Final memo re concerns about the city’s approval process for LDG’s Westline proposal 6.13.26

 

Things are coming to head this week on the Westline Flats, 167 multi-family unit housing development proposed for the former site of the Western Hills Sports Mall.

The summer meeting of the City Council will occur on Wednesday August 5^th. City Council  Committees will meet on the 3rd and 4th.

On August 4^th,  the Housing Committee will be considering the approval of  the zoning change necessary for the Westline Flats development to proceed.  If approved by the Committee, it will be on the agenda for the City Council for a final vote on Wednesday, the 5th.

I submitted a briefing paper to the City Council outlining concerns about the project. It is based on input from several of us here in Price Hill.

A fundamental issue is that the City, LDG (the developer)  and even  the Westwood Neighborhood Council and associated development groups, failed to include the West Price Hill neighborhood in the public enaggement for this project in any meaning ful way. The boundary line of West Price Hill and Westwood is appx. 400 feet from the project.

A you can see from the map, West Price Hill will be equally, if not more, impacted by this development, yet West Price has been excluded from the process.

Here are the top level concerns:

1. Public engagement was unfairly limited and inadequate.

2. No Traffic Impact Study was Performed despite the history of serious traffic problems in close proximity to the development site.

3. The Proposed Site Is Already Federally Designated as Distressed — This Award Would Deepen Concentration, Not Reduce It

4. The developer’s own financial contingency is a disqualifying admission

5. LDG’s development portfolio concentration in distressed markets is a pattern OHFA should evaluate.

The full briefing paper is available posted above.

If you also have concerns about this housing development and wish to express those concerns to the city council, you can send an email to the city council at  the following address: [email protected].

2024-Bias-Free-Policing-Annual-Report New Orleans

NOPD says data shows no racial disparities. We checked it. – Verite News New Orleans

 

I think the problem many people have with the Campaign Zero report on bias-free policing is that, ironically, everyone knows that bias-free policing is not a black & white issue.

It is a “continuous improvement” issue.

A similarly situated police department has done many years of research and has reported on the complexities involved in examining bias-free policing. I am referring to the Annual Reports on Bias-free Policing produced by the New Orleans Police Department.

The NOPD has been producing these reports for a decade. Like Cincinnati, New Orleans was under a consent decree, and they have now had 10 years of documented effort on Bias-Free Policing.

Meanwhile, when it comes to bias-free policing in Cincinnati, the city management and consultants have been caught with egg on their faces. Essentially, the City Manager’s Office dropped the ball.

There is no transparency surrounding what happened to the Collaborative Agreement Refresh which was undertaken in 2017. The Refresh was intended to ensure that the Collaborative Agreement was sustained through a very structured effort at bias-free policing and Community Problem-Oriented Policing. As I have mentioned, there is little, if any, record of efforts on bias-free policing by Cincinnati after 2020.

If Cincinnati had done something similar to New Orleans’s Annual Reports on Bias-free Policing for the past 5 or 6 years, I think it is likely that this Campaign Zero matter would not have happened.

I did a search on Campaign Zero’s website for  anyreports about “New Orleans,” and found “No Results.”

The following quotes are found on pages 1 and 2 of the reportand provide a balanced perspective about  the data.

1. “The evaluation of bias in policing is difficult as statistics cannot show the subjective, or even unconscious, bias that may play a role in the decision making of an officer.”

 

2. “While there is no definitive test for determining the actual bias of an officer, the data can be useful in helping the Department identify trends over time that may need to be addressed through training, policy changes, or other corrective action.”

 

3. “It is important for users of this data to understand that identifying and addressing specific officer misconduct is not the purpose of the audit.”

 

4. “Although NOPD’s current methodology can conclusively identify disparities, it cannot conclusively identify the causes of the disparities, which may or may not include biased police officers or deployment strategies.”

I am not suggesting that the NOPD and their research are perfect but apparently, New Orleans is still under a consent decree and their Annual Reports are a big part of their case seeking to get out from under thje conset decree.

 

 

Next Door Post

The Planning Commission meeting on Friday, June 5th lasted 6 hours. Basically 3 hours for the historic designation for North Avondale and 3 hours on the rezoning of the Western Hills Sports Mall site.

The Commission considered two issues concerning the Sports Mall. They rezoned the site on a vote of 5 yea’s, 0 nay’s, and one abstention. Then they considered the development plan itself. It was ultimately approved 6 to zero but not before considerable confusion on the part of the Chairman.

After approving the zone change, the Commission became so mixed up about how to proceed that they went into executive session. There are questions about whether the process and the requirements necessary to go into executive sessions were satisfied. It could be a problem, if not.

Next, the rezoning of the site must be approved by city council and could be on the agenda when the city council holds their August meeting.

My opposition to the development is based on the seriously degraded quality of life in Price Hill, caused by government policy and programs that have concentrated poverty in the west side neighborhoods and the “nonprofit industrial complex,” that is thriving in Price Hill as a result.

During my public comments, I brought to the commission’s attention a post from the “Next Door” app that had been posted just days before the Commission meeting. It was posted by a woman living less than a mile from the Sports Mall site. Her back porch was set on fire, and she believes it was an act of retaliation. She recounts her experience in her post, below.

I told the Commission that there are thousands of residents of Price Hill who feel the same way about what has happened to the neighborhood. Increasing the density of the neighborhood will only make it worse.

Anna Albi was indignant about my comments. I suggested that the arsonist was probably one of the prostitutes,  drug addicts or a mentally ill persons who wander up and down Glenway. Ms. Albi expressed no sympathy for the arson victim just indignation at my suggestion.

Bottom line: the neighborhood needs solutions before adding more people and more problems. Efforts to address that issue have been underway for some months. Unfortunately, with little progress. That is a story for another day.

 

Issue-22-passed.-Cincinnati-must-do-5-things-for-railroad-sale-to-work

 

The agenda for the June 3, 2026, city council meeting is very long but it is Item 79 (the last item) that got my attention.  It basically reprograms  more than $5 million in  capital funds from existing capital projects to the general fund and then back out to other supposed capital projects. But during the course of those transfers, more than $1 million will be shifted to cover operating costs, not capital projects.

Eventually, I suspect that this type of transferring money around will involve railway money. We all suspect that the city will try to use railway money for some big. ineligible project like an arena. But while that is very possible, I think it is more likely that the city will seek ways to use the railway funds to free up other capital money to cover operating costs elsewhere in the budget, which is what Item 79 does, but for now, with non-railway funds.

That is why I have recently been advocating that the city be required to maintain a separate ledger for tracking any transfers between projects and accounts when it involves railway money. Otherwise, this “operational loophole,” can circumvent the lone “internal control” contained in the law, the “existing infrastructure” provision. It would be very tedious to audit such transfers  without a separate accounting ledger.  Maybe that was the  intent of those who wrote the legislation. Who knows?

After the railway sale, in an Op-Ed in the Enquirer on November 17, 2023,  I also advocated that the city council establish a “floor” for the Capital Improvement Program based on FY24 funding levels, i.e., CIP funding level would never go below the FY 24 level.  My  point was that new railway proceeds should be added to the existing Capital Improvement Program funding level in order to ensure that there is an increase in spending on deferred maintenance, which during the campaign, was described by the mayor as a “crisis.”

I reasoned that establishing such a floor was the only way to guarantee that the city was going to devote the money necessary to tackle the estimated $400 million backlog in deferred maintenance . That backlog was the entire basis for selling the railway.

I think that as soon as the referendum  passed, that deferred maintenance list went straight into the circular file or someone’s bottom desk drawer,  never to be seen again.  Item 79 does not involve railway money as far as I can tell. But this is how the city will bleed the railway trust money away,

As I noted in my Op-Ed, the city manager already publicly contemplatedmoving existing capital funding to the operating budget. And the Cincinnati Futures Commission is recommending the same thing.

To those of us who opposed the sale of the railway, this will come as no surprise.