CUT BEACHWOOD CITY COUNCIL: The Free Times editorial called "Cut City Council" is unsigned, but it sure sounds like Editor-In-Chief David Eden, so at first I thought it was about Beachwood. After all, Beachwood Dave's hometown of 12,000 people has not only a full-time Mayor who makes more than $80,000 a year, but seven part-time Council members... not to mention its own Police Chief, Fire Chief, Building Commissioner, Finance Director, Law Director, Service Director, Community Services Director, etc., etc.. As the editorial says, this does seem a bit "top heavy" for a community with half as many residents as the average Cleveland ward. And I know Beachwood Dave is a hometown community activist, having run for that very remunerative mayor's job a few years ago. (I guess that's how he knows so much about mayor stuff, like he keeps reminding us.)

But then I realized that the editorial is talking about my home town, where the average ward's 23,000 people (who would be Cuyahoga County's 12th biggest city if they seceded) get exactly one elected person to represent them and deal with their daily mountain of neighborhood problems and complaints.

So, okay, Beachwood Dave or whoever wrote this nonsense, listen up: I've been active in neighborhood work in Cleveland for twenty-two years, through three mayors, four Council presidents and about a million downtown/suburban schemes du jour for "bringing back the city". The only real improvement in Cleveland's civic structure during that twenty-two years has been the strengthening of the local Council Members' role in day-to-day neighborhood governance -- the result of better staffing, reliable "ward allocations" of CDBG and other funds, working partnerships with community development groups and planning staffs, and (frankly) smarter Council Members.

Some Councilmen do it better than others, of course, which is why we have elections. But generally the system works far better at the neighborhood level than it did twenty years ago -- which makes it just about unique in modern Cleveland experience.

It works because the territories and populations of the wards -- like those of most suburban municipalities -- are human scale. Council Members who put in the normal fourteen-hour days can return their calls, get to community meetings, pay attention to local project and budget issues, communicate with the safety and service departments, and still show up to legislate. They have a fighting chance to know constituents personally. And when they come up for election, they -- and their opponents -- can still campaign effectively without huge campaign budgets.

Access for ordinary citizens. A capacity for local problem-solving. Face-to-face politics. Yes, it's all a terrible waste of money.

The citizens of Beachwood need to put a stop to it. And Dave Eden is just the Beachwood citizen to get the ball rolling.

Maybe that will keep him too busy to screw up my city.