School super O'Reilly had an article praising the Grandview Yard development in the TVN this week. It was standard boosterism for the deal with NRI, but a few things popped out.

He said twice in his bulleted points that no new money for the schools will be on the way in the short term. We get it. No Champagne for the school board.

After noting that finances are tough and the school gave up taxes in the G.Y. deal, O'Reilly wrote “However, DeGraw and others who make decisions for the taxpayers of Grandview Heights truly believe this is the best course of action for the future of the city.” Was that a way to say “the schools got arm twisted into the deal and if it goes wrong blame DeGraw?”

Did you notice an odd omission from the article? There was not one mention of the new kids that G.Y. will be bringing into the school district. No “we welcome the new students from the housing in G.Y. and project the schools will have no problems”.

That's sort of understandable, the school has been told there is no projection on the possible number of new students. NRI has negotiated complete autonomy on the number of housing units into the deal with the schools, it could be none, it could be many hundreds. The stepped compensation deal is supposed to cover the costs of new students, but it left a wide window of possibilities open.

If you are a board member, and you are told “you might get hundreds of new students, you might get none”, how do you do long term planning?

Nothing ticks me off more than reading a letter to the editor in the local papers that is a pre-written propaganda piece churned out by some PR hack and presented by a local as an original letter. I don't care if you are left, right, or a believer in space aliens, if you can't use your own words, you don't deserve space in a newspaper. I challenge anyone to find one instance in the six years I have been writing this blog where I used any more than a short phrase from any outside source. If you have to steal someone else's words, you are admitting you are too stupid to make your own.

I hope this letter will be in the next Tri-Village news.

To the Editor:

As I was reading a letter in the August 5 Tri-Village News sent in by Jennifer LuPiba (complaining about the president's health care initiative), I noticed the letter had that slick PR wording of a professional flack. It took me just a few seconds of Googling to find that same letter, word for word, had been printed in the July 29, 2009 edition of the Peninsula Clarion, a newspaper in Alaska. Unless “Jody Bauer” of Soldotna, Alaska had a weird mental link that caused her to write the same words in her letter to the editor, I think it is safe to assume the they both were astroturfing the newspapers with a pre-written letter.

I took just a few more seconds to learn that Jennifer LuPiba is the president of the a group called the Grandview Area Republican Club (and from her twitter feed I saw her promotion of the Tea Party recently held at the State House downtown). Really Jennifer – you are the president of a Republican club and you can't even come up with a letter in your own words?

I don't know if it is against any rules to send these astroturf letters to the paper, but I think it serves no good purpose. I can read pre-written letters on any website where Tea Baggers continually spam the comment sections with this copy and paste garbage.

It is dishonest to send a letter to a local paper without giving proper credit to the original author of the propaganda. I'm not shocked at all by Jenifer's dishonesty – it seems to be a feature of the anti health care crazies. They have been documented instances of these groups disrupting health care town meetings with organized shouting and booing. They don't want to have a discussion – they just want to cause trouble and disruption of democratic meetings.

I considered responding to the lies about health care printed in Jennifer's letter, but I don't think it deserves any response. If you can't use your own words in a letter to the editor, you don't earn a reply. 

(Later) With a little more Google juice I found the source of the letter, it is from a website called The Barack Obama Experiment, a website paid for by the Republican National Committee. Do some searching and you will find the same letter printed in newspapers all over the country.

(after running in the TVN) The Editors though that "Tea Baggers" was not appropriate and changed my words to "tea party protesters". This is why I have my own blog, I can call them Tea Baggers all day long. Hey anti heath care whackos, google tea bagger!

I had a short exchange with the editor by email during which he explained that they normally don't let the astroturf letters run in the paper, but they made a mistake and let the one from Jennifer get printed. I figured as much. I was going to include something in my letter blaming the TVN for making a mistake, but I knew better. Pro tip - don't include anything in your letters to the editor that criticizes the newspaper, they have thin skins.

(later) Yes Jennifer, I'm reading your tweets and saw your letter in the Dispatch. It doesn't seem to be an astroturf pre-written letter, so good for you. It is full of hogwash, the President has said his plan will be paid by taxes on those with income over $250K. You still lying, but it is not cut and paste lies (on first google).

The Dispatch has an interesting article about a number of “Moms Groups” that are organized here in Grandview. The leaders of these groups were interviewed and some basic info reported .

I'll start by saying these groups are perfectly normal part of the old USA. Moms are drawn to organizing by the shared joys and frustrations of parenthood, and there has always been and will be such groups in any city. As for the gender separation, chalk it up to the nature of the human condition. Men have their groups too, they just tend to involve more drinking, and less sharing of feelings.

The moms groups in the article had the following names and info:

Analisa Trares has a group called “Moms Night Out”, which has 140 members. " She is quoted “A couple friends and I said, 'We really need to get out'”. Activities have included trips to restaurants, movies, shops and gallery hops. There are members who are helped when they are sick, and they have done service projects like collecting canned food for needy families.

“Concerns about drugs, alcohol and sexual activity also are discussed, privately” (I'm assuming this was meant to be about the activities of kids, but who knows?). Wayward children who act out in public are reported to the parents.

Debbie Brannan, of Moms in Touch, has a small prayer group that meets weekly to pray for students, teachers and administrators. Given the financial problems the schools are headed into, I think they will be praying for levies to pass this year.

Joanne Taylor has a school group called 017 PAC. She says it isn't a political-action committee, they used the initials PAC “just to be different from the other moms groups”. OK, out of all the potential names they could have used, they just happened to pick PAC, which doesn't have anything to do with political action. I can totally believe that. Maybe the initials stands for “Parent Adventure Club”, or “polynuclear aromatic compounds”. Google is not helping me with the acronym, it's hard to get passed the first 7 million mentions of political action committees.

Connie Anderson heads a group called Moms of 2012. I wondered, how are the moms in these school groups recruited, do they pick them or is there a blanket invite? I asked Connie Anderson to explain.

We announced the Moms of 2012 group at Freshman Orientation. Most of the parents were there, and that's how they were "recruited." They had an opportunity to sign up at that time, and to the best of my knowledge, just about everyone did. … The part about having 30 members was not accurate. What I told the reporter was that the first two times we got together, which was in August and September, about 30 moms came. A lot of moms came then because they were nervous about their kids starting high school. Not as many have come since then because the timing hasn't been great. … C.A.

I don't quite understand these moms groups for a single class, isn't the PTO where parents get together and commiserate? Why couldn't the PTO set up a mailing list for each class, and allow dads to share in the fun? Believe it or not, there are some dads who care about their kids, but tend to avoid the tedium of PTO meetings.

Mayberry R.F.D.

The Dispatch article jokes that Grandview Hts. is like Mayberry, the fictional setting of The Andy Griffith Show (broadcast in the 60's but running forever on cable).

Here's a fun game – what character on the show are you? I thought about Goober, but I decided I have an affinity for Ernest T. Bass. The rock throwing, window breaking son of the hills was an inspiration in my childhood. “If a duck stood still you could catch him by the bill” will become my new catch-phrase. In the sprint of Ernest, here is my new proposal.

Dads group organized

All of these Moms groups, furiously emailing each other, are making me feel left out. I am announcing a new group for us dads, Grandview Dads Listening to Moms.

GDLM is sympathetic to all the spouses who complain that the dads are not listening. We intend to show that we can listen and keep up with the moms. Since we are the tech support for Grandview's moms, we have access to the computers and emails passwords of our long suffering Helen Crumps. We will scan their inboxes and share on a private website the stories we find. After all, if it is a good thing that the moms are sharing stories about the kids, it will be just as good for us to share our wives's email.

As in all mens groups, the first rule will be in effect. No blabbermouths who will tell where the still is kept hidden will be welcomed. Hit the feedback link on the left, you might be tapped.

"You ain't seen the last of Ernest T. Justice!"

Both the TVN and the TWG had stories about a proposed upgrade for the High school auditorium. Acoustics within the auditorium, better seats, and updated technology are all good projects for a facility that is showing its age. Some group called the “District auditorium committee” is proposing a three-phase, $298,600 project to the school board, to be paid with donations.

It does sound like the upgrades are worthwhile, and unlike the artificial turf, the project can be done in sections if donations are slow. It also doesn't require the school to pay high maintenance costs, like the replacement of the turf every 10 years.

Still, you wonder what sort of Orphan Annie musical these people are living in. The economy is in recession, and even the most optimistic economists are saying that it will be years until recovery. The other school groups – band boosters, athletic clubs, etc. - are going to be hurting. Yet these people think now is the time to start an expensive new upgrade?

I didn't read anything that suggested the board will pitch in money, but given the history of the board during the artificial turf fund raising (voting to pay all costs, killing all reasons for donations), it would be no surprise if the board made another irresponsible move to fund this project.

Ellis on Grandview Yard

NRI honcho Brian Ellis gave a pep talk to the Chamber of Commerce lunch Nov. 13. He spoke about “behind the scenes work” that was under way, and said ground was to be broken on the project in the middle of 2009. A more important admission was his statement "The fact of the matter is we don't have one lease signed". Ellis can blue-sky the project all day, but without a name on a contract, why would anyone start building?

Of interest was this statement quoted in the TVN:

“Third, "parking fields" would need to be established, meaning areas of public parking that eventually would cater to the customers and employees of the Yard.”

The Oct. 1 TVN reported in the police beat that officers were called to a boy scout meeting because a foul-mouthed boy had been swearing. Investigation by the police found that the kid had just been giving a report on world war one airplanes, and had not researched the correct pronunciation of “Fokker Aircraft”.

Two banks were robbed last week on West Fifth Avenue. Although the police don't think they were connected, it completes a trifecta after the Fifth Third band robbery earlier this year. The robber at the Chase Bank was thwarted by the old dye-pack exploding, suggesting that even the simplest rule for robbers (check for the dye-packs) was not done. With this level of stupidity in the Columbus crime syndicate, I think more desperadoes will be striking the banks. A reward for info on the criminals has been offered. Maybe I can have a second job just patrolling the local banks and watching where the dopes go after the hits.

I have been trying to get info on the development at the corner of Grandview and 33. The story in the Sept. 23 TWG was interesting but short on details. “Plans include demolition of a vacant Chinese restaurant to make way for the new development on a 1.1-acre site at 1080 Grandview Ave.”, to be developed by the Metropolitan Partners. Eyeballing the property I'm guessing that drive-in restaurant would be using the old Chinese restaurant land alone, and not include the hotel land currently being cleared.

Why is Metropolitan using the name “Grandview Station”, the name that the Bear Creek developers used for their much larger failed development? An older article in the dispatch quoted Metropolitan's Bill Dargusch on the Kaplin tract “It's got a lot of hair on it.” If Metropolitan doesn't intend to use Kaplin, and is still talking with the owner of the hotel land, why steal the name of a development that had a completely different plan?

The online information for Metropolitan Partners is confusing. Is the Columbus company part of the Seattle, WA based company? Why does www.metropolitan-partners.com redirect to Continental Retail Development?

(Later) The Grandview Planning Commission approved the revised plan for the development on Nov. 19. The name is still "Grandview Station" - why?

Shotguns for Rocky

Once again the Tri-V reports on the Grandview police taking out an injured raccoon. So far the police have been able to put down the vicious animals without injuries, but sometimes things don't go as planned. Keep sharp out there Grandview police, it's a dangerous city. Those animals could bite you without mercy.

Smart office for G.Y.

The Ohio Job Ready Sites Program is hoped to provide the first money for starting the building at Grandview Yard. This program requires local matching funds, which would be paid by the TIF (yet to be created). The OdoD website says that the competition for funds is stiff, and the average grant is only $3 million. It's hard to figure out if this would be enough to pay for the public funding for this part of the G.Y. project, NRI has still not broken down the projected $160 million total public funding into costs for each part of the development. If NRI is still requesting that the parking structures be built with government money, the entire $3 Mil could go just into the garage.

The Tri-V says that the new building would be a “smart” office, which is defined in the story as being equipped to handle high tech communication. What office isn't equipped to have high tech communication? Gigabit Ethernet and fiber are pretty standard stuff, and usually installed only to areas as they are needed. Is this a real construction option, or just a buzzword?

The most notable part of the story is the admission by NRI that they are only building an office, and not the entire complex, which was to include housing and retail. I think this was a way of saying – without coming out in a full admission – that the retail part of the project has stalled because of the economy.

Mondo relief?

The TWG has a headline “FieldTurf is free of lead”. Why is the TWG calling the artificial turf “FieldTurf”? The Grandview football field was covered with MondoTurf. As far as I can tell FieldTurf is a completely separate company with no association with the Mondo company (based in Italy).

The fear that the MondoTurf might contain lead was caused by a N.J. health department decision to close off access to fields when studies showed lead was released by the plastic. Not surprisingly the Synthetic Turf Council has been playing down the danger of the lead content, claiming it is bound into the fibers and can not be released in dangerous levels.

The artificial fields in which N.J. has found lead are all AstroTurf brand surfaces.

The immediate worry about lead contamination from the artificial turf is apparently not applicable. But the field is a huge expanse of plastic fiber combined with an polyolefin-based infill granule. How does anyone know that this material will be safe after years of exposure to the degradation of weather?

Check out this story from a N.J newspaper:

EHHI President Nancy Alderman said the jury is still out on whether the Mondo product offers a better alternative to rubber crumb. She said her organization is hoping to raise funds to have Ecofill analyzed for safety. "We know they're industry tested, but the industry also told us rubber crumb was safe," Alderman said.

The story on the safety of the MondoTurf is far from over. (Later - the link to the N.J. newspaper story is dead, here is a link to EHHI and a YouTube link to an ABC news story. The tire crumb infill is the focus of the stories. I have found nothing about an independent investigation of the Mondo infill material).

Blighters

The April 9 Tri-V had a story about the “blighted” status that will be used to build the case for a TIF on the Grandview Yard land.

The “blight” is a requirement for establish a TIF, and the fiction that blight exists in Grandview is one that everyone working on the TIF has to agree to. It's a fiction that is used all the time, using the most general definition of blight. Somehow even the farmland under the present Easton was blighted.

Not surprisingly, the owners of nearby properties didn't like the word blight applied to their property.

The possibility of eminent domain taking of property was not the intent of the city council, but the blight status could allow it to happen. Council member Koelker assured property owners that a land grab was not part of the plan.

Blighted land is also not good for present businesses, and can't help property owners looking to sell to NRI. The worries of nearby property owners are real, and the city should have been ready for the reaction.

Throughout the article the words “this is the beginning of a long process” were used repeatedly. No doubt that is true, but if I were a property owner who found my land was to be designated as blighted, it wouldn't make it any better to know that it would be a long painful process before I was steamrolled into an unfair loss of value because of the TIF.

Free Ride

The April 10 TWG had more on the Grandview Yard engineering study of the railroad bridges. The council approved the plan to pay NRI back in the future should the TIF fail, but it was not without controversy.

Both public facilities committee members Steve Gladman and Koelker voted to cut the size of the agreement to repay money in a committee meeting. They were concerned that although the railroad bridges are on Columbus city property, no representatives took part in the deal. Grandview alone will pickup the tab for the study if the TIF is a bust. After comments from the mayor and other council members recommending the council pass the deal as negotiated with NRI, the ordnance passed.

Big questions remain – why wasn't Columbus part of this deal? Were they invited and refused to get involved? Is this the start of Columbus taking a hands-off stance on the whole G.Y. project? Just how will the multi-million dollar public funding of new bridges and a rebuilt 315 ramp be done without Columbus money?

The most interesting quote was from president Reynolds. "As much as it bothers me that Columbus is getting a free ride until they decide to sit at the table, I look at what we stand to gain as a city." Columbus is taking a free ride? Does this point to problems in the Grandview / Columbus relationship in the future?

School drug crackdown

The school is reacting to increased drug use by students by increasing the penalties. The school has been warning parents that “drug, alcohol, and drug trafficking reports are at an all time high” (from a letter sent December 2006. “All time high” – get it?). Maybe this is also a reaction to news of the party house.

Interesting that the rules are being changed to crackdown on those involved in school activities, through the activity code of conduct. This would point to problems with the jocks, band geeks, and honor society nerds. Do these kids really benefit by being banned from their activities for longer periods?

I have a complete list of changes from super O'Reilly, more later on this.

The negotiations over the engineering study for Grandview Yard was the top story in both the TVN and the TWG, and I'm failing to understand why both newspapers ignore the most important angle on the G.Y. project.

NRI says that they want up to $160 million in public funding for the project. In comparison, the Arena District only used $53 million, for a similar sized area. That is big news, and it is the reason the TIF negotiation is so hard, and it's also why the whole project might not be done. I don't know why this isn't spelled out by the papers.

There is another part of the project that hasn't gotten enough focus by the newspapers. NRI is asking the government (probably the city, through the TIF) to pay for three large parking garages. Why? According to the info I got from the National Real Estate Investor story, NRI didn't ask Columbus to pay for the parking garages inside the A.D. Why should the government pay for G.Y.'s structures, the parking will only be used by the businesses and the condo owners inside G.Y. It seems like parking garages are a cost of doing business (and NRI can charge users for those parking spots).

The TVN did touch on the problem of getting the school to sign off on the TIF. That is a big problem, particularly because NRI has been so nebulous on the kind of housing to be built. Will high end condos that attract only DINKs (dual income no kids) be built, or cheap housing that will attract families with kids? Will the schools end up getting forced into a bad TIF deal, because NRI doesn't want to pay for their parking garages?

I liked the end of the TWG story, where council member Koelker as quoted as saying the city needs to make sure they don't get left holding the bag if the TIF is not reached through “no fault of their own”. I'd like to see the legal wording of a ordnance that defines what “no fault of their own” means when a negotiation goes bad. No snark on Koelker, she has a good point. But I really wonder how that can be defined.

Finance Directionless

I'm uninterested in learning why the Petrella affair went bad. Something came up in a background check, or maybe somebody informed on him. He is out, as long as he doesn't sue the city for causing him to quit his old job before he was hired in Grandview, who cares. Sucks, but what job negotiation doesn't.

VOA housing

Will a 100 unit low income housing development on Edghill just outside Grandview cause a kerfluffle? I'm not upset, and I live within 4 blocks of the proposed project. Low income residents are already living in the Grandview area, 100 more are not a big deal. I'm willing to give the VOA a chance to make it work. Maybe they can shovel my sidewalk on the cheap.

Snow King

Did O'Reilly make a mistake keeping school in session on Monday? I'm not sure, but since the school still has 4 more snow days it could use, it seemed a little excessive. Lots of kids walk, and the sidewalks would have been better on Tuesday. O'Reilly said he got 7 emails and two phone calls complaining about the decision. Add to that one kid who called him a “F***ing F*#$@&”. Hey – that's why he gets the big bucks – he sometimes has to deal with unfiltered opinions.

From “Board hears more details of GY”, TWG Jan. 31.

While the Grandview Yard project has the potential of being a success for the developer, the city and the schools, Grassbaugh said, it's important to remember that "pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. "If one party gets too greedy or obstinate, it can all fall apart," he said.

Grassgaugh then pulled the foxtail he had been chewing on out of his mouth, and spit a wad of tobacco on to the floor of the school. “I reckon my point is that the school needs to be the pigs who gets fat, not the slaughtered hogs. No wait, the school needs to be the butchers who slaughter those hogs so we can fry up some chitlins. Damn, this speechifying makes me hungry, let's head out to the BBQ shack”.
*banjo music*

The article said that the $600 Mil private investment would still leave 20% of the cost of the development. If my ciphering is correct that means the total cost will be $750 mil, and the developer is expecting the city and any other government agency they can find to pony up $150 mil.

First, what a messed up lawyerly way of saying something that could have been said with a simple “we want $150 mil to do this project.” Second, the implication that Grandview or any other government agency has to gift them $150 mil is chutzpah of the highest, most offensive level.

(Edit) The GY Project has been under development by NRI for years. When they made the announcement public on Dec 19^th, they had it all worked out – including how the project would need modification to the roads, utilities, etc. They had a good estimate of what they thought the government contribution should be. And yet no numbers were given projecting these costs. That's basic salesmanship, but poor openness and honesty. Chutzpah!

Levy ponderations
The board was stroking their chins and thinking about a levy in 2008. They wondered if they would fail with a 2008 levy because the school has a huge $3.9 mil projected balance at the end of 2009 (duh, yea), they pondered the wisdom of keeping the levies coming every third year (voters must be trained like small animals to hit that levy button every three years).

What they didn't mention is the most obvious and important consideration – the teacher's union negotiation is in 2009. If board takes an already bloated bank account, then blows it up even more with a 2008 levy, then goes into negotiations, they can expect to get taken to the cleaners. And the citizens of this city should take the board out of the cleaners, and apply tar and feathers.

One more consideration – during the board election last fall, Lithgow and Peters said they wanted a levy in 2008. Adam Miller said it would be foolish. If they don't have the levy this year, the board will have to admit that Adam Miller was right. Could the board be so small that they would have a levy just to spite Miller? With this board, it's a real possibility.