A St. Louis native with a long resume in community building and neighborhood organizing will be the mayor's man on Vine Street.

        James A. Franklin started Friday as Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken's Vine Street coordinator — a new job that will help guide the mayor's top priority project in 2002.

James Franklin has been hired as Mayor Charlie Luken's right-hand man in redeveloping Vine Street. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

        His hiring comes just as City Council is debating whether to back out of a $770,000 deal with the Race Street Tenant Organization Cooperative to provide low-income housing on Vine Street. The vote, scheduled for Wednesday, could be a turning point in the mayor's efforts to turn Over-the-Rhine into a mixed-income neighborhood.

        Mr. Franklin said he understands the mayor's vision for Vine Street and will help fight for it — even if it means battling, cajoling and otherwise pressuring the low-income housing developer known as ReStoc.

        “I'm going to deal with ReStoc by helping to remind them what their own self-interest is. I think most enlightened people deal in their own self-interest,” he said.

        “They know what they bought the buildings for. They bought them to restore them. So let's get going. You can't just sit on buildings and wait — wait for what? For the eclipse to come? I want to see activity.”

        Mr. Franklin's job experience includes minority business development in St. Louis, employment and job training work in Kansas City, Kan., and community organizing in Chicago. He headed up local get-out-the-vote efforts for the Ohio Democratic Party in 1996 and is president of the Bond Hill Community Urban Redevelopment Corp.

        Mr. Luken said he chose Mr. Franklin as much for his strong personality as his resume.

        “Anyone who knows him knows he can connect with everybody,” he said. “He builds relationships, accomplishes wonders inside a complicated bureaucracy and knows how to get things done.”

        For now, Mr. Franklin will work out of a vacant room across from the mayor's and city manager's offices.

        Eventually, Mr. Franklin will help establish a neighborhood office. Mr. Franklin said it could become the prototype for satellite offices around the city.

        Mr. Franklin's hiring is Mr. Luken's first since a December change in government that gives him stronger powers. The mayor said in his State of the City speech last month that his record on Vine Street will be a “critical test” of the new government.

        The mayor's office did not release a salary for the new position. A spokesman said some details were still being worked out.
       

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