Friday, December 17, 1999

Council president to step down

---

Avondale leader to work for Luken

BY EARNEST WINSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Bernadette Watson, president of the Avondale Community Council for the last 2¹/₂ years, will step down from the volunteer post at a council meeting Tuesday.

        Mrs. Watson said she decided to resign as president to avoid potential conflicts with her new job.

        Beginning Jan. 3, she will become a legislative aide for Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken. The job will require her to work with the city's 52 neighborhoods.

        She said her two years as council president and the year on the council's board of trustees before that will be beneficial at her new job.

        “I'll be able to bring some real people issues and needs to the mayor's ears,” said Mrs. Watson, who works for a mental health agency in Avondale.

        Mrs. Watson is no stranger to City Hall. She was councilwoman Minette Cooper's council aide from 1995 to 1997.

        Roscoe Fultz, council vice president, will replace Mrs. Watson, and Perry Ward, the executive chairman, will become vice president.

        Mrs. Watson said her proudest accomplishment as president has been improving Avondale, Cincinnati's fourth-largest neighborhood with more than 18,000 residents.

        “Working with the recrea tion department to get Hirsch (Community Center) renovated and the new aquatic center that we are going to be getting (in June),” she said.

        “Seeing our new boys club going up. (But) I guess more than anything is the empowerment zone designation from HUD.”

        Led by Avondale's effort, the Department of Housing and Urban Development in January designated Avondale, Mount Auburn, Corryville, Clifton/University/Fairview Heights, Walnut Hills, Evanston, West End, Queensgate and Over-the-Rhine as empowerment zones. Each neighborhood will receive funding from HUD over the next 10 years, she said.

        Mrs. Watson said she would have liked to have had a larger and more active membership in the council, which has 175 financial members.

        She said her resignation is not related to the legal battle between the council and the Community Public Safety Ad vocate Group, formerly the Avondale Public Safety Task Force.

        The council sued the group— which fights crime, drugs and blight in Avondale — and Tom Jones, its chairman, saying he gave businesses and residents the false impression the task force was part of the community council because Avondale was in its name.

        The council claims Mr. Jones has been receiving funding from traditional donors of the council, but Mr. Jones says the council just wants control over his group.

       

---

Flurry of threats plague Tristate schools
Accused officer's record mixed
Reburial ends family's long ordeal
City, strip bars settle on regulations
Hospitals and doctors busy, but it's not flu
Justin case in higher court
Lucasville payments held up by state
Rapist should stay in prison, prosecutor says
Restored fountain changing color
Teacher takes gifts to land where he was slave
Queen City's moments to shine reflected in book
Reducing mistakes in medicine
Vote for Top Events of the Century
Ballet planning debut of original production
Burbank calling it quits next year
GET TO IT
Man needs help furnishing own place
Opera delays 'Aida' redesign, bid for grant
Teaching is what she loves to do
Walnut Hills pantry open again Saturday
Colerain to ask voters to replace road levy
Council president to step down
Crescent Springs singled out for high drunk-driving arrests
Fairfield schools head to retire
Indiana shooting called likely suicide
Judge urges deal in methadone fight
Mason, schools agree on terms
Paul Voinovich's firm did shoddy work, jury says
Porch-light beacons speed aid to seniors
Six-laner to replace historic span in Hamilton
TRISTATE DIGEST
22 who brought conventions to Northern Ky. to be honored