Moving Forward on the Banks

Lessons Learned

Last month, we achieved a major milestone with the groundbreaking on the Banks--and, even more importantly, the beginning of actual work (see www.thebanksblog.com for photos of the progress).

No doubt, most of the hard work remains.  And given the scope of the project and the state of the economy, there will of course be continued challenges going forward.

But even with that caveat, how did years of paralysis on the riverfront turn into a flurry of progress over the last 18 months that led to last month's celebration and initial sitework?  It's a good time to consider some of the lessons learned:

Lesson 1. City-County Cooperation Works.  For years, bickering between the two governments made an already complex project impossible.  Turf battles, dueling press conferences and headlines, claims of exclusive control, and other shenanigans, led to years of no progress--and the mudpit on our river came to symbolize ineffective local government.  No surprise, when the County and City finally agreed to sit down and work out these issues, things progressed rapidly.

Lesson 2.  More Gets Done When No One Worries About Who Gets Credit.  While government and business leadership at the top made a large impact, there were also many unsung heroes over the last 18 months on the Banks.  Banks Working Group members and staffs toiled for months, hashing over innumerable details.  Civic groups such as the Amos Project were instrumental in pushing for a progressive approach to workforce training.  And seeing that the project was headed woefully off-track by prior County leadership, several City Councilmembers stood up and fought hard for the creation of the Banks Working Group in the first place.  These citizens and others dedicated much of their time to getting the project done, largely behind the scenes, and sometimes in the face of criticism, but never sought to take credit for their roles.  But without their contribution, we wouldn't be where we are today.

Lesson 3.  Inclusion Gets the Job Done.  From my perspective, perhaps the most important decision in the past two years was to broaden the Banks Working Group to include two great local leaders, Steve Love and Robert Richardson.  Early last year, community concern was building that the Banks would not provide enough quality job opportunities for all citizens.  The Banks was becoming another local project mired in controversy and mistrust, only made worse by the absence of key constituent groups in the original working group.  By expanding the working group to include Messrs. Love and Richardson, and requiring that any recommendation be unanimous, we gave a full seat at the table to leaders entrusted by the broader community to represent all aspects of a good agreement, including the workforce and inclusion issues.  The result?  The growing controversy almost immediately disappeared.  And more importantly, the end product of the Working Group was far better thanks to the participation and input of the two new members, and greeted as such by the entire community.

County Pushes for Mental Health and Criminal Justice Reforms

One issue that almost all citizens in the community agree on is that citizens with mental illnesses need and deserve treatment for their disease-and that jails are not a good place for this to happen.  The County is working very hard to act on this principle, with reforms in recent years such as a Mental Health Court, and early assessment of those who enter our jail.

But we know we can do far more.

That's why, on April 24^th, David and other community leaders convened a first-of-its-kind summit in Hamilton County.  The purpose was to improve the response of the criminal justice system to those with mental illnesses.   The summit brought together judges, advocates, law enforcement officials, service providers, and consumers with a family member with mental illnesses. Participants brainstormed, through facilitated breakout sessions, the types of reforms and priorities we should  undertake in coming years. The priorities identified at the summit will pave the way to an agenda of continuous improvement in the way we address mental illness in our community.

"We need to do all we can to address this issue proactively," said David, "The decades of filling up our jails with those with mental illnesses have been a failure, and we need to do all we can to move to a better community response."

The Summit has already been recognized by the National Association of Counties (NACO) in their News From section