EASTERN HILLS JOURNAL Your Community Press newspaper serving Columbia Tusculum, Hyde Park, Mariemont, Mount Lookout, Oakley and other Northeast Cincinnati neighborhoods
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 ❚ BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS ❚ PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
Madeira treasurer resigns after ethics case conviction Jeanne Houck Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
A developer wants to build six homes like these two along the Wasson Way bike trail in Hyde Park. PROVIDED
Fight brewing in Hyde Park development proposal Jeanne Houck Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
A man who wants to build six houses on vacant land along the Wasson Way bike trail in Hyde Park says his proposal would be a model of infi ll housing in a neighborhood working to save its homes from a developer’s wrecking ball. “This represents a phenomenal opportunity to build a walkable, Smart Growth, mixed-use project on one of the last parcels in Hyde Park where you don’t have to tear down charming old homes,” Kenneth French said of his plans for “live-work-play” residences with rooms for home offi ces on Wasson Road near Paxton Avenue. The Hyde Park Neighborhood Council Board of Trustees sees it diff erently. It has voted to oppose the rezoning needed for “City Homes at Wasson Way,” with trustee Janet Buening saying it would set “a dangerous and most unwelcome precedent for our community.” “‘Live-work’ and ‘smart growth’ sound like positive terms, but what it comes down to in reality is too dense a development on too small a parcel of land,” Buening said. French, who lives in Hyde Park, wants to build the houses on a lot just under one acre at 3001 Wasson Road, across from the Kroger store in the Hyde Park Plaza. They would measure about 2,600 square feet, have three bedrooms and a study and cost in the mid-$600,000s. French is sweetening the deal by off ering $100,000 for a community advisory team to spend as it chooses on landscaping and on public facilities such as benches, bike racks, picnic tables and drinking fountains on two lots that would bookend the proposed six homes. The developer and the Hyde Park Neighborhood Council recently squared off at a Cincinnati Planning Commission meeting, where French lobbied for the Wasson Road property to be rezoned from a single-family residential zone in which lots must be a minimum of 6,000 square feet to another singlefamily residential zone in which lots must be a
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Developer Kenneth French wants to build six houses along the Wasson Way bike trail in Hyde Park. JEANNE HOUCK/THE ENQUIRER
The Madeira treasurer has resigned after a judge fi ned him $250 over having an ownership interest in a company the city hired for IT maintenance services in 2013 and 2014. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Tom Heekin levied the penalty after Steven Soper pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempting to have an unlawful interest in a public contract. Soper’s employment contract was set to expire Nov. 30, Madeira City Manager Tom Moeller said. Soper’s position was a part-time job for which he was paid $30,000 a year. Soper also got an annual stipend of just over $1,000 for his work on a joint economic development zone established by Madeira and Sycamore Township. Soper’s plea in the Hamilton County courts was negotiated by the prosecution and defense after an investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said in court paperwork that Soper was Madeira treasurer and had an ownership interest in Hard Warehouse Technologies when the city paid the company $1,585 for IT services between Jan. 1, 2013, and March 31, 2014. Madeira continues to contract with Hard Warehouse Technologies, in which Soper continues to have an ownership interest. Despite his guilty plea, Soper, 61, said he believes he did nothing unlawful. But at the prompting of the Ohio Ethics Commission, Soper said, he earlier had changed his status with Madeira from an appointed city offi cial to a contractor. “The ethics commission investigator had told me if I was a contractor they would have no jurisdiction in the case as contractors are not subject to the ethics rules,” said Soper, who was fi rst appointed Madeira treasurer in 1997.
Soper: ‘I call it entrapment’
minimum of just 2,000 square feet. The planning commission decided to recommend Cincinnati City Council approve the zone change at a date yet to be set. More than 40 residents and representatives of businesses — including The Pediatricians of Hyde Park on Paxton Avenue, which is next to French’s site – wrote letters supporting his plans.
Soper did not respond to questions about his resignation but said he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge for the good of the city and his peace of mind after years of negotiations with the state ethics commission and county prosecutors “By (Madeira) charter (outlining job duties) my ownership should not be a
See HOUSING, Page 2A
See TREASURER, Page 2A
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