Very Interesting Reading - As I am sure you are aware, Ben Konop, a Lucas County Commissioner candidate, has recently been touting a "student village" plan along Dorr Street adjacent to the University of Toledo. What you may not be aware of is that his comments are so similar to my thesis that it is uncanny.
The original Bladearticle, “Konop announces "student village" plan” (published in the Blade in early Feb.) alerted me to the situation. Specifically, the following jumped out at me:
Ben Konop, a Democratic candidate for Lucas County Commissioner, will announce plans today to create a “student village” commercial district next to the University of Toledo.
As you also may not be aware, my thesis (copyrighted in 2004) is entitled, “Opportunities to Create a University Urban Village: Secor Gardens and the University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio”.
The subsequent article published on Feb. 24,2006 in the Blade, “Konop suggests ‘student village’ by UT campus”, confirmed my suspicions that he was claiming my work as his own without credit or citation.
Specifically, the following lines from the article sounded very familiar (the bold portions are key similarities, indeed they are nearly ver batim):
Lucas County commissioners and the University of Toledo should team up to create a "student village commercial district" on Dorr Street near the university, Democrat Ben Konop said yesterday.
Mr. Konop, a candidate for commissioner in the May 2 Democratic primary, said packing the street with bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, and other small businesses would help the university attract top students - and the region create next-generation jobs.
Asked if the student village was a project more suited for city officials, Mr. Konop conceded it would require cooperation from city council, commissioners, and university leaders.
These points were key points in my thesis. Below are some additional comments that he published February 23, 2006 in his Blog (http://www.benkonop.blogspot.com) where he elaborated on his earlier claims (again, the bold portions are key similarities):
… the establishment of a Student Village commercial district on Dorr Street will be among my top priorities when I am elected Commissioner.
A redeveloped commercial corridor with shops and restaurants will attract students to the University and attract badly needed investment to Toledo's central city.
The combined purchasing power of students and traditional area residents represents an extraordinary opportunity for businesses large and small.
From establishing design standards to providing infrastructure and offering help with project financing, the county can play a major role in helping to transform this long-neglected area into a thriving urban village that will strengthen both the University of Toledo and the neighborhoods that surround it.
Attached are the abstract and recommendations from my thesis with the similar points highlighted.
As a professional urban planning consultant, I make my living off of this exact type of work. His actions, while not technically illegal because he is not directly receiving any financial gain, are unethical and deceptive to the public. Additionally, I feel that it is imperative that I receive the proper credit for my plan.
Also attached are the materials that he is claiming that he used to come up with "his" plan, and below are my comments and assessments of them. I reviewed them objectively as a professional urban planner. Despite my shock and frustration with the situation, I wanted to be sure that his claim of coming up with the idea on his own was false before taking any action.
The fact is, he could not have gotten the recommendations that he mentions from these articles, and there is nothing that he discusses in his materials that is not in my plan. I went through and checked his resources and a few things stand out to me:
· They all mention retail development around a university,
· some discuss incentives, but they are not the same ones he lists, nor are they even available in Ohio,
· a couple of the articles mention grocery stores,
· one mentions capitalizing on student-buying power,
· a couple discuss campus partners in Columbus, which is one of my citations
o one of these articles mentions "campus towns" and later "village marketplaces"
· another mentions creation of an "urban village" and "new urban village" as well as making it "pedestrian-friendly"
o This is an obscure website and article was in the Archives section of the website from 2000. It must have been a very directed search to find this article.
· It is also interesting the Word file listing these articles is time stamped as being created on Thursday, February 23, 2006 at 10:59 a.m. after his announcement appeared in the Blade, while the press release was created a day earlier at 9:14 a.m. The materials may have been a search after the fact.
The following are the explicit ideas I think he got from my thesis, because none of the articles he cites mention them, while my thesis does:
o none of the articles he cites mention specifically a "student village" or "university village" per se;
o none mention provision of "infrastructure dollars" or governmental "help with project financing" or "offering low interest loans to developers or business owners"
o none mention "design standards" or "a pedestrian walkway from campus"
o All of the articles are driven by developers or the university or a combination, none talk about "cooperation from city council, commissioners, and university leaders"
· And finally, the question still remains as to why he might have chosen Dorr Street over Secor Road, Bancroft Street, or Douglas Road.
Other important things to note are:
· He has access to my thesis through the library system, and it also comes up in a library search and internet search under various keywords, like "urban" "Dorr Street" "urban village" "urban beautification" "community revitalization", etc. If he did any research on the general subject, he would have come across it.
· More interestingly, Ben Konop's campaign manager is Ben Krompak, whose father is Bob Krompak who is the Director of the Ottawa Community Development Corporation, and I know he is aware of my thesis and I believe he may even have a copy as well.
I feel that the materials do not adequately explain how he came up with his "plan". I think it is flimsy at best, and while it may be remotely plausible, I think given the connection of his campaign manager and the CDC director with knowledge of my thesis, it is at least highly improbable.
He could probably argue that some of the things are general ideas and concepts. Urban villages, pedestrian friendly streets, redevelopment of corridors, private and public partnerships are certainly not my original concepts, but I think the applying the urban village concept to that specific area is original to my thesis, as is recommending a connecting walkway, as well as specifically applying those concepts to the area. This are is not mentioned in the Toledo 20/20 Plan as an Urban Village, nor is it cited as such in any other document published in Toledo, public or private.
I also believe that while those in my profession are familiar with these general concepts, ideas and terms-of-art, people outside the field are probably not. My understanding is that he's a civil rights attorney with no planning or public administrative experience that would expose him to these types of concepts and/or how to apply them.
posted by buttonpusher to politics at 9:45 A.M. EST
(3 Comments)
Comments ...
I am Bob Krompak the Director of Ottawa CDC. I don't know who you are and I have never seen a copy of your paper. Are you under the impression that you are the only person who has ever studied Dorr Street?
Are you aware that the vocabulary and concepts you cited in whatever your paper was are common to urban planners?
You call yourself a practicing professional. What you have done is akin to saying that you invented the post-it note. Very sad!
posted by Zoltan at 10:55 A.M. EST on Fri Apr 14, 2006 #
First, i don't know who bottonpusher is, but this posting was mine from another thread (The Case for Ben Konop). See further comment there.
Second, Zoltan:
I'm sorry if you don't recall, but we did meet and we did discuss my thesis. We met at a workshop put on by Northwest Ohio Planning in 2003 or 2004. (I'd have to check the sign in sheet to be sure.) You expressed interest in the subject at the time for obvious reasons and I believe I sent you a copy of my Secor Gardens survey results. As I said, I'm sorry if you don't remember, but it happened. Maybe the connection is just a coincidence, but I thought it was pretty interesting.
you stated:
Are you aware that the vocabulary and concepts you cited in whatever your paper was are common to urban planners?
You call yourself a practicing professional. What you have done is akin to saying that you invented the post-it note.
Wow, did you even read the posting? That's very witty, but highly inaccurate.
I never said I was the first to study Dorr Street, but there are no other plans out there, and certainly none that demonstrate the same ideas.
Also, I never stated that the vocabulary and concepts were new either. It is the application of these concepts that make the work original. I'm not claiming to have coined the "urban village" or "pedestrian firendly". However, I am claiming that the application of those ideas in my thesis are original (and the U.T. Graduate school agreed) and that those ideas are the ones that Ben Konop is touting. He covers every one of my recommendations from my thesis. No more, no less. If he had independently come up withh these ideas, then it stands to reason that there would be either additional material, or less. He hits every point.
Like I said, maybe you don't remember anything about my project, and that's fine. I'll concede it may be a coincidence. It still doesn't change the fact that he is using my work without citation. It's copyright infringement, it's unethical, and it's plagiarism.
posted by msachs at 11:34 A.M. EST on Fri Apr 14, 2006 #
What in the hell is the point of this topic when one or two of a similar nature posted in the past day or so already exist?
posted by jr at 11:51 A.M. EST on Fri Apr 14, 2006 #
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