Suit against city about road seems familiar
Your Honor,
We appreciate the opportunity to address the court further in this matter, in which a number of residents of the Little Turtle subdivision on the Northeast Side are suing the city, alleging that a road project in their neighborhood was undertaken not to improve traffic safety but to accommodate the wishes of a developer of land in the area.
Their allegations unfairly and inaccurately cast the city in the role of a manipulative entity that schemed for years to subvert public governance and to fulfill the desire of a single private interest who, our adversaries like to point out although we fail to see the relevance, has been a donor to the campaigns of several key city officials.
It’s a good story as they tell it, full of subterfuge and shady machinations. We submit that this tale is complete fiction.
What the plaintiffs assert, Your Honor, is unseemly and would be unprecedented behavior from the City of Columbus.
Imagine, if you can, such a scenario unfolding. You may not be able to, Your Honor, because the narrative would be so far-fetched as to challenge even the most active of imaginations.
To briefly sum up plaintiffs’ fallacious argument, the city set aside the interests of citizens to instead move an
existing public road out of the way of a developer who hopes to construct condominiums there. This, they would have you believe, has been in the works for years.
Honestly, Your Honor, what city operates like that?
It is as ridiculous as someone coming to you with a cockamamie tale about the city of Columbus removing a busy highway ramp from Route 315, right under the noses of the public, to clear the way for the new headquarters of some powerful entity in town such as, oh I don’t know, Ohiohealth.
What else would they have you believe? That the city would enlist a cadre of city and state officials who did everything in their power, and some things quite possibly not in their power, to demolish the ramp and donate the property to Ohiohealth, simply because it wanted to build something like an access road or a parking garage, or maybe both?
They would have you believe even more preposterously that the city held a public meeting where officials promised to listen to citizen concerns, when in reality they previously had discussed among themselves that visual displays for that very meeting would “show as little detail as possible for the site.”
What sort of city government that repeatedly pledges openness and transparency would do something as blatantly contrary as that?
No, Your Honor, rest assured that when the city assembled a fact sheet on the Little Turtle project in 2019, it was being sincere when it said the road there had deteriorated and need to be rebuilt. It was being honest when it advised, “Additionally, there is a lack of bicycle and pedestrian facilities and low visibility at the intersection of Longrifle Road and Little Turtle Way. This gives the city the opportunity to address all of these issues at the same time.”
Your Honor, this plan for Little Turtle Way is a public works project in the finest sense of the term, not a veiled gift to developer Mo Dioun, even if plaintiffs choose to read too much into Dioun’s hiring of former Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman to lobby on his behalf. Honestly, why that hiring is viewed so suspiciously by some is beyond me.
Likewise, we believe it is untoward to question why a transportation engineering firm that employed the husband of Jennifer Gallagher, the city’s public service director, was hired to prepare a traffic study for the Little Turtle proposal.
To suggest that such a relationship might be a conflict of interest would be like implying that, to return to my 315 ramp scenario, such a project demanded scrutiny simply because Mayor Andrew J. Ginther’s wife served as a longtime Ohiohealth executive.
There is so much more we could address here, Your Honor, but we trust in your wisdom and believe that you will side with the facts of this case, which clearly rest with us.
If you were to believe the fantasy concocted by the plaintiffs, well, all I might say in response is that we have a bridge to sell you.
Pardon me, Your Honor. My client wishes to advise me privately.
I apologize for that interruption. A brief correction if I may, Your Honor.
It appears my reference to the city having a bridge to sell was out of line.
That particular bridge, I’ve just been told, already has been promised to a third party. tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker
Imagine, if you can, such a scenario unfolding. You may not be able to, Your Honor, because the narrative would be so far-fetched as to challenge even the most active of imaginations.