2021 Election Forums
Cleveland Heights Mayoral Candidate Forum - Sept. 9, 2021
The Noble Neighbors' Cleveland Heights Mayoral Candidate Forum is going virtual due to the Covid infection rates in Cuyahoga County. The questions that participants submitted to us before August 24, 2021 were combined into the following broad categories and were submitted to the candidates on August 26, 2021 for written response. Responses are due by September 9, the original forum date, but will be posted on this site as they are received. Please read the candidates' responses, look up their campaign websites, and link to other forums and questionnaires. We are better voters when we are better educated.
Email submitted to Cleveland Heights Mayoral Candidates on August 26, 2021:
Hello Cleveland Heights Mayoral Candidates,
Noble Neighbors' leaders have decided to cancel our in-person Mayoral Candidate Election Forum for September 9 due to the rising Covid-19 delta variant infections. Instead, we'd like to give you the opportunity to answer the questions we would have presented to you today (two weeks before the scheduled forum) in writing. We will post your answers to our webpage as soon as we receive them but still ask you to observe our September 9 deadline. We will also post links to other CH mayoral candidate forums and questionnaires and use our social media platforms to encourage our neighbors to educate themselves before voting.
Please respond in 250 words or less to these questions:
Economic Development: How will you utilize the Noble Road Corridor Planning Project report in your economic development plan for Noble Road? Discuss your vision for the neighborhood's business districts.
http://www.futureheights.org/programs/planning-and-development/noble-road-corridor-planning-project/
Safety: What resources at the city's disposal will you employ to address concerns about safety, real or perceived, in the neighborhoods along Noble Road?
Housing: The Noble neighborhood was targeted by predatory lenders, and as a result, was hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Nevertheless, over 90% of the housing in the Noble neighborhood was rated at Good or Superior in an assessment completed in partnership with CWRU. How would you protect housing values, preserve housing stock and promote housing in the Noble district?
https://www.nobleneighbors.com/noble-neighborhood-assessment-cwru-msass-2015.html
Priorities: What will your priorities be in the first 90 days of your administration?
Additional Comments: This is your opportunity to provide additional information to the Noble area voters.
Do contact me if you have questions.
Hello Cleveland Heights Mayoral Candidates,
Noble Neighbors' leaders have decided to cancel our in-person Mayoral Candidate Election Forum for September 9 due to the rising Covid-19 delta variant infections. Instead, we'd like to give you the opportunity to answer the questions we would have presented to you today (two weeks before the scheduled forum) in writing. We will post your answers to our webpage as soon as we receive them but still ask you to observe our September 9 deadline. We will also post links to other CH mayoral candidate forums and questionnaires and use our social media platforms to encourage our neighbors to educate themselves before voting.
Please respond in 250 words or less to these questions:
Economic Development: How will you utilize the Noble Road Corridor Planning Project report in your economic development plan for Noble Road? Discuss your vision for the neighborhood's business districts.
http://www.futureheights.org/programs/planning-and-development/noble-road-corridor-planning-project/
Safety: What resources at the city's disposal will you employ to address concerns about safety, real or perceived, in the neighborhoods along Noble Road?
Housing: The Noble neighborhood was targeted by predatory lenders, and as a result, was hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Nevertheless, over 90% of the housing in the Noble neighborhood was rated at Good or Superior in an assessment completed in partnership with CWRU. How would you protect housing values, preserve housing stock and promote housing in the Noble district?
https://www.nobleneighbors.com/noble-neighborhood-assessment-cwru-msass-2015.html
Priorities: What will your priorities be in the first 90 days of your administration?
Additional Comments: This is your opportunity to provide additional information to the Noble area voters.
Do contact me if you have questions.
Candidate Responses
Received September 6, 2021
Barbara Danforth www.barbaradanforthforchmayor.com
Noble Neighbors Election Questionnaire
Economic Development: How will you utilize the Noble Road Corridor Planning Project report in your economic development plan for Noble Road? Discuss your vision for the neighborhood's business districts.
Beginning with the Planning Project report on the Noble/Mayfield Node, the Hillside Dairy needs to be cleared of all city equipment and stored materials. It needs to be determined whether the Dairy building can be repurposed, if not, then demolished. The materials stored behind the Dairy, salt, wood chips, landscape waste, also must be removed. Similarly the city storage, refuse sites and city service buildings need to be relocated. In summary, the entire Mayfield, Noble, Warrensville Center Road triangle needs to be cleaned out for redevelopment, urgently.
The redevelopment recommendations in the Plan for this node are interesting; I will listen to the residents and merchants about their preferences. I would favor the mixed use plan with entertainment options and housing. The entertainment area could include a theater, bowling alley and other features that would attract families from throughout Cleveland Heights and adjacent cities. Housing options could include moderately priced apartments and townhouses. The short portion of Noble Road to Mayfield, in the triangle, could be closed
and made into a green space, pedestrian walkway.
With limited specificity in the Plan about the business district, there are opportunities to expand the entertainment option into the Noble/Monticello Node. Possibilities include “destination” locations, such as a music/jazz club, a lovely party center or unique, locally-owned, restaurants. From this focal point, other businesses could be attracted to support this expanding business district. This area must have attractions that appeal first to the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as draw others from outside the community.
Safety: What resources at the city's disposal will you employ to address concerns about safety, real or perceived, in the neighborhoods along Noble Road?
The Racial Justice Task Force was originally formed to focus on police policies, practices and procedures. The Task Force focus has been expanded to include a broader view of racial justice in the city, but there is a sub-committee that will evaluate police practices. This sub-committee will gather statistics on crime in the city, research best practices, consider violence prevention and other programs that work to eliminate the root causes of crime. The preliminary report of the Task Force will be presented early in 2022 and will form the basis of my decisions on how to move forward with their recommendations.
Chief of Police Mecklenburg will be retiring at the end of the year and the department has 11 open positions for officers. Without rendering judgment, at this point, about the right-sizing of our police department, we need to fill some or all of the vacancies and hire a new chief. I appreciated the bicycle patrol officers who rode the business districts and knew the residents, the merchants and their safety concerns. With inadequate staffing, the officers are working longer hours and cannot be as effective in doing their work. The second challenge, nationally and in our city, is the inability to recruit, screen and hire new officers. We must consider new and innovative approaches to attract and recruit new officers, especially women and minorities.
There needs to be a review of the Noble Road neighborhoods to ensure that existing tools, such as lighting and cameras, are in place to maximize safety and crime prevention.
Housing: The Noble neighborhood was targeted by predatory lenders, and as a result, was hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Nevertheless, over 90% of the housing in the Noble neighborhood was rated at Good or Superior in an assessment completed in partnership with CWRU. How would you protect housing values, preserve housing stock and promote housing in the Noble district?
The city housing staff and services need a complete restructure to update the housing codes, to improve the inspection process, and to ensure consistent enforcement of violations. The 5-year cycle of exterior inspections is insufficient; within 5 years, a home can go from a fair condition to a deteriorated condition needing substantial and expensive repairs. The cycle should be reduced to 3 years, with adequate time and resources available to make needed repairs. Additional staff and an upgraded IT system are necessary to provide the needed housing services.
Single family and multi-unit rental properties need to have continued special attention to ensure that out-of-town owners have a local agent with whom to communicate. They need regular interior and exterior inspections to confirm compliance. Code violations must be consistently enforced with ultimate penalties for failure to comply.
I will take an aggressive approach to homes that are at-risk for private/bank and tax foreclosures to provide the homeowners with information and resources to help them retain their homes. We will continue to monitor those houses, in the event they go into foreclosure, to be ready to transfer appropriate houses to the land bank and then to Future Heights or private developers for rehabilitation and sale to owner-occupants.
We will invite residential developers to build on the multitude of vacant lots in the neighborhoods. In support of the developers, I will determine the kind of housing the residents want, single family, duplexes, townhouses, etc. and ensure an efficient process for construction projects to be completed on time.
Priorities: What will your priorities be in the first 90 days of your administration?
The first priority will be the restructuring of the government and transitioning the culture of the city workers to ensure a consistent resident-focus. I will meet with each of the city departments, identify successes, challenges, establish goals and timelines. I will create the Mayor’s Hotline that enables residents to call in and talk directly to me about their complaints, concerns and ideas. I will begin developing a working relationship with each council member.
Concurrently, I will create a plan for Noble Road development. The Noble/Mayfield triangle service and storage facilities will be relocated. The staff and I will facilitate the creation of an association for merchants and commercial property owners, in the Noble Road business district, to determine their challenges and support needed from the city. We will determine what new businesses the residents and existing merchants want and aggressively pursue them with incentives, as needed.
We will develop a plan to upgrade housing services and manage the details of the EPA sewer consent decree. With the input from staff, residents and council, we will determine how to invest the $38.8M ARPA funds.
I will work with council to create a Commission on Sustainability charged with the responsibility of identifying strategies to reduce our carbon footprint. Members for the Commission will be drawn from across the city and will have expertise in clean energy, clean water, solar energy, recycling, tree canopy, green space preservation, etc. The Commission will be charged with making recommendations for sustainability education and practices to implement.
Additional Comments: This is your opportunity to provide additional information to the Noble area voters.
For far too long, council and city leaders have been talking about investing in the Noble Road corridor and yet, today very little has been accomplished. The Noble Road Corridor Plan was presented to council in 2019; the outcomes of that report are new flower pots and proposed bicycle lanes, but no substantive improvements to the business district or neighborhoods. The time for rhetoric is long past, it is time leadership and results.
The first term of the new mayor is going to be extremely difficult because of the many issues that will need to be addressed. As an experienced executive leader, I know the importance of having priorities, processes, plans and timelines in place with efficient and effective implementation. This work will be hard, imperfect, and sometimes messy; but we will move forward with successes, fix what doesn’t work and reach our goals. Noble Road will be a Number 1 priority on my agenda. This opportunity to transition our government to one with strong mayor leadership is exciting. I envision our city where –
· Residents have easy access and are encouraged to participate in moving our city forward
· We have a plan to reduce our carbon footprint and sustainability is embedded into our very fabric
· We have innovative plans for homeownership, vacant homes are returned to the market for sale and vacant lots are readily available for construction
· All of our business districts will be growing and thriving
· There will be cranes in the air with projects we are all proud of
· We will be bursting with pride over our arts and culture community
But a vision without a plan is just a dream and we have a lot of work to do. I am looking forward to working with you and bringing my experience in leading organizations and my knowledge of the city issues so that together we can make Cleveland Heights the very best city that it can be.
Economic Development: How will you utilize the Noble Road Corridor Planning Project report in your economic development plan for Noble Road? Discuss your vision for the neighborhood's business districts.
Beginning with the Planning Project report on the Noble/Mayfield Node, the Hillside Dairy needs to be cleared of all city equipment and stored materials. It needs to be determined whether the Dairy building can be repurposed, if not, then demolished. The materials stored behind the Dairy, salt, wood chips, landscape waste, also must be removed. Similarly the city storage, refuse sites and city service buildings need to be relocated. In summary, the entire Mayfield, Noble, Warrensville Center Road triangle needs to be cleaned out for redevelopment, urgently.
The redevelopment recommendations in the Plan for this node are interesting; I will listen to the residents and merchants about their preferences. I would favor the mixed use plan with entertainment options and housing. The entertainment area could include a theater, bowling alley and other features that would attract families from throughout Cleveland Heights and adjacent cities. Housing options could include moderately priced apartments and townhouses. The short portion of Noble Road to Mayfield, in the triangle, could be closed
and made into a green space, pedestrian walkway.
With limited specificity in the Plan about the business district, there are opportunities to expand the entertainment option into the Noble/Monticello Node. Possibilities include “destination” locations, such as a music/jazz club, a lovely party center or unique, locally-owned, restaurants. From this focal point, other businesses could be attracted to support this expanding business district. This area must have attractions that appeal first to the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as draw others from outside the community.
Safety: What resources at the city's disposal will you employ to address concerns about safety, real or perceived, in the neighborhoods along Noble Road?
The Racial Justice Task Force was originally formed to focus on police policies, practices and procedures. The Task Force focus has been expanded to include a broader view of racial justice in the city, but there is a sub-committee that will evaluate police practices. This sub-committee will gather statistics on crime in the city, research best practices, consider violence prevention and other programs that work to eliminate the root causes of crime. The preliminary report of the Task Force will be presented early in 2022 and will form the basis of my decisions on how to move forward with their recommendations.
Chief of Police Mecklenburg will be retiring at the end of the year and the department has 11 open positions for officers. Without rendering judgment, at this point, about the right-sizing of our police department, we need to fill some or all of the vacancies and hire a new chief. I appreciated the bicycle patrol officers who rode the business districts and knew the residents, the merchants and their safety concerns. With inadequate staffing, the officers are working longer hours and cannot be as effective in doing their work. The second challenge, nationally and in our city, is the inability to recruit, screen and hire new officers. We must consider new and innovative approaches to attract and recruit new officers, especially women and minorities.
There needs to be a review of the Noble Road neighborhoods to ensure that existing tools, such as lighting and cameras, are in place to maximize safety and crime prevention.
Housing: The Noble neighborhood was targeted by predatory lenders, and as a result, was hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Nevertheless, over 90% of the housing in the Noble neighborhood was rated at Good or Superior in an assessment completed in partnership with CWRU. How would you protect housing values, preserve housing stock and promote housing in the Noble district?
The city housing staff and services need a complete restructure to update the housing codes, to improve the inspection process, and to ensure consistent enforcement of violations. The 5-year cycle of exterior inspections is insufficient; within 5 years, a home can go from a fair condition to a deteriorated condition needing substantial and expensive repairs. The cycle should be reduced to 3 years, with adequate time and resources available to make needed repairs. Additional staff and an upgraded IT system are necessary to provide the needed housing services.
Single family and multi-unit rental properties need to have continued special attention to ensure that out-of-town owners have a local agent with whom to communicate. They need regular interior and exterior inspections to confirm compliance. Code violations must be consistently enforced with ultimate penalties for failure to comply.
I will take an aggressive approach to homes that are at-risk for private/bank and tax foreclosures to provide the homeowners with information and resources to help them retain their homes. We will continue to monitor those houses, in the event they go into foreclosure, to be ready to transfer appropriate houses to the land bank and then to Future Heights or private developers for rehabilitation and sale to owner-occupants.
We will invite residential developers to build on the multitude of vacant lots in the neighborhoods. In support of the developers, I will determine the kind of housing the residents want, single family, duplexes, townhouses, etc. and ensure an efficient process for construction projects to be completed on time.
Priorities: What will your priorities be in the first 90 days of your administration?
The first priority will be the restructuring of the government and transitioning the culture of the city workers to ensure a consistent resident-focus. I will meet with each of the city departments, identify successes, challenges, establish goals and timelines. I will create the Mayor’s Hotline that enables residents to call in and talk directly to me about their complaints, concerns and ideas. I will begin developing a working relationship with each council member.
Concurrently, I will create a plan for Noble Road development. The Noble/Mayfield triangle service and storage facilities will be relocated. The staff and I will facilitate the creation of an association for merchants and commercial property owners, in the Noble Road business district, to determine their challenges and support needed from the city. We will determine what new businesses the residents and existing merchants want and aggressively pursue them with incentives, as needed.
We will develop a plan to upgrade housing services and manage the details of the EPA sewer consent decree. With the input from staff, residents and council, we will determine how to invest the $38.8M ARPA funds.
I will work with council to create a Commission on Sustainability charged with the responsibility of identifying strategies to reduce our carbon footprint. Members for the Commission will be drawn from across the city and will have expertise in clean energy, clean water, solar energy, recycling, tree canopy, green space preservation, etc. The Commission will be charged with making recommendations for sustainability education and practices to implement.
Additional Comments: This is your opportunity to provide additional information to the Noble area voters.
For far too long, council and city leaders have been talking about investing in the Noble Road corridor and yet, today very little has been accomplished. The Noble Road Corridor Plan was presented to council in 2019; the outcomes of that report are new flower pots and proposed bicycle lanes, but no substantive improvements to the business district or neighborhoods. The time for rhetoric is long past, it is time leadership and results.
The first term of the new mayor is going to be extremely difficult because of the many issues that will need to be addressed. As an experienced executive leader, I know the importance of having priorities, processes, plans and timelines in place with efficient and effective implementation. This work will be hard, imperfect, and sometimes messy; but we will move forward with successes, fix what doesn’t work and reach our goals. Noble Road will be a Number 1 priority on my agenda. This opportunity to transition our government to one with strong mayor leadership is exciting. I envision our city where –
· Residents have easy access and are encouraged to participate in moving our city forward
· We have a plan to reduce our carbon footprint and sustainability is embedded into our very fabric
· We have innovative plans for homeownership, vacant homes are returned to the market for sale and vacant lots are readily available for construction
· All of our business districts will be growing and thriving
· There will be cranes in the air with projects we are all proud of
· We will be bursting with pride over our arts and culture community
But a vision without a plan is just a dream and we have a lot of work to do. I am looking forward to working with you and bringing my experience in leading organizations and my knowledge of the city issues so that together we can make Cleveland Heights the very best city that it can be.
Received Sept. 10. 2021
Kahlil Seren www.SerenForMayor.com
Economic Development: How will you utilize the Noble Road Corridor Planning Project report in your economic development plan for Noble Road? Discuss your vision for the neighborhood's business districts.
In our current era, a static plan from 2019 may as well be from 1990. The world has, and continues to change at an increasing rate – and our plans need to be living documents, products of a continuing conversation, in order to keep up with the world as it evolves. My plan for the business district starts from a set of strategies that include a concierge method of business engagement, a “grow your own” method of public support for existing domestic small business, a general enhancement of the City’s marketing efforts to site selectors through partnerships with Greater Cleveland Partnership, Team NEO, Jobs Ohio, the Cuyahoga County Department of Development, and the Ohio Department of Development. I believe that the most sustainable collection of businesses are those that are neighborhood-facing and appropriately meet needs of the people who live close by. We need to create an inviting destination at the end of the walk in a walkable neighborhood. Beyond that, the City should provide support for the creation of a Special Improvement District in order to create efficiencies in communication with the City government. Certain ideas from the report are evergreen, like the need for substantive collaboration with the City of East Cleveland and the utility of various types of public support (TIFs, abatements, ED loans and grants) where appropriate. Mayor Annette Blackwell’s example of aggressive advancement and marketing of Maple Heights is a great model to follow for the City’s approach to how we develop the Noble Road corridor.
Safety: What resources at the city's disposal will you employ to address concerns about safety, real or perceived, in the neighborhoods along Noble Road?
There is no way to address safety in the Noble neighborhood without a real discussion of geographic and investigatory priorities in policing. Our Division of Police will use a data driven approach to prioritize the location and methods (e.g. car, bike, foot) of patrols and the types of criminal activity we investigate more aggressively. Through the use of a CompStat style of organizational performance management we can focus our energy on the activities that are of the highest importance to our residents and improve the results of our policing. Beyond investigation and punishment, there is no effective long-term public safety strategy without investing in prevention methods like violence interruption, mediation services, poverty alleviation, job training and placement services, and non-violence training. As mayor, I will connect our residents to these new services in a proactive and persistent way. Despite our most recent increase in crime and violence – in part due to the emotional, mental health, and economic issues caused by the pandemic – much of the public safety concern in Cleveland Heights generally, and Noble specifically, is based more in perception than in reality. There are two methods that I will use to address those issues. One strategy is internally focused – creating programming within the neighborhood to increase community cohesion and provide active amenities that increase the desirability of the neighborhood. This strategy includes partnerships with the CHUH School District and Heights Libraries. The second strategy is an externally focused marketing campaign, using the neighborhood programming outlined above as a backdrop to tell stories about the neighborhood in an aggressive marketing campaign about what it is really like to live in the Noble neighborhood.
Housing: The Noble neighborhood was targeted by predatory lenders, and as a result, was hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Nevertheless, over 90% of the housing in the Noble neighborhood was rated at Good or Superior in an assessment completed in partnership with CWRU. How would you protect housing values, preserve housing stock and promote housing in the Noble district?
This priority requires a more comprehensive approach to housing development and redevelopment. The city needs a community development function in government because we can’t simply rely on our Division of Building and Inspectional Services to achieve our residential development goals. More proactive, one-on-one engagement with homeowners who fall behind on property tax payments, in coordination with the County Treasurer’s Fish Bowl project, is a program that I would like to pilot, with a goal of using tax delinquency as a possible proxy for mortgage delinquency and risk of general financial insolvency. Responding with emergency financial assistance where possible, coupled with financial counseling and job training & placement wrap-around services, could provide both short-term and long-term relief to a homeowner that may prevent a foreclosure before it happens. For those houses that are already in foreclosed, vacant, and abandoned status, we will continue and enhance our enforcement of our foreclosure bond requirement which will provide funding for the maintenance and possible demolition of blighted housing.
Cleveland Heights needs new housing. We have an opportunity now, in part due to the $50M County Demolition Program and the $30M County Housing Programs I designed, to assist in the revitalization and diversification of the housing we offer in our neighborhoods. Optimally, our city will combine these regional efforts with innovative local programs that optimize the benefit of simply building a standard residential unit on a vacant lot. Coupling residential development with targeted neighborhood beautification and infrastructure improvement efforts can multiply the positive effect of new housing on a block. Targeting this community development investment in tandem with targeted economic development investment in a nearby business district to expand walkable neighborhood amenities will further improve the return on both investments.
Priorities: What will your priorities be in the first 90 days of your administration?
Upon taking office, my primary priority will be assessing, optimizing, and building capacity in city government. This is my primary priority because every other municipal priority relies on the capability of the administration to effectively implement policies and programs of the city. Bolstering the ability of the government to meet the expectations of its residents (i.e. effective municipal service provision), will provide the requisite degree of confidence in basic municipal functions which in turn engenders more widespread support for more expansive and progressive municipal programs. For years, the city administration has been operating well under capacity in terms of raw staffing numbers, capital investment, and process efficiency/performance management efforts. This lack of capacity has led to the outsourcing of functions of our Building and Housing Departments to a private corporation, and almost led to the privatization of the city’s water utility. The government must get the basics right before the people will trust us to do more.
The first step is a series of conversations with groups of stakeholders: 1) staff (including but definitely not limited to directors) within the departments about their work, support their needs from the Mayor’s Office, and any improvements they would make to their internal processes to make their jobs easier and to do the work better, 2) members of Council about their priorities generally, and specific to this initial priority of capacity building, and 3) residents of the city (with proactive outreach to historically neglected neighborhoods) to create a better understanding of public priorities, complaints, compliments, and suggested improvements to incorporate into our planning efforts. The next step is a resource/needs assessment within the organization to determine how we might redeploy current financial resources and staff members to more appropriately address the priorities outlined in those conversations and to provide an understanding of what resources we still need to develop (funding and personnel). And then we will begin to implement those changes in the administrative branch of the government. This is a public implementation process with regular reporting out to the staff, Council, and residents, with continuous opportunities for feedback and course correction. This is also an iterative process and the plan is a living document to allow for the inclusion of perspectives from people in the city that may be initially reluctant to participate or may be less immediately accessible than those people that tend to self-select for these kinds of efforts.
Additional Comments: This is your opportunity to provide additional information to the Noble area voters.
I believe that Cleveland Heights is at an inflection point, were we can decide to continue the status quo under a different set of titles, or we can decide to fulfill the promise of change that the people demanded when they voted to create this elected mayor position. I love Cleveland Heights and what it stands for, and I have been working for years to push our government to reflect our community’s values and priorities more faithfully. I am running for this office because, out of all of the candidates, I have a unique combination of qualities: progressive values that match our community, skills and experience that match our challenges and opportunities, and the courage to overcome the status quo. I have proven this over the years. The first elected mayor in Cleveland Heights is too important to risk with untested candidates whose lack of experience will make them unable to provide true leadership, or whose lack of values and courage will make them unwilling to take the steps necessary when faced with tough decisions. I am running because Cleveland Heights deserves a mayor that is both committed and equipped to do the job well on Jan. 1, 2022. In electing its first mayor, I believe that Cleveland Heights has the chance to create a progressive, transparent, and effective government that truly represents the people it serves. I am running to be the first mayor of Cleveland Heights to ensure that the city doesn't squander this chance to make real change. Please find more information about me and my candidacy at https://www.SerenForMayor.com
In our current era, a static plan from 2019 may as well be from 1990. The world has, and continues to change at an increasing rate – and our plans need to be living documents, products of a continuing conversation, in order to keep up with the world as it evolves. My plan for the business district starts from a set of strategies that include a concierge method of business engagement, a “grow your own” method of public support for existing domestic small business, a general enhancement of the City’s marketing efforts to site selectors through partnerships with Greater Cleveland Partnership, Team NEO, Jobs Ohio, the Cuyahoga County Department of Development, and the Ohio Department of Development. I believe that the most sustainable collection of businesses are those that are neighborhood-facing and appropriately meet needs of the people who live close by. We need to create an inviting destination at the end of the walk in a walkable neighborhood. Beyond that, the City should provide support for the creation of a Special Improvement District in order to create efficiencies in communication with the City government. Certain ideas from the report are evergreen, like the need for substantive collaboration with the City of East Cleveland and the utility of various types of public support (TIFs, abatements, ED loans and grants) where appropriate. Mayor Annette Blackwell’s example of aggressive advancement and marketing of Maple Heights is a great model to follow for the City’s approach to how we develop the Noble Road corridor.
Safety: What resources at the city's disposal will you employ to address concerns about safety, real or perceived, in the neighborhoods along Noble Road?
There is no way to address safety in the Noble neighborhood without a real discussion of geographic and investigatory priorities in policing. Our Division of Police will use a data driven approach to prioritize the location and methods (e.g. car, bike, foot) of patrols and the types of criminal activity we investigate more aggressively. Through the use of a CompStat style of organizational performance management we can focus our energy on the activities that are of the highest importance to our residents and improve the results of our policing. Beyond investigation and punishment, there is no effective long-term public safety strategy without investing in prevention methods like violence interruption, mediation services, poverty alleviation, job training and placement services, and non-violence training. As mayor, I will connect our residents to these new services in a proactive and persistent way. Despite our most recent increase in crime and violence – in part due to the emotional, mental health, and economic issues caused by the pandemic – much of the public safety concern in Cleveland Heights generally, and Noble specifically, is based more in perception than in reality. There are two methods that I will use to address those issues. One strategy is internally focused – creating programming within the neighborhood to increase community cohesion and provide active amenities that increase the desirability of the neighborhood. This strategy includes partnerships with the CHUH School District and Heights Libraries. The second strategy is an externally focused marketing campaign, using the neighborhood programming outlined above as a backdrop to tell stories about the neighborhood in an aggressive marketing campaign about what it is really like to live in the Noble neighborhood.
Housing: The Noble neighborhood was targeted by predatory lenders, and as a result, was hit hard by the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Nevertheless, over 90% of the housing in the Noble neighborhood was rated at Good or Superior in an assessment completed in partnership with CWRU. How would you protect housing values, preserve housing stock and promote housing in the Noble district?
This priority requires a more comprehensive approach to housing development and redevelopment. The city needs a community development function in government because we can’t simply rely on our Division of Building and Inspectional Services to achieve our residential development goals. More proactive, one-on-one engagement with homeowners who fall behind on property tax payments, in coordination with the County Treasurer’s Fish Bowl project, is a program that I would like to pilot, with a goal of using tax delinquency as a possible proxy for mortgage delinquency and risk of general financial insolvency. Responding with emergency financial assistance where possible, coupled with financial counseling and job training & placement wrap-around services, could provide both short-term and long-term relief to a homeowner that may prevent a foreclosure before it happens. For those houses that are already in foreclosed, vacant, and abandoned status, we will continue and enhance our enforcement of our foreclosure bond requirement which will provide funding for the maintenance and possible demolition of blighted housing.
Cleveland Heights needs new housing. We have an opportunity now, in part due to the $50M County Demolition Program and the $30M County Housing Programs I designed, to assist in the revitalization and diversification of the housing we offer in our neighborhoods. Optimally, our city will combine these regional efforts with innovative local programs that optimize the benefit of simply building a standard residential unit on a vacant lot. Coupling residential development with targeted neighborhood beautification and infrastructure improvement efforts can multiply the positive effect of new housing on a block. Targeting this community development investment in tandem with targeted economic development investment in a nearby business district to expand walkable neighborhood amenities will further improve the return on both investments.
Priorities: What will your priorities be in the first 90 days of your administration?
Upon taking office, my primary priority will be assessing, optimizing, and building capacity in city government. This is my primary priority because every other municipal priority relies on the capability of the administration to effectively implement policies and programs of the city. Bolstering the ability of the government to meet the expectations of its residents (i.e. effective municipal service provision), will provide the requisite degree of confidence in basic municipal functions which in turn engenders more widespread support for more expansive and progressive municipal programs. For years, the city administration has been operating well under capacity in terms of raw staffing numbers, capital investment, and process efficiency/performance management efforts. This lack of capacity has led to the outsourcing of functions of our Building and Housing Departments to a private corporation, and almost led to the privatization of the city’s water utility. The government must get the basics right before the people will trust us to do more.
The first step is a series of conversations with groups of stakeholders: 1) staff (including but definitely not limited to directors) within the departments about their work, support their needs from the Mayor’s Office, and any improvements they would make to their internal processes to make their jobs easier and to do the work better, 2) members of Council about their priorities generally, and specific to this initial priority of capacity building, and 3) residents of the city (with proactive outreach to historically neglected neighborhoods) to create a better understanding of public priorities, complaints, compliments, and suggested improvements to incorporate into our planning efforts. The next step is a resource/needs assessment within the organization to determine how we might redeploy current financial resources and staff members to more appropriately address the priorities outlined in those conversations and to provide an understanding of what resources we still need to develop (funding and personnel). And then we will begin to implement those changes in the administrative branch of the government. This is a public implementation process with regular reporting out to the staff, Council, and residents, with continuous opportunities for feedback and course correction. This is also an iterative process and the plan is a living document to allow for the inclusion of perspectives from people in the city that may be initially reluctant to participate or may be less immediately accessible than those people that tend to self-select for these kinds of efforts.
Additional Comments: This is your opportunity to provide additional information to the Noble area voters.
I believe that Cleveland Heights is at an inflection point, were we can decide to continue the status quo under a different set of titles, or we can decide to fulfill the promise of change that the people demanded when they voted to create this elected mayor position. I love Cleveland Heights and what it stands for, and I have been working for years to push our government to reflect our community’s values and priorities more faithfully. I am running for this office because, out of all of the candidates, I have a unique combination of qualities: progressive values that match our community, skills and experience that match our challenges and opportunities, and the courage to overcome the status quo. I have proven this over the years. The first elected mayor in Cleveland Heights is too important to risk with untested candidates whose lack of experience will make them unable to provide true leadership, or whose lack of values and courage will make them unwilling to take the steps necessary when faced with tough decisions. I am running because Cleveland Heights deserves a mayor that is both committed and equipped to do the job well on Jan. 1, 2022. In electing its first mayor, I believe that Cleveland Heights has the chance to create a progressive, transparent, and effective government that truly represents the people it serves. I am running to be the first mayor of Cleveland Heights to ensure that the city doesn't squander this chance to make real change. Please find more information about me and my candidacy at https://www.SerenForMayor.com
Additional Candidate Resources
• League of Women Voters mayoral primary election forum video at https://youtu.be/yecXN8e9quc
• League of Women Voters mayoral primary Voter Guide https://my.lwv.org/sites/default/files/leagues/greater-cleveland/vg2021chmayor.pdf
• Greater Cleveland Congregations Cleveland Heights Housing Team questions and links to candidate responses
https://chhousingteam.wordpress.com
• Cleveland Heights Democrats mayoral candidate questionnaire and responses.
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/19uCSyJEMzcfBreMjb8Oss7HNmIRynaKh/1iU3O_-w9W4tIBG6R3qa5cQZCf7y-Y7cg?usp=sharing&sort=13&direction=a
• League of Women Voters mayoral primary Voter Guide https://my.lwv.org/sites/default/files/leagues/greater-cleveland/vg2021chmayor.pdf
• Greater Cleveland Congregations Cleveland Heights Housing Team questions and links to candidate responses
https://chhousingteam.wordpress.com
• Cleveland Heights Democrats mayoral candidate questionnaire and responses.
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/19uCSyJEMzcfBreMjb8Oss7HNmIRynaKh/1iU3O_-w9W4tIBG6R3qa5cQZCf7y-Y7cg?usp=sharing&sort=13&direction=a