Cleveland Real Estate News

At first I thought it might be silly to post about this but the truth is, we keep hearing about reducing the size of Cleveland’s City Council and also the issue of Regionalism. At some point I saw it as my responsibility to start thinking about Cleveland’s governmental structure, regardless of how much expertise I have - which admittedly is not much.

I’ve lived in places with a City Manager form of government. Of course the population of that city, Rockville, Maryland, was only about 50k. Rockville also had non-partisan elections.  In my head, I thought that was swell. Forget party affiliation, let’s just talk issues and get things done.  In reality there was a lot of behind the scenes party work going on which did affect who won on election day.

I used to pine for our Cleveland ward system (when I lived elsewhere).  You know, the warm and fuzzy feeling that if you have a ward council person they can make sure they are taking care of all the mundane issues like road work and safety and neighborhood disputes.  Or the warm and fuzzy feeling that it allowed for a true sense of community to exist under that system. I’ve been to a few ward meetings here in the last few years and Marty Sweeney talked a lot about things he had done and they were the issues the Q and A people were concerned about: neighbor fences, kids running around at all hours making noise, roads not plowed, etc. Now that I am back IN the ward system, how do I feel about it? Truthfully, it’s a mixed bag. But it’s hard to say that any community I see in Cleveland that seems to operate as a true grassroots community does so because of the ward system, it almost seems like it works in spite of that fact. What do you think?

Today I read an article that said that death by politics can hold back an entire region. (I was cruising the net looking for answers to council reductions).  This article really got my attention. It’s about Buffalo and Erie County. The reporter, Geoff Kelly, is interviewing a gentleman named Kevin Gaughan who, in the Buffalo area, is our equivalent to Sam Miller, a proselytizer for regionalism.

He makes two points of interest automatically. One, people shouldn’t have to be beholding to or be able to influence a politician to get things done in their wards. It should be left up to appropriate departments in a city to handle requests. The implied result is more impartiality and code enforcement. Of course in my mind, this means the city departments could become the power wielders and play their own favorites and games so how do we avoid that? Still, the idea has some merit.

Two, he feels that the number of representatives (if I read him correctly) should be reduced, but it can’t be done in small numbers or in only some communities, it should be across the board. He also seems to favor at-large representation because I guess that fits in with the budget savings and impartial structure in general. You can read the entire article here. Here is a quote that covers his thoughts on regionalism as well as that of someone from the Brookings Institute (!):

“….Finally, I think in the past 10 years, the idea of representation has been trumped by the imperative of growth. I think folks would be willing consider even a slight reduction in voice if it meant less costs, less taxes, more economic growth, more opportunity to keep their young people here.

Bruce Katz from the Brookings Institution, who was at my second conversation on regionalism, said it so succinctly: He said the more government you have, the less competitive you are. We have about the most government in America and I think the effects on our competitiveness are clear….”

There is also an entire website called Cost.org that details, by community, what monetary expenditures truly are for each of their governmental structures.  The site also has this ‘findings’ page which lays out what could happen with the money saved by restructuring.  Do we have this kind of analysis for our area or do we just have speeches by Sam Miller?  (I’m asking seriously, not totally jabbing at Mr. Miller).  Could we restructure in Cuyahoga County or Cleveland and have money for jobs and schools?

I guess what I would like to see happen is a discussion among as many of us as possible on what you think of these ideas.  So what say you?  Peace Out - 3C

Segnala presso: