Hats off to Officer Mack and two bicycle patrol officers who stopped on Nobleshire tonight where a dozen kids were playing. The children spotted his car as soon as he rounded the corner and ran to it yelling, "Officer Mack! Officer Mack!" He greeted the kids, handed out badges, coloring books and pencils, and allowed them to look inside his cruiser. Another police car with two officers and two patrol bikes in its rack stopped by, too.  Every kid got to beep the bike horns and (formidable) sirens as the crowd of neighborhood youth grew. Officer Mack also greeted us kids-at-heart, telling the adults on the street about the five ways to contact the police and what the Community Response team does.

The CHPD won the affections of lots of children today and the appreciation of many adults. Only the ice cream truck drew more delight on this street today!

This morning, I had breakfast with three friends, all of whom live in our Noble neighborhood. Only two of us are in the Noble Neighbors group, but the topic of conversation, initiated by the other two!, was the Noble Neighbors web site. Both of these friends were very enthusiastic about it! One, who lives on "Pill Hill,"* was especially excited that her area is included in our Noble Neighbors geography. She expressed delight at how much we are doing to promote our neighborhood and asked lots of questions about what else we are involved with. The other woman offered repeated complements for how easy the site is to navigate. She is blind and uses a screen-reader to access the internet. For her, web sites with lots of features and activity on a single page are overload and very difficult to navigate. Not only was she able to easily read our page, but we had more discussion on the Chicken Coop Tours, the Police Mini Station announcement, and the solar powered security lights. Although the simplicity of our site may largely be attributed to my low-level site creation skills, I was grateful that my friend enjoyed visiting it. Clearly, she spent time on our web site! You can be sure I invited these two to Join Us!

Our site is just over a month old and we are averaging about 75 page views per day. Our peak so far is 196 page views, the day after our Pick Up for Pride! event. We started this site, not only to communicate with each other, but to have another tool in our marketing tool box. The blog's purpose is to create an archive of our activities so that our good news is not lost when the home page is updated with current happenings. Through this site and other efforts, we intend to show potential home buyers that we are an active group of neighbors who look out for each other by Block Watch organization, who have fun with each other through block parties and neighborhood events, and who are working together to revitalize the area. We hope that these values will attract others who will "buy in" and join our efforts by buying homes and investing in healthy businesses. 

Your part is critical!  Do tell us about your events and efforts so we may brag about you on the web site and demonstrate our growing unity. The easiest way to send information and photos is through the Feedback tab on the web site, or by sending your message to nobleneighbors@gmail.com. Thanks! And that thanks is from all of us who will benefit from the good vibes that your story provides.


* Pill Hill is a the area that includes Oakridge and Inglewood, and parts of Yellowstone, Montevista and Glenwood.  Originally developed by the Van Sweringen brothers of Shaker Heights fame, the area gained its nickname because of the amount of medical professionals who call it home.  Click here for a Cleveland Historical link with more stories and photos. Then grab your Noble Neighbors map and walk over to see it!

There are chickens in our neighborhood! The Heights Chickeneers invited Heights area people to tour 10 homes with backyard chickens. Three tour stops were in the Noble Neighborhood. It's legal to have a few hens in the Heights now, as long as you register with the city and comply with a few consider-your-neighbors regulations. In spite of dozens of gawking humans at each stop, the chickens seemed to take it all in stride.  A few free-rangers came up to us and allowed us to pet them! We were, however, warned not to try to pet Brooder, the misinformed hen who thinks her eggs will hatch. She defends her sterile brood with a swift peck on the hand. Coop designs spanned from Architectural Review magazine cover material to I-used-the-materials-I-had-on-hand utilitarian models. No matter the construction technique, all these "girls" looked content. After all, you've got to be one lay-ed back lady to let folks gather 'round as you luxuriate in your (dust) bath!

Someone asked me if I was going to build a chicken coop that would match the quality of the $1200-in-materials palace we saw. No, but if I were to build a chicken abode, I'd make it chicken coupe - like a '57 Chevy coupe. Pop the trunk to get to the nesting boxes, roost on a steering wheel, teach the chickens to peck out "Little Deuce Coop" on car horns, you get the idea.

The City hosted another community meeting last night in response to the issues we raised on April 29th. This one was held at the (thankfully!) air-conditioned and accessible CH Community Center on Monticello at Mayfield. 

Rick Wagner, CH Housing Director, offered us statistics which I had requested.  All these statistics are for the Noble area of Cleveland Heights - east of Taylor and north of Mayfield.

There are:
4433 Single and two-family homes in total
54 Apartments which contain 624 units in total

1244 of the single and two-family homes are rentals which is 28% of the total
218 of the single and two-family homes residents use public assistance vouchers, about 5% of the total and 17.5 % of the rentals.  There are about 750 voucher users city-wide.
96 of the apartments are rented with public assistance vouchers, just over 15% of the total apartment units.

320 of the houses are vacant, according to quarterly post office reports, just over 7%
71 lots are vacant

1420 houses were foreclosed since 2005, about a third of our houses in almost 10 years
235 were foreclosed in the peak year of 2012
70 have been foreclosed in the first 5 1/2 months of 2014.

Rick also discussed a new mobile phone app which the city has launched, Access Cleveland Heights, through which we can report problems to the city.  We have the option to upload a photo, too.  The app also has a variety of links to other city information including a calendar, ordinances and council member contacts.  In the first few days after the launch, several residents have reported tall grass, debris, potholes and water main breaks on public and private properties.  We can view all these postings and the city's progress through the app.

Police Chief Jeff Robertson reported statistics for crimes against property for "Block M," the police-designated zone that is north of Monticello and east of Taylor.  He also offered tips on keeping our homes and cars more safe and less tempting to criminals.  Ready Notify is a county alert system which delivers messages to our phones.  The city web site has links to access this service.  We can also sign up through Access Cleveland Heights.  People who already have signed up for Ready Notify tell us that they received notifications for Mayfield Road closings. 

Check the Cleveland Heights web site for several more city programs and events that are coming up this summer. Personally, I need to borrow a friend's young son so I have a good excuse to go to the "Fun with Trucks" event on June 22.  What could be more fun than climbing in a street sweeper and a garbage truck?

Saturday, June 7, 2014  10am - 1pm
     WOW!!!  Who could ask for anything more!  It was a beautiful day and we had so many people that Noble Road was trash-free before noon. Several side streets benefitted from our attention, too.  What fun it was to look up and down Noble and Monticello to see groups of red-shirted neighbors making the place more attractive!
     Several business owners expressed their thanks to us that we would clean up in front of their shops and that we care about the neighborhood. One brought us more water and took another case of water to the sign-up table at Monticello and Noble.  
     Around 50 people participated and about twenty new neighbors signed up to be on the Noble Neighbors contact list.
     We had great conversations with people waiting for busses or who were stopped in their cars as they waited for the traffic light.
     This is our greatest success -  We were visible to the neighborhood and we gained new partners in our quest to make the Noble neighborhoods a more vibrant place for all people.  Bravo to all of us!
     THANK YOU! Jeanette, Wendy, BB, Susan, Marge, Robert, Jan, Chris, Megan, Emily, Celeste, Roger, Brianna, Anissa, Melodie, Barb, Cynthia, Mary, Sandrine, Stephen, Rosemary, Bev, Kenneth, Tamika, Diane, Tricia, Paula, Ann, Tonie, Patrick, Steven, Karly, Mira, Isabel, Karen, Tristan, Katrina, Nadia, Valerie, Carol, Eileen, Doreen, Rosemary, Donna, Judi, Debbie, and Brenda.


Click here for a link to the Heights Observer article.  Favorite response to the positive publicity about our neighborhood: "I am so proud."  Thanks, Chris!

Us Together hosted a festival at John Carroll University to celebrate the cultures of the Nepali and Iraqi groups they have helped to settle in Cleveland Heights. It was an explosion of colorful clothing, delicious food and hand crafted items for sale.  My favorite part was the two-year-old Nepali girl who just had to join her older sister as she performed a Nepali dance for us.  Just too cute!  Many of the Nepali who live along Noble Road were performers and vendors at the festival.

Us Together is located on Noble and is always looking for more people to help the refugee community. There are lots of opportunities to volunteer or help fund their good work.  Check them out at http://ustogether.us/

It was just too much fun to see kids (and adults!) enjoy the balloon art hats and toys at this Festival. And, oh! How good it is to eat fresh strawberries again! NRPC, you know who to throw a party!  Your neighborhood thanks you!

Bravo to the Beverly bunch who are reviving their block party and initiating a block watch! About a dozen people met in Carol's front yard and began an email list for Beverly events and notices. Old timers told stories about block parties gone by that began with breakfast and ended after dark with a kid-friendly movie outdoors.  That's one serious block party!!

One Cleveland Heights police officer from the Community Response Team helped with block watch organization tips and gave residents pointers about keeping their homes safe.  Best comment of the night from the officer: "We love dogs.  Even a chihuahua sounds like a big dog when it's growling at someone in the dark." 

One of the City's responses to the April 29th community meeting is to relocate one Meet Your Police event a month to our neighborhood in the Police Academy (former fire station). Several Noble Neighbors met Officer Mack of the Community Response Team on Thursday, June 5, 2014.  We learned that there are several cameras on Noble at Monticello.  The police have four cameras at the intersection, one faces each of the compass directions (north, east...). Two more are on the police academy property.  One of these cameras faces CVS.  Additionally, some of the businesses have cameras and the police have been able to use their surveillance footage from recent disturbances.