bfwissel

CincyPAC also endorsed Jason Haap for Cincinnati Public School board. This group could hardly be considered a group that thinks things out well. It appears as though the endorsement is a copy and paste analysis from pro-3C websites.

The 2C+D+S Plan

As a complete random aside, we can now see the QCII tower from our window in the American Building. Before all we could see was the crane. :-)

I sure hope you are right. It seems like every week I'm talking to a YP (or a close family member or friend of theirs) that is looking to get out of Cincinnati to go to Portland, Atlanta, etc....

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EasyComeEasyGo, As a quick plug I'd like to invite you (or any other downtown residents) to come to the Downtown Residents Council (DRC) meetings on the second Tuesday of the month at 6pm in the Main Library (3rd floor meeting room). We're the local community council for downtown that is made up of people focused on making downtown a better place for its residents. Unfortunately, I think some of the stereotyping of people living in some buildings comes from lack of interaction with different groups of people. For this and other reasons the DRC will be working to improve diversity of membership. If you're interested in hearing what's going on in your neighborhood and adding your voice please consider stopping in. http://ilivedowntown.com/ (DRC Website)

I think the mugshots website is brilliant. There are times when I see the same people misbehaving over and over again downtown. Now if I see their mugshot on the website I can actually commit their name to memory. That way the next time I see them doing something illegal, I can call the police non-emergency number and give their name along with a description. Despite my best efforts, the police seem to not match the descriptions I give with the person I'm calling about. These "frequent fliers" are well known to the police, so I'm sure a name would go a long way in helping the police pick the guy/gal up. Besides, now I can better identify jmecklenborg when he's causing trouble :wink:.

That would be great. I would definitely sign up for more Citizens on Patrol tours downtown if I didn't need to walk to District 1 first.

I find myself becoming more and more apathetic about this rail plan every day. I think I'll just keep up on the Cincy Streetcar developments. I'm with you. Since the plan seems to have been intentionally designed to skip Cincinnati proper from the start, I'm done with following 3C until they start including Cincinnati. If there were any truth in advertising on this plan it would have been called 2C+D.

XUMelanie and I used to live in Pleasant Ridge for over three years before we moved to OTR. It is a fantastically diverse, active community. They have a great community center, pool, playground and even just put in a brand new LEED certified Cincinnati Public Montessori grade school. There is plenty to walk to and the residential neighborhood is very nice. The only reason we moved is to be more urban (ditch the car and walk to work), but as far as a suburb goes, Pleasant Ridge is one of the best in the city.

When XUMelanie and I moved downtown I dumped my crappy primary care physician to a great one in the CBD (Central Business District). A couple of years later I even replaced my good suburban dentist with one just as good downtown. I guess it all depends on your personal ties to suburban medical personnel and services, but at least in Cincinnati I find those downtown are just as good if not better. It is just so much nicer walking to appointments at lunch rather than flexing my work time and rushing all over creation in my car.

I'm about to join Cincinnati's Downtown Residents Council as a board member in April. Each of us are tasked to head a committee on a topic that is of particular interest to us. As such, I was planning on creating a Family Committee. Below are my initial thoughts on "concerns that exist outside standard downtown resident concerns that are of importance to families with children." daycare daycare options medical pediatricians activities parks (i.e. splash park) kid focused/friendly events kid friendly restaurants education shopping Children focused parental education classes (e.g. cloth diapering) Feedback?

I'm all for cutting out waste, but really how much does it cost to replace some signs especially if it is a part of bringing in additional dollars to Cincinnati from conventions?

I have also seen some write-ups on technologies that are in development that can rapid charge these batteries. I guess only time will tell if the technology is commercially viable.

Actually, XUMelanie and I do have an in-unit washer and dryer. That will make her job doing all the diaper work much easier :-).

I apologize about my misstatement on the exclusion of multi-dwelling units from garbage/recycling pickup. It seems as though I was misled by some comments made by our condo management company. Below is an email response from Larry Whitaker (Assistant Director of Public Services). "Mr. Wissel, Thanks for the email. I did check our guidelines for you. We do not have any restrictions based on the number of dwelling units in a residential building. Generally, a building owner with a significant number of dwelling units will find it more convenient to hire Rumpke to provide dumpster service for their tenants. However, the building owner does have the option of setting out garbage for City curb-side collection. If you do make a decision to eliminate Rumpke service and begin utilizing City curb-side collection, please just alert us so that we can ensure our drivers include the stop on their route. Hope this is helpful. Regards, Larry Whitaker Public Services Director's Office" It looks like I may have found a cost cutting measure for our building since we do not currently use dumpsters.

Man, you just gotta love those people hijacking an event designed to give people the opportunity to improve their community :roll:. I'm so glad I wasn't in one of those groups. Those group leaders must have had the patience of Job.

Maybe it was just the session groups I was in, but I didn't hear a single person who was against the casino nor did I hear people go too far off topic from the architecture and surrounding area design. The problem as I saw it was the enormity of what was trying to be accomplished with people from varied backgrounds and the very short time allotted to discuss the concerns. For example, in our one sub-group after overhead we had less than an hour to discuss as well as create designs around the topic of neighborhood concerns (included access, noise/light, safety, a possible casino district connected to the neighborhood, parking and much, much more). While some ideas were flushed out many were just mentioned and forgotten.

Sounds like the Main Street District will be a great place to hang out in the Spring. Can't wait to see the remodeled Neons!

My point about the Righteous Room folks was that instead of working with residents via a dialog to see what could be worked out they decided to try and invalidate the entire noise ordinance via the lawyers. That's the last I heard of the situation a couple of months ago, so maybe something has changed.

I hope they aren't bad neighbors when it comes to noise issues like they have been at the Righteous Room. From what I have heard, when neighbors had issues with them blaring their music at all hours of the night their response was to hire a lawyer to throw out the city noise ordinance.

My understanding is the speed of service at Javier's lately has been pretty awful. People I know who used to go there stopped going when it took so long to get their food that their lunch hour was nearly over by the time they were served.

I was being a little harsh when I stated that the charrette was "essentially a waste of time". There were definitely some positive aspects of the event. While the whole event was UNOFFICIAL, Rock Ventures was receptive to the ideas and concerns of the local community as well as the city as a whole. I'm sure they will ultimately develop based on a return on their investment as well as generally accepted casino design guidelines. However, I think at least some of what was generated from this event will be considered. My point is that two 90 minute sessions followed by a similarly hurried assemblage (no feedback loop) meant that a lot of ideas were either not fully developed, or they weren't integrated into the final presentation. Ideas such as a whether or not a casino district would exist and what it would look like could not get beyond the basic "wouldn't it be nice" discussion. Plus the task was made more difficult since there were no decisions made yet on things like: 1) whether or not the Greyhound station would be part of the development, 2) whether or not a building on Reading Road would be included, 3) whether or not the triangular piece of land on the west owned by the City of Cincinnati would be included, 4) whether the sewer line along Gilbert would be moved, etc.... This made any real specific design choices nearly impossible.

Anyone with any feedback on the Casino Charrette? I personally found the event interesting, but essentially a waste of time when it came to actual constructive work and finished product. I think that if the whole thing was a little better organized and lasted a couple of days longer then we might have seen a much better result.

I found some clarification on the five+ units getting no free garbage collection in the document linked below: 9/4/2008 http://city-egov.cincinnati-oh.gov/Webtop/ws/council/public/child/Blob/23440.pdf;jsessionid=604994D248AD0E978BCED891EBF8AB1F?rpp=-10&m=1&w=doc_no%3D%27200801027%27 "The City currently has a contract with Rumpke of Ohio, Inc. to pick up and recycle on a weekly basis those waste materials generated by residential households in one to four family buildings, and residential building larger than four units that were receiving the service as of June 30, 2004." That's an odd exception to say the least.