BY LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Jim Tarbell embraces his new career at City Hall.
(Michael E. Keating photos)
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He is seen as the man behind a grass-roots effort to put a baseball stadium on the fringe of Cincinnati's Over-The-Rhine neighborhood.
But freshman Councilman Jim Tarbell wants to be known as more than a one-pitch politician.
His "Baseball on Broadway" project is one of a number of ways in which he'd like to create better neighborhoods.
At the top of the list is housing. By expanding and improving the housing market, he says, many urban problems -- ranging from Cincinnati's beleaguered school system to some of the ailing neighborhood business districts -- will right themselves.
"If you make the housing environment so compelling that people can't say, "No,' then people will make an effort to improve the educational system," Mr. Tarbell said.
Mr. Tarbell said he is interested in creating a variety of housing, not solely promoting home ownership. He said he'd like to borrow on the new millennium theme by setting a goal of creating 2,000 new housing units by 2000.
Councilman Charlie Winburn, head of council's neighborhood and small business development committee, says Mr. Tarbell brings a different experience that will benefit the council. For that reason, Mr. Winburn said, he would like Mr. Tarbell to serve on his committee.
Tarbell feigns exasperation with council paperwork.
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Mr. Tarbell was named to council July 1, the day Councilwoman Bobbie Sterne retired.
A registered Democrat who nearly won election to council in 1997, Mr. Tarbell had been in the public eye long before the fall campaign.
Most prominently, he has used his flair for theatrics to drum up support for the campaign to build a Reds stadium at Broadway and Reading Road. Even though the county and Reds agreed last week to build the stadium on the riverfront, Mr. Tarbell is coordinating a petition effort to allow a county vote on a location.
He brings to the table a philosophy that is part-hippie, part-capitalist, which stems from growing up in a middle-class and enlightened Hyde Park family.
While he is an entrepreneur, Mr. Tarbell refers to the ideals of the youth of the 1960s and 1970s -- not only regaining a sense of community, but also living in an integrated society.
"There's nothing new to the idea of having mixed incomes in close proximity to one another," he said. "That's as old as the hills."
He grew up reading the legal essays and opinions of his father, a Brown County prosecutor, and his grandfather, a Brown County judge, which challenged social injustices.
"My father worked on some civil-rights issues and my grandfather worked on some labor-management issues."
After his father died when Mr. Tarbell was 14 years old, he said he had an epiphany of sorts, almost a calling to public life.
"I can remember this thing inside of me working. . . that it would be natural for me to become involved in public life."
He attended Withrow and St. Xavier high schools, but never graduated. He took some classes at the University of Cincinnati before moving to Cambridge, Mass., in 1963; he continued his studies for a time before taking a job as a commercial fisherman for a little more than a year.
"I was interested in working in hospitals and being involved in medical care, maybe even being a doctor, but academically, I didn't fare well," Mr. Tarbell said.
He returned to Cincinnati in 1967 after accepting a job as director of the Hyde Park Community Teen Center. He lived in Hyde Park, then moved to Avondale and made a name for himself in the early 1970s.
He was often at loggerheads with another activist, the late Buddy Gray, who worked tirelessly to make sure there was a place for the homeless. Mr. Gray was gunned down in 1996 in his office at the Drop Inn Shelter.
"I have had and have as much interest in improving the quality of life in the city and Over-The-Rhine -- in particular, low-income people," Mr. Tarbell said.
In 1976, he purchased Arnold's Bar and Grill, in the central business district, and in 1984, he bought Grammer's restaurant in Over-The-Rhine. In 1985, he was instrumental in starting the Over-The-Rhine Chamber of Commerce.
Today, Mr. Tarbell lives with his family in Clifton, but much of his heart and soul (and business) remain in the downtown.
Such a background naturally keeps him focused on issues of developing the neighborhoods around the downtown business core.
He believes the downtown, as he defines it, could become a shining example of an economically integrated neighborhood.
Mr. Tarbell said city officials and residents should embrace a downtown neighborhood that includes the communities of Pendleton, Over-The-Rhine and the West End as well as the downtown business district and its cultural homes, such as Music Hall and The Aronoff Center for the Arts.
"As goes the stability of the downtown, so goes the stability of the region," Mr. Tarbell said.
He believes this downtown neighborhood could become a model for other struggling neighborhoods.
The 55-year-old longtime Cincinnatian said the city has too many "specialized" pockets where, for instance, only the poor live or only the manufacturing is concentrated or an area that is strictly defined as the entertainment district.
Mr. Tarbell relishes the idea of having one of nine votes in council on such issues.
Many of his colleagues are looking forward to the fresh perspective Mr. Tarbell will bring to the office and acknowledge his love for the city.
Councilman Phil Heimlich said he looks forward to working with Mr. Tarbell, particularly on issues of residential and business development in the downtown area.
"Jim has been a strong advocate of making Over-The-Rhine into a mixed-(use) area. It isn't fair to make the area subsidized housing," said Mr. Heimlich. "It could generate business development. That's a point he's going to bring forcefully to council and I'm pleased."
Todd Portune, also a backer of a ballpark on Broadway Commons, would seemingly be a natural ally of Mr. Tarbell's.
"We've developed a very good working relationship on that issue and I have every reason to believe we would continue that on other business of the city," he said.
For now, Mr. Tarbell is dividing his days between getting situated in his third-floor offices at City Hall and studying issues during council's summer break.
He said he realizes there will be more issues than housing and the location of a baseball park.
"Once you step in to this office, you have a whole lot of other things to deal with," Mr. Tarbell said.
