Listen: Economic Pressures on Local Governments

I know a few local folks who might have a few things to say about that topic, featured this morning on the Diane Rehm show. You can listen there once the podcast is up or now if it's not yet 11am on Tuesday morning.

And if they really want to get provocative, how about asking the guests how many local electeds will call the fines and fees they're imposing or increasing, whether the service is provided by a private contractor or not, a new tax, given the Supreme Court's health care act ruling last week. 

Here's the description:

Stockton, Calif., is the largest U.S. city to declare bankruptcy, and others could follow. A panel joins Diane to discuss economic pressures on local governments and the push for privatizing public services.

Guests

Michael Nadol, managing director, Public Financial Management, former deputy Mayor, Philadelphia, adjunct professor of competitive government, University of Pennsylvania Fels Institute of Government.

Kim Rueben, public finance economist, The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.

Harris Kenny, policy analyst, Reason Foundation

Kerry Korpi, director of research and collective bargaining, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

For those committed to regionalism & government collaboration

This Friday will be a watershed in Ohio: Word came down today that the Ohio Department of Development office in charge of the Local Government Innovation Fund grants and loans will gather at 1pm on Friday to announce awards:

The Local Government Innovation Fund Council will hold a public meeting on Friday June 1, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. at the Vern Riffe Center, 77 South High Street, 19th Floor Room 1960, Columbus, Ohio 43215.

The Council’s agenda includes reviewing Round 1 Loan and Grant applications for approval and award.

If you haven't been keeping up on just how much activity has increased in the area of shared services, across the country and literally the globe, then I highly recommend you subscribe to the EfficientGovNetwork news feed - it's part of my day job and I update it at least a couple of times a week, though I shoot for everyday. And there are more than enough news stories about efforts large and small to post multiple stories each day.

If you want to see that it's really happening and who is actually doing this work, check out the mash up here. And if you want to look more deeply at how it's done, check out the Wiki playbook (beta version). We'll be filling that up over time.

How will NE Ohio do? We don't know yet - but we'll know soon! (The study part of the four community merger was submitted by the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission - that's the only one I'm aware of for sure that Pepper Pike was involved in.)

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.

Congratulations to Jennifer Cohen, new Orange School Board member

From the Orange Schools website:

The Orange City School District Board of Education announced today that it has selected Ms. Jennifer Cohen to serve the remainder of the term vacated by Mr. Stanley Morganstern. That term expires December 31, 2013. She will be sworn in at the Board meeting on February 13, 2012.

Cohen is a 13 year resident of Orange Village where she and her husband reside with their three children, who attend Orange Schools. She has served on the board of the Orange Schools Foundation for five years, including the last three years as Co-President and grant committee chair. She is currently on Orange High School’s After-Prom committee and is a hospitality co-chair. Cohen is a volunteer with the OHS swim team and with Stagecrafters theater group through Orange Community Education and Recreation.

She has worked for 25 years in Human Resources Management and currently is the Professional Personnel Director for The Jewish Federation of Cleveland. She has a Bachelors of Science degree from The Ohio State University. She is involved in numerous community organizations.
“Jennifer is an excellent addition to the Orange Board of Education,” said Mr. Sam Steinhouse, Orange Board of Education President. “Her personal and professional experience will definitely be an asset to our schools.”

Cohen was one of 16 residents who applied for the open seat. Morganstern stepped down from the school board effective January 16, 2012. He cited the winding down of his Ohio based law practice and his plans to spend most of his time in Arizona as the reason for his resignation. 

I served with Jennifer on the Orange Schools Foundation and am sure she will do a great job.  Good luck to her and the board as they proceed.

Chagrin Solon Sun editorial: "Disband Woodmere Police Department"

Please read it for yourself, but here's an excerpt:

As we see it, from a numbers standpoint, the decision is quite simple. Paying Orange $500,000 a year to provide police protection to the village is a much better alternative than paying the salaries and benefits of nine full-time officers as well as equipment, vehicles, uniforms and facility maintenance. This is a move that must be made, and soon.

...

We realize the police department is one of the few things Woodmere can boast as its own, and taking that away could open the door to the village eventually losing its identity altogether and being merged with Orange or Pepper Pike. Maintaining the stubborn stance of keeping the department for pride’s sake, however, will only hasten the demise of the village. As much as Woodmere residents may want the village to hold on to one of the few remaining things it can truly call its own, they also have to look at the big picture and realize that the village cannot afford to maintain the status quo.

It's an editorial that definitely acknowledges a number of problematic elements related to why this wasn't Mayor Smith's first choice even after the state audit indicated that he needed to downsize his Village's PD. But even so, just being empathetic, this cannot be easy - though I suspect once it's accomplished, many people may come to feel like they should have done it sooner.

"Woodmere battles for its mere existence"

And I think this is figurative and literal, especially when you take into account the idea of merger with Moreland Hills, Orange Village and Pepper Pike.

From the Chagrin Valley Times, in pertinent part:

When it comes to the consideration of a merger with Moreland Hills, Orange and Pepper Pike, it's important to keep an open mind, [Woodmere Mayor Charles] Smith said.

[Woodmere Council President Lisa] Mrs. Brockwell said, while residents have told her they don't want to lose the sense of identity they have with their community, there must be an ongoing conversation about what is possible and best for all concerned.

Thoughts, ideas, hopes, anyone?

Pepper Pike businessman in FLOTUS box tonight for SOTU

FLOTUS = First Lady of the United States
SOTU = State of the Union

For deciphering the rest, here's the Plain Dealer article reporting on our resident's upcoming evening. Safe travels and I'm sure we'll see a few flashes of him on the television.

Wherefore art thou, regionalism?

Just askin' - from the Sunday Plain Dealer, "Westlake's pursuit of new water source threatens stability of Cleveland utility":

One of Cleveland's biggest customers, Westlake is working on plans to set up its own water department and buy wholesale from the Avon Lake water system in neighboring Lorain County.

The Cleveland water department, already struggling with declining consumption, is moving aggressively to stop the revolt led by longtime Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough.

It would be the first defection from the regional water system since several Lake County communities left in the early 1980s, and it could have far-reaching ramifications. Some fear that if Westlake pulls out, other dissatisfied western suburbs will follow.

Read the entire piece, as it also reveals a real battle of the consultants.

What would you do if you were Westlake? Avon? Cleveland? Another suburb using Cleveland - oh wait, we are.

Cleveland.com comment thread on Woodmere/Orange Village police arrangement

This article ("Woodmere may shut police department and hire Orange for protection") appeared in the Plain Dealer on Friday, 1/20/12 but the comment section is open for far longer than that. Read through - there are several mentions of Pepper Pike and other ideas related to whether communities should merge or not, and which ones, and why, and regarding which services.

Add to the debate there or here but do make sure you let your opinion be known by people in decision-making capacities.

Woodmere police chief resigns, Orange Village may take on its police functions

From the Chagrin Solon Sun:

[Woodmere Mayor Charles] Smith said the village is talking to Orange Village about contracting out Woodmere’s police services.

“We’re in a fiscal emergency and we are at a point where we can’t afford the police department,” Smith said. “The department represents 55 percent of our budget and for our small village of only five streets and 800 people, we are looking for opportunities to create sustainability.”

Last year, Smith said the village was going to do anything and everything to preserve the police department, but the current financial situation is not allowing the village to pay its bills in a timely manner. He is taking Orange Village’s $500,000 offer to conduct Woodmere policing very seriously.

So, should we have or shouldn't we have - taken on Woodmere's dispatch services?

As always, read the full article for the broader context.

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?

We're not the only ones looking to mayors

So does Arianna Huffington, of all people in, "Country in Crisis: Looking to America's Mayors to Rise to the Challenge."

Unfortunately, she's idealized the opportunities for all mayors based on examples from very large city mayors - cities with populations that rival the state of Ohio.  But here's a glimpse of her perceptions, based on those models:

That's why I believe the solutions the country is so desperately looking for are going to come at the local level -- from our mayors and engaged citizens working with their communities. It's our cities, not the nation's capital, that are the real idea factory of our country. It's the Mayor's Mansion not the White House from which bold decision-making is likely to originate. It's from any house on your street not the House of Representatives where projects that will make your community a better place to live in are more likely to surface.

And as our nation becomes more polarized at the national political level, it becomes all the more important to nurture the commonality we have at the local level, where people care about what they've always cared about: their children, their families, their schools, their communities. And it's our mayors who are best positioned to take advantage of these bonds -- especially given that many of our national leaders have given up even trying.

It's at the local level where we are still able to fulfill President Obama's exhortation last year "to sharpen our instincts for empathy" and "constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American Dream to future generations." It's increasingly clear that for that circle to be widened nationally it will have to be widened locally first.

I think it was the use of the word "mansion" that clued me in to her frame of reference, as you'll see in the full column: Newark (NJ), Portland (OR), Tampa (FL), Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago.

Scalability isn't just a glossary term on our kids' midterms this month. It's something all communities should seek to deploy in a variety of problem-solving settings.  I think I'm just having trouble seeing Arianna as the messenger.

PD Editorial: "Costs and benefits all point unmistakably to need for regionalization of municipal services"

Goodness knows I spend a lot of time on this in my day job, but a few words of caution: when capital needs total in the tens of millions, overselling regionalization as a panacea may cause frustration and disappointment.

I see the effort here as one that involves re-setting the default, permanently, so that when a public entity is faced with an identified need they want to fulfill, the first response is not automatically: how do we do this ourselves (including how to get the money from their taxpayers).  Rather, the default becomes to ask, think, consider: who else is doing this, how are they getting it done, can we do it together and if so, is that going to preserve our finances and fulfill the need?

Regionalism is about willpower and culture and mindset. It doesn't happen overnight, it shouldn't be overglorified, and it also shouldn't be demonized.  What it should be is given a chance - that includes succeeding and failing, because it does not always turn out to be the best thing. But you never know until you try, and there's not been that much of that going on either.

Here's the PD's piece.

Merger's in the air

If you didn't hear about it on the radio or television or see it in the papers yet:

Currently, there are six major departments and agencies that focus primarily on business and trade in the federal government.  The six are: U.S. Department of Commerce’s core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

Consolidating these agencies along with other related programs will help entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes grow, compete, and hire, leveraging one cohesive Department with one mission: to spur job creation and expand the U.S. economy.

In his last State of the Union Address, President Obama noted there was more that we must do to give American businesses all they need to succeed. The Federal Government is a maze of Federal agencies with overlapping services and missions, making it difficult for businesses – and especially small ones – to find the assistance they need to export, expand, and hire.

Many rivers to cross, though, as they say.

NB: I'm not posting this for any reason other than an example of efficient government ideas. There is more than enough to say about this if speaking through presidential & partisan political filters, but that's not why I've placed this here. If you want to have that discussion, you can visit the post here.

Bentleyville Mayor maintains disinterest in merger notions but is his position really any different from that of others?

From Thursday, 1/12/12's Chagrin Valley Times:

"In my view, merger is the combining of cities or villages, creating one new city or village with its own mayor, council, police chief, fire chief, etc. Regionalism, on the other hand, is the cooperation between communities which includes, but is not limited to, the sharing of services, personnel, equipment and also sharing the cost for some of these items," Mr. Spremulli said.

"Bentleyville is not examining the pros or cons of merger, but we are and have been actively involved in various aspects of regionalism."

With the exception that Moreland Hills, Orange Village, Pepper Pike and Woodmere are examining the pros or cons of a merger, I'm not sure I see a substantive difference between the actual positions of the mayors of these communities, no matter the on-the-record statements.

What is your sense?

Searchable Greenhouse gas data now available-see what's near us

It looks and sounds like a great tool but when you zero in on Cuyahoga County, I confess - I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking at in terms of the numbers - it's not something I've self-educated or otherwise learned about. Chagrin Fall's resident, EcoWatch publisher and small businesswoman Stefanie Penn Spear posted this information about the tool to help us understand and use it.

The PD article gives some thoughts as to how it can be used:

"These numbers can be used by business to monitor emissions. They can be used by the states, and they can be can be used by the finance and investment community to make more informed investment choices," she said.

"What we bank on is that better information will lead to a better informed public, which will lead to better environmental protection," McCarthy said.

The database is ghgdata.epa.gov, and includes a tutorial. It can be focused on an industry or a state or smaller geographic area.

At last night's Road & Safety meeting, Mayor Bain made a point of saying that he intends to make the Pepper Pike municipal campus more green, so accessing and considering this kind of information certainly fits in with the tenor of what's happening or going to happen in our community.

And we thought Pepper Pike had competition?

Fifteen (15!) residents vie for one open city council seat! And, as the Press Papers describes it, the process is looking to be very open and public:

Previous council candidate appointment interviews were conducted in executive session – closed to the public.

Council will meet with the candidates at 8 a.m. on Saturday and on Jan. 21 in 20-minute sessions in the council conference room in City Hall. The council members will rank the candidates in the first meeting, asking their top four or five to return for the second round of interviews. After finishing up the interviews, council will meet in executive session to go over each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses before choosing someone to appoint Jan. 23.

“It’s a new process,” he said. “I think, in the long run, this is the route to go with (council appointments) … In the past, most of these interviews were done in executive sessions, but these days, we feel they should be done in the open.”

Good for them, and the public.

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

MEETING TIME CHANGED: Road & Safety Meeting this Weds. at 8:00PM not 7:30PM

We received notice yesterday and it's on the City's website (thank you!) here.

BONUS for reading this blog: You can now listen online here to the five new NE Ohio mayors talk about the tasks they face and how they'll face them (a lot of time spent on the topic of regionalism and collaboration and how exactly they plan on moving forward on those issues).  The conversation took place Thursday morning on WCPN's Sound of Ideas show and included Pepper Pike Mayor Richard Bain.

Enter now: Hope and Stanley Adelstein Free Speech Essay Competition

Lovely photo and coverage of this contest was published in the Chagrin Valley Times here. Deadline for submission is February 15. High school juniors and seniors are eligible. Please read the article for full details but here are some highlights:

"Why do you think the freedom of speech is considered our most important right?" That is the question, but it's just the beginning in the Hope and Stanley Adelstein Free Speech Essay Competition for high school juniors and seniors.

Presented by the City Club of Cleveland, students are asked to answer what freedom of speech in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means to them in a maximum of 300 words.

The criteria for awards are clarity, content, originality and significance. The deadline for entries is Feb. 15.

Twenty essays will be selected by judges, who will rank the top three winners to be notified by March 30. First prize is $1,000, second prize is $750, and third prize is $500. The three top winners will read their essays at a City Club forum to be broadcast on radio, television, Youtube and the City Club website. The next 17 winners will receive $100 each, and teachers of the top three winners will win $250.