Bobbie States:

 

 

Section 8 is not improving, infrastructure is not improving, business prospects are not improving, I mean this city needs a serious wake up call as to which way it wants to head.   you will attract no high paying jobs unless you change your ways.  The east end will attract some jobs but those people for the most part will live elsewhere.  Currently Middletown is a hard if not impossible sell to any family with children.

 

When the census numbers come out in Dec. 2010, look for Middletown to take a serious hit in its numbers.  Population will be down, poverty will be up and those numbers don't bode well for attracting any new type of Retail or Service business.

 

Section 8 seems to be stuck in limbo, with 1 voucher for every 28 residents roughly, as it has been for the last 3-4 years.   I just looked at the last place I lived which has a population of  1,195,317 they have a total of 5209 Section 8 vouchers for over 1.1 million people or about 1 voucher for every 229 residents.  What does everyone else in the USA know about Section 8 that Middletown just doesn't get or comprehend?  What is the underlying factor that drove Section 8 to what it is today?

 

Bobbie and Wasteful are right downtown will not support small business.  The East end here can't support many small businesses.  I wouldn't be surprised to see some more close in the next few months in the East End.  Middletown just doesn't support the small Retail/Service business for the most part. For many  Small businesses in Middletown they must have a business plan which relies on outside sales, by that I mean outside of Middletown, in order to survive.

 

This whole mess gets more depressing each day and the lack of progress is unfortunate to say the least.

 

 

 

 

    It would have been nice to see the parking garage gone and surface parking in place. Maybe then the Swallens building could have been put up for sale (by Walter Leap or some other real estate professional) and could have been use to really bring something to Middletown other than empty lots. 

 

Marjority fo the time you have a plan put together when you are demolishing the building - that is not the case here.  You develope the land to suit the buyer - that is the norm in real estate.  However our leaders have no education in this matter.  There fore we are tearing down in hopes that something will come.  Well it does not work that way especially in this economy.  You have to give to get.  Smart business would be sell them on the land,  the city will pick up the cost (which we are doing anyway) to suit, then the company feels the got a better deal. 

 

Everything is about perception - Middletown has a bad reputation, so there fore you have to dig in deep and work harder to get the business here.  We will have no economic growth unless we get some good paying jobs in this town.  Truthfully, downtown will not bring that in, not the small retail business.  They are wasting their money down there.  Even if the train does come to Middletown - you will not make money for the city there.

 

Bobbie the old needs to go before you will most likely attract new businesses.  No New Business wants to inherit someone Else's problems, especially if there is any chance of ground contamination, asbestos and issues with the EPA.

 

Didn't the City have interested parties look at the Swallens Building and then walk  out and say you are better off tearing it down.  The garage was falling apart piece by piece.......I mean what do you want to do with it, pay $90-100K a year until it falls down on its own.

 

Wake up Middletown. 

 

High, I still don't see any ideas on dealing with the above issues in a manner that won't take 50 years.  HUD funds, I doubt they are coming in a quantity that will make a difference anytime soon.  Didn't we just get turned down for NSP 2 and that was for $19M with part going to Hamilton and to Butler County.  Gee $19M would probably just knock down the 2000+ rat traps we have in town.

 

I am with you guys on Change, but you need to realistic in what needs to be done.

 

Wasn't it Mr. Adkins who proudly claimed that all of Middletown was a 54% lower income city early last year?  And, wasn't it Mr. Adkins who was going to get $19,000,000 in HUD Neighborhood Stabilization - Round Two grants thanks to his genius consultants?  Did you forget these little tidbits?

 

With his big pay raises and constant adulation from Judy G. and the Peanut Gallery, I bet the percentage of lower income here has now dropped to 53 percent?  Now that;s not too funny is it?  How's that taxpayers for a return on our hard-earned tax dollars that are spent (wasted) by City Hall?

 

Oh, and by the way, Viet Vet and Bobbie are correct in their responses to you.  Investmenting money in the policies and programs of the One Donham Plaza bureaucrats is like buying BP stock.  Clean out City Hall and elect some concerned, intelligent independent thinkers to City Council.

 

It is great that UDF will be building a new gas station/convenient store downtown - but this will not create the jobs that we need.  We need economic growth and the current leadership we have is spending to much time on beautification of downtown.

 

And, by the way, Mr. Adkins has not commented on the NSP-1 grant for many, many months.  Surely this is not what you consider accountability?  After all, aren't these our Federal tax dollars?

 

Like Pacman, Viet Vet, Mike Presta, Vivian Moon, Nick Kidd, Paul Nagy, etc. have repeatedly said, it is the result of many years of misguided priorities that have made Middletown what it sadly is now.  Please tell us what your suggestion is and how you would pay for it?