No real progress was made in this endeavor until the Ohio Historic Preservation Office, HUD, and Ohio Department of Development joined forces and suspended the city's first round of $1.6 million Neighborhood Stabilization Funds pending the city responding to these groups, including Downtown Mansfield which stepped up as a group with standing in preservation issues and in support of our efforts.
Even under this looming threat the city is floundering in its response. An invitation by the city to a "discussion" of a list of subjects bearing on our concerns and issues turned out to be a "presentation" last Thursday night about the necessities of demolitions in ridding the city of blight. As Saturday's News Journal article pointed out, we were pretty much muttering amongst ourselves as we left this "meeting". If the reporter had listened a little closer she would have heard the phrase "they still don't get it" more than once.
So what has the city's Community Development Department learned and what doesn't it yet "get":
They have learned that preservation interests have to be invited to participate and included in the process if a project involves federal tax dollars and would harm historic properties, even if the city has chosen in the past to ignore this and a similar process mirrored in the city's own Preservation Ordinance.
They have learned that our participation doesn't begin only after Community Development has determined that a property is historic, but begins with our participation in the determination of whether it is historic, and with the participation of the Ohio Historic Preservation Office in Columbus.
They have learned that the department of HUD and the Ohio Department of Development which hands out the federal dollars will support OHPO and our interests and intervene.
But they have not learned how to implement this process. They do not yet understand that "consulting party status" can and must be bestowed on groups with "standing" and that each must be dealt with by the city. While some individuals or groups with standing may wish to work through the Richland County Historical Society, which the city was literally forced to include in the new Programmatic Agreement, they are nevertheless not required to do so, nor would the RCHS be required to advocate for them. And the city will need to recognize this when they submit a plan to OHPO as part of the requirement to repair the process here in Mansfield.
At present, the city's hope that they have only been forced to open up the process to the RCHS will be dashed when they find out that Columbus will not accept a plan that curtails other groups with standing. It also remains to be seen whether our city administration understands that engaging consulting parties is a two-way street and that they need to share information with consulting parties.
The city has also not learned that "transparency" is only a prerequisite for this process, not its sum total, and we need to learn this distinction throughout the process of city government, not just preservation. The Preservation Act codifies public "participation"!
The city has not learned the implications that within the Mansfield community and city government there is a department that operates the biggest HUD program in the county and has had the educational resources of HUD and ODOD to help them properly implement federally funded programs over the last decade or more, and yet that department has expressed not only ignorance of the process but resistance to it, forcing preservation advocates, including the city's own Preservation Commission, housed under the auspices of that department, to look elsewhere for the expertise and support it needed.
Painting by Tim McKee 
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