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Update from Campus Partners: 
Prepared for residents the University Area Commission
May 16, 2007

Contents:

· City's Neighborhood Pride will come to Weinland Park on May 14-18 · Long-time residents Dorothy Cromartie and Michael Davies die · Campus Hops will celebrate summer in the University District · Volunteers plant trees in neighborhood park · Demolition begins on Columbus Coated Fabrics buildings

· Update on public safety · Update on refuse and code enforcement · Location changes for public meeting May 22 on funds to clean up Columbus Coated Fabrics · Ground-breaking ceremony for Neighborhood Policing Center set for June 7 · Mayor Coleman and his cabinet to meet with residents in Weinland Park on May 17

City’s Neighborhood Pride will come to Weinland Park on May 14-18 City staff and community volunteers will focus municipal services in the western portion of the Weinland Park neighborhood when the city’s Neighborhood Pride program arrives in that area during the week of May 14-18. The Pride area boundaries are Chittenden Avenue on the north, East Fifth Avenue on the south, North Fourth Street on the east and North High Street on the west. The services include housing and homeownership assistance, refuse collection, street sweeping, code enforcement, health services, free thermometer exchange and more. The Neighborhood Pride Service Center for the week will be in 7th Avenue Community Baptist Church, 28 E. Seventh Ave. A pre-pride information meeting for neighborhood residents will be Thursday, May 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the church. The Columbus divisions of Police and Fire will offer a Neighborhood Safety Academy for adults and children on Tuesday, May 15, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the church. Dinner is free. Mayor Coleman’s Community Night will be Thursday, May 17, at the church. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the program begins at 6 p.m. The mayor and his cabinet members will be present to talk with and take questions from neighborhood residents. The Neighborhood Pride Community Cookout will be Friday, May 18, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the church. The Weinland Park Community Civic Association applied for the Neighborhood Pride program. The civic association plans to apply for the program to return next year to focus on the eastern portion of Weinland Park. Back to the top Long-time residents Dorothy Cromartie and Michael Davies die Dorothy Cromartie, a civic leader in Weinland Park for nearly 40 years, died on May 7 at the age of 95. Setting a high standard for energy and activism, she worked tirelessly for children, senior citizens and poor people until the last few weeks of her long life. She was a former member of the University Area Commission and the board of Godman Guild Association. She was an advocate through AARP and a leader of a Girl Scout Brownie program in her neighborhood. She was an active member of First Congregational Church, 444 E. Broad St. A memorial service will be held at the church on Thursday, May 10, at 7 p.m. A viewing will be held in the church parlor from 5 to 7 p.m. We at Campus Partners express our condolences to Joe Denton, Dorothy’s long-time companion. Michael E. Davies, car enthusiast and civic leader in the Northwood Park Historic Neighborhood Association, died on May 3. He was a proud graduate of North High School and spent more than 25 years in the car industry. A memorial service was held on May 7. His family has asked that contributions in his memory be made to First Community Church and to the Hair Theater Fund at the Columbus Foundation (place the latter in the name of Mike “Manny” Davies). We express our condolences to Mike’s wife, Xenia Palus, and to his three children and two step-children. Back to the top Campus Hops will celebrate summer in the University District The Campus Hop Planning Committee is organizing three Campus Hops along High Street this summer: June 21, July 19 and August 16. The centerpiece of each Campus Hop will be a free outdoor movie shown on the Wexner Center plaza. Each Campus Hop, which will run from noon to midnight, also will feature sidewalk sales, food specials and live music at South Campus Gateway, Summit on 16th and other High Street locations. People also will be encouraged to visit the geology museum in Orton Hall and the John Glenn Exhibit in Page Hall. Tours of the Oval will focus on the university’s history. Students from the university’s Center for Automotive Research will have their solar-powered vehicle and bio-diesel hybrid electric car on display Serving on the planning committee are representatives of Campus Partners, South Campus Gateway, University Community Business Association, University District Organization, Wexner Center, College of the Arts, Summit United Methodist Church and Weinland Park Community Civic Association. Meanwhile, the planning committee’s first Campus Music Hop on April 12-15 was successful. The organizers of the Ohio State Jazz Festival, which was the centerpiece of the music hop, were pleased with the attendance, which was significantly higher than in previous years. The music hop also resulted in positive stories about the University District in The Dispatch, Alive, U-Weekly, onCampus, and several weekly newspapers published by This Week Newspapers and Suburban News Publications. The music hop was featured in e-mail newsletters distributed by Experience Columbus and ColumbusUnderground. Volunteers plant trees in neighborhood park Ohio State students, neighborhood residents, children and community leaders together planted 23 trees in and adjacent to the city park along Indianola Avenue between East Eighth and East Ninth avenues. The planting was done as part of an Earth Day-Arbor Day celebration. The planting was organized as a collaboration of the City of Columbus, University Area Commission and Ohio State. The Forestry Division of the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department has agreed to help with two more tree plantings in the Weinland Park neighborhood in the next year. For more information, contact Elan Daniel at (614) 645-0713 or erdaniel@columbus.gov. Back to the top Demolition begins on Columbus Coated Fabrics buildings Campus Partners is managing the asbestos removal and demolition of the buildings on the Columbus Coated Fabrics site on behalf of the City of Columbus which currently owns this property. In a public bidding process, Champion Environmental Services, Inc., was selected as the demolition contractor. Champion started removing asbestos from buildings in early April and began the demolition portion of the contract on April 24. On behalf of Campus Partners, HzW Environmental Consultants will be monitoring the demolition contractor’s work, which is scheduled to be concluded by August. The City of Columbus on April 2 submitted an application for $3 million from the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund (CORF) to remediate the contaminated soil on the Columbus Coated Fabrics site. The application was prepared on behalf of the city by Campus Partners, its environmental attorney Joseph Reidy of Schottenstein Zox & Dunn, and Mark and Eric Wagenbrenner of Wagenbrenner Development Company. A total of 17 applications were submitted from throughout the state. Based on the dollars requested by the applicants and the funds available to be granted in this year’s cycle, as many as 16 of the applications are expected to be funded. The Ohio Department of Development, which administers CORF, has announced that a decision on the applications is likely to come in July. As part of the CORF process, a public hearing on the application for clean-up of the Columbus Coated Fabrics site will be held Tuesday, May 22, at 6 p.m. at the Northside Branch Library, 1423 N. High St. The application is available for public review at the branch library. Back to the top Update on public safety Rebecca Nelson, assistant vice president for student affairs, informed the University Area Safety Committee on April 11 that a news crew from NBC’s “The Today Show” was preparing a report on binge drinking among college students. The crew had been to Ohio State and had videotaped undercover in the Four Kegs Bar & Grill, 12 E. 15th Ave. The crew reportedly saw excessive drinking and underage drinking. The crew also interviewed Rich Hollingsworth, vice president of student affairs, about the situation. The report was scheduled to be broadcast on April 17, but it was postponed indefinitely due to the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. Committee members participated in a wide-ranging discussion of binge drinking and proper bar management. No one suggested that the university has avoided dealing with alcohol-related issues. In concluding the discussion, the committee adopted a two-party resolution. The first part of the motion authorized the safety committee to send a letter to Governor Strickland asking that liquor laws be enforced more effectively and that liquor permit holders who fail to properly manage their businesses be held accountable. The second part of the motion asked that the University Community Business Association convene a meeting with liquor permit holders and bar managers in the university area to discuss alcohol laws and proper business practices. The motion proposed that the agent-in-charge of the Investigative Unit-Columbus, Ohio Department of Public Safety, lead that discussion, and that Ohio State's Student Wellness Center be represented at the meeting. The committee also heard a report from University Police on an investigation that began last fall to break up a crime ring dealing in laptop computers stolen from university residence halls. Between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31, University Police received 48 reports of laptops being stolen. One person was caught and led police to other members of the ring. Eight persons, ages 22 to 30, have been arrested. Most of the suspects lived near the university campus, but none were students. They blended in with students, entered residence halls and slipped into open or unlocked rooms to steal the computers. All they took was laptop computers. The committee adopted a resolution of appreciation in recognition of Karen Holbrook’s retirement as president of Ohio State. The committee will present the resolution to Dr. Holbrook at its next meeting, which will be Wednesday, May 9, at 3 p.m. in the conference room of 33 W. 11th Ave. Columbus Police Officer Larry Geis, who has served as the community liaison officer for the Fourth Precinct (University District), for nearly five years has taken an assignment as the liaison for the precinct which covers Franklinton. He has been succeeded in the Fourth Precinct by Officer Larry Brown. Officer Brown can be reached at (614) 645-1404. Back to the top Update on refuse and code enforcement The University District Code Enforcement Task Force and the Campus Partners Public Service Committee on refuse collection and recycling held a joint meeting on May 8. The committee members discussed the ongoing problem of illegal dumping, particularly situations where refuse containers are filled with debris from building renovations. The committee members agreed to invite key staff members from the city to discuss this problem at the next meeting. Steve Sterrett of Campus Partners announced that, after consultation with the Refuse Collection Division, the annual special collection of bulk refuse in the University District will be Wednesday, Aug. 22, through Monday, Sept. 10. The two committees will hold their next meeting jointly on Tuesday, July 17, at 1 p.m. in the Northwood-High Building, 2231 N. High St. Back to the top Location changes for public meeting May 22 on funds to clean up Columbus Coated Fabrics The public is invited to a meeting on Tuesday, May 22, to comment on the city's application for $3 million in state funds to clean up the Columbus Coated Fabrics site. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in 7th Avenue Community Baptist Church, 28 E. Seventh Ave. (This is a change in location from the Northside Branch Library.) Removal of asbestos and demolition of the existing buildings on the Columbus Coated Fabrics site is underway, but the clean-up funds are critical to a proposal by The Wagenbrenner Development Company to build some 500 homes and a community park on the site. The clean-up funds would pay to remove building foundations and contaminated soil. The city submitted its application in early April for state money from the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund administered by the Ohio Department of Development. A decision on the application is expected in July. There is competition from other projects around the state for this funding, so it is important that citizens in Weinland Park and the rest of the University District express their views on the need for cleaning up this site. The city's application and the Wagenbrenner Development Company's proposal for the site are available for public review at the Northside Branch Library, 1423 N. High St. The meeting on May 22 is likely to only last about an hour. A brief overview of the application and the proposal for redevelopment will be given, then the meeting will be open to questions and comments from the public. A legal reporter will transcribe the comments made at the meeting. Back to the top Ground-breaking ceremony for Neighborhood Policing Center set for June 7 Mayor Mike Coleman and Ohio State President Karen Holbrook will join public safety personnel and neighborhood residents for a ground-breaking ceremony for the new Neighborhood Policing Center on East 11th Avenue between Summit and North Fourth streets. The ceremony will be Thursday, June 7, at 2:15 p.m. The Neighborhood Policing Center will be jointly funded by the city and the university. The center will house the substation for the Columbus Division of Police's fourth precinct, offices for the Community Crime Patrol and University Police, a neighborhood pride center, and a community meeting room. Mayor Coleman and his cabinet to meet with residents in Weinland Park on May 17 The city's Neighborhood Pride program is focusing on the western portion of Weinland Park this week. Mayor Mike Coleman, his cabinet and other key city staff members will meet with area residents on Thursday, May 17, in 7th Avenue Community Baptist Church, 28 E. Seventh Ave. The doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting will begin at 6 p.m. The meeting is an opportunity to learn about city services and to ask questions of the mayor and his staff. The Neighborhood Pride program will conclude with a neighborhood cookout on Friday, May 18, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Baptist church. People are asked to bring a dish to share with neighbors. The city will provide food for the grill and beverages.

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Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment, Inc.
1824 N. High St., Columbus, OH 43201
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