TONIGHT: Dispatch discussion; TOMORROW: Work Session, Council Vacancy Selection Process Discussion

Many of you hopefully received the May 2012 schedule of events from Katy Zippert at the City (if you did not, you should get your email on the City distribution list so you can get that and similar updates - just email Katy at kzippert@pepperpike.org or go to the City website and click on the "Join Email List" button).

Just in case you did not, and since the topic of the City's dispatch services has been around for literally a few years now, I'm guessing many of you will be interested in hearing the Mayor when he provides information on four options to the Council tonight. I've not received any materials related to any of the options yet but you can read this Chagrin Solon Sun story from yesterday and see that they will be: keeping it in Pepper Pike, going with Beachwood, going with Lyndhurst or going with the Chagrin Valley Council of Governments dispatch services center. If you are interested in this topic, now is the time to come and hear what is being proposed and be sure to give us input.

Likewise, tomorrow night (Weds.), more information about the process related to filling the vacancy of Councilwoman Paulette Morganstern, who resigned effective May 1, 2012, will be forthcoming. If you are interested in hearing about that and/or contributing comments, questions or concerns, I would advise that you attend that meeting as well.

Tonight and tomorrow's meetings are at the City Hall and start at 7:30pm. Tonight's is about Dispatch only, tomorrow is a work session so there will be other business as well.

County Executive Fitzgerald's statement on county-wide dispatch consolidation study

From the inbox (bolding & underlining not in original)

STUDY SUGGESTS CONSOLIDATING 9-1-1 SYSTEMS TO CUT COSTS
TO TAXPAYERS

CLEVELAND – Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald and the Cuyahoga County Department of Public Safety and Justice Services released this week their Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Assessment which assessed the current status of the forty-seven Public Safety Answering Points, or Dispatch Centers, in Cuyahoga County. The assessment looked at all jurisdictions within Cuyahoga County to get the best understanding of the current PSAP system and recommends reducing the number of PSAPs and upgrading 9-1-1 hardware.

“The notion that there are 47 dispatch centers in Cuyahoga County alone is outdated and inefficient,” said FitzGerald.  “This county has the most number of PSAPs within one county in the entire State of Ohio, and this study has recommended ways for us to move forward in reducing the number of dispatch centers in an effort to provide more efficient services at a lower cost to our residents.”

The PSAP assessment made recommendations for technology improvements to the 9-1-1 infrastructure, organizational changes to the Cuyahoga Emergency Communications System and suggests methods for regional consolidation as a way to increase dispatching efficiency.  Throughout the 134 workstations in the County, there are 475 dispatchers and call takers.  The average cost to operate a PSAP is $509,498, excluding the city of Cleveland, where it costs $4,438,593 to operate their PSAP.
 
“This assessment is essential to moving forward in upgrading and enhancing Cuyahoga County’s 9-1-1 system,” said Deputy Chief of Staff Norberto Colón.  “It puts us in a position to upgrade existing technology and become a statewide model for dispatching. We are looking forward to working with all of the jurisdictions within the County to make the biggest impact on the safety of our citizens.”

The assessment can be found at: http://ja.cuyahogacounty.us/en-us/publications.aspx

BREAKING: Plain Dealer publishes info from, link to county-wide dispatch study

Here's the article and here's the study. I have not read the study yet (and don't actually recall knowing about it but maybe?), so I can't say much yet re: how its finding compare and contrast with anything we already know or think we know about the City's dispatch situation. But here are two interesting charts from the article and I'm sure the study's information will be looked at.

City updates, more/deeper/candid thoughts on City, finances, tax rate increase

Below is the text of an email I sent out today to those residents who have given me permission to email them with periodic updates. Please email me if you would like to be added to the list.  Thank you.

EDITING IN! Thank you to an eagle-eyed resident who saw that the email I sent out had the date July 13, though clearly people are receiving the email today, July 31.  I started drafting the email on July 13 and just kept working on the draft, which I finally finished and sent today, July 31.  I am sorry for the confusion, and the wrong date.

Greetings to all on this first day of August - unbelievable!

The disclaimer per usual re: being on this list: if you would like to be removed from my distribution list, please let me know. I understand and respect people's desire to receive less email. Please know that I do not share your emails with anyone, this is my personal list and those are two reasons why I keep your email addresses in the "blind copy" recipient section.

A few short City-related updates to share, and then, for those of you who remember the last long email I wrote, preceded by a warning about it being long, this email includes an even longer set of thoughts about the tax rate increase that will be decided by voters as a result of Tuesday's election.

The short updates:

1. There is a Pepper Pike Community Band concert on Monday, August 2 at 7:30pm in the Pepper Pike Park. 

2. There is a Planning & Zoning Commission meeting on Monday, August 2 at 7:30p in City Hall (open to the public as always) also.  I know this happened last year and I'm told that it happens not in frequently.  I'm just the messenger (though when I noticed the conflict, I did ask about it but there was not a movement to change it.) The agenda for the meeting can be seen here.

NB: For those interested in the progress of the Waterway Carwash in Lander Circle by Chagrin, they are scheduled to be at this meeting.

3. Voting will take place in Pepper Pike on Tuesday, August 3. You can read more about it here.  Polls are open from 6:30am through 7:30pm. 

Just so people know: I will be at one of the locations for an hour or so on Tuesday (I'm not sure which one yet).  Two of my Landerwood neighbors were involved in recruiting people to be at the polls. Both of those neighbors are with the "pro" group.  However, I will be there solely as a Council Member and to thank residents for turning out to vote, period.  I do not know how, as an elected official myself who evangelizes pretty much non-stop about civic engagement, I cannot and could not and would not offer to be there to thank those of you who vote in person on that day. As far as I know, so long as people are outside the area marked by flags, as many of you too can come and thank your fellow residents for giving us a good turnout.

Tuesday 8/3/10: Great streams of people coming into both polling locations - really impressed for midday (2pm ish) - chatted with many inside and outside the station - including another council member, some City employees, and Jean Seaton who was there for the "yes" side.  And while I did not see any "no" side yard signs or greeters, I did see many people I know who were voting on different sides. Thanks to everyone for voting, in person or absentee!

4. The next Finance Oversight Subcommittee meeting is Monday, August 9 at 7:30pm in the City Hall Chambers. It is open to the public. There is not yet a meeting agenda but I will post it when there is one. Minutes from prior meetings will also be available on the site but I am waiting for the electronic versions (my scanned versions are quite inferior).

5. The next regularly scheduled council meeting is Road & Safety/Finance & Planning on Wednesday, August 11 at 7:30pm in City Hall. Public as always, I've not received an agenda for it.

Please know that if you have any questions about these or other matters, please contact me or City Hall. You can find contact information here.

And now - the lengthy thoughts about the City and the ballot issues and oh, more than you may ever want to know.  As before, I leave residents to their excellent minds to determine whether they are for or against the ballot issues to be voted on this Tuesday. I clearly have opinions, but I am not going to tell anyone how to vote (and I have been asked to do that).

I want to thank the many, many residents who have in fact wanted to know my thoughts on many of the issues described below.  The thoughts below were written by me and only me in response to one very specifically worded request for my input: "Would you be able to address the letter Jim Lemay [sic] mailed to the residents? [the June 27, 2010 letter] Is his letter, providing "new information" accurate?" 
I have attached that letter for your easy reference. [not attached to the blog post]

As last time, no one has vetted what I'm writing here except me. I take 100% responsibility and I invite critique of my thoughts, always.  That can be done by phone, email, on my city council-related blog, where this will be posted after I send it or if you would like to get together to talk. 

Thank you in advance for your consideration and patience.  Here is my very candid response to that question, in a separate color just to offset it a bit. The bolding is simply to help you as the reader scan for what may interest you and what you may want to skip over.

I don't feel that the information provided in the letter is new and I also don't feel that it is all accurate or at least in context. With that in mind, what I'm going to do is list out for you all the notes I made on my copy of the letter and go from there:

Yard Sign Shenanigans: You Laugh But...

Political junkies like me peruse gazillions of bytes of information daily (sometimes hourly) as we keep up with the trials and tribulations of how our country manages to function at all.  The information often falls into one of a few typical categories. Some popular ones right now have to do with self-funding (think Meg Whitman), corruption (think Rod Blagojevich) and midterm elections (think comparisons to 1994).

So here's one from ICYMI category (In Case You Missed It) - an actual acronym used in the subject line by many political candidate's communications people to make sure you read something that really only true political junkies would see otherwise.  This story and video, about a candidate's son planting a video near an intersection allegedly catching the opponent and his wife taking down yard signs really seemed like an ICYMI for Pepper Pike residents. And the video - was posted on YouTube. 

UPDATE: "A City Outsources Everything. Sky Doesn't Fall"

Before anyone gets apoplectic, Maywood, CA is not Pepper Pike, or vice versa. Their troubles result from a police department run amok with litigation that even defies descriptions of Cuyahoga County corruption.  But this follow-up story from the New York Times is a nice "whatever happened to" piece to the entry I first posted about the city's unusual choices.

A snippet:

At first, people in this poor, long-troubled and heavily Hispanic city southeast of Los Angeles braced for anarchy.

Senior citizens were afraid they would be assaulted as they walked down the street. Parents worried the parks would be shut and their children would have nowhere to safely play. Landlords said their tenants had begun suggesting that without city-run services they would no longer feel obliged to pay rent.

The apocalypse never arrived. In fact, it seems this city was so bad at being a city that outsourcing — so far, at least — is being viewed as an act of municipal genius.

“We don’t want to be the model for other cities to lay off their employees,” said Magdalena Prado, a spokeswoman for the city who works on contract. “But our residents have been somewhat pleased.”

For better or worse, it does look like our city's review of its finances is looking like a model for Beachwood, now seeking to raise its income tax rate from 1.5% to 2% and South Russell, which is seeking to raise its income tax rate from 1% to 1.25%.

Clarification to Chagrin Valley Times article regarding Pepper Pike tax increase

This article in today's Chagrin Valley Times describes how Council reached a unanimous vote last Saturday and is placing a .5% income tax increase with a sunset provision plus a charter amendment related to the budget approval process on the August ballot.  Goodness knows that the reporters have been spending nearly as much time in Council chambers as we have, and I'm grateful for that.

I want to provide one clarification to today's piece. The following paragraph from it should attribute Council Member Rick Taft with the proposal, not me:

Councilwoman Jill Miller Zimon's proposal for an "equitable" tax at a May 12 meeting was opposed by most of council. She had proposed placing a 0.5-percent income tax increase along with a second property tax levy on the ballot. Specifically, she proposed a 2.5-mill police levy that would generate about $600,000 and cost the owner of a $300,000 home about $250.

The record will show that Rick actually made that proposal to Council that evening. And the millage he proposed would raise closer to $1 million (1 mill raises $394,000 according to the City's finance director).

Riding In Cars With Police Officers

Well, just one police officer - Sergeant Cannon.  And I have to say, the car alone was overwhelming.  Many thanks to Sargent Cannon for educating me on a multitude of responsibilities and issues related to the police work the Pepper Pike Police Department undertakes.

Although I'm an advocate for the need to be objective when it comes to being a council member faced with a multi-million dollar budget deficit, I've also been asking about how the reality of being in deficit is affecting our city personnel.  And watching what has to be done and gets done, the way it gets done, and realizing how far ahead of the game we are when we invest in prevention rather than expend only in response to something that's already happened or happening...well, it deepens that deep sigh I keep exhaling even more.

Speaking of which, here are two more articles about how local governments are dealing with deficits - aka more articles that demonstrate just how not alone Pepper Pike is in trying to solve these nearly impossible equations:

Euclid lays off 10 police, 6 firefighters

Ashtabula stops snow plows for the weekend