Cincinnati Neighborhood Games 2018 – Team Clifton

In 2016, a small but mighty team from Clifton won more golds that any other neighborhood in the Cincinnati Neighborhood Games. Now we’re ready to put together a team to win it all in 2018 and have fun with neighbors along the way.

Adults and children who live, work, worship or go to school in Clifton, please join us for fun neighborhood qualifiers for chess, basketball (HORSE), Steinholding, Trivia, and Backyard games, June 16 – 23.

The 2018 Cincinnati Neighborhood Games is an Olympic-style event that brings all 52 Cincinnati neighborhoods together!

TEAM CLIFTON is going for gold.

Police District 5 HQ Site Selection

The most recent public meeting held by the City Planning & Public Services Departments regarding the site selection for the new District 5 Police HQ was on Thursday, May 24.  This meeting reviewed the process by which the 37 possible site were narrowed to 9 possible sites.  Of the 9 possible sites, 4 sites were noted to have met the highest number of the selection criteria.

These 4 sites are as follows:

  • Central Parkway
  • Dane & Knowlton
  • Hamilton Avenue
  • Kahns-Rhinegeist

The next steps in the site selection process are as follows:

  • Chief of Police and City administration take public input into consideration and make site recommendation to City Manager & Council.
  • Begin property acquisition (Summer 2018)

Following site selection, the City will also form a Community Advisory Group to provide input to the design of the building including art and a public space to uniquely represent all 8 neighborhoods in Police District 5.   The Advisory group will have approximately one meeting a month.  CTM Trustees are hopeful that some Clifton residents will join this Advisory Group.

Please click here to view the full presentation that was given on May 24.  Your CTM Trustees remain open to additional feedback on this process.  Please keep in mind that site selection process is drawing to an end very soon.

 

Entering Year 4 of the Clifton Deer Project

From the CliftonDeer.org Team:

With the sterilization of eight more does last Fall, year 3 of field operations brought the total number of treated deer to 59, or 91% of our total adult female deer population.  Based on field camera counts, the herd within our study area has shrunk by 19% since we started.  This rate of reduction is steady and contrasts sharply with the 30% increase reported by the Parks in the year before we started.  A more detailed Year 3 Field Operations Report can be found on our website here.

Our goal this Fall is to reach 95% by capturing the most elusive does over a series of weekend operations.  In addition to the wile ones who browse happily at our bait sites until just before the darter arrives (never question the intelligence of these critters), we will also be seeking out the “borderland deer” whose territory overlaps with but extends beyond the study area. This should result in more of the benefits of the deer program reaching the streets within the study area closest to Clifton and Ludlow Avenues.

We are happy to report the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has renewed our research permit to continue operations for another two years.  While the numbers from this study, and others around the country, are already showing clear indications sterilization can effectively reduce deer populations in open urban settings, another two years of data will be important to reaching any firm conclusions that might support requests to States for permission to use fertility control as an ongoing urban deer population management tool.

One component of the study, and a critical requirement for the long term viability of sterilization as a management alternative, is making it cost effective.  Obviously, this means comparing sterilization’s effectiveness in reducing deer overabundance to other methods, but it also means finding economically viable ways for communities to implement programs like this one.  To that end, Clifton Deer is in it’s second year of recruiting and training local volunteer veterinary surgeons and a darter-capture specialist.  Transitioning from reliance on expensive out-of-town experts to assumption of these duties by local professionals and volunteers could greatly improve the cost side of the cost effectiveness calculation.

Finally, we are proud to report that as one of the few, and maybe the only citizen initiated and managed fertility control program in the country, CliftonDeer.org was invited by the international Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control to present at a national conference on deer fertility control in New York on May 2nd.  The success of the Clifton project has drawn the attention of experts from around the country.  A video of that conference should soon be available on the Botstiber website at https://www.wildlifefertilitycontrol.org/.

As always, we are grateful for the support of our Clifton neighbors who donate and volunteer their yards and time to make this project possible.  Fundraising for the Fall ’18 operations has begun and your help is needed.  Please consider a tax deductible donation through one of the methods explained on our website at http://cliftondeer.org/donations/.

Have you met Doe #32? Still looking healthy and happy at almost 9 years of age, this gentle doe makes her home in the woods and yards around Mt. Storm Park and is often seen with her BFF, 5 year old Doe #7. Both were sterilized during our December 2015 field operations. (Photo Credit: Sally Skillman)

Bob Rack, co-founder of CliftonDeer.org, giving Clifton international exposure at the Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control conference in NYC earlier this month.

 

The CliftonDeer.org Team

2018 House Tour Reveal – Cox Home / Library

This reveal is the historical building on the 2018 Clifton House Tour.

George Barnesdale Cox. (1853-1916), nationally known for many years as the “Easy Boss of
Cincinnati,” controlled city politics for over 25 years. When in his early 40s, “Boss” Cox contracted the region’s most prominent architectural firm, Hannaford & Sons, to build a residence for for his status in the Clifton Gaslight District on a property opposite Burnet Woods Park. Samuel Hannaford had recently completed both City Hall and Music Hall and over his career designed more than 300 buildings in the Cincinnati area, including a store and apartment building on 7th Street for Cox. Cox lived in Parkview manor and entertained lavishly there from 1895 until his death from pneumonia at age 63 in 1916. His wife maintained the home until she died in 1938. It was bequeathed to the Union Bethel and became a home for girls until 1947 when it was purchased by Pi Kappa Alpha for a fraternity house. In 2007 Michael L. Dever purchased the property and then in 2010 donated it to the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County to become what is now the Clifton Branch of the Library. Upon completion of extensive remodeling to upgrade the building and meet modern facility requirements it opened to the public on May 28, 2015.

The above is just a small portion of what is written in the tour book. Learn more about this home on the Clifton House Tour. Buy your tickets in advance for $20 or on May 13 for $25.

2018 House Tour Reveal – Alscher Hancock House

Our fifth reveal for the 2018 Clifton House Tour is the Alscher Hancock House built in 2013.

This imaginative exercise in residential infill integrates Twentieth Century Modernism with more recent contemporary architecture, while being distinct from, yet compatible with, the surrounding historically-inflected homes.

The basically box-like form of their residence is actually an “L” shape hat opens up an extra seven degrees. The roof appears deceptively flat but is also slightly angled toward the center in what is known as a “butterfly” form. The home is enlivened outside and in by intersecting shapes at narrow angles that provide deep overhangs above the front entry and rear deck, as well as oriel windows (hanging bays) that relieve the rectangular overall form. The theme of angularity continues with the double butterfly shape of the roof recalling Mid-Century Modern design, with its high sides dipping downward to a central valley that provides both interior drama and efficient drainage. For the home’s façades, a juxtaposition between materials is created; although its basic exterior surfaces have a smooth stucco finish, raised panels of concrete block masonry are openly treated as mere veneer in order to be structurally honest, since they are non-load- bearing yet establish a layered, textural contrast. Also, stone was selected to relate sensitively to the native stone found in the site and reused in the landscaping.

The Alscher Hancock House has achieved the highest level of LEED certification-
Platinum.

The above is just a small portion of what is written in the tour book. Learn more about this home on the Clifton House Tour. Buy your tickets in advance for $20 or on May 13 for $25.