Cleveland Real Estate News » mayor jackson

How Will Obama’s Administration Make Sure Stimulus Monies Get Spent When and How They Want It Spent?

Carole Cohen — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:01:33 +0000

That is a question running through my mind after reading the somewhat in depth and very interesting article in today’s Washington Post on Ohio’s lobbying efforts to get stimulus package two monies.

1) if monies are given directly to Governors, will monies within the states go where they can create jobs and fix infrastructure or could they wind up being (essentially) state deficit bailouts?

2) The article implies we are not ready to fix the Inner Belt Bridge. Monies need to be spent in a certain time frame to be helpful yes? This quote from the Post article.

But Mayor Frank G. Jackson is focusing on his four biggest priorities, most notably a new Inner Belt highway bridge with a $350 million price tag.

“If we don’t tend to it soon, we’re facing the prospect of closing it down for a year to repair it. That’s unacceptable to us,” said Ken Silliman, the mayor’s chief of staff.

Yet Silliman said preparations are incomplete and no dirt could be turned for at least two years, much slower than Obama has in mind.

Does this mean we can’t get anything done on the Inner Belt Bridge more quickly? Why is that? Is there a technical reason? And does it mean we could miss out on monies to do this very expensive project, when ‘missing out’ is something we seem to do way too frequently in NE Ohio? Did it take Minnesota two yrs to start rebuilding their bridge once it collapsed?

3) PD article outlining Governor Strickland’s budget released today. I’ll have more on that in another post but thought you’d want to read it here.

Peace Out – 3C

If The Feds Gave us $730 Million, What Would Be On Your Wish List?

Carole Cohen — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:50:42 +0000

If you’ve attended meetings at which Mayor Jackson is present, or if you’ve read about his comments to candidates during the Presidential election, you know he has an Urban Agenda. Apparently it’s about to be fleshed out. Crain’s Cleveland’s Jay Miller writes about it this week, Apparently studies have concluded that rehabbing the InnerBelt Bridge structure would cost more than building a new one. Mayor Jackson, according to Jay Miller, is asking for $730 million to be used towards infrastructure, with the Bridge being a big part of that. (I am hoping public transportation and passenger rail fits into the plan, but as far as I can tell, there is no pdf of his Federal request as of yet. I’m still looking, however).

What exactly does having an Urban Agenda mean? The Detroit Free Press covered the issue (and featured Mayor Jackson’s ideas) back in September.

Fortunately, U.S. mayors are leading the call for a national urban agenda — a set of policies and investments that, after decades of neglect, will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and make the federal government a real partner in rebuilding cities. The U.S. Conference of Mayors will put an action plan on the next president’s desk within 100 days of taking office.

The Mayor’s initial proposal is pretty well outlined in the Free Press piece.

If you had an infrastructure wish list, what would be on it?

Peace Out – 3C

Last Night’s West Park Dialogue With Mayor Jackson

Carole Cohen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:53:48 +0000

Mayor Jackson likes to hold what he calls dialogues around the City. Last night it was time for the West Park Dialogue. It was held at Our Lady of Angels school gym. Hundreds of chairs were set up in advance. I arrived about twenty minutes to six (the dialogue was supposed to run from six until eight pm).

I had a chance to talk with Commander Tom McCartney (District One) of the CPD before the meeting started (we walked in together). Last May there was a redistricting for District One and Two, with portions of One going to District Two. He said he is now able to put more police on the street since the system is more efficient.

Where were all the residents? By 6pm there were maybe six people in the room who were not City staff of some sort. By ten minutes after six, there were less than 20 people. A few people straggled in as the meeting went on but the attendance was abysmal. I spoke to a resident who is involved with the Police Auxiliary. When I asked if she thought the meeting was too early, she said yes because in West Park people are still getting home at six. But she is a resident of the area and said apathy is the word to describe most of the residents who have gotten a lot less involved since the 1970s.

The Mayor was on time, even early. While everyone waited for more people to show up, he walked around the room and talked to everyone. Since I’m always trying to find a silver lining, (much to the dismay of many friends who roll their eyes at me), I think it might have given the people who were there a chance to talk to Mayor Jackson ‘one on one’ in a way that would not have happened should the room have been packed.

Mayor Jackson made some opening remarks which were very brief because he apparently really was there to have as much time for Q & A as possible. He highlighted what he felt were the four major points he had already either concluded on his own or gotten from residents around the City:

1. Public Safety

2. Job Creation/Economic Development

3. Neighborhood Clean Up

4. Education

On education, he said there were two themes he heard from students. Why worry about going to college when there are no jobs? And how can I go to college even if there were jobs, since it’s so expensive? Mayor Jackson talked about his administration’s goal of scholarships to students, all students, so they can go to college. (He was talking numbers here and I admit to being confused as to how this program works, if anyone can explain it to me great and please do!)

What were the issues the audience wanted him to address?

1. Airport Noise. Rather than get into the specifics of the question, it was interesting that Mayor Jackson felt the questioner had not been given appropriate help. It was a theme that ran throughout the evening. Basically it goes like this: if you call City Hall for assistance, it’s not enough to have someone agree with you that your issue is a concern and give a telephone version of a pat on the back. Mayor Jackson said you might not get the results you want once an issue is investigated, but you should get the full voice you deserve. I’m paraphrasing.

When questioned about the growth of Hopkins, Mayor Jackson said the City will definitely continue with plans to grow the 400 acres around Hopkins. My take on this is that it’s a good idea, it’s existing City property that can be developed and bring jobs to NE Ohio. (yeah I know, no one asked me!)

2. Gridlock intersections. Specifically Rocky River Drive and Lorain Avenue. One resident spoke about how hard it is to get out of his street at rush hour (if he had ever lived in the DC area he would know serious gridlock! But I digress…).

You could have knocked me over with a feather, but guess what, Mayor Jackson’s response was that he felt public transportation was the key to gridlock issues! He did hook the resident up with the appropriate staff person in attendance so maybe a traffic count study could be revisited. But he went into a long tangent on public transportation and commuter rail and light rail saying that maybe the high gas prices are going to push people into action who can help make this happen in our area as well as the entire State. By the time the evening was over, Mayor Jackson had referred to public transportation and passenger rail as being a necessity for our area no less than four times.

3. I asked if IBC Solar Panel had decided on a location for their new headquarters here. He said not yet, they have a small office downtown while the logistics are being discussed and worked out.

4. Regional Government. His opinion? Revenue sharing (taxes) but not regional government. He feels the less contact each resident can have with their elected officials the less their voices can be heard and the same officials risk becoming out of touch with what they really need to be doing. He used the example of the transition from being a council person to mayor. He used to answer constituent calls, make calls in return, etc. Now he can’t do that (for obvious reasons). He also said he gets tired of questions that lead off with why can’t we be like (insert city)? He said he doesn’t want Cleveland to be like any other place. He said the goal should be to see what other places have done and then do what would work for Cleveland, not Chicago or anywhere else.

5. A question by one resident pointed out the need for better organization in the schools. The transfer office is being moved from one building to another and so now, just a few days before school starts, it’s not possible to talk to anyone in that department.

I could relate to this line of thought and admit I am guilty of the same why not be like… mentality at times. Since I’m in real estate, people are always trying to relate what has happened to housing in San Diego or Philadelphia or Phoenix to what is happening here. And analyses about what needs to happen and why things happen have to be done locally. So i related to his point of view.

A budget issue that might make you (or not) feel lucky to have the electric bill you do instead of The City bill. Last year they spent about 12 million dollars on electricity for street lights and about $56 million dollars on electricity in total.

I enjoyed mostly the chance to talk with neighbors. It was also cool to meet people like Chris Warren, Chief of Regional Development, who I think has some fabulous ideas for us…it was nice to put a real person to the Internet words Chris writes. I still think the numbers were way down. I don’t know the exact population in my area but I know it’s more than 20,000. It would seem that 20 some people at a meeting like this is a bit under representative of our community yes? So what is the disconnect that occurs, that would keep people from wanting to participate in events like this? One resident said apathy but I think it’s more than that. What do you think? Peace Out – 3C

Update on Five Year Plan

Carole — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:03:00 +0000

Apparently, the Business Community is responding to Mayor Jacksons/City of Cleveland’s Plan announced yesterday. The Greater Cleveland Marketing Alliance is working on commericals to air Nationally – a volunteer plan at no cost to the City (meaning us). They have already raised 2 million dollars from private individuals or companies for this promotion.

On another less positive note, apparently our local ABC news channel (Newsnet5) did a poll (they of course neglected to say how many respondents there were) and asked this question: Do you think the new Five Year Plan will be a success? 65 percent said no. 35 percent said yes. I guess on the plus side, there were no undecideds? lol. I can certainly understand the skepticism, we’ve been there before. I’m hoping it will be different this time.

Mayor Frank Jackson Unveils Cleveland’s Agressive Five Year Capital Improvement Plan

Carole — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:53:00 +0000

When I first moved back to Cleveland in 1997, one of the first things I tried to do was go on line and see what kind of economic development issues were under way in Cleveland. Trust me, that was a frustrating experience. There was a one page website that at THAT time had not been updated in years. I tried to call and got no further. Basically was told that there were no public information pamphlets on initiatives to be mailed out! Over the last few years the City of Cleveland website made some progress, but now we are moving into the age of internet technology!Cleveland’s Mayor Frank Jackson made public his Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for the next five years. The plan was actually put together by the Planning Department and focuses on the theme that our 36 neighborhoods are the centers of the City and initiatives should ocur that fit into each of these neighborhoods. So now we have a City Wide Plan which is apparently the first serious update since 1991. No wonder we have had some issues with fragmented progress lol. First, I am elated to see that the web (specifically the City of Cleveland Website ) is going to be the public location for updates to this plan. Cleveland has entered the modern era! I don’t really want to sound sarcastic, I want to sound pleased, because I am. Apparently our Mayor has been working behind the scenes (along with Council I’m sure to develop a strategy and make sure we can all be made aware of progress on that strategy. If he were running for re-election today I would vote for him in a heartbeat!

Ok, back to the Plan: Highlights
1.5 Billion Dollar Expenditure Over the Next Five Years
$90 Million for the Lakefront project to open it up to residents (to get an idea of Detroit Shoreway and Lakefront Plans click here )
1.1 Million Investment in Kamms Corners Streetscaping (details through Kamms Corner Redevelopment Center’s Website)
$10 Million Investment in either Ward 10 or 11, for a recreational facility
$5 Million to the traffic on E. 105th to improve safety and aid access to University Circle (issue addressed in this 2003 pdf file )
(see enclosed pdf file through CIP Plan link above for complete details)

As a Realtor®, this next section of the Plan intrigued me. The City is dividing areas of Housing into several categories:
1. Areas of Choice (higher home values and excellent housing conditions)
2. Stable home values and condition
3. Transitional, or areas that are experiencing higher levels of foreclosures and maybe more moderate housing market values
4. Fragile areas, with lower market values, abandoned homes, some demolition ocurring.
5. Distressed, which really just means even lower market values, more abandoned properties and demolition needs.

The CIP addresses each of the five areas. Needed improvements of each of the areas can be identified by working with the Neighborhoods and Redevelopment groups involved. The City says to stay tuned to their website because we will all be able to (soon) download a more detailed plan for each of our 36 neighborhoods (well, it said each neighborhood, so hopefully all 36). (above photo courtesy of The Eco City website)

Peace Out – 3C