The Observation Deck

Looks to be a great idea! http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index.ssf/2014/03/lakewood_bars_and_restaurants.html

Great idea.

It was a shame when RTA pulled the shuttle we once had. It was well used by folks and school kids getting around town during the day.

If no tax dollars are being spent on the RTA shuttle bus service, then fine by me.

But I'm not sure that there is a guarantee that City Hall will not be stuck with a bill at the end of the day.

Does anyone know for sure?

Ed, Matthew

You are both full of it.

Why on earth would we cater to the biggest problem in Lakewood, instead of the biggest pluses in Lakewood?

What are you two smokin?

The simple thought
We have too many drunks driving, let's buss them around?

What? Let's make it easier for them to be drunk?

Matt, I might need to get Roy Pitchford in here to explain RTA and how you taxes are still
paying to carry drunks around, if they had they had 1 less drink, they could afford a cab in
this WALKABLE and thanks to the City's love affair with nightlife now STAGGERABLE city.

I have an editorial on this coming up, but I do find it fascinating that two elected officials *
that were never at a meeting to save the Circulator for seniors, are so overjoyed and so
eager to fight for party buses for drunks from out of the city.

.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Ed, Matthew

You are both full of it.

Why on earth would we cater to the biggest problem in Lakewood, instead of the biggest pluses in Lakewood?

What are you two smokin?

The simple thought
We have too many drunks driving, let's buss them around?

What? Let's make it easier for them to be drunk?

Matt, I might need to get Roy Pitchford in here to explain RTA and how you taxes are still
paying to carry drunks around, if they had they had 1 less drink, they could afford a cab in
this WALKABLE and thanks to the City's love affair with nightlife now STAGGERABLE city.

I have an editorial on this coming up, but I do find it fascinating that two elected officials *
that were never at a meeting to save the Circulator for seniors, are so overjoyed and so
eager to fight for party buses for drunks from out of the city.

.

Wasn't the ridership / participation for the circulator extremely low when they were monitoring usage prior to stopping the service?

I'm assuming a new service such as now proposed would have a much higher usage and viability, but hey, we all have our opinions.

I think this issue of not enough parking is really about perception. These days in Lakewood, people want to park right in front of where they are going and if there's no spot then they claim a lack of parking.

If I go to a mall, say Crocker Park, I usually end up in the parking garage on a higher level with a quite a walk depending on where I want to go. But the perception is that I'm parking at the mall, so therefore, there is plenty of parking available even though my walk may be the same or more if I compare to parking on a side street in Lakewood then walking to my destination.

Anyway, I don't think this shuttle bus service is about catering to drunks or pub/wing crawls. It's an attempt to solve the perception of a parking problem. It's an illusion of convenience. By the time I park in a garage on Detroit and Warren, get to the bus stop, wait up to 15 minutes for a bus and another 7 minutes en-route to Around The Corner, I could have parked on a side street, walked to ATC and be enjoying my first wing/beer.

Get over it people...a little walk isn't going to kill you

To Charlie's point, I do find it ironic that this issue is being raised at the same time that the Mayor is pushing forward his faux "Active Living/Recreation Task Force" on the residents ... which is simply the Mayor's tool for demanding a property tax increase to pay for the "Michael P. Summers Recreation Center & Natatorium" at the soon to be abandoned Lakewood Hospital location.

If Mike really cares about active living and recreation, he'd make the drunks walk off their beer and wings.

For the record, if no tax dollars are spent, I really don't care about the "Shawn Juris Party Bus" but, since nobody answered my question above, I'll answer it, "City Hall can't and won't promise that our tax dollars won't be spent."

And, for the record, I'm also a fan of good beer and wings.

Matt

Matthew John Markling wrote:For the record, if no tax dollars are spent, I really don't care about the "Shawn Juris Party Bus" but, since nobody answered my question above, I'll answer it, "City Hall can't and won't promise that our tax dollars won't be spent."

For the City of Lakewood to spend tax dollars, I would think it would take an ordinance from Council along with signing the contract. All this would be made available to the public in the Council Docket which is posted on the City's website. However, it sounds like the City is just brokering the deal. So, all the businesses pitching in for the shuttle would need to sign the contract or form some cooperative which would then sign the contract.

If you're talking tax dollars in general (i.e. RTA providing the service for less than actual cost), then that would be a question for RTA. The cost to the businesses breaks down to about $80 per bus per hour. It's hard to believe with everyone at RTA, with the exception of management, a union member earning union wages and union benefits, plus the cost of the bus, fuel, insurance, etc that $80 per hour covers their cost. I doubt it but maybe it does.

Matthew John Markling wrote:And, for the record, I'm also a fan of good beer and wings.

Me too

J. Hrlec

It was down during certain hours, but needed at other time by seniors and schools.
The current bus that runs at night is also empty, both compartments. * J. I believe
Lakewood was one of three circulators that were profitable. (checking this)

the rest

I want everyone to remember the last City Council, it was the end of the bedroom
community of Lakewood that was a good place to live and raise a family. It is over.

They have moved for legislation for residents and keeping business in line, to legislating
against residents, and assisting the business to invade our residential neighborhoods and
the way of life that attracted 94% of the city here.

Moving drunks from bar to bar, has become a huge issue in Lakewood City Hall. We have
all these bars, and now we need to get drunks from one bar to the next. Cheaply, or they
will not have enough for that extra drink.

This single issue is so important, that they have started the buses, with no money from
bars, hoping they sign on. We were using tax money the second, they talked to the mayor
and council. Time = $$$ and instead of working on opening our god damn parks, they
were working on chauffeuring drunks around.

When seniors aka residents need them, they were not there. But the bar owners and the
drunks? They got time. Do you have time to clean our parks, or make our streets safe?

HELL NO, we are driving drunks around in another desperate attempt to prove a bar based
economy we sold you with no facts works. But I have a story in the Observer, this is just
the tip of a major push that will invade our neighborhoods, and devalue our property and
safety, and have a tax increase announced.

Just remember, like Social Security, we have all paid into the businesses districts and
rebuilding. We were told, this will keep taxes low and add to our budget. OK where is our
low tax, extra safety, cleaner parks paybacks?

The party bus, says we cater to drunks. Send us your drunks, we worship them, and all
of the great things drunks bring to our community.

Thank you, to the councilman that has voiced his dislike of Lakewood for years, and Mike,
really? Party bus?

Give us back our PARKS!

.

Okay, so the "Shawn Juris Party Buses" appear to be on hold for now.

But it is still unclear as to whom RTA is contracting with?

Does anyone know?

City Hall
LakewoodAlive
DowntowN
Lakewood Chamber of Commerce
Live Well Lakewood
Shawn Juris
Each bar

Any clarification would be appreciated.

Matthew John Markling wrote:Okay, so the "Shawn Juris Party Buses" appear to be on hold for now.

But it is still unclear as to whom RTA is contracting with?

Does anyone know?

City Hall
LakewoodAlive
DowntowN
Lakewood Chamber of Commerce
Live Well Lakewood
Shawn Juris
Each bar

Any clarification would be appreciated.

Hi Matt,

Where did you get the idea that it was on hold for now?

According to Chris Bindel's latest City Council article, things are moving forward:

Councilman Juris then read a communication informing Council of a plan to have RTA trolleys circulate around town on Friday and Saturday nights to help with parking and traffic issues. The trolleys will run from 8pm to 1am with eight stops along Madison and Detroit between Bunts and Riverside. A 16 week trial is due to start on August 23rd. If the trial is successful, it could become permanent with the possibility of further stops and routes could be added. The entire cost will be covered by the businesses who agreed to put it together with Pillars of Lakewood acting as the fiscal agent.

Although no legislative action is required, nor any appropriation of funds, Councilman Juris brought it to the attention of Council for their support, and so if there are any unintended consequences or involvement from the city is needed, they are all up to speed. He pointed out that the trolley service falls in line with no less than seven points of the recently passed Community Vision. He also wanted to state that Mayor Summers and Director of Planning and Development, Dru Siley, have both been supportive and helpful in organizing this service.

Councilman Tom Bullock (At-Large) and Councilwoman Cindy Marx (At-Large) both thanked Councilman Juris for his initiative in putting this service together and said they look forward to seeing it in action.

Council referred the topic to the Committee of the Whole to be discussed.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2014/0 ... ing-rights

Betsy Voinovich

Betsy,

You mean another news source gave wrong intel?

Since the LO has the scoop, whose the contract with?

Matt

Matthew John Markling wrote:Betsy,

You mean another news source gave wrong intel?

Since the LO has the scoop, whose the contract with?

Matt

Hi Matt---

That's all I have. That's Chris Bindel's report. Pillars of Lakewood are the fiscal agent--- that sounds like a grant? Not sure. You should ask Councilman Juris, he seems to know.

Betsy Voinovich

"help with parking and traffic issues."

So let me get this straight. NO traffic problems on Detroit Avenue, until after they screwed up the lights. Now it is
a complete nightmare all hour of the day and night except before 7, when they are blinkers.

So the way they fix the traffic problem is by adding more buses to cater to drunks.

It makes sense that Pillars is behind this as they have had to hire and pay for these buses on the past, and now they
are rightly going to get the businesses to pay for them, or are they?

The first test scrapped as no one got on board.

And let's be honest, how many of us can actually see a good bar owner saying, "I have so many people buying my
liquor I need to share them with some other bars. A bar owner often sets up in near a popular bar, but not to share
with them, but to pull off of them.

Then we have a councilman that is on record anti-elderly, anti-churches, anti-public parks, and anti-residents spending his time, which we pay for to help drunks get from bar to bar. Whether or not it is for personal reasons
to help the group he started or not, residents the voters should NEVER be worked against. He has made working
against residents his political career.

Businesses paying, sure it is good.

But then we still have the the biggest problem in Lakewood which is not parking or traffic, but DRUNKS!

.

The part of Chris Bindel's report regarding the shuttle service that made me pause was this:

He (Councilman Juris) pointed out that the trolley service falls in line with no less than seven points of the recently passed Community Vision.

Does anybody know what the Community Vision "that recently passed" says? Does it say that the idea for the future of Lakewood is to use our streets, parks, new developments to serve people who don't live here? That Lakewood is for rent as a party center? That it's much better for that, and as a Dollar Store shopping district, than it is for living here?

I don't know. Seven points of our Community Vision are served by busing drunk people around. What are the other points? Where is it published?

From what I remember while it mentioned maintaining our housing stock, maintaining the quality and health of our residential neighborhoods -- our residential communities-- was not mentioned. But I didn't go to those meetings.

Betsy Voinovich