University of Dayton



Group rallies for bus stops

Action follows city’s denial of RTA application.

|BYLINE:    Jill Kelley Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

|DATE: September 19, 2011 | |PAGE: B1 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — A steady cacophony of honks from passing cars rallied in support of protesters at the main entrance to the Mall at Fairfield Commons on Sunday, where members of Leaders for Equality and Action in Dayton were holding up signs asking motorists to “Honk for bus stops!” The protest was one of two being held concurrently by LEAD, an apolitical group made up of members of more than 20 Dayton-area congregations. For the second protest, a group stood on or walked the route along North Fairfield Road between Wright State University and the Mall at Fairfield Commons.

Both protests were held to raise awareness about the desire for three Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority bus stops along Pentagon Boulevard near the mall, and the Beavercreek City Council’s decision to deny an application for those bus stops.

Protesters said residents and students need access to the mall’s jobs and services.

“We are not against the city of Beavercreek, but we disagree with the council and their hard-headedness toward this issue,” said LEAD member Ronnie Moreland, a local deacon and a Dayton resident. “We have to do something; we don’t think they speak for the whole population of Beavercreek.”

In March, the City Council denied the bus stops application when the RTA failed to approve an extensive list of design requirements. RTA officials called the requirements “unique,” and said they were an act to deter applications rather than ensure safety.

“We followed our own rules. They did not agree with them,” Beavercreek Mayor Scott Hadley said. “It’s not a question of permitting or not permitting. (RTA) did not meet our criteria, so we turned their application down. End of story.”

The decision was reportedly supported by some Beavercreek residents, while others claimed discrimination.

Joyce Kasprzak of Oakwood said she took part in the LEAD effort because knows Beaver-creek to be a city welcoming of all races, colors and creeds.

“We have buses in Oakwood and we’re perfectly fine,” she said.

Since the denial, members of LEAD have filed a complaint with the United States Department of Transportation requesting an investigation and the halting of federal funds until the matter is resolved.

In August, the Beavercreek City Council approved a six-month moratorium on granting permits for the construction of public bus stops so that the city can study and prepare new regulations.

Members of LEAD say they hope they can help illustrate there is public support for these bus stops.

Linda Springman of Harrison Twp. said she was protesting Sunday because there are employment opportunities at the mall to which all Dayton-area residents should have access.

“Employment is better for the economy and better for the community,” Springman said. “The lack of bus stops is preventing people from getting jobs.”

For Jenny Border, the plight was more personal. Border is a physically handicapped graduate student at Wright State. She said the bus stops would greatly help her and her friends.

“We want to be independent, and want to be able to go to the mall or to Walmart or wherever,” Border said. “We need to make it accessible from Wright State to here (the mall).

RTA bus stops voted down

Beavercreek Council members say a majority of residents were against the proposal.

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Main | | |

|DATE: March 29, 2011 | |PAGE: A1 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — The Beaver-creek City Council on Monday night unanimously rejected the Greater Dayton RTA’s application for three bus stops along Pentagon Boulevard near the Mall at Fairfield Commons making some residents happy while others claimed discrimination. The vote was 6-0 against approval of the applications. Councilwoman Julie Vann, who had voiced support for the application, did not attend. She was excused with no comment given.

Before the vote in a packed City Council chambers filled with those for and against the stops, each of the attending Council members cited the reasons for their opinion, drawing applause.

Council members said that the vast majority of Beavercreek city residents who contacted the Council were against the RTA stops, and said there was a lack of sufficient ridership studies. They also cited problems that they say occur at malls with bus stops and RTA’s wish for fixed routes instead of flexible ones. Greene CATS system provides rides on demand in Greene County, and that was another reason given for the rejection of RTA’s applications.

RTA officials, who intended to operate about six buses per day to the stops, expressed disappointment and have not decided on their next move. “We complied with every request,” said RTA Executive Director Mark Donaghy. “We answered every question, even the ones that we weren’t certain deserved an answer. But we did that and we were polite about it. We fully complied with the ordinance, and that was our understanding from the beginning.”

Council members and RTA officials said the process became contentious, with some adamant they don’t want the stops and others charging discrimination.

“To me, this is about three bus stops,” said Councilwoman Vickie Giambrone, who used to work for the RTA. “This isn’t about race. It isn’t about any of those things. It’s about three bus stops.”

The city had asked for answers to another page of issues beyond what was asked for in the transit stop ordinance. The RTA provided an answer to each item on the list, but the process of the extra questions was debated. “The answers didn’t satisfy what the city needed,” Vice Mayor Brian Jarvis said.

The RTA found some issues included on the additional list to be excessive.

“I would say the word should be ‘reasonable’ modifications,” said Frank Ecklar, the RTA’s director of planning and marketing. “I think 18 inches of concrete (base), closed-circuit television cameras in shelters and air conditioning in open-air bus stops, I don’t think that’s consistent with the spirit of the ordinance.”

Jarvis agreed that the heating and air conditioning questions about open-air shelters were absurd.

“We’ve only found one air-conditioned bus shelter on the planet and that’s in Dubai,” Donaghy said.

Jarvis and Giambrone both said their main issue was the fixed stop request and insufficient answers from the RTA. Council members pointed to current on-demand RTA service and Greene CATS as options for those who want to use public transportation.

RTA officials said residents must qualify for some of those services and that Greene CATS routes require calling ahead, which doesn’t fit with those not on a fixed schedule.

Several Council members brought up safety concerns as a issue. Donaghy said he spoke to Jarvis about that concern and about the impact on businesses.

“Go to the Shops of Oak-wood. Go out to Centerville. Go to Englewood. We go to retail establishments all over this community,” Donaghy said.

“There’s no crime wave in Oakwood. We’re there every day. We’re there 21 hours a day.”

Residents who spoke at the meeting represented both sides, with one man saying he appreciated the council following the city’s wishes and another saying this process showed thinly veiled discrimination.

For now, the RTA will go back to the drawing board after a process that began more than a year ago.

Donaghy said legal action is a possibility. “We haven’t made that list at this time, but certainly that’s an option.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-6951 or mgokavi@Dayton .

Pam Stewart, a Beavercreek resident, holds a “no RTA” sign at a Beavercreek City Council meeting. The Council voted not to allow three RTA bus stops near the Mall at Fairfield Commons. Staff photo by Ron Alvey

Fairfield Commons’ police calls highest of 3 local malls

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

|DATE: March 28, 2011 | |PAGE: A4 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — More crime-related police calls have been made since May 2009 to the Mall at Fairfield Commons than The Greene, also in Beavercreek, or Dayton Mall in Montgomery County’s Miami Twp. One concern about the Greater Dayton RTA’s application for three bus stops along Pentagon Boulevard near Fairfield Commons is an increase in crime because of the shelters. The issue is expected to be decided during today’s 6 p.m. Beavercreek Council meeting.

But a Dayton Daily News analysis of incident statistics provided by Beavercreek police found there were fewer incident calls to The Greene — which has two RTA stops across the street in Kettering — than Fairfield Commons.

The rates at Dayton Mall, the biggest of the three shopping centers with about 170 stores, had the fewest police calls of the three centers.

Using the same time frame — May 2, 2009 to March 13, 2011 — chosen due to a change in Beaver-creek’s records systems, Fairfield Commons had 346 crime calls while The Greene had 254. During the same stretch, Miami Twp. statistics show the Dayton Mall had 209.

That translates to about 15 crime calls per month at Fairfield Commons, 11 at The Greene and nine at the Dayton Mall.

Despite that, Miami Twp. Police Major John DiPietro said: “We’ve made a number of arrests over the years, and if they’re going to be released, rather than incarcerated, they tell us, ‘Well, we rode the bus out.’ ”

The numbers reflect only incident calls to Fair-field Commons and Dayton Mall, which have one main address, not the other surrounding businesses.

The Greene includes dozens of addresses and individual doors to businesses. There also are differences including mall security, surveillance cameras and theft-prevention specialists.

“To compare and contrast crime at the Fairfield Mall versus The Greene, I don’t think there’s any comparison,” Beavercreek police Sgt. Jim Wuebben said. “I think it’s two totally different, unique locales.”

A Dayton Mall representative said only one stop is on mall property, near

Old Navy and Macys, about 300 feet from the mall doors.

There have been another 73 calls — about three per month — made during that span from the RTA bus stop at 2730 Lyons Road near the Miami Twp. Library. Of those, 22 were not mall-related.

DiPietro said the RTA provides a needed service and is complimentary of the Project Mobility program. He also said that with increased access to any location, not just malls, “common sense tells you there would be an increase in odds for criminal behavior.”

DiPietro wrote about issues at Dayton Mall in an e-mail to Beavercreek Police Chief John Turner obtained by an open records request: “Trash, vandalism at bus stops, the failure of RTA to provide adequate amenities at heavily used bus stops and roadway damage by the larger buses are also issues to consider.”

Copyright, 2011, Cox Ohio Publishing. All rights reserved.

Group: City violated Civil Rights Act

LEAD files complaint, alleges rejection of RTA stops is discriminatory.

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

|DATE: August 11, 2011 | |PAGE: B1 | | |

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A coalition of local churches announced Wednesday it has filed a complaint to federal agencies alleging the Beavercreek City Council violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying an application to install three public bus stops near the Mall at Fairfield Commons. An attorney for Leaders for Equality and Action in Dayton Inc., or LEAD, held a press conference on the steps of the Tony Hall Federal Building in Dayton to announce that the council’s March 28 vote to reject the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority’s request for the bus stops near the mall constituted discrimination.

The group is calling on the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Civil Rights and the United States Department of Transportation to conduct a Title VI compliance investigation into the denial and Beavercreek’s actions.

Title VI prohibits recipients of federal financial assistance from using that money in a way that has a discriminatory impact based on race, color or national origin.

“Beavercreek’s denial of the RTA application has a disparate impact on mostly the minorities and African-Americans,” said the Rev. Francis Tandoh, a Catholic priest and a LEAD representative who noted that more blacks in Dayton use public transportation to get to work. “It something that connotes segregation, something that connotes classism.”

In March, Beavercreek’s council voted 6-0 against approving three RTA stops near the mall and a new hospital. RTA currently services Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Wright State University.

Beavercreek City Attorney Stephen McHugh acknowledged receipt of the complaint and said: “No statement to the merits of the complaint is appropriate at this time.”

Beavercreek Mayor Scott Hadley could not be reached for comment, and Vice Mayor Brian Jar-vis said he wouldn’t comment until he’d read the complaint and talked to McHugh.

Frank Ecklar, RTA’s director of planning and marketing, said: “We heard from the community that they desired access to that area to access jobs, education and other trip destinations, including medical services at the new hospital that’s going in. We did our due diligence and applied for the bus stops through the Beavercreek ordinance.

“We will certainly be keeping an eye on the progress of this particular complaint,” he added.

The complaint — a 1-inch thick stack of documents — claims Beaver-creek has received tens of millions of dollars in federal assistance since 1997, including a planned widening of the Interstate 675 bridge from Fairborn to Beavercreek, the same bridge people must walk over to get to Fairfield Commons from WSU since no RTA stop is available. Attorney Stanley Hirtle of the Advocates for Basic Legal Equality Inc., or ABLE, said three affidavits from area job counselors show that the inability of African-American job seekers to obtain transportation to the Beavercreek area has been a major barrier to employment.

“By taking these funds from federal taxpayers to improve their city, the city of Beavercreek has agreed to comply with Title VI regulations,” Hirtle said. “Title VI specifically precludes recipients from making determinations of locations of facilities, including public transit stops, which have the effect of discriminating on the basis of race.”

During the March 28 council meeting, Council Member Vicki Giambrone, who is a former RTA employee, said: “To me, this is about three bus stops. This isn’t about race. It isn’t about any of those things. It’s about three bus stops.”

Earlier in the process, Giambrone said she was for approving the application and that the city couldn’t stop the RTA from coming into the city, but only could designate design requirements for the stops. Those design requirements changed from meeting to meeting, including discussion about requiring heated and air-conditioned bus stops.

“You can look at what happened and think what you think about what their motives are,” Hirtle said. “We don’t allege what their motives are. We allege that it has a disparate impact on the minority communities in Dayton, because they can’t get jobs, because they disproportionately rely on the bus to get to work.”

LEAD said they plan a public demonstration at 3 p.m. Aug. 21 near Fairfield Commons.

Is regionalism still possible after B’creek? (editorial?)

|DATE: April 17, 2011 |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Opinion | | |

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The Beavercreek bus controversy could have ended even worse. It could have been followed by angry calls in Dayton or Montgomery County for reprisal, for boycotts of the Mall at Fairfield Commons or other measures designed to get Beavercreek to reconsider its relations with neighbors. After all, Beavercreek City Council turned down a constructive bid at regionalism by the Greater Dayton RTA and told residents of Montgomery County that Beavercreek simply does not want their business if they’re not driving, as many don’t.

The fact that the fight didn’t escalate is to the credit of the broader community.

Now, however, Beavercreek, Dayton and other communities need to confront the damage that has been done. The controversy dealt a blow to the cause of a united region, to the notion that the people of the Dayton area need to see themselves as in the same boat, need to identify with one another, need to focus on what unites them rather than wallow in division, fear and competitiveness.

For many years, the City of Dayton has had an annual walk over the Third Street bridge as a symbol of unity between the races. A walk across the bridge that links Wright State University with the Fairfield mall area is a little hard to picture.

But the need is similar. How about some joint project between the cities of Dayton and Beavercreek, or some regional project they might lead?

When companies that might employ Beavercreek residents consider locating in the Dayton area, they won’t focus on whether a mall has bus stops. And they won’t focus on quality of life in one suburb. They’ll be thinking about the metropolitan area.

More perhaps than most places, a relatively affluent suburb like Beavercreek needs an attractive metropolitan area surrounding it, the kind of place that people with choices want to live in. That requires a central city that’s attractive, safe, financially stable and not just hanging by a thread.

In the new U.S. Census, Beavercreek passed Huber Heights to become the second-biggest suburb of Dayton, after Kettering. That fact offers Beavercreek something of a leadership role.

The failure last week of the Dayton area to win one of the space shuttles drives home an important point: No silver bullet is likely to revive the region. It’s going to be a long, hard pull, requiring cooperation from those with the most to protect and nourish.

Nearly everybody in public office gives lip service to the idea of regionalism. The notion that cooperation among various jurisdictions can benefit everybody has a lot of surface appeal. It promises to save money, foster economic development, and maintain the idea of community, even as the core city — so crucial to the region’s reputation — diminishes.

But sometimes you have to wonder if all the talk of regionalism is just a joke. Is the idea of trying to accommodate each other going to give way anytime anybody sees a downside?

We live in a time when political warriors bombard their followers with verbiage about political opponents that couldn’t be much hotter if it were about foreign enemies. The difference between the two parties is so intense that, if liberals and conservatives were cleanly divided geographically, there’d be serious calls for secession on both sides of the line.

(Some people have even said that the reason Beavercreek didn’t want to let the RTA in is that it’s a Republican community that has a conservative understanding of what government should do. But we’re talking about a city that lists a golf course under its municipal services.)

The Dayton area has plenty of people on both sides of the political divide, not to mention groups of different racial, economic and religious characteristics. There’s plenty of potential for division. Sustaining any degree of unity has always required effort and will continue to do so.

Ideally, the bus spat should reenergize the regionalism effort. It highlights the fraught nature of relations between the city and suburbs. But both need each other.

B-creek council may face RTA’s riders in court

|BYLINE:    ELLEN BELCHER COMMENTARY |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Opinion | | |

|DATE: April 3, 2011 | |PAGE: A28 | | |

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I don’t mean to pick on Beavercreek. I do mean to criticize Beavercreek City Council. Its meeting last week — when it voted 6-0 not to allow Greater Dayton RTA to put three bus stops on Pentagon Boulevard near the Mall at Fairfield Commons — was not a proud moment. An editorial here March 30 (“Beaver-creek vote against RTA embarrassing”) explained why the council’s objections are bogus. I won’t repeat them all here, but if you missed the coverage, among the council’s demands was that the shelters be heated and air-conditioned. The council members know that’s ridiculous and cost-prohibitive.

Mark Donaghy, RTA’s executive director, deadpanned after the meeting that the only place he knows of in the world that has a climate-controlled bus shelter is Dubai.

After the vote, Ronnie Moreland, copresident of Leaders for Equality and Action in Dayton, which has advocated for the stops, was asked by the man sitting next to him whether he lived in Beavercreek.

When Moreland, who is black, responded he did not, the man, who is white, said something like, This meeting is for people who live in Beavercreek.

Moreland politely replied, “Now, that’s not nice.”

It was an amazing conversation to overhear in public in 2011.

Of course, that man does not represent all of Beavercreek. But let’s not kid ourselves. Race was an undercurrent in this debate, and the people who don’t want blacks and people who can’t afford cars coming to the mall won.

Of course, low-income people who work at the mall, and jobless people who might want jobs at nearby businesses, also lost.

The presumption was that bus riders are trouble-makers and that they can be prevented from shopping at the mall or taking jobs in Beavercreek.

If the stops were allowed, would there be kids, or even adults, who would act up at the mall or the bus stops from time to time? Undoubtedly.

Are there some people who don’t ride the bus — who maybe even live in Beaver-creek — who have been caught shoplifting or misbehaving in the parking lots and elsewhere? Probably so.

When did some people’s prejudices about bus riders get to be a rationale to deny all bus riders access to a shopping center?

Beavercreek Mayor Scott Hadley, in explaining his vote to deny RTA’s application for the shelters, talked about the wisdom of Ohio’s “home rule” power, which allows cities to decide so many matters for themselves. He said that “the people (of Beavercreek) have spoken very loudly” and that they don’t want the stops.

One of the arguments for giving cities home rule authority is that locally elected officials are close to residents and presumably in touch with their communities.

But city council members were making a lot of things up.

Some pointed to Greene County’s small transit operation — Greene Coordinated Agency Transportation System or Greene CATS — as an alternative to RTA.

But Dayton Daily News Staff Writer Mark Gokavi interviewed its executive director, who said the operation turns away 400 people a month because it doesn’t have the money or buses to meet the demand for transportation.

One council member suggested that RTA riders could ride the Route 1 bus to Wright State and then take a Greene CATS bus to the mall.

That’s a smarter, safer, cheaper alternative to having the Route 1 buses extend their sweep to Pentagon Boulevard?

Would Beavercreek put up an air-conditioned and heated shelter for those people to wait for the Greene CATS bus?

Meanwhile, in Columbus, state Rep. Jar-rod Martin, R-Beavercreek, and state Sen. Chris Widener, R-Springfield, are advocating for legislation that would require local jurisdictions to give their approval before a transit company could come into their communities if the area was outside of the transit company’s “territorial boundary.”

RTA’s Donaghy said he doesn’t object to notifying jurisdictions about plans to extend service, but he and other transit companies in Ohio will object to having to get a jurisdiction’s approval to operate in a community — beyond meeting zoning and safety standards.

Before lawyers are called in, which very well may happen, the city council really needs to reconsider its decision. It would have a tough time answering questions from people who asked hard, pointed questions about exactly what was on its mind, what it’s really trying to do.

Beavercreek council calls for more study of proposal for RTA bus stops near mall

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

|DATE: March 15, 2011 | |PAGE: A4 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — Beaver-creek City Council tabled a vote for three proposed bus stops near the Mall at Fairfield Commons, frustrating a Greater Dayton RTA official. Watched by a group of protesters with signs saying, “Let the People Ride,” council members brought up a host of concerns for city staff to study, including police cost, security, surveillance cameras, trash pickup, graffiti cleanup, pedestrian crosswalks, the size of the buses, fencing, lighting and whether the stops needed heating and cooling systems.

“I thought today was frustrating,” said Frank Ecklar, RTA’s director of planning and marketing. “It was announced Feb. 14 at the hearing that we had that all the i’s were dotted and all the t’s were crossed and we followed everything that their ordinance stated in the application. . . . I have not seen an ordinance like this in 27 years. At the same time, we respect it, honor it and do what we can.”

As for Beavercreek Mayor Scott Hadley’s comments about temperature control, Ecklar said, “There’s no requirement to put air conditioning and heaters.”

A group of about 25 people from LEAD (Leaders for Equality and Action in Dayton) chanted and sang outside the government center before the meeting and watched as the council voted 7-0 to table the discussion until March 28.

Ecklar said the RTA has about 3,300 stops in 23 jurisdictions in Montgomery County plus Wright State and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He said the three stops along Pentagon Boulevard would get about six trips per day for students, shoppers, would-be employees and those seeking medical attention.

The controversy has included charges of subtle discrimination.

Council member Julie Vann received applause when she said it’s not “just criminals” who would be riding the bus, but a lot of “normal people.”

Council member Vicki Giambrone said it’s “reasonable and honest” to study and discuss issues that she said have occurred at bus stops in other area cities.

A vote is expected March 28, since March 31 is the deadline to address the RTA’s application.

B-creek vote against RTA embarrassing

|DATE: March 30, 2011 |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Opinion | | |

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Beavercreek’s City Council has no good reasons to keep the Greater Dayton RTA from having three bus stops on Pentagon Boulevard near the Mall at Fair-field Commons and Kettering Health Network’s new hospital. But it voted 6-0 against the stops anyway. The council’s demands of RTA would be comical if the situation weren’t so sad. Among them:

• Provide “state of the art” surveillance cameras that “transmit real-time surveillance pictures to the Beavercreek Police Department.”

• “Provide heated and air-conditioned shelters.”

• Limit use of the stops to small “airport shuttle-type” buses.

• Provide an 18-inch concrete pad for loading.

Even though RTA representatives have been working with Beavercreek’s engineer and staff for upwards of a year and were told RTA’s plans meet Beaver-creek’s ordinance for installing shelters, the council added these conditions (and more) knowing that RTA couldn’t agree to them.

Consider:

RTA has 3,300 bus stops. None of them has surveillance cameras.

Mark Donaghy, executive director of RTA, said the only climate-controlled bus stop he is aware of is in Dubai (where the average temperature in the summer is more than 100 degrees).

Requiring small buses, rather than the 40-foot regular-route buses, fails to recognize that the proposed stops are just an extension of Route 1. Small buses won’t accommodate all the riders who use that route.

RTA’s downtown hub — Wright Stop Plaza — has 1,200 buses coming and going each day. The pull-up pad is 10 inches thick, not the 18 inches — for six buses a day — that Beaver-creek wanted.

In explaining their votes, Beavercreek’s council members said the emails and telephone calls they received were overwhelmingly opposed to allowing the stops.

Two members — Jerry Petrak and Brian Jarvis — worried that the mall would become a “corner of chaos,” a reference to the problems RTA had in downtown Dayton at Third and Main streets.

Of course, what they failed to say is that problem got solved, and it was created because it was a transfer point for Dayton Public School students. That’s not what is being proposed for Pentagon Boulevard.

The animosity toward RTA, Montgomery County and bus riders generally was intense and alarming.

Council member Vicki Giambrone complained that the “inference” that Beavercreek was discriminating against the poor and blacks “shut down dialogue.” She said there is no evidence the service is needed and that extending the route was a waste of Montgomery County taxpayers’ money. (She flipped from the last meeting, where she said the council’s role was limited to deciding whether RTA had complied with Beavercreek’s ordinance.)

Council member Phyllis Howard said that “RTA filled our council chamber with Montgomery County residents” and that she doesn’t work for Montgomery County residents.

Beavercreek’s vote was wrong on moral and public-policy grounds. The public-safety complaints are trumped up. If the council really cared about that, it would not put bus riders in a position of having to walk from near Wright State University along the congested Fairfield Road to get to the mall or nearby businesses.

Suggesting that the stops invite crime is an inference that bus riders are criminals.

Denying access to public transportation disproportionately affects people who don’t have cars, who are poor, who take low-wage jobs, including the retail positions at the mall.

Council member Julie Vann, who seemed to be leaning toward allowing the stops at the last meeting, was away. The total absence of people acknowledging that Beavercreek employers could benefit from public transportation, that public transportation in and of itself is a good thing and that Beavercreek doesn’t get to wall itself off was stunning.

Because of its proximity to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Beavercreek is home to families who have lived around the world and who have to be wondering what the fuss is about. Many residents are affluent and travel to places where public transit is the only efficient way to get around.

Many, undoubtedly, aren’t the least bit threatened by people who find buses useful or indispensable. Many recognize the objections council gave as a ruse for some people’s prejudices.

There is another side of Beavercreek — a progressive, open-minded, welcoming, considerate side. Sadly, those people had no one speaking up for them

Earnings tax an issue in ’Creek

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Beavercreek Fairborn and Xenia | | |

|DATE: October 13, 2011 | |PAGE: RF1 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — The five candidates for four spots on the Beavercreek City Council all are against Greater Dayton RTA bus stops near the Mall at Fairfield Commons, but they are not in lockstep on a possible Beavercreek earnings tax. Candidates Zach Upton, Deborah L. Sasser, Jerry Petrak, Melissa Litteral and Vicki Giambrone agree that finding ways to balance the budget in the face of at least $2 million of state aid the next two years is key.

Beavercreek is one of the few area cities without an earnings tax, which could bump up revenues by several million dollars per year.

“Only 40 percent of the people who live in Beavercreek, work in Beavercreek, so there’s a lot of money going out of our community,” Giambrone said, adding that a tax could come with a senior citizen exemption and property tax rollback. “We’re going to have to be open to new revenue sources.”

Upton is against the idea: “My personal opinion, in today’s economy where people are struggling to make ends meet, at this time I would not support the income tax or earnings tax.”

A quick look at the five candidates. The top two vote-getters will be the new mayor and vice mayor, respectively.

Giambrone: The incumbent, a vice president at Dayton Children’s Medical Center, touts Beavercreek as the lowest-cost government in the region, how council has handled the economic downturn and cut $1 million from the budget and the use of citizen surveys to help decide issues such as the RTA bus stop application, which was voted down 6-0.

“The next four years are going to require even more hard work, strong leadership and diligence,” she said.

Litteral: The first-time politician, director of Greene County Adult Probation, said she has worked for the county for 17 years and has acquired budgeting, grant management, contract and labor negotiations and policy procedure experience. Litteral said issues include making up for the decrease in local government funds and the elimination of the estate tax. “Beavercreek is 80 to 85 percent developed,” she said. “We need to be strategically planning for the next 5, 10, 15 years.”

Petrak: A retired Wright-Patterson Air Force Base laboratory employee, the four-term councilman, Petrak said Greene County’s transit system is implementing a route in north Beavercreek that will alleviate some of the concerns of people trying to get from Wright State University to the mall. “We’ve cut everything we can out of the budget and we’re still going to be short,” he said. “We’ve got to look seriously at an earnings tax.”

Sasser: A realtor and adjunct faculty member at Sinclair Community College, Sasser touts her involvement with leadership programs. Sasser said protecting, preserving and promoting financial resources and property value is paramount.

“I come to you with no specific agenda or preconceived purpose,” she said. “Other than to work for the benefit of the residents of the city of Beavercreek.”

Upton: A third-time candidate who works for G.E. Capital as an account manager in the consumer financing division, Upton is a ex-member of the Parks, Recreation and Culture Advisory Board and currently chairs the Board of Zoning Appeals.

“Having worked with the (city’s) staff and management,” he said. “It would provide for a smooth transition and allow me to get to work elbows-deep right away.”

Non-drivers’ losses in 3C, B’Creek show a pattern

|BYLINE:    MARTIN GOTTLIEB |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Opinion | | |

|DATE: April 1, 2011 | |PAGE: A10 | | |

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Look closely enough and you might see a similarity between Beavercreek’s buses-to-the-mall issue and the fight over 3C, the aborted plan for passenger trains in Ohio. During the 3C fight, one heard again and again that trains — especially slow trains — were not going to be able to woo Ohioans out of their cars. That argument came from leaders of the opposition.

Well, it is certainly true that some train advocates would like to woo people out of cars, for reasons of environmentalism and energy conservation.

But a lot of people don’t have to be wooed out of cars. They’re already not in them.

Sometimes, when you’re out on the road, it certainly seems like everybody drives. And if you hang out exclusively in affluent surroundings, you might get an impression like that.

But well over a million Ohioans of driving age don’t even have a driver’s license.

In the city of Dayton, 20 percent of households don’t have a car. Statewide, the figure for households is about 8.5 percent. Meanwhile, the 1.2 million households with only one car have 3 million people of driving age, says the trains-promoting All Aboard Ohio, citing Census figures.

Even in the category of people who have licenses and cars, some are getting to the age where they shouldn’t be driving — or at least driving long distances. Some have a fear of driving on interstates. Some don’t have a reliable enough car to risk a long drive. Some don’t want to drive in certain kinds of weather.

For 3C (Cincinnati to Cleveland, via Dayton and Columbus) to work financially (keeping the state subsidy down to what the feds estimated), it needed to attract a half-million riders a year. That sounds like a lot. But it’s about 1,400 people per day, in a state of 11 million people.

You wouldn’t have to extract many people from cars to reach that number.

In Beavercreek, of course, the issue wasn’t whether enough people could be attracted to the buses. It was about who those people might be. Specifically, might they be people who would somehow make Fairfield Commons a less attractive place?

The city council decided not to allow buses coming from Montgomery County.

Both situations reflect a disconnect between the car-driving majority and those who have to find other modes of transportation.

The 3C opponents couldn’t believe there can be many non-drivers.

The bus-to-the-mall opponents can’t believe there are many who are law-abiding, non-troublesome and affluent enough to shop at Fairfield Commons.

Search around the Internet a little and you’ll find words for people who are afraid of driving in a car (amazophobia), afraid of automobiles (motorphobia) and, for that matter, afraid of trains (siderodromophobia).

What’s needed is a word for fear of people who don’t drive.

The non-drivers are out there. They’re regular people, or there wouldn’t be so many of them. They’re keeping alive modes of transportation the rest of us only turn to in emergencies. They’re more numerous in bad economic times, it stands to reason.

And they apparently need a public relations rep.

RTA seeks new bus stops in Beavercreek

|DATE: March 27, 2011 |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

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The Greater Dayton RTA is seeking approval from Beavercreek City Council to add three new bus stops near the Mall at Fairfield Commons. The council delayed a vote on the application earlier this month to give city officials time to compile an additional list of issues and options for the transportation authority. For Monday’s paper, our reporters have been digging into what the RTA needs to do to win council approval to establish the bus stops that have generated passionate pleas of support and opposition.

The Dayton Daily News is the only local news organization with the resources to give you this kind of in-depth look at this kind of important story.

RTA: Beavercreek’s wish list for bus stops ‘above and beyond’

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

|DATE: March 28, 2011 | |PAGE: A4 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — The Greater Dayton RTA already serves Greene County with buses to Wright State University and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. With 23 jurisdictions in Montgomery County and a growth in Beavercreek near shopping, medical and educational facilities, the RTA figured the area around The Mall at Fairfield Commons was an easy fit.

The Beavercreek City Council is expected to vote tonight on the RTA’s application for three bus stops along Pentagon Boulevard near the mall, but the process has been anything but easy due to Beavercreek’s extensive transit stop design requirements and an extra list of items to consider.

The list includes subjects like sidewalks, trash pickup and maintenance. But it also mentions doorless shelters with heat and air conditioning and state-of-the-art surveillance cameras that transmit in real time to police.

RTA officials said the 21-page design requirements are the most “unique” they have ever encountered and act to deter applications rather than ensure safety.

In a letter responding to Council members’ comments from a Feb. 14 meeting, RTA Executive Director Mark Donaghy wrote: “If safety is the overriding concern, should school bus stops be required to meet the same standards?”

Frank Ecklar, the RTA’s director of planning and marketing, said the RTA would use regular-size buses and the plan would be a diversion of the Route 1 loop that already goes down Colonel Glenn Highway to Wright State University. He said the six or so trips per day won’t mean new buses, drivers or major expense, or any reduction in service.

“I don’t think we’re going to be installing security cameras at the shelters, for instance, nor heating and air conditioning within an outdoor shelter,” Ecklar said, adding that the RTA would respond in writing to what is feasible. “It’s definitely above and beyond the application requirements.

“They made it very clear that we have fulfilled all the requirements of the actual bus stop application.”

Councilwoman Julie Vann agreed. Asked what advice Council received from City Manager Mike Cornell and City Attorney Stephen McHugh, Vann said: “My personal take on what I heard is the issue has gotten distorted to being more than what it is.

“What we really have before us is an application and Beavercreek has rules and regulations on the books that would help us evaluate that application. And that’s what we need to focus on.”

While some Beavercreek residents say there is an underlying discrimination at play, David Dunn said his objection to bus stops is about other issues.

Beavercreek City Council is voting on acceptance of three new RTA bus stops for the Mall at Fairfield Commons area. The stop outside the Wright State University Student Union shown here is currently the closest one to the mall. Staff photo by Ty Greenlees

B-creek’s bias against RTA won’t hold up

|DATE: March 16, 2011 |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Opinion | | |

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The Beavercreek City Council is being ridiculous. On Monday, it put off deciding — for a second time — whether to allow the Greater Dayton RTA to erect three bus stops near the Fairfield Commons mall. The vote was 7-0, though council member Julie Vann suggested that she supports allowing RTA to extend its service to Beaver-creek.

Among the most absurd remarks came from Mayor Scott Hadley. In explaining that he had more questions that he wanted answered before a vote, he worried about riders waiting in bad weather at an open-air shelter. He asked if the shelters should have heat and air conditioning — what if a rider who had an oxygen tank had to wait out in the elements, he said.

Council members also want to know if there are going to be closed-loop cameras with someone monitoring them; who is going to pay for a stop light or crosswalk if one or the other has to be installed; and what new costs the police can expect.

We’re talking about bus stops — not hotels and not security entrances to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The council is just stalling, asking questions that go beyond what it said RTA had to do as a condition for erecting shelters. Some members referenced a survey that found that Beavercreek has a large number of residents who don’t want RTA expanding into the community.

City Council member Vicki Giambrone said that if the council is going to have an “honest dialogue,” there had to be discussion of the fact that other malls — the Dayton Mall and, before that, the Salem Mall — had bad experiences with young people making trouble, presumably some of them RTA riders. She was anticipating the council being criticized for trying to wall itself off from the poor or blacks.

Two dozen people, including a number of blacks, were in the audience carrying signs, saying, “Let the people ride.” LEAD — a church-based group also known as Leaders for Equality and Action in Dayton — helped prompt this debate. It went to RTA and complained that popular shopping areas were out of reach to people who rely on public transportation.

RTA officials say another motivation for taking buses near the mall — extending Route 1’s loop — is that riders are walking from Colonel Glenn Highway, near the entrance to Wright State University, across the bridge over I-675 to the STEM School and to the mall. Besides being a long hike, the walk is not safe for pedestrians.

It’s true that RTA’s hub in downtown Dayton has, at times, been a magnet for trouble because so many students once were transferring there (though the students themselves were not typically the trouble-makers). The Dayton Mall also has had a problem with unsupervised teens hanging out and upsetting customers.

But RTA has cut the student transfers downtown and ramped up security at its new indoor hub. The Dayton Mall’s escort policy, which it adopted in 2003, is keeping kids from having the run of the place.

In short, there are ways to deal with problem people (young or old) — without disadvantaging all RTA riders.

The Wright State-Fairfield Commons area has become not just a shopping hub, but also an employment hub. Kettering Health Network is building a new six-story hospital near Pentagon Boulevard, and it will have plenty of business neighbors.

The answer to the question posed by Ms. Giambrone about why RTA would use its sales tax levy to subsidize Montgomery County riders going to Greene County is pretty simple: transportation to jobs.

Beavercreek’s council is asking to be sued if it throws up expensive, unreasonable demands that simply are aimed at keeping RTA away.

On March 28, when council members take a vote on RTA’s shelter applications, the vote should be 7-0.

Beavercreek, RTA dust-up is case study of what’s wrong

|BYLINE:    ELLEN BELCHER |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Opinion | | |

|DATE: March 20, 2011 | |PAGE: A28 | | |

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John Kasich would have learned something important about local government in Ohio if he had been at the Beavercreek City Council meeting this week. On March 14, the city council put off for a second time a decision about whether to allow the Greater Dayton RTA to build three bus stops near the Fairfield Commons mall. The discussion was a thinly veiled conversation about whether Beavercreek could keep RTA bus riders out of the community.

Should RTA be required to heat and air-condition the open-air shelter, the mayor asked. What if a new crosswalk or stop light had to be installed? Why should Beavercreek citizens pay for that, considering that council is already asking voters in May to raise their taxes for police protection, another member asked.

Talk about small questions. Talk about parochialism.

Where’s the understanding that Beavercreek is a piece of something larger — a region that sinks or swims together?

The incident would have been instructive for the governor because it’s a measure of how difficult it will be to get local governments to buy into being part of something bigger, to get them to grant that Ohio has too many governments.

The state has 251 cities, 681 villages, 1,308 townships and 88 counties. This obscene balkanization — besides costing money — encourages myopic ways of thinking and doing business.

Beavercreek’s meeting was held the night before Kasich unveiled his two-year budget that proposes to cut the Local Government Fund by almost 50 percent. Townships, financially strapped big cities and rural counties would be hit especially hard. Many would have to stop doing some things (think trash pick-up); scale back services they can’t get out of providing (think police and fire); raise taxes; or all of the above.

(The Local Government Fund has been around since 1934, and it subsidizes cities, counties and townships on the grounds that not all communities have the same ability to tax themselves. In some places, the population is so small or so poor, or there are so few businesses that there’s just not enough wealth to tax.)

The governor’s goal with the proposed cuts is to force governmental consolidation, or failing that, to drive cost-cutting by encouraging local governments to contract out for services.

What Beavercreek’s dust-up with RTA shows is just how uneager communities are to think beyond their own back yards. Yes, a traffic light would cost Beaver-creek a few bucks. But wouldn’t it be far better for the wider community if people in Montgomery County who need — or choose — to ride public transportation could apply for jobs in and near the mall and also shop there?

And how about the mall employers and Kettering Health Network (once its hospital is built) whose managers have to ask job applicants, “Do you have transportation?” Wouldn’t they get something out of RTA extending its service? Shouldn’t Beavercreek be grateful that the RTA is willing to use sales tax money generated in Montgomery County to supply workers to Greene County?

Beavercreek can afford to be an island. Even when the day finally comes that it has to pass an income tax — because people don’t want to keep increasing their property taxes to pay for roads and police protection — its affluence will see it through.

But for places like Xenia, Fair-born, and — crossing over into Montgomery County — Dayton, Trotwood, Jefferson Twp. and even Huber Heights, raising taxes isn’t such an easy option. It’s in communities like this that Kasich’s cudgel — his Local Government Fund budget cuts — would be brutal.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that all the state laws that encourage government fragmentation and that pit local governments against each other were eliminated tomorrow. The governments that would come together quickest are the ones that bring the most needs and the least money to the table. The “haves” can afford to keep going it alone.

As for the “have-not” governments, concentrating the poor and consolidating the financially weakest communities isn’t a formula for making Ohio a better or cheaper place to live.

If the state, as a whole, is going to reduce local taxes (and spending) through sharing services regionally and through consolidation, Kasich has to spend political capital telling affluent communities that their income taxes and property taxes are part of the problem, too — even if they can afford to keep paying them.

Consolidation and sharing services is a lot like insurance. It only works if the pool isn’t just composed of people who need a doctor.

Bus stop embargo stalls shuttle

Beavercreek Council’s moratorium delays Dayton-to-Xenia project.

|BYLINE:    Mark Gokavi Staff Writer |PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH) |SECTION: Local | | |

|DATE: August 26, 2011 | |PAGE: B1 | | |

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BEAVERCREEK — Beaver-creek’s six-month moratorium on permits for public transit stops will delay plans by Greene CATS for a park-and-ride stop at Lofino Plaza at U.S. 35 and North Fairfield Road. Beavercreek city attorney Stephen McHugh confirmed that all public transit stops — whether on private or public land — are covered by the resolution.

City officials weren’t all informed about that point during Monday night’s meeting.

“I guess that’s the way it’s going to be,” said Greene CATS (Greene County Transit Board) Executive Director Rich Schultze, who indicated he was going to present a proposal next month for a stop connecting the Dayton-to-Xenia flex route.

“It’s too bad that it has to be delayed. I’ll keep monitoring the timeline, and as soon as we can we’ll get something in.”

Facing a federal complaint filed by a coalition of Dayton-area churches that it may be violating civil rights laws, the Beavercreek City Council shut down possible applications so it can study and refine regulations.

A Federal Highway Administration spokesperson said the complaint is in the early stages of being reviewed.

After the Greater Dayton RTA seemingly had met the original regulations for three stops along Pentagon Boulevard near the Mall at Fairfield Commons, council members voiced a host of added concerns.

They include criteria such as safety, maintenance, signage and ridership studies, but also mentioned a police phone call box, surveillance cameras, extra-thick concrete padding and heated and air-conditioned shelters.

Whether the 24 design issues on a City Council worksheet get implemented is up for debate.

“Some of those things we’re going to have to decide whether or not we really want to be in the criteria because should another application happen, we wouldn’t want the same discussions to occur again and again and again,” Vice Mayor Brian Jarvis said.

Schultze said the Dayton-to-Xenia route had more than 700 riders in July, despite running only once every 90 minutes.

He said the park-and-ride spot would serve people who want to go to either place and then have the option to shop at Lofino’s when they returned.

The Xenia stop is at Xenia Towne Square, which doesn’t yet have fancy signs, shelters or benches.

“The city of Xenia is very favorable towards this kind of service, as is the city of Fair-born, too,” Schultze said.

“We’re working on amenities for that stuff right now.”

Schultze said his organization must now wait until the design standards are set to see if they will be prohibitive.

“I just have to assume that they’re going to be fair and reasonable,” he said. “That’s the only way I can go into this.”

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