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Hey Quim, the brochures are in Northside businesses but also at local hotels, every meeting Northside folks go to (which is a lot!), and that kind of thing. Just as one example, we gave all the teachers and staff at Chase brochures, a group of folks who are in the neighborhood every day but might not necessarily hit the business district, they're great for that kind of thing. As for getting the word out, I agree we could use some signage. Somebody proposed a Hollywood type Northside sign for the top of American Can Factory Square but I'm not 100% sure that wasn't in jest. I know that ODOT indicated some flexibility for signage off I-74 (and in answer to the highway question above, last I heard all access was via Colerain, off 74, which would be improved and made into a full motion interchange, there is a pdf on the community council page at northside.net) whenever that whole thing gets done, but I'll believe it when I see it....

I don't know about a psychopath ;) but the man is ineffective at best. Overshadowed in the recent budget debate is the fact that Police and Fire take up about two thirds of the budget yet we hear nothing about gaining efficiencies in either one. Seems like something Law and Public Safety could address.... After the neighborhood officer program was expanded (according to Chief Streicher) or terminated (according to everybody else) many neighborhoods were outraged. Seems like something Law and Public Safety could address.... When the surveillance camera project was abruptly terminated after literally thousands of volunteer hours with no word from the city, people were angry. Seems like something Law and Public Safety could address.... The Municipal Court system sucks, victims and police officers spend hours in court, multiple days, while criminals and their defense attorneys game the system and try to win by attrition costing us city dollars and faith in the justice system. Seems like something Law and Public Safety could address.... Instead they close steps and ratchet up penalties for pot. I guess the upside is that the current committee has proven itself worthless and we should probably be glad they aren't making substantive decisions. None of this should overshadow the people and groups who are working so hard improve their neighborhoods and decrease crime at a grassroots level like Michael Redmond, Chris Zimmerman, and people like them in other neighborhoods as well as the numerous police personel below command staff level who realize that this community collaboration thing can be a real asset to the police as well. The downside is that if you live in a community without those people, and you can't or won't step up yourself, you're kinda screwed. Not to beat a dead horse, but that seems like something Law and Public Safety could address....

That is great news! I never in a million years would have seen that Shell station as being anything but a problem. Perhaps the best part is that he's making money which I agree makes this an example to cite with other business owners throughout the neighborhood and the entire city. Kudos to mcmicken and all involved!

This is indeed good news. Just FYI the plan is available in pdf format here (note: it's big, 40 mb or so). I second UCPlanner's kudos to the planning commission as the surprisingly negative staff recommendation was to accept, which, as noted, is essentially ignore. The hearing was my first chance to see Milton Dohoney in action and he impressed me by cutting to the chase in regards to the staff objections (most of which were only pertinent if the commission were to adopt the document). My understanding is that council must still vote on this but, as noted, commission recommendations are generally followed.

Huh? Inappropriateness aside, this statement baffles me. Head Start is very successful with a tough tough demographic. Guess what, poverty isn't pretty and, as was well put above, we don't choose our parents. It's a bad idea to cut services to children because you don't approve of how their parents run their lives.

There you have it...its not just one or the other, but both programs are neccessary for a positive result. It goes along the lines of not putting all of your eggs in one basket, most of the time you'll get burned. Maybe I jumped the gun a little bit and over-reacted to the budget announcement, but its something that seems to be a popular political move, but does not equate to an overall positive social result. Agreed! IMO simply boosting the number of cops, if it is not accompanied by a change in policing strategy (or lack thereof), won't get us the most bang for the buck. As mentioned above though, nobody ever lost an election for 'supporting the cops'. Cutting NSP money is just dumb, and to save $100,000!?! I would argue that NSP may be the single best use of City money, given the volunteer hours that this money typically leverages. It's the CPS items that bug me. By asking CPS to spend $3 million on school resource officers and crossing guards we're asking CPS to cut $3 million somewhere else or eliminate school resource officers & crossing guards. CPS has budgetary woes of their own and the net result of this will be less instructional dollars available. Truly penny wise and pound foolish.....

My understanding is that staffing is based on the number of units that are available to answer radio runs and that since foot patrol officers are not available to answer radio runs (unless, of course, they happen in close proximity to their location) foot patrols are not considered as helping to meet the staffing needs of that particular beat and so they cannot be considered to have 'replaced' a patrol car and, as such, you still need to have the same amount of cars working in addition to any walking patrols.

This is from the president of the Northside Business Association. Should be a lively meeting if anybody wants to cruise by.... To All Northside Businesses and Residents: Stefan Spinosa of the Ohio Department of Transportation confirmed today that he will attend the NBA meeting this Monday, October 2, at 6:30 at North Presbyterian Church. Although many of you attended the open house this past Thursday in St. Bernard, it is important that we focus on ODOT's recommendations and possible alternatives now. Mr. Spinosa will therefore present the current alternatives under consideration and participate in a discussion with us to better understand the impacts of those recommendations and to gather suggestions for any alternative routings or schemes that may satisfy Northside as well as ODOT. Please attend this meeting. Robert Sala, President, NBA

Needless to say, not everybody appreciates our efforts. These were posted up and down Hamilton avenue this morning.... Can't please all the people all the time.....

Jeez thanks! However I would note that I'm not even one of the most active folks in Northside. In particular, the folks that do the court watch program have been very good at getting stay away conditions attached to our local ne'er do wells' probation and, probably more importantly, making these guys realize that if you commit a crime in Northside, there will be a member of the community at your sentencing and you will be better served committing crimes in another neighborhood. In addition a lot of times our efforts can have exactly the reverse effect on crime stats since we uniformly instruct people to report any crime so that the police know about it and can deal with it. Quimbob you probably remember the porch plant thief of a couple years ago. When that happened, we strongly encouraged people to report the crimes. Although it may seem trivial to some, having items stolen from your porch is really a drag. Long story short, the guy got caught but our crime stats went way up, not necessarily because crimes did but because more people reported the crimes that were happening. So... sometimes the rise in crime rate can be a good thing. That said, we still have a lot of work to do, there's no doubt about that. <soapbox>We have gotten nothing but support at the district level but we have gotten nothing at all from the CPD command staff. The single biggest thing we, as a City, can do to reduce crime, in my opinion, is to truly embrace CPOP. It works. We will never embrace CPOP with Streicher and Janke running the department with oversight (???) from a Law and Public Safety commitee chaired by Cecil Thomas.</soapbox>

I agree with David that the saddest thing is that we know where the problems are (for the most part) and the tragedy is that we're not addressing them. Let's face it, what we're doing isn't working (again, for the most part). Vortex is good but absent an actual comprehensive plan to change the way this city is policed all vortex will do is move crime around. A lot of us thought that the collaborative agreement was a great start. It looks to me as though the CPD command staff has stopped even going through the motions of following that agreement. That's the bad news. The good news is that people are starting to notice. Council is starting to take notice, the mayor is starting to take notice, even the Enquirer is starting to notice (anybody think the recent crime piece would have been green lighted even a year ago?). Chief Streicher is finally starting to been seen for what he is, a relic of a bygone era of policing where everything comes down from the top and citizens are suspects rather than partners. My personal sense is that this train of thought is gaining momentum but it wouldn't be a bad idea for folks to send a letter, an email, or make a call to council people, the mayor, and the city manager to let them know if you agree. I'm hopeful that the new city manager who is outside the cinci power structure may have the guts to finally take on Streicher. I don't think we can make a whole lot of progress as long as Streicher and Janke are still around.

Well, this is off topic so feel free to whack it if necessary but.... Just FYI I was employee of the month at the Oxford Wendy's in January of 1985 (probably still the highlight of my working life :-D). Served Ron Harper a triple cheese with everything on the house the day he broke the MAC scoring record, probably an NCAA violation these days. I didn't even know it burned.....

This came in over the interweb today if anybody is interested. Saul Green and a couple of members of the monitoring team came to our (Northside) CPOP meeting last week and although they didn't come right out and say it I got the distinct feeling that they had heard a lot of complaints about the elimination of the neighborhood officer program and how it was handled. Should be an interesting meeting, especially if somebody thought they could sneak something by..... Tomorrow, Tuesday Sept 26th at 2pm there will be a Law & Public Safety meeting. This meeting will begin with a presentation from the Police Dept. as to what is going to happen with the neighborhood police officers unit. I think it is VERY important that anyone with an opinion about us loosing these very valuable officers in our neighborhoods, attend this meeting. I do not know what the police plan to say or do but we need to be prepared to share how we have been affected. Please send this email to your entire neighborhood council board to make sure they are aware of this meeting. This is something that has not been announced and not very know about it....I think there is a reason for that. So please help, get the word out about this meeting. Thank you, and I hope to see you tomorrow! (name redacted just in case...)

Wow! Anybody have any additional info on this? Does this mean the rumored Federal funding came through? Is this for the Price Hill/Target safe pathways project or citywide? Anybody?

I would be curious whether this is just his feeling or if he has a source for this. In my experience police presence has no effect on how safe (or unsafe) I feel and many other factors (lighting, activity, vacant buildings, etc.) have much more impact. In fact I would go so far as to say that the places I feel safest almost uniformly have no police presence, it just isn't necessary.