election day – Page 2 – Loveland Magazine

by David Miller, Editor

On December 15, 2016, a Loveland City Hall newsletter was sent to residents announcing, “Downtown Development on the Horizon.”

The announcement continued, “Thus in 2017, the plan is for the current City Hall to be demolished. The planned replacement (elevation renderings shown above) is a four story building.“

The story sounded a little fishy to Loveland Magazine as we keep a pretty close eye on City Hall and we had never heard of the proposal, let alone how it could be a done deal. Also to be sure we did not miss something we researched past meeting minutes and found no council vote… no discussion… nothing. Someone at City Hall had written a story that wasn’t true, yet that didn’t stop the Loveland Herald from running with the story. Why wouldn’t they, they would not know better as they had stopped attending Loveland Council meetings years ago. Never-the-less, the Herald was able to gather enough quotes to write about the imminent demolition of Loveland’s City Hall.

Loveland Magazine never reported the story because we knew it was not true.

The newsletter and the Herald story fit the textbook definition of “fake news”, except it wasn’t going to end up being “fake” if City Hall could get away with the backroom scheming it took to hatch the plan. Many residents had different ideas.

The other things residents became aware of was the sudden announcement to impose very high fees and severe restrictions for community groups holding public events. Many residents had different ideas.

Add to that, the announcement that Donna Bednar would not be re-appointed to the Loveland Beautification Committee, and the subsequent resignation of all but one member.

Add to all of this upheaval was when behind City Hall’s closed doors a decision was made to “Trademark” the name Christmas in Loveland and the surprise announcement that City Hall had usurped the event that belonged to the Little Miami River Chamber Alliance.

It’s where the hashtag, “#lovelandtransparency” comes from.

This is where the stories below start and will give readers a final chance to catch up on our City Hall reporting (including the successful re-call effort of the sitting mayor) before they go to vote next Tuesday. These are resident views, candidate views, and some of the legal challenges both residents and council members faced this past year.

These stories below appear in the order they were published – oldest to newest.

Tag: election day

On December 15, 2016, a Loveland City Hall newsletter was sent to residents announcing, “Downtown Development on the Horizon.”

Kent Blair launches Loveland council campaign featuring resident engagement platform (Has since withdrew his name from ballot)