| News from Campus Partners | |
The Campus Collaborative places a monthly director's report on its Website. This report contains a wealth of information about initiatives involving the schools serving students living in the University District, economic development and job readiness programs, the university's Community Outreach Partnership Center, and much more. The Website address is: www.osu.edu/campuscollab/reports.html.
Columbus City Council on May 1 adopted a resolution of necessity for the Gateway project, which was the next step in utilizing its eminent domain authority to help assemble the redevelopment site for the University Gateway Center. The action was pursuant to the economic development agreement on the Gateway project which City Council adopted last December.
Campus Partners staff members continue to assist Ron Meyers and Shane Hankins in the administration of the University District Student Involvement Fund Program (UDSIFP). The UDISFP Board, composed of five students, held its second round of funding in February and a third round of funding in April. For all three rounds of funding, the UDSIFP Board members received 27 applications and funded 16 projects. The university had allocated $35,000 to the UDSIFP for 1999-2000 from the student set-aside funds, and the UDSIFP Board has awarded all of those funds to student-led projects, except for $1,045 spent to purchase advertisements in the Lantern to announce the availability of the funds. The projects include tutoring in reading at Hubbard Elementary School, involvement in the after-school program at Medary Elementary School, area beautification, materials and supplies for architecture students participating in the Christmas in April program, tools for the Habitat for Humanity chapter at Ohio State, crime prevention, research on re-using commercial buildings on North Fourth Street at 11th Avenue, and more.
The Columbus Division of Police, University Police and the Community Crime Patrol (CCP) cooperated again in a joint initiative to reduce burglaries and related crimes during the university's spring break, March 17-26. The result was a further drop in the number of burglaries. During the spring break period last month, Columbus Police received 19 reports of burglaries in the University District. That compared to 22 reports for the same time period in 1999 and 41 in 1998. The Ohio State chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) launched a multi-media education campaign around burglary prevention in late February. The campaign included posters in the CABS buses, Lantern advertisements, flyers on pizza boxes, distribution of 1,000 can cozies with a crime prevention message, information on a Web site and more. About 50 student volunteers, a dozen police officers and four CCP staff distributed 4,000 burglary prevention flyers door-to-door in the student neighborhood on March 7. (The student volunteers were recruited by the Student Safety Initiative.) In addition, the flyers were available at all University Libraries.
Public safety summaryThe African American Heritage Festival was held May 8-14 with the largest public events being a step show in Mershon Auditorium on Friday evening, the festival on Saturday afternoon and evening on the Oval, and the dance on Saturday night in the parking lot of French Field House. Most of the public safety planning, however, focused on the pedestrians and auto cruising along High Street late on Friday and Saturday nights. Columbus Police routed traffic in a circular pattern. Officers, members of the God Squad and "community friends" kept pedestrians on the sidewalks and prevented disturbances. Shots were fired shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday morning near High Street and East Eighth Avenue. Fortunately, only one person was wounded. Police then worked to send the crowds home.
In other public safety matters, the disturbance on East 13th Avenue involving a large keg party early in the morning of April 16 received a great deal of attention from the news media. Following the incident, the Community Crime Patrol distributed a flyer on alcohol laws door-to-door in that area. Police officers also distributed flyers and talked with residents. So far, similar disturbances have been avoided this spring. The BuckEyes Watch program kicked off with a pizza party at the Evans Scholars House on April 13. Kevin Cope of Undergraduate Student Government and Steve Leffingwell of Evans Scholars are coordinating this BuckEyes Watch pilot project on East 14th Avenue. Ron Meyers has provided overall leadership to BuckEyes Watch. The Adopt-A-Street program also is moving forward this spring. Six student organizations have adopted specific streets, conducted clean-ups and distributed information to residents. Ohio State's office of Off-Campus and Commuter Student Services is providing administrative support to the BuckEyes Watch and Adopt-A-Street programs. The Safety Coordinating Committee will hold its next regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday, June 14, at 2:30 p.m. in the Fawcett Center, 2400 Olentangy River Road.The Steering Committee for the University Uptown Improvement District on May 2 approved a revised proposal for the special improvement district (SID). The Steering Committee is having a newsletter designed, printed and widely distributed that will explain the SID proposal. In addition, the Steering Committee members will kick off an intensive series of one-on-one meetings with 25 to 30 key property owners to assess support for the SID. If those meetings go well, then the Steering Committee may authorize the circulation of formal petitions later this summer. The goal remains to create the SID this year so that services could commence in January 2001. Meanwhile, Campus Partners is planning to send a small group of property owners and staff to Philadelphia on May 31 to meet with the staff of the University City District, the business improvement district around the University of Pennsylvania. This meeting will help answer questions around BID management, services and relations with the municipality, and will explore other SID issues within an area with similar urban, university neighborhoods. The meeting will give leaders of the University Uptown Improvement District more specific, hands-on information to help sell the idea of the SID to other University District property owners. Campus Partners staff also have updated university officials regarding the SID, and have presented the recommendation that the university contribute $200,000 annually to support the security component of the SID's service plan. Although the university cannot be formally assessed to support the SID, it can voluntarily contribute. Over 80% of the SID's proposed budget will, however, be supported by private property owner assessment.
New dumpster zone proposed for south campusAt the meeting of the Campus Partners Public Service Committee on April 26, Jerry Edwards, administrator of the city's Refuse Collection Division, proposed a second dumpster zone for the University District. The zone would be bounded by West 11th Avenue on the north, King Avenue on the south, High Street on the east and Neil Avenue on the west. Within the dumpster zone, the city's existing 47 300-gallon, black, plastic containers would be replaced with 28 city-owned metal dumpsters. The zone would continue to be served by 94 existing privately owned dumpsters and by 16 new privately owned dumpsters ordered to meet the city's refuse code. The Refuse Collection Division last summer created the first dumpster zone east of High Street in the core student neighborhood. The 300-gallon plastic containers were replaced with dumpsters because the plastic containers were being regularly destroyed by arson. The dumpsters also created more capacity. The University District is the only area of Columbus in which the city provides metal dumpsters. The next meeting of the Public Service Committee on refuse collection is Wednesday, May 24, at 4 p.m. in the Campus Partners office, 1824 N. High St.
The Campus Partners Public Service Committee on street sweeping met on April 19 and made plans for a special sweeping of the south campus area for June 13 and 14 and of the Dennison Place and NECKO neighborhoods for June 15 and 16. The city will post temporary "no parking" signs, and volunteers will distribute leaflets. The city, however, will not tow cars. The regular program of street sweeping in the University District began April 13 and 14 and will continue on the second Thursday and second Friday of each month through October. (The sweeping, however, will not be conducted in June due to spring quarter commencement at Ohio State on June 9.) The city towed 428 parked vehicles on April 13 and 14 to allow the sweeping to be done. The next meeting on street sweeping will be Wednesday, June 21, at 3:30 p.m. at the Northwood-High Building, 2231 N. High St.