LET ME REPEAT MYSELF: From October 10...
No potential candidate for Mayor should get a free ride on this. Reporters and citizens need to make all the players come clean on their budget positions, long before this turns into a posture-fest at the Council committee table. If you think people need to be laid off, who goes first? If there's "fat" to be cut, where is it specifically? If you don't have some useful leadership to offer now, don't come to us talking about leadership in 2005. No Schwartzeneggers need apply.
Of course, this can't happen if all the numbers aren't public.
... The 2004 General Fund projections (and the 2003 numbers to date) -- all the projections -- should be posted prominently on the City's website right now, and updated as the Administration's information changes. This issue, far more than lakefront design or even the Convention Center, cries out for an open transparent public process: "We will have a lot less money than we need next year. What should we do about it?"
11.26.2003
MAYOR'S FULL BUDGET STATEMENT ON LINE: I'm happy to report that Mayor Campbell's full statement on budget cuts Monday, and the accompanying press release (with a significant amount of additional detail), are now both available at the City website.
This is a very good first step toward a full, public, transparent debate on the City's financial choices. A good next step would be posting Finance Director Baker's latest revenue results and projections, and the details of proposed cuts, department by department.
If you agree, here's the Mayor's e-mail form.
This is a very good first step toward a full, public, transparent debate on the City's financial choices. A good next step would be posting Finance Director Baker's latest revenue results and projections, and the details of proposed cuts, department by department.
If you agree, here's the Mayor's e-mail form.
THE FIRST CASUALTY: The sign is still out there at my neighborhood Convenient store, two days after everyone in the city -- including the guys next door at Fire Station 20 -- learned that Mayor Campbell plans to lay off 150 firefighters, not 235, and is proposing to close no stations.
The sign is a lie now, of course. But since nobody signed it, I guess nobody's responsible for correcting it or removing it. It can just sit out there, telling the neighbors something that isn't true but still serves the purpose of the folks who put it up... much like the "2,000 new city workers added in the 1990s" myth that the Mayor's Office apparently promoted to the Plain Dealer, which put it in an editorial and still hasn't corrected it.
Like the Mayor's chief of staff supposedly said to the Firefighters president, "This is war". And in war the first casualty is the truth.
The sign is a lie now, of course. But since nobody signed it, I guess nobody's responsible for correcting it or removing it. It can just sit out there, telling the neighbors something that isn't true but still serves the purpose of the folks who put it up... much like the "2,000 new city workers added in the 1990s" myth that the Mayor's Office apparently promoted to the Plain Dealer, which put it in an editorial and still hasn't corrected it.
Like the Mayor's chief of staff supposedly said to the Firefighters president, "This is war". And in war the first casualty is the truth.
11.24.2003
Campbell plans to cut 700 jobs
Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell plans to cut more than 700 city jobs, delay the opening of outdoor swimming pools and scrap eight fire companies to help eliminate next year's $61 million budget deficit.... The Parks and Recreation Department and the Service Department, which handles road repair and trash pickup, will each lose 60 jobs... The city will eliminate 60 part-time jobs and not hire 310 seasonal employees for such tasks as snowplowing and trash pickup.
So tell me again, after all the agonizing and hand-wringing, why is a temporary income tax increase not on the table? A quarter-percent surcharge for the last three quarters of 2004 would raise nearly half of the shortfall -- if it was on the ballot March 4 instead of a Convention Center tax. I believe it could pass, given the alternatives.
The safety forces may be grandstanding and exaggerating the dangers, but I can tell you from bitter experience that closing eight fire stations will slow response times and risk lives. And if you think that safety, recreation, and street repair failures aren't serious "quality of life" issues that will drive middle class families out -- along with the laid off workers themselves -- you just haven't been paying attention.
Correction... The Mayor's proposal calls for eliminating eight fire companies, not stations. Apparently a company is the crew of a truck, more or less. There is no proposal on the table to close any stations. This is a obviously a big difference. The Mayor says trucks and response times can be protected through changes in work rules, i.e. one fewer firefighter per truck.
Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell plans to cut more than 700 city jobs, delay the opening of outdoor swimming pools and scrap eight fire companies to help eliminate next year's $61 million budget deficit.... The Parks and Recreation Department and the Service Department, which handles road repair and trash pickup, will each lose 60 jobs... The city will eliminate 60 part-time jobs and not hire 310 seasonal employees for such tasks as snowplowing and trash pickup.
So tell me again, after all the agonizing and hand-wringing, why is a temporary income tax increase not on the table? A quarter-percent surcharge for the last three quarters of 2004 would raise nearly half of the shortfall -- if it was on the ballot March 4 instead of a Convention Center tax. I believe it could pass, given the alternatives.
The safety forces may be grandstanding and exaggerating the dangers, but I can tell you from bitter experience that closing eight fire stations will slow response times and risk lives. And if you think that safety, recreation, and street repair failures aren't serious "quality of life" issues that will drive middle class families out -- along with the laid off workers themselves -- you just haven't been paying attention.
Correction... The Mayor's proposal calls for eliminating eight fire companies, not stations. Apparently a company is the crew of a truck, more or less. There is no proposal on the table to close any stations. This is a obviously a big difference. The Mayor says trucks and response times can be protected through changes in work rules, i.e. one fewer firefighter per truck.
11.23.2003
MY REGIONAL GOVERNMENT PLAN (A THOUGHT EXERCISE): In this media market if not elsewhere, "regionalism" has become one of those words that obscures more than it communicates. Everyone from Thomas to Sam Fulwood, from Peter Lawson Jones (speaking at the last Connections Series event) to the fourteen biggest Cleveland law firms wants to talk "regional government". Elsewhere we're asked to think in terms of the bioregion, the northeast Ohio economic region (nineteen counties, according to REI's Ed Morrison), the "Great Lakes region" (Detroit to Buffalo with part of Ontario thrown in), etc., etc..
So what do they all mean by "region"? Certainly not the same thing. I'm pretty sure that Thomas and Lawson-Jones aren't proposing to create a municipal government that covers Lorain and Akron, while David Beach certainly doesn't think that the bioregion follows county lines. But by sharing the magic word "regional", all these disparate undertakings somehow hum at the same frequency in the public dialogue -- one big "progressive, visionary, 21st century" political harmonic. Sounds real pretty, doesn't it?
Now as my three regular readers know, I think there really is a distinct economic and political entity in Northeast Ohio -- more or less the same territory as REI's nineteen counties -- and I think we should have our own state, or something close to it. But there's a big difference between wanting to devolve centralized political authority to smaller, more locally-empowered entities (a value which is usually called subsidiarity), and wanting to merge smaller political authorities into a bigger one. You can call them both "regionalization", but they're two entirely different things.
"Centralization" is what we're discussing in Cleveland today... the merger of some or all municipal powers from a number of long-existing cities and villages into a single, bigger new municipality of some kind. What, why, who and how are still very vague. So to help clarify things, I want to offer -- purely as a thought exercise -- my very own municipal regionalization plan.
I call it the "BIGGER CLEVELAND PLAN" (and hereby claim copyright on the name, just in case some consultant tries to make a buck off it later).
Here's the way it would work: All of the cities currently sharing a border with the City of Cleveland would simultaneously offer to annex themselves to the City of Cleveland, along with their school districts. The City of Cleveland would accept their offer. Period. Full stop.
Of course nothing is that simple. The City of Cleveland's Home Rule Charter would have to be amended to redraw ward lines to include all those new citizens. And the process of incorporating the assets and employees of the various disappearing suburbs into Cleveland's would be complicated and stressful (no doubt providing all the legal work that those fourteen law firms are hoping for). But with strong, self-effacing leadership from all sides -- the kind of leadership everyone is demanding now from Jane Campbell and Frank Jackson -- I'm sure we could get through it.
In order of population, the annexed cities and villages would include Parma, Lakewood, Euclid, Cleveland Heights, Garfield Heights, Shaker Heights, East Cleveland, Maple Heights, South Euclid, Brook Park, Fairview Park, Warrensville Heights, Brooklyn, Newburgh Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Bratenahl, Cuyahoga Heights, and Linndale.
These eighteen municipalities -- the actual "first ring suburbs" -- have a total of about 450,000 residents, so their annexation would almost double Cleveland's population to over 925,000... back to Number 1 in Ohio and Number 11 in the U.S.
The combined Bigger Cleveland would have:
-- a poverty rate of 17%, compared to Smaller Cleveland's 26%
-- 19% of its adult residents with college degrees, compared to Smaller Cleveland's 11%
-- a public school system with a significant number of middle-income children and parents (at least at first) and a significant number of its teachers and administrators actually living in the district
-- lots of nice neighborhoods for its city employees to live in, even with the residency rule
-- some really nice new city parks and recreation centers open to all Cleveland residents (ever been to Brooklyn's Natatorium?)
-- a stronger property and income tax base, including some still-growing commercial centers and industrial parks
-- lots more political clout.
Of course, Smaller Cleveland residents would lose some political ground, too, since the former suburban voters would outnumber us in Bigger Cleveland (and they turn out better, too). African Americans in Smaller Cleveland would find themselves back in the minority, after decades of edging toward real political dominance in the city... a serious sacrifice for a community whose voting strength is currently its only way to get to the jobs-and-power table.
Nonetheless, I believe that, on balance, the Bigger Cleveland Plan as I have proposed it would be seen by most Smaller Cleveland residents as too good an offer to pass up, if only for the potential value to our schoolkids. And it has the advantage of being very straightforward: All we need is for those eighteen inner ring suburbs to get together and decide to be annexed to Cleveland, as provided under current state law.
Of course it would have to start with the eighteen suburbs themselves. I would think a good start would be for well-known regionalization fans Peter Lawson Jones and Jimmy Dimora to go around to all the city councils, school boards, and ward clubs in those municipalities to get the ball rolling. They could undoubtedly count on getting help from lots of local residents -- for example, attorneys from the fourteen biggest law firms -- who share the regional vision and are tired of being held back by the old-fashioned, parochial, inefficient communities where they live.
I would personally pay good money to hear those conversations -- especially Lawson-Jones making a pitch to the Shaker Heights school board.
Well, that's my Bigger Cleveland Plan. I wonder how long it will take for the petitions to start circulating in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, Euclid, Parma and Lakewood? Or to put it another way... when does ice skating season start in Hell?
So what do they all mean by "region"? Certainly not the same thing. I'm pretty sure that Thomas and Lawson-Jones aren't proposing to create a municipal government that covers Lorain and Akron, while David Beach certainly doesn't think that the bioregion follows county lines. But by sharing the magic word "regional", all these disparate undertakings somehow hum at the same frequency in the public dialogue -- one big "progressive, visionary, 21st century" political harmonic. Sounds real pretty, doesn't it?
Now as my three regular readers know, I think there really is a distinct economic and political entity in Northeast Ohio -- more or less the same territory as REI's nineteen counties -- and I think we should have our own state, or something close to it. But there's a big difference between wanting to devolve centralized political authority to smaller, more locally-empowered entities (a value which is usually called subsidiarity), and wanting to merge smaller political authorities into a bigger one. You can call them both "regionalization", but they're two entirely different things.
"Centralization" is what we're discussing in Cleveland today... the merger of some or all municipal powers from a number of long-existing cities and villages into a single, bigger new municipality of some kind. What, why, who and how are still very vague. So to help clarify things, I want to offer -- purely as a thought exercise -- my very own municipal regionalization plan.
I call it the "BIGGER CLEVELAND PLAN" (and hereby claim copyright on the name, just in case some consultant tries to make a buck off it later).
Here's the way it would work: All of the cities currently sharing a border with the City of Cleveland would simultaneously offer to annex themselves to the City of Cleveland, along with their school districts. The City of Cleveland would accept their offer. Period. Full stop.
Of course nothing is that simple. The City of Cleveland's Home Rule Charter would have to be amended to redraw ward lines to include all those new citizens. And the process of incorporating the assets and employees of the various disappearing suburbs into Cleveland's would be complicated and stressful (no doubt providing all the legal work that those fourteen law firms are hoping for). But with strong, self-effacing leadership from all sides -- the kind of leadership everyone is demanding now from Jane Campbell and Frank Jackson -- I'm sure we could get through it.
In order of population, the annexed cities and villages would include Parma, Lakewood, Euclid, Cleveland Heights, Garfield Heights, Shaker Heights, East Cleveland, Maple Heights, South Euclid, Brook Park, Fairview Park, Warrensville Heights, Brooklyn, Newburgh Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Bratenahl, Cuyahoga Heights, and Linndale.
These eighteen municipalities -- the actual "first ring suburbs" -- have a total of about 450,000 residents, so their annexation would almost double Cleveland's population to over 925,000... back to Number 1 in Ohio and Number 11 in the U.S.
The combined Bigger Cleveland would have:
-- a poverty rate of 17%, compared to Smaller Cleveland's 26%
-- 19% of its adult residents with college degrees, compared to Smaller Cleveland's 11%
-- a public school system with a significant number of middle-income children and parents (at least at first) and a significant number of its teachers and administrators actually living in the district
-- lots of nice neighborhoods for its city employees to live in, even with the residency rule
-- some really nice new city parks and recreation centers open to all Cleveland residents (ever been to Brooklyn's Natatorium?)
-- a stronger property and income tax base, including some still-growing commercial centers and industrial parks
-- lots more political clout.
Of course, Smaller Cleveland residents would lose some political ground, too, since the former suburban voters would outnumber us in Bigger Cleveland (and they turn out better, too). African Americans in Smaller Cleveland would find themselves back in the minority, after decades of edging toward real political dominance in the city... a serious sacrifice for a community whose voting strength is currently its only way to get to the jobs-and-power table.
Nonetheless, I believe that, on balance, the Bigger Cleveland Plan as I have proposed it would be seen by most Smaller Cleveland residents as too good an offer to pass up, if only for the potential value to our schoolkids. And it has the advantage of being very straightforward: All we need is for those eighteen inner ring suburbs to get together and decide to be annexed to Cleveland, as provided under current state law.
Of course it would have to start with the eighteen suburbs themselves. I would think a good start would be for well-known regionalization fans Peter Lawson Jones and Jimmy Dimora to go around to all the city councils, school boards, and ward clubs in those municipalities to get the ball rolling. They could undoubtedly count on getting help from lots of local residents -- for example, attorneys from the fourteen biggest law firms -- who share the regional vision and are tired of being held back by the old-fashioned, parochial, inefficient communities where they live.
I would personally pay good money to hear those conversations -- especially Lawson-Jones making a pitch to the Shaker Heights school board.
Well, that's my Bigger Cleveland Plan. I wonder how long it will take for the petitions to start circulating in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, Euclid, Parma and Lakewood? Or to put it another way... when does ice skating season start in Hell?
11.17.2003
11.08.2003
ISSUE 1: TECHS AND THE CITY
How State Issue 1 did in the City of Cleveland:
(Ward map here.)
Issue 1 got majority support in twenty out of 21 Cleveland wards (the exception was Ward 16, Old Brooklyn). It broke 60% in all eleven East Side wards as well as Ward 13 (Tremont-Downtown-Goodrich Park).
The overall City result of 61-39% was basically identical to the rest of Cuyahoga County at 63-37%. But Cleveland's voter turnout of about 38,000 -- 11% of eligible adults -- was far lower than the rest of the county, where almost a third of all adults voted. This is not surprising -- Cleveland had only three judgeships and Issue 1 on its ballot, whereas many suburbs were electing mayors and city councils and voting on high-profile issues -- but it was unfortunate for Issue 1 backers, who might well have netted 15,000 to 20,000 votes from a higher city turnout. (The issue failed by only 45,000 votes statewide.)
On its face, there was nothing exceptional about the city's support for the issue. It was strong in this county, in NEO generally, and in Democratic-voting areas; it was weakest downstate and in Republican-dominated areas. While Issue 1 was sponsored by a GOP governor with the support of a GOP legislature, its basic pitch -- big new government investment to create new high-paying tech jobs -- seemed far more resonant for labor and city Democrats than for most white-collar Republicans, let alone farmers. And that's pretty much how the votes fell.
But I think Cleveland's vote is worth some attention nonetheless. Remember, these are the same voters who, according to polls, would have buried a Convention Center tax if it had been on this ballot. These are the people who are dismissed by some as too short-sighted, parochial and manufacturing-obsessed to embrace a new golden age of entrepreneurial wealth creation and creative-class high life. Thus this is the city whose very political existence is seen in some quarters as an obstacle to regional progress and prosperity.
And now it turns out we liked the Third Frontier better than they did in the Columbus and Cincinnati suburbs. Why, Frank Jackson's Ward 5 went for it by more than 70%!
Maybe the champions of NEO's new economic paradigm(s) have been looking for love in the wrong places.
More on this next time.
(Ward map here.)
Issue 1 got majority support in twenty out of 21 Cleveland wards (the exception was Ward 16, Old Brooklyn). It broke 60% in all eleven East Side wards as well as Ward 13 (Tremont-Downtown-Goodrich Park).
The overall City result of 61-39% was basically identical to the rest of Cuyahoga County at 63-37%. But Cleveland's voter turnout of about 38,000 -- 11% of eligible adults -- was far lower than the rest of the county, where almost a third of all adults voted. This is not surprising -- Cleveland had only three judgeships and Issue 1 on its ballot, whereas many suburbs were electing mayors and city councils and voting on high-profile issues -- but it was unfortunate for Issue 1 backers, who might well have netted 15,000 to 20,000 votes from a higher city turnout. (The issue failed by only 45,000 votes statewide.)
On its face, there was nothing exceptional about the city's support for the issue. It was strong in this county, in NEO generally, and in Democratic-voting areas; it was weakest downstate and in Republican-dominated areas. While Issue 1 was sponsored by a GOP governor with the support of a GOP legislature, its basic pitch -- big new government investment to create new high-paying tech jobs -- seemed far more resonant for labor and city Democrats than for most white-collar Republicans, let alone farmers. And that's pretty much how the votes fell.
But I think Cleveland's vote is worth some attention nonetheless. Remember, these are the same voters who, according to polls, would have buried a Convention Center tax if it had been on this ballot. These are the people who are dismissed by some as too short-sighted, parochial and manufacturing-obsessed to embrace a new golden age of entrepreneurial wealth creation and creative-class high life. Thus this is the city whose very political existence is seen in some quarters as an obstacle to regional progress and prosperity.
And now it turns out we liked the Third Frontier better than they did in the Columbus and Cincinnati suburbs. Why, Frank Jackson's Ward 5 went for it by more than 70%!
Maybe the champions of NEO's new economic paradigm(s) have been looking for love in the wrong places.
More on this next time.
11.06.2003
FOR ALL YOU WIFI FREAKS: Via the Community Technology Centers Network mailing list, a new website on "muni wireless".
MORE WAL-MART: Yesterday's New York Times has a long article on the Wal-Mart cleaning contractor case, which led to recent arrests at the chain's North Olmsted store along with sixty others.
Various sources in the story say store managers must have known illegal workers were cleaning their stores. The workers interviewed came in on tourist visas, worked long hours for months at a time without days off, and earned less an $7 an hour with no overtime pay. But there's a heartwarming high-tech edge to the story: They were recruited on the Web!
Robert, a Czech who runs a Web site to attract Eastern Europeans to janitorial work, said using foreign cleaners was good for Wal-Mart and for American consumers.
"No American wants to do this job," he said. "If they hired Americans, it would take 10 of them to do the work done by five Czechs. This helps Wal-Mart keep its prices low."
Ah, good old forthright ethnic pride. I'm amazed he's not featured in a Wal-Mart TV ad.
Various sources in the story say store managers must have known illegal workers were cleaning their stores. The workers interviewed came in on tourist visas, worked long hours for months at a time without days off, and earned less an $7 an hour with no overtime pay. But there's a heartwarming high-tech edge to the story: They were recruited on the Web!
Robert, a Czech who runs a Web site to attract Eastern Europeans to janitorial work, said using foreign cleaners was good for Wal-Mart and for American consumers.
"No American wants to do this job," he said. "If they hired Americans, it would take 10 of them to do the work done by five Czechs. This helps Wal-Mart keep its prices low."
Ah, good old forthright ethnic pride. I'm amazed he's not featured in a Wal-Mart TV ad.
11.04.2003
ROLDO: George Nemeth reveals that Roldo Bartimole's next column on Cool Cleveland responds to some earlier entries here and here. (You have to scroll down Roldo's column to get to this... it's the last section headlined "Consequences". )
The first thing I want to say is that I'm so happy that Roldo has a home on line with Cool Cleveland. Can you imagine any other well-known writer in this town being as scrupulous and diligent as this? Thank you, Mr. Mulready and Co.!
Roldo's column speaks for itself (including taking exception to my lumping him in with Crain's as a layoff enthusiast). But what's really interesting is Finance Director Baker's acknowledgment that the last ten years' job growth in City departments was closer to 600 than it was to 2,000 -- the number cited by editorials in both Crain's and the Plain Dealer, as well as Roldo's original City News column.
Why is it so interesting? Because when I contacted Joe Frolik at the PD, who wrote the editorial in question, he told me his source for the bigger number was the Mayor's office. (Joe says he was cautioned that it referred to overall employment growth, not just General Fund departments -- but it turns out that the real numbers in both cases are almost identical.) So it seems that someone at City Hall -- someone who talks to PD reporters -- was eiher badly misinformed or fibbing.
Does it matter? Joe made the same point to me that Roldo makes in his column, i.e. whether it's 2,000 added workers or only 600, the bottom line is still a $50 million deficit that won't go away without some serious payroll cuts somewhere. I've pretty much said what I have to say about this already.
Whatever the City does about all this, however, it's guaranteed to create extreme civic nastiness if the debate is less than honest, factual and transparent. The Case of the Two Thousand New Employees is not a promising start.
The first thing I want to say is that I'm so happy that Roldo has a home on line with Cool Cleveland. Can you imagine any other well-known writer in this town being as scrupulous and diligent as this? Thank you, Mr. Mulready and Co.!
Roldo's column speaks for itself (including taking exception to my lumping him in with Crain's as a layoff enthusiast). But what's really interesting is Finance Director Baker's acknowledgment that the last ten years' job growth in City departments was closer to 600 than it was to 2,000 -- the number cited by editorials in both Crain's and the Plain Dealer, as well as Roldo's original City News column.
Why is it so interesting? Because when I contacted Joe Frolik at the PD, who wrote the editorial in question, he told me his source for the bigger number was the Mayor's office. (Joe says he was cautioned that it referred to overall employment growth, not just General Fund departments -- but it turns out that the real numbers in both cases are almost identical.) So it seems that someone at City Hall -- someone who talks to PD reporters -- was eiher badly misinformed or fibbing.
Does it matter? Joe made the same point to me that Roldo makes in his column, i.e. whether it's 2,000 added workers or only 600, the bottom line is still a $50 million deficit that won't go away without some serious payroll cuts somewhere. I've pretty much said what I have to say about this already.
Whatever the City does about all this, however, it's guaranteed to create extreme civic nastiness if the debate is less than honest, factual and transparent. The Case of the Two Thousand New Employees is not a promising start.
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