The Observation Deck

Just rumors and wild ramblings heard on the street but:

Was a monkey wrench thown into someone's plans when Ed Fitgerald was elected?

Is there a hidden agenda? What is a dumping ground? Where is the dumping ground?

Anyone want to send a super secret email? What is it that we aren't supposed to know? Your identity will be kept confidential but your information will be posted far and wide.

Bill Call wrote:Anyone want to send a super secret email? What is it that we aren't supposed to know? Your identity will be kept confidential but your information will be posted far and wide.

Is it the social, economic, miltary, or criminal dumping ground?

As you mention Ed throwing a wrench in the deal, I am betting social.

Am I correct?


peace

Is self-interest a conspiracy?

Is the battle to capture value in real estate markets a conspiracy?

Do the economic interests of absentee landlords in milking blighted properties provide leverage for larger economic development gambits in the region?

Are benign neglect and ignorance of how the real estate game is played in a capitalist society: neighborhood bust outs, urban renewal 21st century style, gentrification/abatement/rebuild the core/â€￾we are one region,â€￾ with the trance chorus sung by savvy economic developers, university shills and desperate politicians signs of a grand conspiracy?

It’s simply a pattern of connections and interests.

Who can say, for certain, without Citi-stat and title research?

In the city that would know itself better than any other and thereby not only enter into the Guinness World Book of Records but avert its eventual slaughter, I would certainly expect the Mayor to be aware of the game and stakes, realizing from his very election that for many the city is on tenterhooks and that ultra local perspective and deployment of effective protection and housing strategies are needed to secure the middle and working classes and access these classes enjoy to a reasonably affordable and safe community.

It’s axiomatic in urban planning that both market and political forces drive the action of value creation and value destruction on the real estate food chain. Is Lakewood slipping on the real estate food chain? Hanging tougher than deserved? Putting together an ultra local defense to stop the erosion and exploitation of an aging housing stock by profiteers?

On the one hand, there are strategies of urban renewal that involve displacement, pricing out and tax abatement for the gentrifiers.

Look at the effects of the expansion of the medical complex on the east side and the consequences on inner ring suburbs.

Wherever gentrification is occurring in Cleveland, look for economic and political interests to displace the low rent urban core to other places. That’s re-building the core.

It’s given the successful with children at risk of downward mobility in a globalizing world have been hopping into securely segmented real estate markets beyond the ensuing chaos of the inner rings.

On the other hand, there are real estate opportunities generated from oversupplies of aging housing in once affordable, solid working neighborhoods, like Lakewood, opportunities that hinge on the market created by social service bureaucracies with client placement needs interests satisfied in low rent districts.

Lakewood’s middle class and working class is struggling to balance compassion, common sense and safety with the anti-social catchment effects of its low rent districts.

Should the disorder of the low rent vat spill over too chaotically into daily lives, the flight of the successful will persist. That’s why the flight of the successful public servant sticks in the craw of so many.

More than conspiracy, Lakewood is still up against a perfect storm of converging economic, regional and social interests, which the city cannot weather if municipal government and leadership suffer from benign neglect, corrupted stupidity or simple incompetence.

Conspiracy or not, it’s the battle of our lives.

Let's make certain the new Mayor represents more than a wrench in the works.

Kenneth Warren

Kenneth Warren wrote:Is self-interest a conspiracy?
.... Conspiracy or not, it’s the battle of our lives.

Let's make certain the new Mayor represents more than a wrench in the works.

Kenneth Warren

Ken

I see the keys of Bill's inquiry being the words "dumping ground," and that the mayor Ed FitzGerald was able to throw a wrench in the works.

I can only think of one thing the mayor could throw a wrench in that has been referred to as a dumping ground.



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Kenneth Warren wrote:More than conspiracy, Lakewood is still up against a perfect storm of converging economic, regional and social interests, which the city cannot weather if municipal government and leadership suffer from benign neglect, corrupted stupidity or simple incompetence.

Conspiracy or not, it’s the battle of our lives.

Let's make certain the new Mayor represents more than a wrench in the works.

Excellent!

Various levels of government are going to spend $1 billion dollars to "restore" Euclid Avenue, a street where no one lives. Imagine even $25 million of those dollars spent on Highland Avenue and the Edgewater area.

There are plans for Lakewood that are not being planned by Lakewood.
Can our Mayor and council balance the budget, restore fiscal sanity and help the City reach its full potential while others are working to keep it from happening?

Can a servant serve two masters?

Bill Call wrote: There are plans for Lakewood that are not being planned by Lakewood.

And what are those plans?

Is this Lakewood's own Jeopardy minus Alex? Why is everything overstated as a question? I am intrigued. (sorry Alex, it wasn't stated as a question)

Bill Call wrote: There are plans for Lakewood that are not being planned by Lakewood.
Can our Mayor and council balance the budget, restore fiscal sanity and help the City reach its full potential while others are working to keep it from happening?

Can a servant serve two masters?

Bill

Well is it the fire sale of the Winterhurst?

To another city or group from another city starting with an S?


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Jim O'Bryan wrote:Well is it the fire sale of the Winterhurst?

Winterhurst is small potatoes. If the City can lease it for a nominal fee let the lessee assume the risks.

The Mayor of Akron wants to sell City assets to pay for college educations at Akron U. Rather than control the out of control cost of college. One bureacracy (the City) wants to sell assets to offer a subsidy to another bureacracy.

Is that where we are headed?

Anyway, eventually you run out of assets to sell.

So is this thread more FUD as usual since again there is a serious lack of any hard facts being shared?

Just wondering...

Just seems the follow the pattern of big, inflammatory claims that aren't supported.

If it is more FUD, then I don't know what good it can accomplish. On the flip side, being so obscure in your description also doesn't help accomplish anything.

But that's just my opinion.

Bryan Schwegler wrote:So is this thread more FUD as usual since again there is a serious lack of any hard facts being shared?

Mostly, I'm just goin fishin.

So far I have caught one small fry. If I catch anything big you will read it here first.

Why this particular title?

Late last year someone who was in the know shared a conversation they had with one of the County Commissioners. The commissioners opinion (vision?) for Lakewood was a place to locate citizens displaced by County backed development projects.

An innocent comment? Maybe. I thought I would throw out a line and see if I got any nibbles.

Why the post now? I ran into someone the other day who had a similar suspicion and it brought back a memory or two.

I think the current administration has a level headed vision for the City based on what is good for the City. I didn't think that about the previous administration. Hence the comment: Can a servant serve two masters?

Bill,

This isn't the first time I've heard this but it is the first time I've heard it from you. I have no doubt that the City of Cleveland and the CCC have plans for Lakewood. We stand as a roadblock to their grand plans for regionalization. And while I don't mind discussing the topic, I have yet to see the CCC deliver any kind of desireable leadership model. My opinion is that if the City of Cleveland and the CCC can clean out the central city into the inner ring and begin to rebuild downtown at the expense of the inner ring.....ummm, that's ok with them. But that's just my opinion. I'll be interested to see what you find out. Thanks for taking the time.

Suzanne

I think the best bill of particulars concerning the regional vision of unified government comes from a conversation I had with Professor Robert A. Simons, a professor in City and Regional Planning at CSU’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. He believed that a NYC style borough division of four (if my recollection is correct) would serve Cuyahoga County better than the various little municipalities and school districts.

This borough division idea would easily converge with the regional government plan of Sam Miller.

The less Lakewood possesses the ability either to pay or manage social capital and professional skill to distinguish its quality of life – schools, neighborhoods, public safety, and amenities from that Cleveland, the more the borough plan of these planning wizards, PD corporate puffers and economic development players will make sense to people paying for undistinguished and mediocre services delivered by AWOL (Avon Lake Workers of Lakewood) public servants living outside the borough vat at the end of the day.

The critical issue, as I see it, is that the scope of action and control points are concentrated in Cuyahoga County. That’s the sandbox/the chessboard. Lakewood is a pawn in that game, with all the rentals units and cheap housing, the vat to drop those displaced by the public-private partnerships that will re-build the region. Lakewood must take one for the team, you see.

Not to mention the upcoming water wars – and interests looking to profit from the shuffle of distributed political powers.

The only way to deal with the chess game is to understand the concepts and interests of the larger players and how the extension of these proceeds with greater difficulty or lesser difficulty depending on the quality of the municipal government and the services rendered.

If the County provides greater service, value and quality for the cost – hey, go for it. Is the track record there?

So long as the bar of quality in Lakewood slips, under pressure of interested parties looking to advance the regional government/economic development interest – through purchasing Lakewood properties and displacing needy caseload that overwhelms the municipal government’s capacity to distinguish itself from Cleveland, the community loses its political will and professional expertise to differentiate itself from an urban dystopian zoo.

To protect Lakewood’s present economic interests as a mixed middle class/working class community, a strong and effective municipal government with a ferocious ultra local sense of the stakes is required.

Playing nice in the regional sandbox with clueless and or co-opted politicians is a formula for loosing the best single community in Northeast Ohio. There is more than enough evidence - from LEAF, the LO, Lakewood Alive, the Lakewood Catholic Academy - that Lakewood is strong, but struggling under global, national and regional pressures.

Kenneth Warren

Kenneth Warren wrote: Playing nice in the regional sandbox with clueless and or co-opted politicians is a formula for loosing the best single community in Northeast Ohio.
Kenneth Warren

That's it in a nutshell. Fortunately we are beginning to see the citizenry pushing back. In the past year the machine has seen candidates who have thumbed their noses at the party and the party bosses and still manage to get elected. Voters are showing signs of of "politics for politics sake" fatigue. Lakewood needs to take advantage of this moment in time to re-establish itself as the place to be. A responsive and effective municiple government, a blue ribbon school district, a world class hospital and a first class library. Those are the assets we should be fostering and using as carrots to attract first class residents and business. Those are the weapons we use to protect our community from becoming just another rundown Cleveland neighborhood.

Bill Call wrote: Late last year someone who was in the know shared a conversation they had with one of the County Commissioners. The commissioners opinion (vision?) for Lakewood was a place to locate citizens displaced by County backed development projects.

Bill

You are not alone on this one. Since the start of the Observer, the founders have been pushing back against the "Regionalists" that have not so grand plans for Lakewood.

At the forefront of this push back would be members of the Lakewood Library Board like Suzanne, Jeff and Director Kenneth Warren. Meanwhile many of us have attended and talked with many of the "regionalists" and gone to their programs. A perfect example would be the op called, "voices and choices."

The difference in vision between them and us, is light not and day, hot and cold, ying and yang.

While they see the Lakewood that is the butt of jokes, the classic "inner ring suburb," and attached to Cleveland. Many of us see it as something complete different and wonderful. Truly something that can not only stand far apart from the rest of the region, but has to for the survival of the way we live.

This is why I get so defensive when we talk of regionalism in any way but as a way to reduce the cost of buying. Salt, concrete, toilet paper can all be reduced in bulk buys. But it is a terrible way and a very slippery slope when it comes to defining and running cities.

What you are talking about is things you can find in some of the firsts post on the board. Dan Slife has gone deep into the strong propaganda used to confuse. How strong, we have our Chamber of Commerce not supporting Lakewood born economic development programs but turning and promoting CLE+ a group hoping to bring industry in Youngstown, Akron and Cleveland!!! No mention of Lakewood (thank god).

We have the less taxes people looking to give up "home rule" for the POSSIBLE savings of pennies.

It is all insane when you actually look at the benefits, as opposed to what we would actually get in return.

If it were only the County Commissioners I would not be so worried. But it is being powered by the developers, who hide beneath the sword of "economic development is all good" while they act out again and again the story line in "Slaughter of Cities." Actively moving groups of humans and businesses around as weapons er tools of economic development.

The snake oil is all so smooth, almost like the tent preachers of the 20s. Come with us, and never worry or pay taxes again.

Lakewood has been singled out, as "the problem" in the regional rush to the bottom. "If Lakewood comes on board..." We should ask ourselves why?

This might be one of the single most important reasons the Observer was created. Before the LO media showed up for the crime and the blood. Now they show up to do the LO one better.

Our single biggest goal was to help the city understand what we have, why we have it, and how can we do it better. To do that you need a way to get information out without prejudice. You need to know who and what is serious and who and what is not. You need to make it available to all at no cost. And all along the way you need to make it all fun and enjoyable.

Lakewood for decades has been a great place to live and raise a family. This is something that NEVER goes out of style. It is something that should always be remembered at every meeting. How does this affect current Lakewood, the residents, and businesses? Please note, it is not the cheapest, the most exclusive, the tax free.

Simply put, if 52 communities are falling into the "regional trap" then it only makes sense to be ONE that offers the alternative. Marketing 101.

Bill you caught a world class marlin on your little fishing trip.

Now let's stuff and mount it on the wall.

FWIW


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