Agenda 2008- Journal Article-Dec 28

City Manager Gilleland states in the article that she is pleased with the progress made by the city in specific areas. Mentioned are economic development, downtown redevelopement, regional partnership, demolishing blighted housing,industrial/commercial properties, street improvements,public safety and long term finances. Have we REALLY made any significant strides in these areas, Ms. Gilleland,enough for you to be THAT proud of the accomplishments? The infamous "Paducah" trip was listed, which happened last summer. Since that trip (and all of the "wonderful" picture memories from that epic event), what ideas and resulting action plan have been formulated based upon this "necessary" trip? Did the leaders gain anything from this or was this just another publicity stunt to lull us citizens into the false sense that the "leaders" were actually planning on doing anything productive? Also mentioned was the re-organization of city hall. Yes, new positions were created for Ginger Smith, a newly created position of Econ. Dev. "Manager" and people were "moved around", but where were the money saving layoffs for supervisors and above to save the city some money?City government is too top heavy with Directors, Assist.Directors,Supervisors, Team Leaders. etc. Moving people around and creating new positions doesn't help financially at all, Ms. Gilleland. Your "re-organization" was all nonsense. The Section 8 program that you, correctly, tried to pass on to Butler County, was a good choice on your part. Not only should this program have been passed on, but the program's housing in Middletown should have been greatly reduced.Too bad your suggestions weren't taken by this inept Council. This program offers more negatives than positives for the city and Council is too ignorant to see it. In retrospect, I know that you are in a difficult position. You probably want to see this city move in a positive fashion more quickly but, you ( and the citizens) are being held back by a stubborn, incompetent, clueless, arrogant group of people with an agenda that is anti-citizen, anti- growth, and anti-logical. We have met the enemy and they are our "leaders".   

Spider, Lets see Dayton can ask for $1.5 million to chase Hookers around town and Middletown can't request money for Public Works Projects.  Talk about pie in the sky.  You really think Middletown is going to turn around without outside help.  You got an extra $120,000,000.00 to just redo and improve the roads in your back pocket.  Don't fix your infrastructure the city dies or increase taxes to an exorbitant level the city dies, take your pick Spider.  Come on Middletown will never have enough tax revenue to even make a dent in the road situation with 22% living below the poverty level.  It will be interesting to see what the 2010 census has to say about Middletown's Poverty level.

We all can't be wrong in our way of thinking,just ask our bordering cities Franklin and Monroe.

Yes mom some of us have seen the budget and Middletown will never be able to tax itself out of the current mess it has made for itself and it's status quo agenda.   But hey while Dayton chases the Hookers, Middletown chases it own tail in a circle to nowhere.

MMom- Towne Mall situation- agree, they are to blame. Just wonder what Council/city leaders were doing as they watched it slowly decline to a ghost mall. We know that they met with the owners but the situation was never finalized. Maximum effort should have been given to retain these stores and jobs, IF at all possible. A MAN for City Manager? Doesn't matter. Olson, the former MALE City Manager didn't do a great job either. The City Manager in this town, man or woman, will have a tough time getting their message through as long as we keep electing the type of people to Council that we have elected for the last 30 years. Women on Council?- Doesn't matter there either. Leslie Ford doesn't contribute any more than Armbruster or Mulligan.Scott-Jones would like to contribute more but you can see the frustration on her face as she is outnumbered. Schiavone, Marconi, Becker are the Council mouthpieces. They tend to dominate the talks. Get money for the "foundation"- should have happened years ago in the 70's to offset Armco downsizing. Since it didn't happen, the city must scrap and claw for any revenue like the government handout predicted from this new administration. The city, like the schools, have a taxing disease that they want to give to the citizens. Kind of a "bleed 'em dry" approach. City needs to start by making itself attractive to businessess which will cost money it doesn't have. City needs the revenue from these new companies to make it more attractive. City can't catch revenue, businessess/jobs or a cold.

Vet--I believe that many more people watch the TVM meeting broadcasts than read the message boards. Citizen comments can again become an important part of the meeting process and citizen involvement if handled properly and in a constructive manner.

Its easy to throw stones anonymously from the sidelines at the easiest targets, it takes quite a bit more to get involved and actually make a real statement!  Viet seems fairly articulate and informed, maybe he should run for city council and make a real improvement in Middletown's future.  But that of course would be a bit harder than lobbing into blogs and would most likely result in some other anonymous negative author to unsympathetically lob attacks at him, the real him whoever Viet is.  I have no doubt Middletown will thrive albeit over time and in a different manner than  it has in the past so what we really need are good ideas, not negative banter attacking those who are actually trying.

VietVet wrote: ..chosen not to retire due mainly to boredom (daytime television programming)

Good point.

But what if I had planned to retire and get section 8 housing?

OK. Working sounds fine after all.

This thread is getting trashy.

Thank you for your response. Yes, it is true. I have seen the prosperous years in town.We both know what we have now. This is one reason for the negative feelings I have for the way the city is being run now. You've been here for three years. You didn't experience the impact Armco had on the community nor the introduction of Miami U -Middletown and the opportunities it provided for myself and others just graduating from Midd. High in 1966. The daily activity of people shopping, talking, fraternizing, working at the various companies that offered decent employment. A great deal more activity than now. The city seemed "alive" back then, not like now where the city seems like it has lost it's personality, while people seem to want to keep to themselves and not communicate/engage each other with ideas. Nobody seems to care anymore. Has the manner in which the city been managed/direction of the city over all these years done that to all of us? Probably. Another frustration has been the fact that the leaders have ignored the people who still want to try to make it better. When one approaches those in charge with ideas/suggestions as to how they want their city to be and one continually has their hands slapped for trying, one tends to retreat to a save place and lob long distance barbs at the perceived enemy with the intention of doing as much damage as possible. Some of us get that negativity that you mention, honestly. Attend Midfest-attend the Broad St Bash-attend the Ohio Balloon event-attend the Art and Music festival-( did go to the Blues and Bikes Fest because I like Blues music) No. I did not. These are all worthwhile activities and are valuable to the city in a SOCIAL way, but I see no correlation between these events and getting to the heart of the problems for Midd.- the illogical decison-making and poor leadership and wrong direction this town has.If necessary, the city could survive without these events, but the city will surely die if we don't address the decision-making, poor leadership and wrong direction problems we currently have. Events are fine to strenthen the community socially, but to eliminate the spread of the negative cancer we must remove the "cancerous growths" that cause the negativity. JMO

.....and its those events that get people coming into our city limits, buying from local vendors who pay taxes into the city coffers.  Middfest alone breaths over a million dollars into local businesses.  This years Ohio Challenge was a HUGE success.  There are many cities across this country in much worse shape that don't even have those types of events let alone cities in other countries.  I don't advocate Rose colored glasses to the same extent that I don't advocate bleak colored glasses.  The way I look at it is there is still plenty of opportunity to make things better, this doesn't have to be a permanent situation for Middletown and the path forward comes from the 'good ideas' that people from all walks of the community have.  Three years ago when we bought our building city council was in serious disarray and deserving of the criticism.  However today I do see progress being made and I do believe we have a better group in council making better decisions and that is JMHO.  Our new city manager has actually been trained to manage tough situations like this unlike her predesessor.  Ms Gilleland was named in The Dayton Business Journal's 40 Under 40 a few years which is an impressive recognition.  I think if given time you will see some progress but we need to look forward and stop dredging up the mistakes of the past.

I think you missed my point.  I have no problem with festivals at all the more the better.  But everytime the issues in Middletown surface that need to be solved, Poverty, Education, taxes, Section 8, Downtown, Businesses leaving town or closing, we get the same blank stare and response.