I sent out this email on Thursday, June 6, 2013, after seeing the electronic billboard at our southern end of Lander Road (by the Chagrin and Pinetree circle). The City has also sent out the information and it's on the website.

Greetings!

Due to a desire to have more residents utilize the City-wide City-generated electronic communications, you've not received many emails from me personally recently. And hopefully by now you have visited and used the new website which launched at the very end of December 2012 (see here), and have signed up for the City communications (see here) and have had a chance to sign up for the Code Red alert system (see here about the program and here to sign up).

However, I also appreciate the comments I've received that have noted the decrease in frequency of these emails and this is a bit of an attempt to re-connect a little more often without duplicating what you receive from the City.  And with that in mind, please take note of this information regarding the road work that will start this Monday, June 10, 2013 on Lander Road in Pepper Pike. This information is directly from the website (see here):

Lander Road Reconstruction Project 2013 - 2014

June 4, 2013

Work Schedule for  the  Lander Road Reconstruction Project

2013

Phase I  -  Cedar Rd. to Fairmount Blvd.:  June 10th through July 26th
Phase II  -  Fairmount Blvd. to Shaker Blvd.:  July 29th through September 13th
Phase III  -  Shaker Blvd to South Woodland Rd.:  September 16th through November 15th

2014
Phase IV  -  South Woodland Rd. to Chagrin Blvd.( does not include Lander/Chagrin Circle):  April 1st through May 15th

These timelines are subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances, i.e. weather conditions.

I'd urge you to please contact City Hall if you have any questions (I called the engineer myself yesterday to get a refresher on exactly what the plan was/is).

Have a great June and be ready for the Community Band season:

Summer 2013 schedule of performances 

Pepper Pike Park - Monday, July 15 at 7:00pm

Pepper Pike Park - Monday, August 5 at 7:00pm

Pepper Pike Park - Sunday, August 25 - Part of the Ice Cream Social

Never hesitate to be in touch if you have questions, comments or concerns, would like to be removed from this email list or want to have someone added to it (please feel free to forward at will).

Very warm wishes on this drizzly, cool day!

Jill

On Roads, Infrastructure and Safety

The Pepper Pike Road, Infrastructure and Safety Committee is a new committee. Its first meeting was on 4/4/12 and its next is Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 7:30pm.  This column from Bloomberg News encompasses a whole lot of thoughts, in general and specifically, that I have had on the far-reaching subjects with which this committee is expected to deal. 

At the first meeting, Councilman Tony Gentile (the council rep on the committee, serving with three residents) asked that Council consider, in regard to weighing what work if any should be done to Lander Road, "What do we want Lander Road to be?" 

When I first heard the question (I was in the audience), I smiled, thinking, "What an existential question!" But in the Bloomberg piece, the authors concludes his discussion of problems and solutions with, "Beyond all these things, rising standards would help. We should expect our streets to shine, and if they don’t, we should hold the politicians responsible."

My first instinct is always to go to the taxpayers - what do you want Lander or any other road in the City "to be?" And do they need to "shine" - or something more? Something less?

Coyotes

Some residents have raised concerns about coyotes.  In this article from Thursday's Chagrin Solon Sun, the advice given is in regard to encountering coyotes in the Geauga Parks but some of it could be useful otherwise:

Park officials said the animals are normally passive, but may be more intense from January through June due to mating, denning and pup weaning.

The presence of dogs may trigger coyotes to be more aggressive, including yips, howls and growls, according to the statement. Coyotes may follow behind dog-walkers for a short distance, it cautioned.

Park users are advised to shorten their pet’s leash, pick up and carry small dogs and keep the pet calm while leaving the area the same way it was entered.

If a coyote does approach, park officials advise users to walk backward slowly and discourage the animal by using a deep voice, waving their arms, throwing objects and looking the coyote directly in its eyes.

Users can also make themselves appear bigger by spreading open a jacket or vest. A whistle can frighten a coyote and alert others.

If you have any questions, please call the City.  There have been sightings in Pepper Pike.

Sterling Lakes, Old & New Brainard Roads, Traffic on Lander Road all subject to discussion

From the Chagrin Solon Sun:

Traffic safety concerns for drivers exiting Sterling Drive onto Brainard Road have ignited discussions about the possible reopening of Old Brainard Road as a north-south thoroughfare.

More than 15 residents from the Sterling Lake development showed up at a monthly road and safety meeting of City Council Jan. 11 to press the new city administration about what they consider an accident in waiting. They said poor sight lines at the intersection make them afraid to pull out of the development for fear of being struck by fast-approaching vehicles on Brainard.

Read the whole story and check out the minutes from the 1/11/12 meeting when they're posted.

What do you think about a light at New Brainard and the Sterling Lakes entrance across from the Pointe townhouses?  Should that gate be permanently closed and Old Brainard re-opened so that people can exit there?  If Old Brainard is being looked at for re-opening, should it be just the end at Chagrin, or also down by City Hall?

Or should everything stay as is?

I haven't said a word about where this fits in as a priority for the City or how any changes would be paid for, but obviously those questions and others will have to be calculated into the equation.

Or no?

Tonight's Pepper Pike City Council meeting & other updates

Sent this morning:

Good day.

A quick list of events and other information that may be of interest to you:

1. The regularly scheduled monthly City Council meeting will be this evening (Wednesday, 1/18/12) at 8pm in City Hall. The meeting is open to the public and you can find the agenda attached or here at the City website.

2. There is an opening on the Orange City Schools Board of Education should anyone be interested in applying or know someone you'd like to encourage to apply. The deadline is next Wednesday, January 25th, at noon. You can read more here.

3. At last week's Road & Safety meeting, Mayor Bain spoke about a few priorities of his. I do not want to mischaracterize anything he said and would urge residents to consult the meeting minutes on a regular basis (though be aware that they are often not posted for a couple of week, though you can listen to the tapes or request them from the Clerk of Council once completed and approved).  Very generally, he addressed:

-an information technology (IT) upgrade to bring the City into the 21st Century, if not the current decade
-making the City campus "greener" (as opposed to more green in color, though that could be accomplished too!)
-putting a hold on a traffic light at Pinetree and Pinebrook
-putting a hold on removing the blinking light at South Woodland and Old Brainard
-looking at traffic issues related to Windy Hill Road
-adopting an ethics policy

Again, do double-check me with the minutes and of course, with contacting any of us (information to do that is here).

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

Upcoming Pepper Pike City Council meetings & news items

Mailed out tonight:

Greetings.

A quick rundown:

1. This week's Road & Safety/Finance & Planning meeting is scheduled for its usual day (1/11/12, second Wednesday of every month) but will be starting at 8pm.  You can see the agenda here or via the attached document (a pdf).

Please note: For those who may be interested in this topic, the agenda lists "Sterling Lakes/Brainard Traffic Issue" as an item under the heading, "Discussion."

2. There is a regular City Council meeting next week on 1/18/12. No agenda yet.

3. The podcast of five new mayors on the WCPN Sound of Ideas show, including Mayor Bain, can be heard here.

4. The Chagrin Solon Sun's article on Mayor Bain can be read here.

5. Detailed property tax information for Pepper Pike property owners can be found here.

6. Vote-by-mail applications (vote by mail voting begins January 31 - hard to believe!) can be found here.

Meeting & Event Information of Interest to Pepper Pike Residents

I sent this information out via email just a bit ago.  If you'd like to be added to the distribution list, let me know.  Also, I forgot to include Monday, August 1 which is the monthly Planning & Zoning meeting.  It starts at 7:30pm and like all the other meetings, takes place in City Hall and is open to the public.

Good evening and I will be succint (!):

1. TONIGHT: The monthly Road & Safety/Finance & Planning meeting is this evening at 7:30pm in the City Hall.  Always open to the public, it is also always on the second Wednesday of the month, same time, same place.  You can read the agenda here or see the attachment.  You can see that the Woodmere dispatch agreement and the rubbish fee will be discussed, in addition to several other items.

2. NEXT WEDNESDAY NIGHT (7/20): The monthly Council meeting will be the evening of Wednesday, July 20 at 8pm in the City Hall.  Always open to the public, it is also always on the third Wednesday of the month, same time, same place.  The agenda should be up by the beginning of next week.

3. Monday, August 1, evening: The Pepper Pike Community Band will play its second free concert, rain (in the Fire Station) or shine (in the Pepper Pike Park). I've attended the two concerts already held this year and they were lovely. They begin at 7:30pm.

4. September 15th (a Thursday): The Pepper Pike Civic League will hold its annual Candidates + Issues Meeting at the Brady Middle School. These events usually start at 7pm and will feature the candidates running for Pepper Pike Mayor and Pepper Pike City Council, among other possible elected positions.

5. If you've not had a chance to view the Feagler & Friends edition from last week regarding the merger study and regionalism, you can view it here.

6. I keep a blog about City Council, the City and other topics of interest to those who follow government, politics and citizen engagement.  It's called In The Arena, you can see it here, and you can subscribe to it via an RSS feed or you can visit it as you please. 

Thank you as always for your time and for choosing to be in Pepper Pike.  I look forward to hearing your questions, concerns and comments as always.

Meeting Reminders and Website Updates

This text reflects information I shared in an email I sent out today.  The information under the third item is in this blog post already.

Good day to everyone.

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.

1. Meeting Reminders

• Monday, August 30, 2010, 7:30 pm, Planning & Zoning Commission meeting, City Hall, open to the public (as always).  This meeting is the September P&Z meeting which, if normally scheduled, falls on Labor Day (Monday, September 6, 2010).
• Tuesday, September 7, 2010, 7:30pm, Road & Safety/Planning & Zoning meeting, City Hall, open to the public (as always).  This meeting, if normally scheduled, falls on the evening that the Jewish New Year begins (Wednesday night, Sept. 8) and therefore was moved to 9/7/10.
• NOT YET SCHEDULED but mentioned at last week's City Council meeting: Wednesday, September 1, 2010, a special Council session to discuss the topic of re-hiring a police officer.  This meeting, to the best of my knowledge, has NOT BEEN SCHEDULED but this date was mentioned at the 8/18/10 Council meeting last week.

2. City Website Updates

City & City Government Events This Week

I sent out this communication this evening. If you would like to receive these emails, please send me your email address and I will add you to the list. Thank you.


Good evening (or morning as the case may be).

As always, let me know if you want to stop receiving these emails. No problem to remove anyone.  Also, if you know of others who might like to receive this information (which is from me and not an official city communication), feel free to pass that information on to me as well.

1. Pepper Pike Community Band concert tomorrow, Monday, July 12, Pepper Pike Park, 7:30pm.
You can read more about it here, including a list of music scheduled to be performed.  The band, upon request, agree to performing pro bono this year, except for the purchase of its sheet music which the City did pay (something under $600, closer to $400 I believe, this discussion is in the Council meetings but the band director had bought the sheet music prior to the decision that events such as the ice cream social, the concert and communications like the Pepper Pike Post were being suspended this year).

2. The monthly Finance Oversight Subcommittee meeting will be this Tuesday, July 13, Pepper Pike City Hall Chambers, 7:30pm.  This meeting is open to the public. Council members on the committee are Gail Mayland, Scott Newell and Jill Miller Zimon.  Residents on the committee are Don Jacobson, Kevin McGinty, Enid Rosenberg and Michael Shore.  The City's Finance Director, Prashant Shah, is also on the committee which is a subcommittee of the Finance & Planning committee.  This committee was created earlier this year and will be a permanent committee that will watch and follow the month to month and year over year revenues and expenditures.  It will report back to the full Council regularly.

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).

AGENDA: Tomorrow Night's Meetings (Road & Safety/Finance & Planning, as well as a Special Council Meeting)

If the City of Pepper Pike is to place a ballot issue before the voters in relation to a tax increase on the August 3rd ballot, then the issue must be certified by next Thursday, May 19.  Given that Council continues to work on a solution that it believes reflects what the City needs and the residents will support, there will be discussion first at the Road & Safety meeting, according to the agenda, and then at the Special Council Meeting, called for starting just after Road and Safety.

As I wrote last week, I remain unconvinced that a straight up .75 tax increase, with no change in the credit for residents who work outside the city but live in the city, no change in the credit limit for the same residents, and no sunset provision (which would send such a tax increase back to the voters in five years and therefore require Council and the mayor and his administration to be transparent and be held accountable) is the best option we can offer our taxpayers.

Please consider attending the meetings and/or writing or calling council members or the mayor to share your comments, questions and concerns.

Thank you as always.
Agenda: 5/12/10 Pepper Pike Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee; Special Council Meeting

AGENDA: Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting, 4/14/10

Agenda: Pepper Pike City Council Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting, 4/14/10

AGENDA: Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting, 3/10/10

The quality isn't as good as usual when I scan a document so I will replace it once I receive the pdf from the original. 

Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting Agenda 3/10/10

Chagrin Solon Sun: B-W Study Recommends One Police Chief for PP, HV, MH and OV

Online only:

Pepper Pike and the villages of Orange, Moreland Hills and Hunting Valley could save from $660,000 to more than $3 million.

That is if the recommendations of a Baldwin Wallace study are fully implemented.

The final results of this study have not yet been released to the public.

...

The BW study recommend coordinating and consolidating some safety services within the communities, according to Moreland Hills Susan Renda.

Specifically, the recommendation is to have one Police Chief position for all four communities, while maintaining officers and individual police buildings in each municipality.

I think tonight's meeting is going to very, very long.

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

AGENDA: Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting, 2/10/10

As you may know from reading the local papers, Pepper Pike is facing a serious financial deficit for the 2010 year.  At tonight's Council meeting, co-chairs Gail Mayland and Rick Taft, who've been assigned to the Mayor's newly formed Long Range Strategic Planning Committee, will be giving an update on the committee's work so far (it first met last Weds. and have met again this week).

This meeting is public so please consider coming, listening and participating as you feel appropriate.  As some of you know from knowing me, I greatly value hearing your input and knowing your opinion on city matters.  And as a representative of the City's residents, I believe it is mandatory that I, as well as all of Council, hear from as many residents as possible.  The agenda for the meeting is after the jump.

Preview: Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting

Here's the agenda for tomorrow night's Road & Safety/Finance & Planning Committee Meeting. I've used a tool called Scribd.com that allows me to upload a pdf and turn it into a link that can be embedded in this post for everyone to see simply by viewing the post. Let me know how you like it. After the document, I write a bit about what city council meetings are and are not, depending on your POV, and what I think will be the highlights of the meeting.