Hate in Corporate Over-The - Rhine: "No Way buddy gray"

Commentary by Berta Lambert

Marge Hammelrath and Jim Tarbell have for nearly 20 years represented the under-the-rock persona of the anti-poor and anti-buddy gray attitudes of the art-bar corporation speculators of Main Street.

For several years, the old guard conservatives have been supplanted by the overt guerrilla activities of Chris Frutkin, Jennifer Sizer, and Peter Calloway. For nearly two years these folks along with their greed-ideology friends have disrupted the meetings of the 30-year-old Over-the-Rhine Community Council (ORCC). It has been necessary in recent months to: move its meeting place, appoint a sergeant-at-arm, tighten its still very open meeting process, video tape its meetings, and on several occasions request additional police presence at its meetings.

Chris Frutkin is the nephew of the wealthy Ed Burger. He is in his 30’s and an owner of several properties in the neighborhood. As a yuppie-entrepreneur he is a board member of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce and its clean-up subsidiary Impact.

Jennifer Sizer’s mother is a recent president of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber. She is the public relations person for the infamous Damon Lynch III’s so-called ULI coalition and she is the P.R person for both the O.T.R Chamber and Jim Verdins Pendelton Art Center (Verdin is responsible for the 13th St. phallic Corporate Bell Tower vis-a-vis his Verdin Bell Co.).

None of the rascals named above is a O.T.R resident. Peter Calloway, however, is a resident. His personality seems driven by this current fashion of right-wing entrepreneurial spirit beliefs. At ORCC’s October meeting he was video taped thanking buddy gray’s friends taking down the hate No Way buddy gray stickers and announcing the existence of a No Way buddy gray organization.

The reader will find it useful to know the sticker with a telephone number, remains on post throughout the city, is a third generation effort. It was preceded by nine months: 1st by a gray and black silver dollar sized Stop buddy gray sticker, and then by a fluorescent green or sometimes reddish hand sized circular stick-on.

If you called the number on the most recent sticker, which was disconnected by 10a.m. the day buddy was shot, you were invited to push 3 or 1 for separate hate messages. The recordings consisted largely of lies, misinformation and inferences of impropriety concerning papers in the possession of City Hall.

Frutkin, Sinzer and Calloway bear the moral responsibility for the hate campaign and the climate of fear for buddy gray’s personal safety.

Post script: Within twenty-four hours of buddy’s death, stickers appeared in O.T.R which read; ‘Where there is a Wilbur there is a way’. Wilbur was the name of the man that killed buddy.

Copyright NEOCH and the Homeless Grapevine published March 1997-April 1997 Issue 20