[dirtgirl]

I wonder if the Ohio Chamber of Commerce is complaining like they did when billboards (fetus-free!) went up about Ohio’s anti-abortion polices. http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-daily-briefing/2014/08/21082014—ultraviolet-billboards.html

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I wonder what this is about

Pablo wrote:

and a greedy landowner unwilling to part with their site for a fair price.

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Is a beer trading event hosted at a licensed retailer even legal?

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Not really last night. The issues with the Crest came up a lot in the earlier committee meetings, including in comments from Commissioners, so it’s no doubt played a role in shaping opinions.

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The building was purchased, so presumably something will still happen there. The architect said this morning on Facebook they will move forward with one of many options they are exploring.

[dirtgirl]

The University Area Commission voted last night against recommending a zoning variance to allow the Coop Cafe project to proceed.

There were dozens of community members in attendance (unusual for a UAC meeting, sadly), both for/against. Most of the arguments against were concerns about parking impacts, safety concerns related to patrons using Cliffside Drive and noise from the patio overlooking the ravine. Most of the arguments for were that the restaurant promoted walkability, provided a much-needed amenity in a neighborhood underserved by restaurants and would remove a blighted property that is a magnet for drugs/criminal activity.

The Commission voted 4-10 against recommending four variances, including a reduction in required parking from 38 spaces to 9.

Next step is the Board of Zoning Adjustment on December 17.

[dirtgirl]

@howatzer, if this levy goes down, I doubt there will be much confusion about the reason. I have already been phone-polled at home twice as the levy campaign attempts to test the messages they will use to try to sell this thing. They have to know where their weak spots are.

One other note to those focused on per pupil expenditures by CCS. Keep in mind that the district is required by state law to transport charter and voucher students by bus at its expense. That represents over a third of the kids transported by the district every day. It’s not the entirety of the spending issues, but a big costly mandate that other suburban districts don’t face at nearly the same level.

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Rory, the connection to development is interesting and could explain why the first two contributors to the Reimagine Columbus (school levy) effort were both Real Estate interests and the treasurer (who doesn’t live in Columbus) practices construction/real estate law.

[dirtgirl]

<hijack>I want Aaron Marshall to tell me where to get free weed.</hijack>

[dirtgirl]

A couple notes about the new grading system. “Standards met” tells you how kids do on standardized tests, which we already know is a proxy for poverty, so that’s pretty useless as a measure. The value-added scores tell you how well the schools improve those test scores over the course of a school year. And they are now doing value-added scores for different subgroups like gifted kids, disabled kids and bottom-scoring kids. That’s where the suburban schools who formerly got “excellent” ratings are now seeing lots of Fs. They do a great job for the kids in the middle, but horribly for anyone outside the norm. The fact that the state is forcing schools to pay attention to these things is a good thing.

Another point that struck me (made by a teacher on the Clintonville Education Facebook group) was how significant the number of economically disadvantaged kids in a class can make a difference. She noted that if you have 5 of them, you can focus and really make sure they get what they need. If you have 20, all bets are off.

Having critical mass of involved parents is going to mean that kids with special needs are identified and get the services they need, kids will get supplemental help at home, and teachers can focus on the kids who need extra help or extra challenges. I hope the Short North parents group succeeds because there is absolutely no reason they can’t see the successes that Clintonville has experienced. I have a hunch we aren’t that much more well-off financially in the 43202.

[dirtgirl]

Another change in this year’s state budget was applying the sales tax to digital downloads. Effective January 1, 2014.

[dirtgirl]

Thanks @walker for the link.

@heresthecasey, I’m on the UAC and I’m not 100% clear, but here goes.

The UAC is like other area commissions in the city, made up of elected residents (who serve in one of 4 districts) and, in our case, appointed representatives of other groups (businesses, landlords, OSU, etc). It serves as your most local layer of city government, working with city officials and agencies to address community concerns and share information. It also has a zoning committee that acts in an advisory capacity to recommend how City Council and/or the zoning department decide on requests for variances. The planning committee is currently working with the city on a brand new plan for the entire University District.

UARB basically enforces design standards (architectural, signage, etc) set out in various documents like the urban overlay and the university impact district.

[dirtgirl]

New poll on Kasich out today from Public Policy Polling showing some weakening for Kasich. Approve 42 / Disapprove 47 and loses to Democrat Ed FitzGerald 38-35. More good news for FitzGerald: 62 percent of Ohioans don’t know him.

http://images.politico.com/global/2013/08/19/ohiostatewideresults.html

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One factor, at least for me, in why I have only good things to say about raising my kids in this particular urban environment is that it’s fairly easy to have a car in Columbus. That isn’t the case in NYC and some other big cities. It makes a huge difference not to have to drag a stroller and enough diapers and crap for the day onto a city bus or down a subway hole on a hot summer day to go to a park or museum. It also means we can get out of town to a metro park, a local farm or other offerings of nature fairly easily. If it was all concrete and sidewalks all the time, I’d have a much different opinion.

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Can I just offer two facts for the discussion?

1. Last year, Columbus lost $98 million of its $226 million in state education funding thanks to deductions for 14,000 charter school students. This left $128 million for the remaining 52,000 kids.

This means that the state formula found that Columbus schools needed $3,429 of state money per pupil to supplement its locally-raised tax money to support a quality education, but thanks to the charter school deduction, they only got $2,456 or 28% less than the state said they needed.

2. 41% of that $98 million in state funding went to charters that performed WORSE on state assessments than the public schools those kids left.

It’s great if you want to fund choices, but let’s acknowledge that we are already funding them to the tune of $100 million a year, and they aren’t universally better choices.

I have a hard time understanding why we need to plug in another $8.5 million per year into charters. Why didn’t local officials like the mayor instead fight to get a state law change to redirect some of the existing $98 million in charter school funding away from the poor-performing charters into ones that are high quality?

(source: Stephen Dyer, “Unfair Funding – How Charter Schools Win & Traditional Schools Lose[/url],” Innovation Ohio, February, 2013.)

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