Berding: We Need A Retreat

Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Berding held a press conference today - a good day to do it, news-wise, because very little else is going on - to say that he'll be introducing a motion next week to mandate a retreat for council members, Mayor Mark Mallory and City Manager Milton Dohoney.


Berding says public safety and attracting new business would be among his top items to discuss for an "action agenda." City officials stopped having retreats about four years ago, he said, and shouldn't have. He'd like to see the retreat happen in the next couple of months, possibly as a birthday present for himself. (His birthday's Feb. 8)

"I want to go beyond talking about a good idea," he said. "I want to execute a good idea."

He says he already has started looking for the $2,000 or less needed to rent a location and hire a facilitator, that he wouldn't expect city money to cover it.

In council's last retreat in 2002, members went to Hueston Woods State Park outside of Oxford for two days. It was council's first retreats ince 1996. Two visions for the Cincinnati of 2020 were laid out: Cincinnati will stay true to its heritage, remaining as a beer-brewing, family-friendly town that honors its Porkopolis past; and Cincinnati will become a more cosmopolitan city with eclectic neighborhoods, multi-lingual street signs and a WNBA franchise. That retreat was paid for with a grant from the Knowledge Works Foundation.

A stumbling block for organizing retreats in the past: having them in front of the media. Since Cincinnati's charter doesn't allow for executive sessions, any retreat would be open to reporters.


At that last one, former Vice Mayor Jim Tarbell begged then-City Hall reporter Gregory Korte not to enter the room during the talk, saying Korte's presence would hurt officials' ability to speak openly.

The Enquirer covered it anyway.