By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Four neighborhood projects in Pleasant Ridge, College Hill, Avondale and Clifton Heights would get $44,314 in city funding under recommendations from a City Hall committee.

The Safe and Clean Neighborhood Advisory Committee, which will disperse $2 million in grants through 2004, will present the latest round of funding to Cincinnati City Council's Neighborhood and Public Services Committee today.

The projects are:

• Pleasant Ridge: $34,000 to build a fence around the Glengate Meadows apartment complex. Police say the complex, which is in foreclosure, has been overrun by drug dealing. Fencing would prevent easy access from the woods and railroad tracks.

• College Hill: $4,536 to be used by the College Hill Gardeners to buy cleanup tools and uniforms and launch an educational campaign to crack down on littering, loitering and unkempt properties in the business district.

• Avondale: $4,332 to buy mowers and other lawn equipment for the 1919 Paradigm Ministry. The equipment will be used in a community service project for young adults to clean up Burton Avenue, Greenwood Avenue, Martin Luther King Drive and Reading Road.

• Clifton Heights: $1,446 to create an Adopt-a-Block program and buy a pressure washer and other equipment to clean graffiti and remove weeds and litter.

The projects are funded out of the city's $54 million Anthem Inc. "windfall" - a neighborhood development fund set up after the city sold its stock in the health insurance provider.

---

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com