During my campaign for Cincinnati City Council, I will unveil my plan to revitalize Cincinnati's neighborhoods. My plan will be unique in avoiding the kind of counterproductive, shortsighted thinking that has repeatedly plagued our city government. For too long, Council has been reactive rather than proactive, and it's time we elected leaders with a bold long-term vision. I hope you will visit my site periodically as I present the Cole Plan for Cincinnati.

Cole Plan Introduction & Philosophy
Because I am Chair of the Neighborhoods and Public Services Committee, most of my plan's initiatives will fall within the jurisdiction of this committee. One exception is public safety because I think most people would agree that the number one problem facing our city is crime. Far too many of our residents have been burglarized, shot at, or killed in the past few years. Even one death is too many, and during the past three years violent crime has risen faster here than any other major city in the country. The question is how to return our city to being one of the safest in the country.

My Plan - The city needs both a short-term and long-term plan to reclaim its neighborhoods from crime and disinvestment. The Cole Plan is an attempt to focus on the few key areas that will have the biggest impact on revitalizing our city. In the short-term, our focus must be improving traditional law enforcement, but the long-term strategy must be to make strategic investments in job creation, housing and transportation to create healthy and vibrant neighborhoods.

The Bottom Line - The city has no long term-plan to attract jobs and business, no plan to improve an aging housing stock, no plan to improve public transportation, no plan to improve the delivery of basic services.

Because we have no plan to improve in these areas, the city's expenses continue to rise faster than revenues forcing service cuts. These service cuts further erode our ability to generate revenue, and the vicious cycle continues. It is time to break the cycle.

Getting the Right Things Done - To reclaim our neighborhoods, Council must show leadership in attacking the most difficult problems head on. The best definition of an effective leader that I have ever heard is from Peter Drucker, an esteemed university professor and one of the most successful business consultants of our time. He said what all great leaders have in common is that they "get the right things done."

What he means by this is that plenty of people are extremely competent at completing any given task, but truly effective leaders focus on the few areas that will have the biggest long-term impact. In other words, it doesn't matter if you give your house a shiny new coat of paint when the real problem is that the roof is about to collapse.

Choosing the Right Things - His point is extremely applicable in our current struggle against crime. There have been literally dozens of suggestions made by the police, city management, Mayor and members of Council on how to reduce crime. Many of these strategies have already been tried in other cities. There is no doubt in my mind that the answer to our crime problem is among these suggestions, however, the key will be to focus on implementing the few strategies that are likely to have the largest impact in reducing crime. In my public safety plan, I identify three strategies I am convinced will have the biggest impact on crime. (Performance Measures, New Deployment Strategy, Improved Police-Community Relations)

The End of Reactive Government - The inability to focus on a few key issues is one major reason why our city government continues to take one step forward and two steps back. Another reason is a near complete absence of long-term thinking and planning. In our age of instant gratification and 15-second sound bytes, everybody wants immediate results. However, the desire to find an immediate solution can often result in using a Band-Aid to solve a problem that needed major surgery. This is because it is easy for anyone to apply a Band-Aid, but its much more difficult and time consuming to perform major surgery.

Council absolutely must resist this temptation because rather than solving problems these short-term fixes simply allow larger problems to fester. By focusing on implementing a few key initiatives, Council can begin to reverse the flow of people, jobs and wealth out of the city. My plan outlines these initiatives.