Cincinnati was home to Stan Aronoff, and he left it a much better place

Cincinnati lost so much in January. Many in our city do not realize how much we now enjoy was engendered by Ohio Senator Stan Aronoff. I’ve been waiting to write this column until after his celebration of life on June 22.

As a longtime friend, I was privileged to be among Neil Bortz, Steve Loftin, Jon Husted, Diane Martin, Jeff Ruby, Steve Hunt, Jeff DeLeone and Toria (granddaughter) and Brian Schottenstein as speakers on June 22. This is what I said then.

Sen. Stan Aronoff did more for Cincinnati than most civic leaders ever have. There are many reasons for this, but I will mention a few.

He was brilliant. He studied problems and solutions before he acted. Many legislators simply talked about what they thought they wanted without studying the possibilities or the obstacles. Stan was one of the exceptions. When he advocated for something, he had the facts in hand, and he had figured out how to clear the obstacles.

He worked hard and he understood Ohio. Being a state senator from Cincinnati and president of the Ohio Senate meant he had to travel from one end of the state to the other frequently.

Some of that driving was before interstate highways. Much was before car phones. Can you imagine?

I once calculated that Stan had traveled more miles back and forth from Cincinnati to Columbus than Neil Armstrong had to the Moon. Anyone who ever rode with Stan knew he probably traveled faster.

Stan loved Cincinnati and its people. He was born here and spent his life here.  His family were immigrants − refugees. But Cincinnati was home to Stan, and he left it a much better place.

After working his way up to the Ohio Statehouse, Stan secured the rightful share of state support that Cincinnati had long been denied.

The icons of our built environment − the University of Cincinnati campus with its signature-architect structures, the renovation of Cincinnati Union Terminal as the nationally acclaimed Museum Center (my wife, Sue Ann, was instrumental) and the Aronoff Center for the Arts, which truly revived Downtown − would not exist except for Stan Aronoff. The Ohio Arts Council, which supports countless large and small arts institutions, would not exist without Stanley J. Aronoff.

He was the rare visionary who also had the ability and determination to accomplish great things.

He was a Republican who worked with Democrats to get things done. The best government we had in Ohio while I’ve been alive was when Stan Aronoff was Senate President and Vern Riffe was House Speaker: one Republican and one Democrat; one urban and one rural.

Nothing could pass unless Stan and Vern agreed. This meant compromise was necessary to round off the edges and keep extremists of either party in check, and it worked well. Back then, the legislature focused on school funding, criminal justice, and public health. While they surely couldn’t solve everything, they made an effort to try, rather than an effort to “own” the other side.

In Stan’s day, the extremely goofy legislation we see now with Ohio’s one-party government would never have even been considered.

The recent proposals to ban drag shows and prosecute school librarians would have been laughed out of a legislature populated by adults. 

Sue Ann and I were privileged to know Stan and to have played a small part in this journey.

One day, we hope to see his equal again.

Cincinnati native Mark Painter served for 30 years as an Ohio judge. After serving 13 years on the Hamilton County Municipal Court, Painter was elected to the Ohio Court of Appeals in 1994. He served on Ohio’s Court of Appeals until 2009, when he was elected by the UN General Assembly to serve as the first American on the UN Appeals Tribunal. He is the author of six books and hundreds of nationally published opinions.