Spring Cleaning

We had a great turnout at our regular meeting this month. Over 25 people came out to the Liederkranz to spend time with their neighbors. As usual around here, Maggie the dog happily wagged her tail all night long and a few folks enjoyed drinks at the bar.

Our guest speaker, Roane Smothers from the City of Dayton, gave a nice refresher course on the guidelines for owning property in a historic district. His main point was to remind everyone that ANY exterior work requires a call to the City. He can handle most situations, like minor repairs or painting, over the phone. Roane can be reached at 333-3670.

In other news, Tom is looking for volunteers this weekend to do some Spring Cleaning in St. Anne's Hill. If you'd like to help, bring your work gloves this Saturday, April 5 and meet at the corner of High and Josie Streets at 9 a.m. The team will take a relaxing walk around the neighborhood to pick up litter.

At the meeting we also talked about some of the great events coming up, so mark your calendars and look for more information in the April Newsletter, which should be in your mailbox this week. We'll have more information here on the blog, too.

• April 5 - Spring Cleaning Walk
• April 14 - Mayor's Walk in SAH
• April 27 - SAH Archive Event with WSU
• May 6 - General meeting
• May (?) - Social Event
• June 3 - General meeting
• June 21 - SAH Garden & Art Tour
• June 28 - Trash & Treasure Sale

If you have any ideas, questions, or just need more information, please feel free to post your comments here!

An Invitation

Please join St. Anne's Hill Historic Society for our next meeting!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 7 p.m
Liederkranz Hall - Lower Level
Corner of Fifth and High Streets

This month we have invited a special guest:

Roane Smothers, Principal Planner
Department of Planning and Community Development
City of Dayton, Ohio

He is the City staff person responsible for providing "Certificate of Appropriateness" (COA) to property owners doing exterior renovations or repairs in historic districts. Mr. Smothers will give us a refresher on the City's guidelines for the COA process and answer any questions we might have for him.

The new fundraising stickers will be available for sale. As always, we'll also talk about some of our projects and upcoming activities for the neighborhood. Here's just a few to keep on your calendar:

• April 14: "Mayor's Walk" with Mayor McLin and City administration;
• May 6: Next general meeting
• June 21: St. Anne's Hill Garden & Art Tour

If you'd like to become a member or join our mailing list, just write to news@stanneshill.org or stop by the meeting.

See you there!

Creative Class

We have a lot of creative people in St. Anne's Hill.... musicians, singers, painters, and even some bloggers. Whether it's a full-time profession or just a hobby, there is no shortage of inspiration here. Perhaps then you've heard of the "Creative Class" initiative. Just in case you haven't, here is a quick overview.

The term "Creative Class" comes from Professor Richard Florida, who has become internationally known as a leading thinker and researcher for the new economy of the 21st century. Basically, his main idea is that the successful cities of the future will be the ones who attract the creative class - that is, anyone who uses their brainpower to improve society.

So be it a graphic artist, computer programmer, scientist, or architect, these creative people will be the key to a successful regional economy. Simple enough? Ok, maybe not!

Anyway, here in Dayton there is a new initiative to build on Florida's work and get our own Creative Class mobilized in Dayton. This is a new grassroots effort, so there are plenty of ways to get involved.

For more information, check out this post and then this post on MostMetro.com about the program and how to participate. Here is another good page with lots of links.

For a concrete example of what the creative class is doing in Dayton, check out the Dayton Circus and look for their upcoming events around downtown.

Be Creative, Dayton!

Doebler's to Close

Some bad news for the neighborhood today...

High prices force bakery to close
By Tim Tresslar, Staff Writer
Dayton Daily News
Saturday, March 22, 2008

DAYTON — Few would envy the choice Holly Wabler faced earlier this month. Wabler, the owner of Doebler's Bakery, decided that she will close her specialty cake shop on April 19, ending its run of nearly 46 years.

The bakery's profits have declined, gnawed away by skyrocketing costs for flour and other ingredients, Wabler said. Combine that with the effort it takes to run a business, and Wabler said she realized it was time to close the 510 Xenia Ave. bakery.

"It was very difficult," she said.

Others in the industry also find themselves saddled with soaring overhead. The cost of flour, eggs and milk as well as crude oil and natural gas are buffeting the country's bakers, said Lee Sanders, a spokeswoman with the American Bakers Association. For example, flour prices have climbed 50 percent since January and 150 percent since May 2007, she said.

In Wabler's case, she has spent most of her life working at the bakery founded in 1962 by her parents, Robert and Geraldine Doebler.

"They say I was icing cupcakes when I was 4 years old, standing on a bucket," she said. Later, as a student at Wright State University, she'd arrive before dawn and work for hours before going to class. In 1983, she bought the business from her parents.

She continued to operate it as a full-service bakery until 1997 when she switched to baking cakes. This allowed her to start her day later and to cut back her hours, freeing her to take care of her ailing mother and her eldest daughter.

My wife and I bought our wedding cake there, and it was wonderful.... what little of it we had, anyway.

Predator Loses House

Recently, there has been some discussion about what we as a community could do if a sexual predator was living in the neighborhood. According to the Dayton Daily News, this could happen:

Court takes sex predator's home
By Doug Page, Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008

ENGLEWOOD — Chances are sexual predator Brian R. Gillingham won't be returning to Englewood after serving his 11-year sentence for gross sexual imposition of a 6-year-old boy. Last month, the U.S. District Court approved the forfeiture of Gillingham's house to the federal government.

"I believe this was the proper outcome," assistant U.S. Attorney Pamela Stanek said.

"We frequently use the federal forfeiture laws in child pornography cases to take the instruments of the crime — computers, printers, video cameras," she said. "But this is the first time we've taken a house."

Gillingham, 41, was convicted in 2004 of the sex charge, plus seven counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor and one of possession of criminal tools — the computer.

"He can't come back to our neighborhood," said Mark Brownfield, the city's police chief.

Score one for the good guys on this one. Maybe this will be a new trend.

Sadly, even the suburbs are not safe from predators.
Just ask "Dateline NBC."