ALBANY, N.Y. - A lesbian former cadet from Ohio, who left West Point saying she couldn't live a lie, said she is giving up her dream of graduating from the academy after she was rejected for readmission yesterday because of the lingering military ban on gays.
Katherine Miller said in a statement that she plans to graduate from Yale University, which she's now attending, and join the military through officer candidate school.
"Although I am deeply saddened that I will not be readmitted to West Point, I understand and respect the decision," said the 21-year-old from Findlay, in northwestern Ohio.
She said that although she had always wanted to serve alongside her comrades as an equal, "I harbor no resentment toward the military, and I look forward to the day they deem it appropriate for me to put the uniform back on."
Miller left West Point last year and soon became a public face of the effort to repeal the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell," which bars gays and lesbians from serving openly. But she missed the storied upstate New York academy and applied as the government moved to repeal.
In announcing Miller's rejection, West Point issued a statement explaining that it couldn't accept Miller because of the still-existing ban but hinting that re-entry wouldn't be a problem for her in the future.
"While at the academy Ms. Miller remained in good standing and had done exceptionally well academically, militarily and physically," said Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, director of public affairs at West Point.
"The choice to seek re-admission is available to her once the repeal process is completed."
''My role at Equality Maryland will be to help stabilize and to move things forward and to prepare the organization for their new executive director,'' she says in an exclusive interview with Metro Weekly.
The board of directors at Equality Maryland announced today that Bowman, former director of programs and services at Equality Federation and a founder of Equality Ohio, will serve as the organization's interim executive director.
Bowman tells Metro Weekly that four-month tenure will not be a permanent one.
''I absolutely have no desire to make it a permanent thing,'' she says. ''I think it benefits the organization to have an interim come in that doesn't have an interest in becoming the full-time executive director.''
The announcement from Equality Maryland comes less than one week after Equality Maryland's former executive director, Morgan Meneses-Sheets, told Metro Weekly she was fired from the organization, though the board continues to dispute that claim.
The change in leadership occurred a few weeks after the conclusion of the 2011 legislative session, which saw Equality Maryland advance marriage equality legislation past the Senate floor, and to the House floor where it was ultimately killed. Similarly, gender-identity anti-discrimination legislation made it through the House and on to the Senate where it was ultimately shelved until next year.
In an April 28 statement released to Metro Weekly, Chuck Butler, board chair of the Equality Maryland board, said the organization is ''thrilled.''
"Equality Maryland is thrilled to have a nationally known and respected leader at the helm of the organization.''
Bowman currently lives in Central Ohio with her partner of the past 18 years, their three dogs and five cats. She plans on living in Clarksville, Md., and also wants to take part in D.C.'s September National Triathlon event.
She has 22 years of organizational leadership experience, both with non-profit and for-profit organizations, as well as government sectors. Most recently, Bowman served as the campaign manager for Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher's U.S. Senate campaign in Ohio.
''What I stepped into for the last portion of his campaign, in many ways are similar to what I'll be working on at Equality Maryland,'' Bowman says, ''that being some of the external PR things that are happening right now, some of the challenges in seeing the organization, and in our case it was the campaign, move forward and creating new buy in to what the vision was.''
Bowman says her new endeavor will also provide an opportunity to ''grow'' the board, the relationships between local and national partners, fundraising, as well as developing a plan for legislative movement in 2012 and keeping that at the forefront of all other priorities.
''That's going to mean we pull in the community, our national and local partner organizations, and the legislators as well, and develop a very strong plan that will make sure that when the new session convenes next year, everything is positioned to move forward,'' she says.
Toni Broaddus, former executive director of the Equality Federation during Bowman's tenure as director of programs and services there, lauds Equality Maryland's decision to bring Bowman on board.
''I think it was a great decision for them to do this, given the difficult times they're facing in Maryland right now,'' she says.
Broaddus began working with Bowman in 2005 when Bowman was serving as the founding executive director of Equality Ohio. Bowman then became a board member of the Equality Federation before coming on board as a staff member in 2010.
''Lynne really understands and believes in the value and the role of statewide equality organizations,'' Broaddus says.
''She understands the political context in which they work, the context of a community that is demanding equality where progress is sometimes still slow, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done.
''She understands how to work with community members, legislators, coalitions and she understands how to work with boards of directors. So she comes in to this interim position with a strong skill set and a strong experience both in the movement and specifically in doing this work for equality at the statewide level.''
It's a big task, and one that Bowman says she is up for, describing herself as a ''high-energy person.''
''I'm a high-energy person who has a passion to see equality for LGBT people and our families. I'm very driven by social justice, by a need to see social justice in the world, in whatever part I can play in that, and I'm a Sagittarius, and I am the epitome of a Sagittarius.''
The company, which also developed the Dakota condominium building in the Short North and owns nightclubs and restaurants, cited assets between $1 million and $10 million and debts between $10 million and $50 million.
Apex listed as its largest debt $5.1 million to the Community Loan Fund, which loaned the company money to get started on the project, which was to have been the Short North's larges condominium project, with 135 condominiums in two 11-story towers on the corner of High Street and Hubbard Avenue.
The company also owes Berardi & Partners architectural firm $503,312, along with several other service providers. In addition, Apex owes about $1 million to an estimated 60 people who put down deposits for condominiums that were never built.
About 20 of those would-be buyers have sued the company and its principals, Raymond Brown, Michael Council and Rajesh Lahoti.
The partners unveiled Ibiza in 2006 as "the embodiment of an idealized city life." Among the planned amenities were a roof-deck pool, concierge service, attached parking and a fitness center.
Less than two years, later, they started taking deposits for the units, which sold for $159,999 to $1,549,999. Most buyers placed 5 percent down on their units.
But by the end of 2008, as the housing market further eroded, the project's largest proposed lender, Huntington Bank, lost interest in the project. Apex and its sister company, Arms Properties, continued to look for suitors but none came forth.
Last summer, Apex announced that it was working with investors to convert the project to apartments, but that plan also fell through, and last month, Columbus Schiff Capital Group took over control of the site.
WASHINGTON — Home prices are falling in most major U.S. cities, and at least 10 major markets are at their lowest point since the housing bubble burst.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index, released Tuesday, shows price declines in 19 cities from January to February. The index fell for the seventh straight month. Prices fell at a faster rate in 11 markets in February compared with the previous month.
High unemployment, stricter lending rules and fears that prices will fall further are among the reasons why few people are buying and selling homes. A record number of foreclosures are forcing down home prices in most metro areas, and prices are expected to keep falling through this year.
"There is evidence that potential sellers are holding their properties off the market, waiting for housing prices to stop falling," said Bricklin Dwyer, an analyst at BNP Paribas.
Detroit was the only market to show a monthly gain, although the Motor City is one of five cities where home prices are now below their January 2000 levels.
Prices in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tampa are all at their lowest point since 2006 or 2007, at the height of the housing boom. The cities with the steepest declines from January were Minneapolis, San Francisco, Chicago and Miami.
In many depressed markets, a significant percentage of buyers are really investors and private equity firms looking to cash in on cheap real estate.
The housing sector is struggling even while much of the economy is recovering slowly but steadily. Some of the worst declines in home prices are in cities hit hardest by unemployment and foreclosures.
Foreclosures are expected to rise to 1.2 million this year as many banks revisit thousands of foreclosure cases, spurred into action by federal regulators who have ordered top-to-bottom reviews of how foreclosures were carried out over the past two years.
"It's hard to sell when buyers have the leverage and foreclosures continue to create a gap between distressed sale prices and non-distressed sale prices," said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Securities. More than 90% of homeowners say it's a bad time to sell their home, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers.
The Case-Shiller index measures sales of select homes in those cities compared to January 2000. For each of the 20 metro areas it studies, the index provides an updated three-month moving average price. By measuring the sales price of the same homes over time, the index attempts to gauge true market values.
| Metro area | Feb. 2011 index | Chg. from Jan. | Chg. From 2010 |
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| Atlanta | 99.47 | -0.5% | -5.8% |
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| Boston | 149.86 | -1.5% | -1.0% |
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| Charlotte | 110.21 | -1.2% | -5.0% |
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| Chicago | 113.26 | -2.2% | -7.6% |
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| Cleveland | 98.59 | -0.8% | -2.9% |
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| Dallas | 113.86 | -0.2% | -1.2% |
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| Denver | 121.26 | -1.2% | -2.6% |
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| Detroit | 67.97 | 1.0% | -3.7% |
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| Las Vegas | 98.28 | -1.0% | -5.0% |
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| L.A. | 168.25 | -1.0% | -2.1% |
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| Miami | 138.44 | -2.0% | -6.2% |
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| Minneapolis | 109.93 | -3.1% | -8.3% |
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| New York | 165.19 | -0.5% | -3.1% |
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| Phoenix | 100.81 | -0.7% | -8.4% |
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| Portland | 133.66 | -1.6% | -7.0% |
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| San Diego | 155.05 | -1.3% | -1.8% |
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| S. Francisco | 129.96 | -2.6% | -3.5% |
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| Seattle | 132.85 | -1.9% | -7.5% |
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| Tampa | 128.38 | -1.2% | -6.0% |
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| Washington | 181.33 | -0.1% | 2.7% |
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| Composite | 139.27 | -1.1% | -3.3% |
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| Source: Standard & Poor's and Fiserv The indexes have a base value of 100 in January 2000; so a current index of 150 equals a 50% appreciation since January 2000 for a typical home in the metro area. | |||
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 25, 2011
Michael Cole-Schwartz |
HRC Statement on King & Spalding’s Decision to Drop DOMA Defense
WASHINGTON – Upon news that the law firm of King & Spalding has filed a motion to withdraw from defense of the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act – Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, issued the following statement:
“King & Spalding has rightly chosen to put principle above politics in dropping its involvement in the defense of this discriminatory and patently unconstitutional law. We are pleased to see the firm has decided to stand on the right side of history and remain true to its core values.
“Speaker Boehner is likely to pursue continued defense of this odious law. However, law firms that value LGBT equality should remain committed to those values.”
The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.
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Columbus is working on a plan to notify neighborhoods earlier when street-sweeping crews are due.
Streets in some neighborhoods, such as German Village, Italian Village, Harrison West and those near Ohio State University, are swept each month and have signs posted listing the days when people need to move their cars. But others don't have the signs.
Such is the case on E. Oakland Avenue, where a street sweeper went through on April 8.
The city notified the news media the day before that streets in the University District would be swept. Roger Deal came across the notice on the Dispatch website that night, but that didn't give him and other leaders of the Northwood Park neighborhood time to tell residents to move their cars.
So he watched the sweeper run down the middle of the street, unable to reach the leaves and debris along the curb.
"They really didn't clean anything," Deal said. "It's a waste of time, a waste of tax dollars. We get no benefit at all."
The city's public-service director, Mark Kelsey, has asked his staff to develop a plan to notify neighborhoods earlier, said Patti Austin, planning and operations administrator in the city's traffic division.
Officials might work closer with area commissions and civic associations to get the word out, she said.
Northwood Park leaders were particularly unhappy because this likely is the only time their streets will be swept this year. In the past, the city also has cleaned the streets during Ohio State's spring break or in June after most students are gone, when fewer cars were parked on the streets.
Resident Don Newton would call the city to work out a date, giving neighbors time to post signs and distribute fliers to let people know what day their street would be swept.
But this year, Austin said, city crews are tied up fixing potholes and 60 miles of alleys, and the city has fewer workers and equipment for sweeping.
The city's 311 call center didn't receive any complaints from other neighborhoods, public service spokesman Rick Tilton said.
Jones said he has to watch his step for dead pigeons and waste from the flocks on the underpass above. He wondered who is responsible for cleaning the sidewalks and replacing lights that don't work.
"It just doesn't seem like anybody goes under there and tries to clean it out," said Jones, a retiree who lives in Victorian Village. "It's just bothered me. I figured here in the spring they would come out and clean up."
The underpass rafters, where the pigeons roost, and its walls are kept up by the Ohio Department of Transportation, but the sidewalk and road are the charge of city workers, said Columbus Public Service spokesman Rick Tilton.
City crews clean that area at least once a year, and workers fixing potholes or sweeping streets report dead animals that need to be removed from roads and sidewalks.
Tilton said a crew was scheduled to power-wash the sidewalks and remove dead animals last night.
ODOT spokeswoman Nancy Burton said the department will begin its spring cleaning in May, which includes power-washing the underpass walls. The department also will see whether lights need to be replaced.
Maronda Homes, central Ohio's third-largest homebuilder, has filed for bankruptcy.
The company's primary operations - Maronda Homes, based outside Pittsburgh, Maronda Homes of Ohio and Maronda Homes of Cincinnati - filed for Chapter 11 protection on Monday.
Maronda Homes of Ohio, which oversees the company's central Ohio operations, cited assets and liabilities between $100million and $500million.
In the filings, Maronda asked that the court allow it to use cash collateral to continue operations while it resolved a dispute with its lenders.
Maronda said it owes about $98million on a $210million line of credit held by 14 financial institutions led by Bank of America and Wells Fargo but also including Huntington National Bank, PNC Bank, Fifth Third and KeyBank.
Maronda accuses its lenders of insisting on changing the terms of its financial agreement, substantially raising the cost of the borrowing to Maronda. The homebuilder said it renegotiated an agreement that all lenders agreed to except Huntington, leaving it no choice but bankruptcy.
Maronda, which has built homes since 1972, specializes in modestly priced homes targeted at first-time buyers. The company has for years been the area's third-largest homebuilder behind M/I Homes and Dominion. Last year, Maronda sold 137 homes in central Ohio, at an average price of $165,900, according to Binns Real Estate.
The company did not return a call seeking comment, but it said in its filing that it had begun to recover from the slump when its problems with lenders arose.
"Like every homebuilder in the United States, Maronda suffered a serious downturn in its business when the mortgage lending crisis rippled through the home construction industry beginning in 2007-2008," it stated in court filings.
"Unlike many other homebuilders which did not survive, however, Maronda was able to weather the consequences of the industry downturn ... Maronda's business has survived and begun to show signs of improvement: March 2011 was the best sales month for Maronda since the 2009 federally subsidized buyer tax credit expired."
Maronda of Ohio listed 20 unsecured creditors, many of them based in central Ohio. Among the companies owed money are DR Grading & Excavation in Grove City; Majestic Drywall Services of Columbus; Strait & Lamp Lumber Co. of Hebron; and Gale Insulation in Columbus.
Stonewall Columbus is seeking your help to identify Central Ohio LGBT senior adults for recognition as "Trailblazers" during the annual Columbus Pride celebration on June 17, 18 and 19, 2011. All LGBT senior adults who will be 70 years of age by December 31, 2011 and are a current or former resident of Central Ohio are eligible to participate.
"We owe a debt of gratitude to all of our LGBT senior adults, who lived, worked and loved during a time of great challenge for gay people and we hope to show our appreciation with this recognition." Karla Rothan, Stonewall Columbus Executive Director said.
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Stonewall Columbus plans to recognize LGBT senior adults in several ways throughout the Pride weekend festivities:
All honorees will be invited to ride together in the parade on June 18, 2011 and each will be recognized by all those in attendance as a "Trailblazer."
A special Trailblazer's Lounge will be open at Goodale Park during the Pride Festival for all honorees. The Trailblazer's Lounge will be reserved for honored seniors and their guests and will feature food and beverages, live music and a private portable restroom.
All honorees and a guest will be invited to attend the Pride Brunch on June 19, 2011 free of charge, where they will be recognized for their life's journey and contributions which made Central Ohio a better place for all of us.
To participate -- please submit the name, address, telephone number and e-mail address for the senior adult to Rob Berger at thurber1961@aol.com. If you are nominating someone other than yourself, please also provide your contact information. All TraiIblazers must be 70 years of age by December 31, 2011 and be a current or former resident of Central Ohio. Participants will be invited to participate in all events, but participation is not required.
For more information or to submit a Trailblazer nomination, please contact Rob Berger at thurber1961@aol.com or 614-487-9306.
