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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.

I disagree with this. I agree that volunteer efforts are an important part of the solution but I don't think that people who don't participate are necessarily a part of the problem. I think everybody deserves to be safe. Obviously that's impossible in a city the size of Cincinnati. Shit happens and the chief is right, we are a pretty safe city for the majority of citizens, all things considered. But.... whoever came up with the idea of holding a press conference to say that we're safe after one of the few homicides that was not drug related is an idiot. The lack of jail space isn't a new issue. It's an issue but even if we get a new jail tomorrow, there is more to it than that. Vortex is okay but this is a zero sum game. When you add 30 officers to District 3 you take 30 officers from Districts 1 (not likely), 2, 4, and 5. At the same time you're pushing the crime into these districts. It doesn't take a police chief to see that this is going to cause problems. Perhaps some, oh, I don't know, planning for this might be appropriate? Now Phillip Bates is dead. Anybody want to guess if Avondale sees Vortex and additional officers? Any chance crime in Avondale goes down and crime somewhere else goes up, that neighborhood raises a stink and officers are shifted there? And so on ad infinitum.... Here's where I agree with UncleRando in that I think the volunteer efforts (Citizens on Patrol, CPOP, block watches, etc.) are critical in raising awareness of this shift and rising crime on our communities and that people would be well served to help with these efforts. However, I would add that these shifts are a directly foreseeable result of CPD's efforts to target crime in specific areas. Citizens in general have almost zero influence on CPD's policies. Not to sound like a one note johnny or anything but the group that should be dealing with this in the Law and Public Safety committee and their chair, Cecil Thomas. Worst. Councilperson. Ever. And no amount of "no, really, you're safe" press conferences can change that. Cheers, h PS - man do I love bold text :wink:

Safe? Crime victims scoff Streicher says murder rate is lower than elsewhere BY DAN KLEPAL AND JENNIFER MROZOWSKI | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITERS NORTH AVONDALE - In Melanie Bates' first public comments since her husband, Phil, was shot and killed on their front porch here, the Cincinnati School Board member will tell Cincinnati City Council today that she plans to ask community members to put unrelenting pressure on them to crack down on violent crime. Bates will tell council that it's up to the city's leadership to keep people safe. She said she thinks the detectives handling her case have done a good job, but criticized city and police leadership. She will also hold a news conference on the steps of City Hall after speaking to council - one day after Police Chief Tom Streicher called Cincinnati "one of the safest cities in America." http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060907/NEWS01/609070333

Which might be okay for this particular community but what about everybody else? My understanding was that this is already underway (Operation Vortex I think)? Does Thomas not know this? Will it do any lasting good? Thomas' committee has done nothing (not quite true, they have upped the penalty on simple marijuana possession with the promise that it will get criminals off the street, that seems to be going quite well :roll:) while the city has eliminated dedicated neighborhood officers (dedicated in the sense that this was their only job) and seemingly forgotten about surveillance cameras, among other things. Would either of these have saved Phillip Bates? Probably not but a comprehensive approach with some proven methodology, any proven methodology, will, in my opinion, do better than reacting to whatever community is yelling the loudest by sending in the troops. That's a short term fix at best and we can and must do better. No amount of police can do for a community what a healthy community does for itself. First step, get rid of Cecil Thomas.....

Price Hill industrial park planned By Joe Wessels Post contributor From the ashes of the Queen City Barrel warehouse will rise something not often seen in the city of Cincinnati: new industrial space. The site of a five-alarm fire in August 2004 that destroyed the company's 400,000 square-foot warehouse in Lower Price Hill will be turned into a light industrial park of 20 to 25 acres over the next several years under a plan announced by city officials Friday. Bill Fischer, the city's development manager, said the city bought the property from Queen City and is in negotiations to buy several more buildings in an area starting south of the Eighth Street Viaduct to the railroad tracks along Evans Street to Gest Street, with two additional properties across Gest along Summer Street. Read full article here: http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060819/NEWS01/608190347

Okay, major coup may be a little strong, but even if you rephrase using your 'cool things' phrase: Here's a guy that (with a lot of help) pulled off a cool thing for Cincinnati, brought in a lot of folks who otherwise would avoid our town like the plague, and is asking for some help in wrapping up the loose ends. If you don't want to help that's fine but jeez..... I stand by my point. One thing that annoys me is that people in this town spend so much time being negative. Don't like the festival? Fine, but you do you really need to put it down? Couldn't you use some of that energy on doing something constructive? I don't care for a lot of the events around town but I don't feel the need to assault and insult them. Note here that I am not targeting this at you, I think all the work that goes into this board is doing something constructive, and I really appreciate it. I can agree with that to a point. Are things safer now then they were in 1970? I guess so, although some would point out how much larger our population was then. Is the average Joe who isn't involved with drugs and/or crime likely to become a crime victim? Nope. But..... if you live in Northside, for example, is it likely that you will be impacted by crime at some point? I think so (and I live in Northside and love it, I think the same is true for most Cincinnati neighborhoods). In that regard I don't begrudge people whose lives have been impacted by crime from bitching about it and I don't begrudge people whose need for a perception of safety has driven them to live in places that I consider drab and uninteresting from moving to the 'burbs. [rant]What gets me (not to turn this into a 'You know what really grinds my gears' thread :-D) is the people that do nothing but feel the need to bitch about every little thing about our city. If you aren't doing anything, you lose your right to bitch in my opinion.[/rant] So I'll give Nick a little bread because I appreciate the effort that he and his crew put forth and I hope there's another fest next year. If you don't agree, it doesn't bother me a bit. Different strokes......

Methinks that's a little harsh. Here's a guy that (with a lot of help) pulled off a major coup for Cincinnati, brought in a lot of folks who otherwise would avoid our town like the plague, and is asking for some help in wrapping up the loose ends. If you don't want to help that's fine but jeez..... Cheers, h

I'm sure I'll miss a couple but starting on the 'South Block': Gajah Wong West Casablanca From Knowlton's corner going North on Hamilton: IWW world HQ (a union not a business but an occupied storefront nonetheless) Queen City Off-Broadway (nice little theater company in the old artists warehouse/woolworths) Wizard Computers Honey Hobo Books Bronz Bar (The former Jacobs) Shoe-topia Slim's Good Dog (pet supply shop in the old one mo cup space, just opened 7/1) The Maitri Center (performance space in the old Masonic Temple) The Feldenkrais center. Just a Chip The Survival Shop Darou Salam (African Store next to Shake It) The Northside Tavern Pot Luck Blue Room Massage Melt Bughouse Video Scentiments Sidewinder Coffee House Ali's Boutique Intimate Gatherings Pinnokios There are a couple of tax places, check cashers, beauty supplies, satellite TV places, used appliance places I know I missed, anybody else? Madisons will be opening a new store in the former NY Flava 'soon' and Take the Cake is said to be headed into the hip side soon as well. Now that I look at it, that's a pretty good list......

(Apologies if this belongs in the Cinci Crime thread) According to the Enquirer: However, no amount of police can do what a healthy community does for itself. What Michael and the OTR Citizens on Patrol are doing (kudos to you by the way Michael) is showing that there are people in OTR that care about the community. It's a decided minority right now, based on what I've seen, but how much of that is because people really don't care and how much of that is because people are too intimidated to correct idiotic and criminal behavior I don't know. Police cannot, by themselves, make a neighborhood safe. Think about it, where do you feel safest, where there are a lot of police around or where you never see a cruiser? The police cannot do it by themselves, the community has to be leading the improvements. The police are an important piece of the solution, but they are not the whole solution, not by a long shot.

This is very interesting. I don't know if it's true or not, the story (at least the online version posted above) is pretty skimpy on facts. I heard that there was a presentation at the last CNBDU meeting and that there is (another) pilot project under way with the new, more expensive cameras somewhere in Cinci, but I don't know where. The last I heard (at the meeting back in February or March at Spinney Field for the folks from the neighborhoods that had applied for the cameras through the Clean and Safe grant program) the project was still going to happen, albeit with 40-50 cameras, instead of the original 117. These cameras were supposed to be much improved from the CityWatcher cameras and similar to the cameras in Chicago. Cranley gave an impassioned plea to those present to exert political pressure to get the funding passed when it came before City Council since this version would be funded entirely by the city instead of the CityWatchers proposal which was to have the city buy the cameras (with the last remnants of the Anthem fund) and the neighborhoods fund ongoing operations. Since then I haven't heard anything and just assumed that the City was moving at the glacial pace the city moves at. The death of this program, if true, would be a major disappointment. I don't think cameras are the be all and end all or anything but I do think they're a good tool to clean up hot spots where all else has failed.....

From the Post, http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060628/NEWS01/606280339 Criminals simply avoid cameras, police in Cincinnati have found Scripps Howard News Service Not every city is sold on cameras as a crime-stopping approach. Cincinnati, one of the first municipalities in the nation to adopt the technology, now is decidedly disenchanted. The police department agreed. But neighborhood and community groups persisted. Using small city grants, several contracted with a private company, CityWatcher.com, to mount cameras in high-crime areas. Whether or not criminal activity was simply displaced, residents were pleased with their new peace and quiet. Last September, City Council's public safety committee endorsed a plan to vastly expand the program by adding about 117 cameras. But Council never took up the issue. Today, the police remain convinced that taxpayer money can be better spent elsewhere.