicly? Because it's public money.

Why didn't we do low interest loans? A lot of small businesses would love to get tax credits or grants.

If a company comes here and says, "Look, I'm going to go somewhere else, and they're going to give us X, Y, and Z," How do you compete if you don't know what you're competing for? Do you take their word for it?

If I was watching this on TV, I would be disappointed if I didn't see city council asking these questions.

Let's come with a complete package, because every other week we have a new package for Convergys, or for Kroger, or Cincinnati Bell is next.

I've had an opportunity to hear the comments in the room today, and I am probably not taking the most popular position as it relates to this room. I think the first issue is the issue of the future, as Mr. Cranley has so eloquently stated. Investing in downtown is nothing new. Several councils since the 1800s have voted to support downtown. I've been supportive and understand the need for a vibrant downtown and a vibrant neighborhood.

We have said in these chambers time and time again that we're going to put a process in place. We give a grand speech, and then after that we say we're going to put a process in place. This is not a problem of Convergys or corporations. We have to put rules in place and stick to them. The rules only apply to neighborhoods, but when we come with large, major deals with corporations, the rules are out the window. Today, I am displeased with the process.

They say this is the largest decision since the stadium deal. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that at least with the stadiums there was a public vote.

All I've been talking about is the economy and people working and jobs. We as the board of directors are put here by the people of Cincinnati. Those people today should be at the forefront of this deal. New jobs should go to Cincinnatians, who have not turned their backs on us. They have stayed here through the tough times. And we voted not to give them $4 back on their property taxes.

The third component is inclusion language. We hear about good-faith efforts. I'm going to try to have inclusion. I'm going to try very hard. I don't see any language right now today that minority companies are going to get a piece of this action. When you go to the table, you represent Cincinnati. Cincinnati is 40 percent African-American. And yet we went to the table with 10 percent inclusion.

The fourth component is the commitment. The commitment to the neighborhoods. We talk a good game for the neighborhoods. Yes it's important to pick up the litter and do those kinds of things. I sympathize with Convergys, they say they've been working on this a year. We'll, we have neighborhoods that have been working for a decade. We meet, meet meet, meet, meet, meet and it never gets done. And them our time is up and a new group comes down here.

I might not be popular in this room, but these are the questions the citizens have asked me to bring into this room. I can't support this. It's a difficult decision, but I can't support this deal with the loopholes that are in there now.

I move that the council and the administration not bring another major downtown subsidy deal in the next six months.

I further move that council have a special session in the next 14 days to vote on investment of another neighborhood fund dollars.

James R. Tarbell

The good news is that my last name begins with T, so I'm the last one. I also got the last glass of water from the water dispenser, which is a sure sign that we're almost done.

I'm going to support this, because I just got back from Detroit. I was there for a week and I was still counting vacant buildings in the downtown area at the end of the week, and a lot of them were high-rise buildings. And when I say they were vacant, they were empty from the ground floor to the top floor. And I rode on the monorail, which cost about a billion dollars. It was fun, but it really didn't take you anywhere.

One of the reasons I had a little problem with his deal is because of the change in emphasis. But I'm going to support it because I think we need to get going here.

Third Street between Main and Sycamore is nice, but it has always been below its highest and best use. They never would have built Newport-on-the-Levee if we hadn't invested a billion dollars on our riverfront. They would never have developed Covington if they didn't have our skyline to look at.

We are where we are, and I congratulate all of you who have gotten us to this point.

Mr. Cranley snuck into my office last night when I wasn't looking and stole my notes. There' no need to repeat any of that.

The last point is, the Cincinnati Enquirer a couple of years ago sued us because of a very small clause in our charter which forbids executive sessions. As a result, we cannot meet in private to discuss downtown development, to discuss hiring or firing a city manager, to discuss our legal strategy in a lawsuit. We are not allowed to meet as a group in private to discuss anything. If we cannot meet in private ever about anything, that's a problem. We have to get busy and change it.

Charlie Luken

I believe, despite reports to the contrary, that the debate has been healthy. It is simply democracy, and it works this way so people can share their different views, and we have many of them here today - at least 10 - about how to proceed.

On April 4, 2002, I sent a letter to the entire Cincinnati community about the importance of keeping Convergys. I asked everyone to take a serious look at this issue. I have asked the community to help, and asked the city to help. We didn't get a lot of help here. We had to figure this out for ourselves with the state.

To those members who were flexible and did not draw lines in the sand, I thank you.

When there's something on which we disagree, the first thing people attack is the process. What we really have is a disagreement on the merits.

Each one of these situations is different. Each one requires us to act differently and perform differently. I look forward to a discussion about how we can do these things differently, but when it comes time to cross the T's and dot the I's, we will always have our disagreements.