Mayor Scott Coleman told the audience at the 2009 Mayfield Schools VIP dinner that he is a man who likes to “fly under the radar.” That’s for sure. Open, inclusive and transparent government is not his thing.
The January 25th Council meeting provided yet another example of Coleman’s approach to governance. On the agenda was this item: “Mayor’s Appointment: Charter Review Committee”. That’s it. That’s all it said.
§ 13.01 of the Highland Heights Charter requires the mayor, every five years, to appoint “nine electors” to a Charter Review Commission (CRC) to review the City Charter to see if it needs updating. It shouldn’t shock you to learn that the mayor hasn’t been any more compliant with § 13.01 than he has been with the financial ordinance barring city officials from working for the city. The last CRC met in 2005.
The good news is that Mayor Coleman finally decided to do his duty under § 13.01. What a wonderful opportunity--you might think—for the mayor to encourage and promote residents’ involvement in the city. Think again. Rather than soliciting volunteers from the community at large, Mayor Coleman did what he always does: he hand-selected his choices behind closed doors--- keeping residents at bay and the public in the dark. He didn’t even list his selections on the public Agenda.
Some might see this as a missed opportunity—a missed chance to foster and encourage civic involvement. Some might see it that way, but obviously not the guy who likes to “fly under the radar”.
Park & Recreation Commission: Some Changes, but Overall Still Sounding The Same Note
Councilwoman Cathy Murphy reported to Council that P&R managed to spend less than it took in last year, which is excellent news given P&R’s massive deficit spending in 2009. But while some things have changed, some things have remained the same.
For one, P&R has once again declared that its top priority is renovating the Old Pool House (OPH) at the Community Park. When last visited, the proposed renovation came with a $ 300,000 price tag.
Mayor Coleman has already indicated that he intends to include money for the project in his capital improvements budget. That means, of course, that the city will have $300,000 less to spend on other things--- like street maintenance and repair. And of course the Highland Road water main still needs to be replaced. But who cares about a disruption of water service, right?
Another thing that hasn’t changed is the leaking pool. Recreation Director Dave Ianiro recently acknowledged that the pool had many more leaks (five) than previously disclosed. That means P&R was ignoring five leaks, not just one, up until last year. While several of the leaks have been located and fixed, two are still ongoing. Hopefully P&R will start to take much better care of the community’s multi-million dollar investment going forward from here.
The last thing that apparently hasn’t change is P&R’s hands off attitude about staffing and safety issues at the pool. Quite a few lifeguards and parents signed a petition at the end of last year’s swim season, expressing safety and staffing concerns. As for myself, I heard that the “fulltime” pool manager wasn’t at the pool much because she was working fulltime elsewhere and that more than one parent had to jump in and pull their kid to safety during swim lessons. So far, Recreation Director Dave Ianiro and P&R have apparently taken a pass on addressing any of those issues, and if I was student petition signer, I’d be afraid to press the issue for fear of losing my summer job. So who loses out as the result of P&R’s lack of interest and inattention? Who always loses out: Highland Heights residents and their kids.
Mayfield Heights Joins the Tri-City Consortium. What a Deal?
The new online local newspaper, http://www.patch.com/, recently reported that Mayfield Heights decided to join the Tri-City Consortium on Aging, the group that supplies services to seniors in Highland Heights, Lyndhurst and South Euclid.
Mayor Coleman confirmed the story on January 25th, telling Council that Mayfield Heights had agreed to the deal that he helped negotiate.
The patch.com story reports :
“The proposed contract includes having rides to grocery stores, medical centers and other places provided by the Senior Transportation Connection. Mayfield Heights residents ... would pay $ 3 per trip under the proposed agreement. (Mayfield Heights Mayor) Costabile said residents of other member communities pay $ 5 per trip.”Since he helped negotiate the deal, I assume Mayor Coleman is ready to explain to Highland Heights senior citizens why they will pay more to go grocery shopping than their neighbors to the south.
Read the story yourself:
http://hillcrest.patch.com/articles/mayfield-heights-may-join-tri-city-consortium-on-aging
The Gas Well Drilling Committee. What a Surprise (not). My Comments taken out of Context.
I previously posted my January 11th comments to Council on this blog. If you recall, I began that speech by saying, "I asked residents attending the Gas Well Committee meeting last night what they wanted me to communicate to you tonight.” Later in my speech I said:
Residents really want to know why you are so willing to throw our safety and the safety of our children under the bus. They want to know why you aren’t willing to stand up and do all you can to fight to protect our kids....Residents want to know why you’d rather settle with Bass and allow drilling in our park. Why you prefer that, instead of going to arbitration and fighting as hard as you can to protect our kids from being exposed to all that. Residents want to know: Why are you so willing to throw our kids under the bus?”Although he was sitting there, with a copy of my speech in hand, Jeff Piorkowski of the Sun Messenger reported this week that: “Feran...said those (gas well) committee members who choose drilling sites are 'so willing to throw our safety and safety of our children under the bus'.”
It just goes to show that you can get the words right and still get them wrong. Piorkowski completely misrepresented what I said.
Piorkowski explanation to me was more than a little disingenuous. Even though I was speaking at a council meeting (not a gas well committee meeting) and referred to the people I was looking at (Council) as "you"--Piorkowski said that he thought I was really addressing the Gas Well Committee instead. However convulated that explanation, it's clear that Piorkowski understood the context of my speech because he also wrote:“She (Feran) said it appears as if council has decided to let Bass Energy drill wells in the park.”
Duh. Yeah. That’s why I was asking them---Council---why they would rather allow drilling instead of going to arbitration and fighting as hard as they can to protect our kids.
UPDATE: The Sun Messenger ran this "Clarification" on February 3rd:
Highland Heights resident Amy Feran did not direct criticism at gas well committee members who chose drilling sites in Highalnd Heights park, as was stated in the Jan. 27 Sun Messenger artilce, "Some on committee select gas well sites."
Feran's criticsim, as she spoke during the public portion of the Jan. 11 City Council meeting, was directed at Council.
Also in that article, the name of resident Paul Berne was incorrectly spelled.
Letter to the Editor
I submitted a Letter to the Editor as a follow up to my January 11th comments to Council. It has been posted online by the Sun Messenger. This is the text:
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2011/01/highland_heights_council_must.html
The dispute between Bass Energy and the city over drilling in the Highland Heights Community Park has reached a crossroads. Council must choose between going to arbitration or allowing Bass to drill. Preserving and protecting residents’ health and safety should be Council’s top priority.A corrected version of Piorkowski’s story is posted online: http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2011/01/some_members_of_highland_heigh.html
As former Mayor Fran Hogg so eloquently explained, drilling is not just about what you see above ground. What happens beneath the surface impacts both the environment and our health and safety.
A former ODNR safety inspector told the Gas Well Committee earlier this month that “frac” drilling—the drilling technique that involves fracturing buried shale to release natural gas--is a “very messy business”. That mess includes toxic chemicals, which are added to the drilling mud. No driller can guarantee that all of the toxic chemicals and released gas will return up the well pipe. Those substances can easily travel along rock formations underground, polluting ground water and seeping into basements—as the “flammable water” videos on www.youtube.com and the Bainbridge house explosion dramatically illustrate.
Several gas lines and a “tank battery” (consisting of a separator and storage tanks to hold drilling by-products and waste) will have to be installed in the park. The current proposal calls for the tank battery to be placed next to, and a main gas line installed along, “Gas Well Alley,” the city-owned path that west-siders regularly use to access the park. As the former ODNR inspector said, “tank batteries are known to leak.” Last Wednesday a fatal gas line explosion sent a 50 foot fireball into the sky over a Philadelphia residential neighborhood.
After carefully studying the matter, 3 of the 7 Gas Well Committee members—two residents and Council President Scott Mills--concluded that there were no safe drilling sites in the park. 73% of Highland Heights voters came to that same conclusion in 2008, when they voted to amend the city’s charter to ban drilling in the park.
The city is in good shape financially; it can handle arbitration costs. Importantly, arbitration would not be limited to Bass’s breach of contract claim. The city could argue that it is not bound by the Bass drilling lease because, as Judge Gallagher found, Mayor Coleman had “no power” when he signed it.
The decision to settle or arbitrate boils down to priorities. Many will be watching to see just how committed Mayor Scott Coleman and Council are to protecting the health and safety of Highland Heights residents, their families and their neighborhoods.
