moonloop

He needs a City Manager not a bodyguard.

<i>Interesting the Cleveland poll shows support fading. The Enquirer poll shows on average over 60% approved of some form of gambling. I can't believe how oblivious our local business leaders and politicians are to the potential of a casino DT. Maybe they will wake up and get an amendment added to the ballot language. Something, anything.</i> Viva Las Vegas in Lawrenceburg, Ind. BY PETER BRONSON | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER Picture this: Sleepy little Mayberry goes Vegas. Sheriff Andy Taylor drives a tricked-out Cadillac cruiser with gold rims. Barney takes a job as a blackjack dealer. Aunt Bee uses the egg money to hit the big score in a Texas Hold 'em tournament. With a little retouching, that snapshot could be Lawrenceburg - just 30 minutes from Cincinnati and "ready to go," as those catchy casino ads say. In 1995 B.C. (before casino), Lawrenceburg had an annual budget of about $4 million and sometimes had to borrow to pay its bills, said City Manager Tom Steidel. Eleven years later, the town of about 5,000 gets $30 million a year from Argosy Casino. Once upon a time, last week's news that the local Seagram's plant might turn the lights out on 400 jobs would have been devastating. It's still a big deal, but a new Argosy boat as big as a super Wal-Mart is on the way to bring 1,200 jobs in 18 months. Gambling has given Lawrenceburg a new college, a new office building for 11 new doctors, repaved streets, new fire and police stations, and a Bicentennial Clock Tower on High Street with four-story riverboat smokestacks that remind everyone of what makes the town's paddlewheels churn. Lawrenceburg's riverboat ship has come in. Full article at http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/COL05/604300353/1009/EDIT

I really don't have any sympathy for the homeowners, they made a financial killing. They can make new memories, or now that they got at least double their value, buy new ones as it looks like some already did.

<i>Some big names are in this movie. Neat story.</i> <b>‘Chasing 3000’ A Cincinnati lawyer weaved a tale about himself, his brother and a baseball star. Now it's a movie ...</b> BY JOHN ERARDI | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER The story of how Steubenville-born Bill Mikita, who has lived in Cincinnati for more than 20 years, persevered to get his life's story on the silver screen is worthy of a movie itself. It is the moonlighting equivalent of hitting the lottery. It involves the death of a mother, the birth of creativity in a son and a wheelchair-using brother who, despite being physically disabled, is a soaring achiever. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060429/SPT/604290411/1062

Best of luck on your DT business adventure. It sounds interesting.

This still sucks. but if the measure passes it looks like the county and city will split $20 million. It could of been $40 miilion and have Broadway Commons developed. Of course, a ton of jobs would a been created for the very people that need jobs, but no.

Never been to LA, but it seems overwhelming size-wise. Isn't LA County just made up of LA the city?

This is starting to sound very lopsided. They should just called it "Cleveland's Jonesin for Gambling" ballot. Just having slots at horse tracks won't slow down people going to Indiana.

<i>Frank Gehry is creating a downtown for LA. Looks to be a pretty ambitious plan. Does anyone have any more info regarding his "Atlantic Yards development he is designing for downtown Brooklyn"</i> <b>Los Angeles With a Downtown? Gehry's Vision</b> By ROBIN POGREBIN Published: April 25, 2006 It isn't easy to create a real downtown district, vibrant and intense, in a city as sprawling and diffuse as Los Angeles, Frank Gehry admits. But that's what he has set out to do with his design for Grand Avenue, unveiled in preliminary form yesterday. The $750 million project, which includes the first high-rises he has ever designed for his hometown, is the first phase of a $1.8 billion development plan by the Related Companies that will remake Grand Avenue as a pedestrian-based gathering point. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/arts/25gran.html?ex=1146110400&en=a369e2f0413a0a37&ei=5087%0A

That's it, slanted roofs and brick outside walls. Whatever. :-(

This sucks ass - pure BS politics. What, there are still two other gambling measures so maybe all three will past and this one will get dump for the fewest votes.

Maybe you can get a free washer/dryer out of the delay. ;-) Hang it there.

On a negative note, the news last night (WCPO?) indicated the State of OH is cutting 16% from their contribution to building the new schools which is nearly $32 million - that's two schools!. The reason given was weird, something about the State not paying for certain roof types and something else I can't think of. I hope this doesn't effect the Washington Park school being torn down.

<i>Sweet! The Post, as usual, has more details</i> <b>The new SCPA Board gives final approval</b> By Mary Ellyn Hutton Post music writer The Cincinnati school board has given final approval to a new $62 million School for the Creative and Performing Arts. The new school, the first K-12 arts school in the U.S., as well as the nation's first private sector/public arts school, will be a "catalyst for the revitalization of Over-the-Rhine," Thomas J. Klinedinst, chairman and CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Arts and Education Center, said. http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060425/NEWS01/604250354

. . . and on the eight day, God created the perfect sex toy. ;-)

The Business Courier has a survey asking what people want to see on Fountain Square. Pretty basic, but a good chance to be heard. http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/poll/index.html?poll_id=916

Nice pics. If your up for a road trip how about visiting Taliesin East? It looks to be only 45 from Madison. http://www.access312.com/us/travel/midwest/flw_wi/taliesin.html From Chicago, take 90 west out of the city to Rockford, IL; at Rockford, pick up 90 north to Janesville, WI and eventually Madison, WI. As you approach Madison, go west on highway 12/18 around the city until you hit highway 14 west to LaCrosse/Spring Green. Watch for 23. Go south on 23 a few miles, to the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitors’ Center (just over the river). Allow four hours drive time from Chicago (45 minutes from Madison).

Did I see Part III of this great thread or was a hallucinating?

<i>More good news, I think. Though the inside of these "abandon" buildings are nasty. I have a feeling a lot of terrible things happen inside of them, creepy. I learned a new word, abandominium"</i> <b>Over-the-Rhine 'cleanup' Police sweep nets 527 arrests in 10 days</b> BY EILEEN KELLEY | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER OVER-THE-RHINE - Geneva Lewis sits outside her corner hair salon at 15th and Elm streets, perched in a wheelchair, and shoos away the "dope boys." "When I say get off my corner, I mean it: Get off my corner," the 74-year-old said Thursday, before digging into a Styrofoam container of pancakes in her lap. Lately, she's had help. For the past 10 days, police on bicycles and horseback or in their cruisers have fanned out and saturated some of Cincinnati's toughest streets, rounding up people and making good on long-standing warrants. As of Wednesday evening, 527 people had been arrested and 508 warrants had been served. The stepped-up police effort comes after two people from the suburbs were shot and killed during the first week of April as they tried to buy drugs. The added police presence and the zero-tolerance policy for even the most minor offenses, such as jaywalking and spitting, aren't the only things officials had in mind April 10 when they announced the monthlong cleanup effort. In addition to Thursday's sweep through the area to help people such as Lewis chase away the drug dealers and make more arrests, the sound of hammers, shovels and rakes echoed through the neighborhood of 19th-century buildings. The area is riddled with trash and vacant properties - about 500 in all. The blighted buildings provide refuge for rats, addicts, the homeless and women who sell sex to support their drug habits, police say. At one point Thursday morning, three people were rousted from sleep when contractor Ron Taylor and his crew pulled up to a former apartment building on Moore Street - what police and neighbors call an "abandominium" - to put plywood over its empty windows. The three wound up in a police cruiser because they had outstanding warrants. Inside, where the two men and woman had been sleeping, police found crack pipes and syringes. "What it takes for people to live like this is beyond me," Taylor's grandson, Erik Taylor, 24, said. Police think they know: drugs. "That man's drugged 24/7," Lewis said of one man. Reginald Ballew, 45, was carted off to jail along with Leonard Thomas, 57, after police said they found them down the street from Lewis' salon with several hundred dollars' worth of heroin and pills. Ballew's record reveals a variety of charges, including trafficking in drugs, disorderly conduct, rape and domestic violence against children. Some were dismissed, but he has been convicted of felonious and aggravated assaults. "With all the guns and the shooting and the throwing of wine bottles going on, I appreciate it any time anybody wants to help this neighborhood," Lewis said. "I really try and keep my own corner clean because I got my babies and my grandbabies down here. So I watch them boys, and I keep them off my corner." JUST ONE SHOOTING Since the sweep started, there has only been one shooting in the notoriously violent neighborhood, Capt. Kenneth Jones said Thursday. There are no records kept for the average number of shootings in a 10-day period in the area, but police say one is well below the usual. Sgt. Jim Perkins, an Over-the-Rhine beat cop, can also see the difference in just 10 days. "It's dead out here; it's like being in Hyde Park," he said. "Everyone is minding their P's and Q's; it's great." Ron Taylor, 66, grew up here and said it almost broke his heart in the 1960s when his family outgrew its Over-the-Rhine apartment. Now, the Price Hill man is back at least once a week boarding up buildings the city has declared vacant. Taylor said that what he sees on the job is more heartbreaking than when he said his goodbyes four decades ago. "You got rats, and rodents and even the two-legged vermin that we are trying to keep out," he said. Many of the boards Taylor and his crew nail up become fresh billboards for graffiti and rest-in-peace signs for the dead. "Yep, they got that one," police Officer Mark Williams said of a new "R.I.P." sign. Down on Green Street, the 100 or so drug peddlers who usually hang out scattered as police, Taylor's crew and a building inspector moved down the street, searching for vacant buildings. "This is unacceptable. This is just unacceptable," Sgt. Steve Saunders said as he stood outside what has been dubbed the "beer cemetery" - a patch of land, roughly 50 by 150 feet, covered with beer bottles, empty cans and a decomposing cat. "Whose gonna want to buy property next to this?" OWNERSHIP LACKING Adjacent to the beer cemetery is a shanty in a breezeway - complete with a mattress and walls on three sides, courtesy of a former effort to clean up the neighborhood and board up the glassless sockets of empty buildings. Police and community leaders have long said Over-the-Rhine problems stem from lack of ownership. Only about 4 percent of the roughly 7,000 people who call this place home own where they live, city statistics show. Throw in the fact that most of the people causing the problems come here to sell drugs on the streets all day - and then return to the comfort of their own homes - and the mixture can be toxic. "Without ownership, if something falls apart, or breaks, or if it's dirty, are you really going to care?" Williams asked. "And if you come down here and stand on the streets all day long, what do you care where you throw your beer bottle? "Over-the-Rhine is getting a bad rap all because of the people who don't even live here. The majority of people in Over-the-Rhine want the same thing that people in all the other neighborhoods want: They want a good, safe neighborhood." Lewis couldn't agree more. "Thank you. Thank you," she said within easy earshot of the nearby police. "I'm happy to see the police. I sure am. I sure am." E-mail [email protected] http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/NEWS01/604210414

<i>This sounds encouraging. Now hit the landlords.</i> <b>New Approach To Fighting Crime In Over The Rhine </b> Reported by: Shannon Kettler Web produced by: Mark Sickmiller Photographed by: 9News First posted: 4/20/2006 6:04:53 PM You've heard about the crime sweeps in Over The Rhine, but now there is a more preventive effort to fight crime. This time, Cincinnati Police and city workers are targeting blighted buildings and vacant lots in the neighborhood that have become a magnet for criminals. This is considered a multi faceted approach to getting rid of crime in Over The Rhine. The city wants to not only take criminals off the streets but they also want to keep the streets clean in order to keep offenders from coming back. On Thursday, contract workers hired by the city cut up plywood to cover up windows and doors on buildings in Over The Rhine that are in disrepair and neglected by property owners. "They've become havens for prostitution, drug usage, by doing this we hope to crack down on some of the crime activity in Over The Rhine," said Captain Ken Jones of Cincinnati Police. A used in syringe was clearly seen on the outside of a building on East 15th Street. Before it's boarded up, Cincinnati Police searched through the rooms filled with trash and drug paraphernelia to see if anyone was inside. They found a man sleeping and also a couple who had been inside the building. "The biggest challenge is the re-barricading and constant breaking in and determined nature of persons to break in and get inside. So, it's a constant battle to keep them secured," said Edward Cunningham, Supervisor of Inspections. Choya Jackson lives right across the street. "I've seen them board this building up and turn around three days later and traffic through this alley and you wonder what's going? Then you see them come out the windows again," Jackson said. Besides empty buildings, the city is also targeting trash filled lots like one on Green Street. A reccuring problem for the city are absentee landlords. But a recently passed ordinance hopes to change that. Those who own a vacated building must now get a maintenance license, where fees are increased up to $3,000 if they fail to maintain the property. The city could also foreclose on the property and put it in the hands of someone else who could develop it. Now, owners are fined $200 to $300 for every time the city has to come and board up the windows and doors. The city's building department now plans to assign a crew to deal strictly with vacant buildings so this doesn't become a reccuring problem. http://www.wcpo.com/news/2006/local/04/20/otr.html

The Prez must be going crazy with all these unDuke-like signings of junior college players.

Very nice. Does your friend do any Frank Lloyd Wright glass work?

I would also recommend - www.appleinsider.com, www.thinksecret.com and for the rare occasions you have problems, www.macintouch.com Were you able to get Grasscat to make the switch?

<i>I thought this was a relevant article. Some interesting observations under the current circumstances.</i> <b>Disney Hall looks like music's future The view from behind the orchestra in Los Angeles</b> By Mary Ellyn Hutton Post music writer Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel said it best. In a 1990 interview with The Post, Kunzel addressed the way symphony concerts are presented. "What is the great thing to observe about a symphony conductor? Certainly not his rear end." That image, however -- coattails and arms waving at a secret society of musicians on a plane elevated from the rest of us -- is what most people see in the concert hall, including in Cincinnati's 3,517-seat Music Hall. The problem can also be intensified by poor sight lines and listeners' average distance from the stage. Click on link for more information. Publication date: 04-18-2006 http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060418/LIFE/604180391/1005

I can't believe the Reds now have cheerleaders. :roll: