The jumping off discussion area for the rest of the Deck. All things Lakewood.
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Bryan Schwegler wrote:Regionalism is not the answer...I just don't know what it is or I would probably be a very rich man from all my consulting.
Bryan
How on earth is Lakewood going to save Cleveland or the region. Jumping in the drain and going down the sewer or by building a stronger self, anchoring ourselves then reaching into the quicksand known as Cleveland.
Cleveland has broken their promise with the suburbs. They can no longer anchor a region. Without the Cleveland Clinic it would be a shell of itself. It is time to worry about Lakewood, safe and clean. Then we should seriously consider annexing parts of Cleveland if Cleveland cannot maintain them. That makes more sense.
We stay focused on Lakewood and jump into the regional game of double dutch down the road. We need high self esteem and to being dealing with strong cards in this game.
I am not against it, if someone could show me how it will work for Lakewood for the better or even the same.
Don, I don't believe Lakewood is in that part of the map.
.
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident
"The very act of observing disturbs the system." Werner Heisenberg
"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it." His Holiness The Dalai Lama
How on earth is Lakewood going to save Cleveland or the region. Jumping in the drain and going down the sewer or by building a stronger self, anchoring ourselves then reaching into the quicksand known as Cleveland.
Jim, you may very well be right, as I said, I don't know know what the answer is.
However, I still believe we have major problems if the core city doesn't turn around. I think it's a myopic view to not understand the effect on the region if Cleveland continues to decline. I have a hard time believing there's anything Lakewood or any other suburb can do if Cleveland spirals into its own death.
Why does Cuyahoga County need 57 police chiefs? 57 fire chiefs? 57 building department heads?
Speaking very globally and long term and I know this has to be done slowly and carefully, wouldn't the millions being spent right now to pay 57 police chiefs be put to better use by addressing infrastructure, economic development & other issues? Again, I can point to many different examples where consolidation has worked (another good example is Toronto). But please can tell me one area thats thriving with 57 autonomus municipalities.
Cleveland needs us and we need Cleveland and if you stop for a moment to let your civic pride out of the way, we need Westlake too.
The old model is a throwback to when the Italians lived here, the Irish lived there, the WASPS lived somewhere else &c &c. If the Cleveland AREA and the Indianapolis AREA go head to head for some plum busienss project, Im guessing Indy will win hands down while Cleveland and Lakewood and Westlake and Euclid and Solon are fighting each other.
Section 8, for instance, which has been widely discussed on this board is a FEDERAL program, authorized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered locally by the Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Authority, a board which Lakewood has no direct representation. If we can't come up with a more regional approach to Section 8 housing, an approach that more evenly disperses Section 8 tenants throughout the county, we are doomed to business as usual in Lakewood.
So, the city has no power to limit the number of section 8 tenants in Lakewood?
virtually none and attempts to do so will land us in court
Dee Martinez wrote:Why does Cuyahoga County need 57 police chiefs? 57 fire chiefs? 57 building department heads?
Dee
I do not mean to over simplify. W will still need a chief it might have a different name, but it will be a head of the section of services. So now we combine our fire department of 18 a shift and combine it with Rocky river that has 6 a shift and we win this one how?
You do raise an interesting point. Let's get CountyStat cranked up and have each city go through CitiStat before we agree to anything so we know what baggage is coming to the table.
.
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident
"The very act of observing disturbs the system." Werner Heisenberg
"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it." His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Section 8, for instance, which has been widely discussed on this board is a FEDERAL program, authorized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered locally by the Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Authority, a board which Lakewood has no direct representation. If we can't come up with a more regional approach to Section 8 housing, an approach that more evenly disperses Section 8 tenants throughout the county, we are doomed to business as usual in Lakewood.
So, the city has no power to limit the number of section 8 tenants in Lakewood?
virtually none and attempts to do so will land us in court
One can probably conceive of endless models of governance. Ultimately, all models will have to deliver an effective means of taxation and resource allocation / management through governmental checks and balances which preserve the public's constitutional right to ultimate control over those governmental structures charged with legislating and managing such.
Questions concerning regionalism, localism, municipal home rule are all structural issues.
Structural modifications of government will most always shift power and resources, either from the hands of one party to another or the interests of the public to those of the private sector, or both simultaneously.
When we speak about the 57 "fiefdom" municipalities of this ‘region’, the argument has already been framed. In its most benign state this inference suggests that if nothing else, municipal self rule is “getting in the way†of economic prosperity. In its more extreme stance, it’s a suggestion of causation. However, the shrinking economy of de-industrialized Cleveland and the effect of that transition on her suburbs have not been CAUSED by the structural configuration of these 57 politically independent municipalities.
While de-industrialization is a very real, tangible obstacle to the survival of Cleveland and the inner ring, it is questionable whether the outer ring of affluence and wealth is threatened by this phenomenon. Further, one must ask: what do affluent suburbs, not staring down the black hole of deficit budgets and social disorder stand to gain in the deal?
Certainly, something must be done to save Lakewood. Whose job is it to save Cleveland? From what lofty perch do the political power brokers of ex-urbia decide that its time to rebuild the core? After years of neglect, millions in real-estate profits gained through Cleveland’s destruction (sprawl/gentrification) and an ethically questionable reconstruction of the city core as “play ground for suburbanitesâ€Â, by what providence does the mayor of Pepper Pike declare “We’ve got to show our taxpayers that this is, in the long term, in the best interests of our communities.â€Â
Understanding the issues of real estate cycles through the lens of Dr. Tom Bayer of Cleveland State’s Levin College of Urban affairs is informative. Some time ago on Dick Feagler’s show Bayer sited the greatest challenge to the redevelopment of Cleveland and the inner ring to be “their working class housing stockâ€Â
It is true. The creative and destructive cycles of real estate development burn through “working class housing stock†like a roaring fire through tinder. The brush fire has entered Lakewood. It's the same fire that has leveled most of Cleveland.
Does it really burn beyond the “working class†tinder box? It’s unlikely.
Can anyone on this deck honestly believe that Pepper Pike, Gates Mills or Beachwood are next in line for the real estate burn cycle? It’s quite hard to reach that conclusion on the basis of sound logic grounded in historical precedent.
It’s about a power shift in which the central city and inner ring suburbs surrender their constitutional right to political self rule, in desperation over rising social, racial and economic tensions, budget deficits and falling property values.
It’s neo-liberalism at its best.
Like the World Bank/IMF “structural adjustments†which dictate political and economic reconfiguration following financial default in third and second world countries, NEO Regionalism is the construct of ex-urban power brokers looking to swoop like vultures on the fiscally / socially / politically wounded core and inner ring suburbs.
When one examines the struggling core and her inner ring suburbs, you find the same cycles underlying their decline: real estate, socio-economic, aging infrastructure and the cost of producing the public good outpacing the ability of the tax base to meet those demands.
Further, where shifts from the public to private sector are concerned, there are varying degrees to which power and resources can accrue.
Localism is a radical increase in; local power over resources and municipal self-rule.
Regionalism amounts to a consolidation of political power at higher levels of government. You can take it to the county, to a pan-county configuration, or blow it all the way up to the state. At each level, citizen access diminishes as political power accrues to ever more powerful interests.
In this light, I question the premise on which Sam Miller regionalism is being supported and propagated by the Plain Dealer.
I question the line of reasoning by which Tom George concludes that regionalism will move Lakewood forward without degrading the quality of city services provided, or citizen control of resource allocation and political power.
A progressive regionalism that works in the interests of the core and inner ring would be grounded in a progressive redistribution of wealth from the outer ring of affluence to the struggling communities at and surrounding the core.
I envision a political alliance between the inner ring suburbs and central city using dense concentration of political power, to: pressure more affluent communities to subsidize their infrastructural reconstruction, lobby for statewide taxes on excessive transportation, institute growth boundaries, file a class action law suite against the benefactors of sprawl, the construction lobby, Ryan homes and the federal govermant.
On ethical grounds, take a political stand against sprawl. On the basis of this platform, fight for a residistribution of resources to the core and inner ring.
It appreas that the opposite is taking place. Rather than standing united under their concentration of political power, the ring and core are being set-up for a "structural adjustment" looting.
Politically, it's the core and inner-ring that disproportionately vote democrat. Is regionalism a shift of county power from the democratic urban to the republican suburban?
p.s.-
Analogies cannot be logically drawn between proposed NEO regionalism and that of southern or post-industrial cities or economies. There are also clear differences in the demographic and political cultures of the de-industrialized cities cited in the PD article.
Jeff rightly sights Buffalo and Pittsburg as examples of regional governance models in de-industrialized cities with economic and demographic histories as well as political cultures that closely mirror those of Cleveland. Consequently, these models have not produced the results promised by the business communities behind their construction and propagation.
The examples cited in the PD do not do justice to the diverse economic, demographic and political histories of those localities. I will be writing on this topic soon.
Will regionalism make the streets safer for my children, bring down my taxes or even worse, my gas bill for the big old house I love?
As Jim asked pointedly, what in the world does regionalism have to offer me or anyone else? Not one person I know wants that for Lakewood.
Yea Cleveland needs saved, but for 16 years our politicians catered to predatory lenders and big paint companies that knowingly put lead into homes, and pocketed their kickbacks instead of doing a damn thing about the Cleveland schools or economy there. Who let a thriving waterfront that was brought tourists from other areas of all ages to dine and entertain become a toilet? yea Cleveland needs saved but not by Lakewood. I don't see it. What is in it for us point by point and where in the world do the other mayor candidates stand on this?
"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive" Dalai Lama
I would want to see the stats on the emergency services, for example, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. We have a police dept that more often than not arrives on scene in times that are near unbelievably fast . Ever wait for a deputy sheriff's car or a Cleveland zone car on a friday night for anything less than a shooting? While not the police dept's or the deputy's fault, I've seen waits as long as an hour or two or even more. Just in emergency services I can't see how we would benefit, if not more so suffer when seconds count in many instances.
There are good places for regionalism I believe. For example during all of the debates on Eminent Domain I heard about developers playing one city against another telling them that Hudson is doing so and so and if you want us to build in your city instead of Hudson then you better give us more. The mayor of Hudson and surrounding cities got together and said this is it. And we will share revenues if you build in any of our cities. So that stopped the developer from gouging some cities. Of course they have to be similar types of cities. Cleveland and Lakewood aren't the same type of city. But like with the Westshore Academy, which is a successful way the schools work together providing vocational training for children from Lakewood, Rocky River and Bay Village, we can work with them on other projects.
I'm not sure that Lakewood wants to risk doing Municipal Windmills by themselves. Doing an experimental project like this with our Westshore neighbors may work out.
I'm sure there are other ways that we can experiment and not lose our shirts or our indepence with our neighbors. I just think we need to be careful the neigbhors we choose. I would much rather see us continue with our Westshore neighbors that with the Cleveland ones. We have seen that in Cleveland things get into a bureacracy and nothing gets done. Money seems to be wasted there. Let's work with the more efficient cities on various projects.
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." ~ George Carlin
I appreciate the Mayor timely and telling response to Jim’s post.
The biggest questions I have about the meaning of the PD article with respect to the future of Lakewood concerns the following statement:
“The mayors of Lakewood, Parma Heights and South Euclid say they are ready to merge their cities with neighbors, though none has sealed a deal.â€Â
What neighbors, Mr. Mayor?
At what price? (Robin Hood sized revenue sharing? A neighborhood community development corporation and a seat on a county neighborhood council in exchange for elimination of the representative body of the Mayor and City Council?)
Perhaps the Mayor is positioning in a political and economic process that may never come to fruition.
Yet it is quite telling, especially in light of Dan Slife’s deep and interesting post, to notice that the Mayor’s response on the LO Deck features first, the uncontrollable effects and force of Section 8 turning Lakewood into a doom lot of the disorganized, disorderly and impoverished residents lacking cash to pay for services and infrastructure:
“Section 8, for instance, which has been widely discussed on this board is a FEDERAL program, authorized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered locally by the Cuyahoga County Metropolitan Housing Authority, a board which Lakewood has no direct representation. If we can't come up with a more regional approach to Section 8 housing, an approach that more evenly disperses Section 8 tenants throughout the county, we are doomed to business as usual in Lakewood.â€Â
It’s especially interesting, then, to listen with the third ear to the Mayors of Lakewood and South Euclid, at least in the PD’s frame-up of the issue, crying uncle and banding together, perhaps in hopes rolling housing voucher caseload to more affluent suburbs.
In effect, Mayor George’s post reveals housing vouchers and the caseload burdens that follow are the smoking gun in the battle for regionalization.
Here, as Dan Slife suggests, we see the magic bullets of economic development, trimmed public sector labor force (freed from home rule but ultimately to see their jobs privatized) and social engineering loaded into the gun.
This smoking gun has been fired into the moral order of autonomous authority and democratic home rule, which enshrines the self-evident truth the closer the instruments and agents of government are to the people, the more democratic and better we become (see Harvey Wheeler’s The Politics of Revolution 125-6).
With Sam Miller’s Forest City Enterprises investing in Rockport perhaps Lakewood’s Mayor has no other choice but to capitulate, at least for the propaganda purposes of the PD frame-up, to the vision of a merged county.
Bryan Schwegler said:
"However, I still believe we have major problems if the core city doesn't turn around. I think it's a myopic view to not understand the effect on the region if Cleveland continues to decline. I have a hard time believing there's anything Lakewood or any other suburb can do if Cleveland spirals into its own death."
Mr. Schwegler, I couldn't agree more. Whatever one thinks of any effect regionalism might have on Lakewood, or on Cleveland, or on both I believe the fate of the region starts with what happens with Cleveland. Does anyone remember downtown in the '70's? It was deserted; then Playhouse Square was saved and revitalized. Afterward, slowly but surely, more and more projects took hold, and more and more development occurred.
What does this mean for Lakewood now? I don't believe the city should or will merge with any other, or that there will be any annexing going on. C'mon. I would also oppose a county executive form of government, as in Summit County. However, there is room for common sense sharing of resources. For example, shouldn't the westshore communities (and yes, west Cleveland) share a SWAT team? Do we need that kind of specialized training and expensive equipment in all suburbs? Especially if the team is not (I hope) being called out all the time...
What about development along the lakefront, and/or the Rocky River watershed? This will take cooperation from all western/southwestern cities to continue to develop the area for recreation and yes, tourism. I believe Lakewood has a stake in the redevelopment of the Shoreway plan, and ultimately should work with Cleveland on the creation of a shared facilities, like bike paths and possibly an expanded breakwater wall.
There are many examples of how our cities will/should work together for economic development and with shared resources. Yet I don't see any cities losing their identity, or 'brand'.
Dan Shields
Problems with and questions regarding Section 8 are constantly on deck and run through this thread. I think CMHA should have the regional director and legal director of the program attend a series of community meetings here in Lakewood in order to answer questions from residents. Let's get some answers. I would ask: CMHA has its own police force which patrols its "estates". Are there areas in the country where the federal government provides funding to cities to hire additional patrol officers to help with the known increase in crime which follows Section 8 tenants into communities throughout the US? If not, why not? If yes, what's the process?
This is a fascinating thread to read. Please don't derail it into yet another debate about section 8. As long as there is low-cost rental stock in Lakewood, there will be Section 8 rentals.
