citizens4uh

Senior Services

2010-05-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

In February Walter Stinson retired as Community Coordinator. At that time Mayor Infeld announced that he was slated to return part time in May to act as the Director of Senior Services. The ordinances creating this part time position and appointing Mr Stinson to it were on the agenda of the Council meeting for May17, 2010. Council tabled the legislation giving the reasons like, they did not know that this was happening to maybe another city could handle this for us. What do you think? Remember "Senior Services" might include recreation services but in most cities also include direct assistance for seniors in a number of different areas.

McDonald's comes to town

2010-05-29T07:11:00.001-07:00

McDonald's Corp is proposing a Mickey D's on Warrensville Rd between Lansdale and Bushnell. It will have a double drive thru similar to the one at 30th and Carnegie. The restaurant is relatively small. There are objections to this being on this site and petitions are being passed around the city. What do you think? Let us know! The site plan is available for viewing at the Building Department next to city hall.

Ashurst Road House

2009-07-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

Background:
The house noted in the Sun Press on Ashurst Road that was donated to the city has been a problem house for almost 20 years. The owner inherited it and never lived in it, although they would come to visit on occasion. Over the years, the exterior maintenance was basically done by the city and the bill added to the property taxes under "nuisance abatement". In 2007, the city attempted to get the owner to finally commit to maintaining it without the city acting as the "property manager" or selling the home. The owner indicated they would market the property. This never happened. Earlier this year, the owner offered to "donate" the home to the city. This has now occurred and the city now owns the home.

The residents of Ashurst that have lived near this home, and the problems that come from a somewhat abandoned home nearby made a formal request to Council that the home be torn down and the property used for a "pocket park". A few of the Council members resisted this idea and argued that the property should be rehabbed if possible and sold. They commissioned the city engineer to undertake a study of the property and to determine if the home could be salvaged. The opinion of the engineer is that it could be rehabbed. However from what we have been able to learn, the cost to do this could be quite prohibitive of any rehab actually taking place. Apparently a few council persons feel that if this site were turned into a pocket park that there would be a loss to the city in property taxes and potential income taxes. We would note that the home has not been occupied so there has not been income tax revenue in 20 years from the site and the city portion of the current property taxes is minimal (only 14% of the current tax about $ 160.00 per year).

We would also note that the last Master Plan update for the city called for the creation of "pocket parks" to add green space as an amenity to help improve property values. (The city's Master Plan is updated about every 10 years and public hearings were held on the plan before it was adopted. At those hearings residents indicated support for pocket parks.)

So here are our questions to you. What do you think should happen? Do you support the residents' request to demolish the house and create a pocket park? Do you think the house should be rehabbed if at all possible? If Council decides to do a rehab and the Ashurst Rd residents ask for support to encourage them to demolish it, would you support those residents? Why or why not?

John Carroll

2009-03-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

One of our posters made the following comments on the CRC thread. Certainly John Carroll is a topic that deserves its own thread so their comments were copied begin our discussion.

Merging CH-UH? (Annexation)

2009-03-04T03:16:00.000-08:00

We are changing the Sensible salting blog to merger and annexation.....

At the CRC meeting on 3-24-09, Councilman Mark Tumeo of Cleveland Heights attended the meeting and made a comment calling for the two cities to begin discussing "merging". CRC Chair Harvey Morrison did note that he felt that the CRC was not the place for this to be proposed.
At the Mayor's meeting held in February, one of the questions also dealt with this topic. What do you think. A few comments first to consider.....

1. Merging would mean that UH would lose its separate identity and would be annexed to CH. We would not have our own Mayor and Council, police and fire, or service departments. This is not a "merger' of services as it was understood, rather this was a call for annexation discussions.

2. According to the Sun Press, UH is projecting a $300,000 carry over in its current budget. CH is undertaking massive cuts ($2,000,000+) to keep its budget in balance.

3. The population of CH has dropped below 50,000. This changes how the city applies for and receives federal monies. They now must compete against more cities for the same dollars. If the cities merge, then CH would gain population bringing it back into the more favorable group.

4. Tax rates for UH residents would drop slightly. The income tax in CH is a half a percent less than in UH. Overall property tax savings would be non-existent since the school district gets the largest share of that money. The effective residential property tax rate for CH is $ 95.41, for UH is $ 95.71 (according to the County Treasurer's office) so the savings would be minimal.

Have at it....... but please remember to respond with some respect to the posters that do not agree with you. One of the great things about the country we live in is that we do not have to agree and generally we can find that we each have some valid reasons for believing as we do. Thank you....