By John Johnston
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Melva Gweyn visits Westwood's Epworth Avenue, one of her favorite streets, in January 2001. That month Westwood Concern led a bus tour for city officials to see good and bad areas in the city's largest neighborhood. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

At first it has the feel of a festive neighborhood gathering, complete with snacks and soda pop and spiced cider. But once a Westwood Concern meeting gears up, co-founders Mary Kuhl and Melva Gweyn crash the party with equal parts anger and resolve.

The west-side neighborhood group's invited guest is a Cincinnati police lieutenant who helps oversee 23 investigators in the Street Corner anti-drug unit. He tells of open-air drug deals occurring at some 400 places in the city. He rattles off several hot spots in Westwood, the city's largest neighborhood, which has seen a 28 percent rise in serious crime since 1999. He says most of the city's shootings and homicides are drug-related.

Ms. Kuhl has heard enough. "It makes me sick," she fumes to about five dozen residents, less than half a normal turnout because of bad weather. "It makes me want to puke to think that there are (so few) guys out there doing drug work. I don't understand why there's not more. Why?"

Then it's Ms. Gweyn's turn. Standing with arms folded defiantly, she confronts the lone city councilman in attendance, David Crowley.

"Sir, we are in a war. We're losing our neighborhoods. We're already losing our freedom. . . . We need to do something drastic. . . . We need some kind of laws that will tackle these people who have taken over our neighborhoods and are destroying them."

It's vintage Mary and Melva. Since the first Westwood Concern meeting in November 2000, they've been rallying residents and pestering city officials with one goal in mind: a safe, clean neighborhood. In the process they've thrust themselves into some of the thorniest issues facing Cincinnati, including:

Melva Gweyn (left) and Mary Kuhl, co-founders of Westwood Concern, listen in December as Metropolitan Housing Authority officials discuss the plan to demolish the English Woods public housing complex. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

Low-income housing. Westwood Concern's opposition to Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority's (CMHA) plan to demolish the English Woods public housing complex is rooted in their belief that more low-income residents will move into already overburdened Westwood, bringing crime and blight with them.

Race relations. Critics see the group's opposition to low-income housing as an attempt to keep more African-Americans out of a neighborhood where 33 percent of residents are black. And some say the group should do more to reach out to blacks, few of whom attend Westwood Concern meetings.

Police-community relations. Westwood Concern was the first group to publicly support the police after the April 2001 riots, Ms. Gweyn says. "It wasn't a matter of whispering. Somebody had to yell, `We support the police!' " The group has held two Hands Across District 3 rallies for officers.

Official recognition

City officials - from council members to the mayor to the police - recognize that these two moms-with-an-attitude have created an organization to be reckoned with.

"I'm sure anyone on (city) council will tell you it's the best attended community meeting in the entire city," says Mayor Charlie Luken, who says he's gone to half a dozen meetings. They're held at Westwood First Presbyterian Church and typically draw upwards of 150.

WHO THEY ARE

Mary Kuhl Age: 41 Occupation: Customer service, Cinergy; consultant, Pampered Chef Home: Westwood resident for 14 years Family: A son, 16 Education: Mother of Mercy High School Current project: "Urging people to stand up and take their neighborhood back from litter, crime and Section 8 (low-income) housing, instead of running to the suburbs." Melva Gweyn Age: 53 Occupation: Full-time housewife, mother Home: Westwood resident for 27 years Family: Married to an office equipment salesman; children ages 13, 33, 34 and 35 Education: Aiken High School Current project: "Tackling problems to reach our goal of living in a clean, safe neighborhood."

MEETING

The next Westwood Concern meeting is 7 p.m. Jan. 28 at Westwood First Presbyterian Church, 3011 Harrison Ave., Westwood. Information about the group and its activities can be found on its Web site home.fuse.net/WestwoodConcern.

"I give (Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn) a great deal of credit for focusing the attention of the city on issues of crime and blight in their neighborhood, and doing something about it," the mayor says. "I think they're actually responsible for the entire city moving in that direction. Some of the efforts they began in Westwood have spilled over to other communities.

"Westwood needs Mary and Melva."

Such praise isn't likely to go to their heads. The pair isn't easily impressed by "wonks," as they call city officials. Nor are they likely to ease up on wonks they think can help them, having learned in two years how to wade through the bureaucracy of City Hall.

"We got the pit bull mentality," Ms. Kuhl says.

They complement each other nicely. Ms. Kuhl, at 41, is assertive, no-nonsense, get-to-the-point. Her rapid-fire, off-the-cuff comments come straight from the heart. Ms. Gweyn, 53, is no less passionate but often displays a softer, friendlier, more deliberate side. (Serving snacks and refreshments at Westwood Concern meetings was her idea.) She often prefers to write out her comments before she speaks to a group. She proudly calls herself a housewife, and attends lots of meetings affecting Westwood, from council committees to CMHA.

"I can't do that," says Ms. Kuhl, who works fulltime and moonlights, "but I can make a million damn phone calls where I make somebody's butt hurt; where they pick up the phone and go, `Damn, it's her again. Somebody get hold of her and tell her to stop calling us.' "

Some critics say they come on too strong. But there's no question the twosome has succeeded in being a voice for Westwood.

"I think people like the almost maverick approach they have," Mr. Luken says. "It's not the typical neighborhood council. It's a grassroots effort in the purest sense."

The typical neighborhood council is where Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn met 21/2 years ago. Both were disturbed by unsettling changes in Westwood.

Ms. Gweyn was born in Kansas but has lived in Cincinnati most of her life, including the last 27 years in the same house on Harrison Avenue. Her involvement in neighborhood issues began with young people trespassing in her front yard, trampling her flowers and getting in her face.

"First I got this thought about moving," she says, "and it hurt me so much to think I was going to have to move. So it was, am I going to do that? Or am I going to fight?"

She had overcome adversity before. When her first husband left her more than 30 years ago, she had two young children and was pregnant with a third. After her baby was born, she supported her family by working as a cocktail waitress and a model.

"It was very difficult for a while," says Ms. Gweyn, who remarried in 1975 and now has three adult children and a 13-year-old. "You go through a time in life when the only power you have is to cry. If you can get through that . . . life doesn't look so insurmountable."

Mary Kuhl (pronounced "cool"), who grew up in Green Township, also knows the challenges of being a single parent. She never married and has a son, age 16. She works outdoors as a Cinergy employee in customer service; she also moonlights as a kitchen consultant for Pampered Chef.

Fourteen years ago she went looking for an older home, close to the city. "I wanted an integrated neighborhood," she says, "because that's what life is."

She's had no serious problems on her Westwood street, but over time she began to see crime, loitering and blight seep into other parts of the neighborhood. That's what led her to a meeting of Westwood Civic Association, where in June 2000 she met a kindred spirit in Ms. Gweyn.

Their concerns were pooh-poohed at the sparsely attended meeting, Ms. Kuhl says, because "if you talk about it, that means you acknowledge there's a problem." She says some civic association members were worried that raising such issues publicly would result in an exodus from the neighborhood. But "for sale" signs already were springing up.

"Everyone said, you can't say this and you can't do that," Ms. Gweyn says. "Frankly, we just do what makes sense and is right."

Somebody at the association suggested they hold a town meeting. The women exchanged phone numbers and started planning.

"We were nobodies," Ms. Kuhl says. "We're still nobodies. We're just average Joe Schlep in the neighborhood."

But gradually, the nobodies made themselves known. They attended city council meetings, popped into council offices, met with police. Still do.

"They call all the time," says District 3 police Capt. Andrew Raabe. "I have no problem with that. They're demanding, but at the same time, they've been very supportive of us."

First project: Bus tour

Before their first Westwood Concern meeting in November 2000, the women canvassed the neighborhood passing out fliers and talking to residents. When more than 125 people attended, they knew they were on to something.

A pharmacist named Randy Hammann came to that first meeting, and has since become a key part of Westwood Concern. He set up the group's Web site (home.fuse.net/WestwoodConcern) and handles the e-mail newsletter (which goes to 300 people, including members of city council, the mayor and city manager).

One of the group's first projects, in January 2001, was a bus tour in which the neighborhood's good and bad features were brought to the attention of residents, council members and other city officials. Since then, Westwood Concern has helped launch a Citizens on Patrol group, led clean-up efforts along Harrison and McHenry avenues, created a historical society, and assisted in organizing a home tour focused on the neighborhood's architecture.

But not everyone likes the group's direction.

"I get the impression that Westwood Concern would like to see us go back to the 1950s days of Ward and June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver," says Nathaniel Livingston, a leader of the boycott against the city. "Those weren't the good old days for everybody."

Mr. Livingston says there's a perception among some African-Americans "that this is not an inviting group." And by opposing low-income housing in Westwood, Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn are "encouraging Cincinnatians, especially west-siders, to read between the lines, (as in) we don't want more black people."

Says Ms. Kuhl: "People want to make it about race. This is not a race thing.

"We want to live in a safe, clean neighborhood. And you are welcome to live in our neighborhood, whoever you are, whatever you look like, whoever you sleep with, whatever kind of sex you have. We don't care. (But) Are you a good neighbor? Are you going to help us live in a safe, clean neighborhood?"

Anyone else, the women say, is part of the problem.

Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn canvass the neighborhood before each Westwood Concern meeting, passing out 8,000 fliers. Still, only a few African-Americans attend.

That concerns the Rev. Steve Gorman, co-pastor of Westwood First Presbyterian Church, where the meetings are held.

He has seen fliers on doors and doesn't question the "enormous energy" Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn devote. But, "If we're going to change this community in such a way that is representative of the community, I would certainly want to have African-Americans involved," he says.

Says Ms. Kuhl: "Everybody's invited. If they choose not to come, that's their choice. We can't hold back waiting for people to come. We've got to move forward."

Rev. Gorman also is concerned by some of the nostalgic talk he's heard at meetings.

"I just felt at times there were things said by a variety of people . . . that would turn black people off. . . . Sometimes it's that sense of, `It was really wonderful before you got here.' So if I'm feeling it, a white person of leadership in the community, what do black people feel about some of that talk?"

Even Mr. Livingston, however, concedes this about Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn: "I think they have legitimate concerns about their community, and they're working to organize the community to do something. That's a positive thing."

And sometimes, the approach is surprisingly simple. At the last Westwood Concern meeting of 2002, residents found dozens of postcards spread on a table. Each one featured a photo of an eyesore that a non-resident property owner has refused to clean up. Somebody else came up with the idea, but Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn enthusiastically endorsed it.

"We want you to send (the property owner) a little love note," Ms. Kuhl said as residents grabbed postcards. "Let him know how much you appreciate him junking up our neighborhood."

It's a neighborhood Ms. Kuhl and Ms. Gweyn have no intention of leaving. They'll be its voice, they say, as long as necessary.

"You can't move away from problems," Ms. Gweyn says. "The problems are going to find you. Then you're going to have to depend on somebody like us to save your butt."

E-mail jjohnston@enquirer.com