Guess You Had to Be There
Police Chief Jim Cook was the featured speaker at last week’s Aberdeen Homeowners’ Association meeting. Cook gave a power point presentation and discussed something on Aberdeen residents’ minds: a recent rash of burglaries in their neighborhood.
The three Council members who represent Aberdeen also attended that meeting. They were stunned to hear, for the first time, about the significant uptick in burglaries.
Even though Chief Cook attends most Council meetings and reports regularly on police department matters, he never told Council about the burglaries or the city’s rising crime rate.
Council requested---and Cook agreed---to share his power point presentation with Council at next week’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
Farm Market Fuels Neighbor Feud
If you wondered what the cryptic signboard message in front of Distefano’s Deli was all about, (It read: “Against Farmers Market” and listed two names, partially disguised by the use of initials), here’s the scoop.
John Distefano recently asked the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) for approval to operate a farmer’s produce market on the deli site. The plan called for the erection of a large tent on open land just to the east of the deli building.Both the adjoining landowner and the owner of Crostatas Pizzeria objected.
No surprise, it was their first names and last initials that were listed on the Distefano’s sign board.
Last week, P&Z approved Distefano’s plan—with a few alterations. The message on the sign board has since been removed.
Distefano received a variance (good for two years) to operate a produce market on the site. It will be open Thursday through Sunday, from early May to late October. The city reserved the right to revisit the issue if the market creates traffic problems or other public nuisances.
Osborne says let’s “Get Go”!?
One big surprise from last week’s Council meeting was Mayor Scott Coleman’s announcement that Lance Osborne (who owns the Shoppes at Alpha) was in “serious discussions” to buy the Catalano’s property.
According to the mayor, Osborne plans to appear before P&Z to present plans “along the lines of what we were discussing before”---i.e., to put a Get-Go gas station, carwash and convenience store on the site. Osborne also apparently envisions reducing the size of the grocery store building and using it as a retail space of some kind.
Why is Osborne suddenly in the mix? I’m guessing that Giant Eagle decided that they could get more local support for the project if they worked through a local developer. The fact remains, however, that city residents are very conflicted about the plan to use the property for a “Get-Go” gas station, and at least one Council member---Councilman Ed Hargate---has previously stated on the record that he opposes that plan.
Handicap Accessibility in the Park—Equal Access For All?
It’s been clear right from the start that although Recreation Director David Ianiro’s “Park Barn Pavillion” (PBP) project includes a number of different pieces--including renovating the Old Pool House bathrooms---the only thing Ianiro is really interested in thinking or talking about is the PBP itself.
Although Ianiro used the city’s shrinking 8 week summer day camp as the primary justification for installing a third pavilion in the park, he also claimed—without backing it up with any data---that the PBP would be in high demand and would generate a lot of rental income for the city.
Dave Ianiro’s lack of interest in anything other than the PBP was very apparent when the bathroom renovation piece was discussed during last week’s COW. Ianiro hadn’t bothered to develop an actual renovation plan for the bathrooms, and every time Council pressed him for specifics, Ianiro turned the conversation to the nifty picnic tables and gas grill that he is looking at, to outfit the new party barn with.
It apparently never occurred to Ianiro that renovating the bathrooms should include meeting state and federal handicap-accessibility requirements. Ianiro clearly envisioned only healthy, able-bodied children when he described children walking only “15 steps” between the PBP and the Old Pool House. He gave no thought to the possibility that a handicapped child might want to attend day camp or that senior citizens in walkers or wheelchairs might be included in night-time party barn events.
Appropriately, Council seemed disturbed by Ianiro’s lackadaisical approach to the bathroom renovation piece of the PBP proposal. They put the bathroom renovation plan on the agenda for next week’s COW meeting.
It’s not always easy achieving success as a Council member--or How (Not) To Win Friends and Influence People
On Wednesday night, the Highland Heights Charter Review Commission decided which proposed Charter language changes should appear on the November ballot. One of their proposed changes: staggering and extending Council terms to 4 years.
That’s a very big change for the city---one that’s been voted down, repeatedly, every single time it’s been on the ballot. To-date, residents have preferred our current system---Council members have 2 years terms, and they all run for re-election at the same time--- an arrangement that ensures accountablility to residents.The discussion about changing Council terms got me thinking about what it takes to be a truly good and effective Council member.
Basically, I think that takes four things: (1) being responsive to constituents (not only answering phone calls and reading email, but following up with residents about their concerns); (2) taking time to read and think about the material sent out in the weekly Council packets before showing up at Council meetings; (3) having the good sense to know when to take a stand on issues and when to compromise and/or admit defeat; and (4) embracing negotiation as a way to reach consensus.
Unfortunately, Councilman Frank Legan demonstrated real weakness in skills # 3 and #4 at last Tuesday’s Council meeting. Legan tends to be pretty dogged in taking stands and pursuing his own ideas---to the point of becoming an obstructionist when he doesn’t get his way. For example:
• In the fall of 2009, Legan supported a proposed plan to use tax dollars to subsidize a now-defunct, privately owned Alpha Drive athletic club. Council considered the proposal---and the extremely problematic contract that the city was expected to sign as part of the deal--- and decided not to pursue the matter, as did all of the other cities that were asked to participate.
Did Legan react gracefully? No, not at all. He attacked his peers, criticizing them for allegedly not letting the club’s representatives make a presentation to Council about the questionable plan.
http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2009/10/should-we-be-team-energetic.html
• Despite prohibitively high restoration costs (a structural engineer hired by the city estimated that it would cost $773,000 just to bring the building up to code), Legan (along with Councilman Ed Hargate) was adamantly against tearing down the decrepit, substandard Old Church Building (OCB) that sat in what is now the city’s new municipal complex greenspace.
At Legan’s request, Council agreed in the fall of 2009 to hold off making a decision about the OCB’s future, giving Legan more time to identify a use for the building and to come up with viable plan to pay for its restoration and operational costs.
When he was unable to come up with a concrete plan for saving the OCB, Legan focused his efforts on delaying the vote. He refused to discuss the building’s demolition and, once again, he responded by attacking his peers. He accused them of “being hasty” and rushing to judgment---even though (thanks, in part, to Legan) more than two years passed before Council finally voted to tear the OCB down (for less than $30,000).
http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2009/10/renovating-old-church-building-on-city.html
http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2010/09/decision-time.html
• Legan went into attack mode again on Tuesday night, after Council President Scott Mills announced that there did not appear to be any interest in pursuing a proposal that Legan had been pushing since last year. Legan’s most recent proposal entailed paying an outside company $400 a month to host online, live-streaming of Council meetings.
Council’s tepid reaction to Legan’s plan may be explained, in part, by the fact that Council is already spending close to $6,000 this year to replace its failing analogue recording system with a digital one. And then again, another problem may be that Legan has not done any research to determine whether residents are even interested in paying for live, on-line streaming of Council meetings and/or whether there are more cost-effective ways to make Council meetings accessible to residents who don’t want to attend Council meetings in person.
When he heard Mills’ announcement, Legan did what’s he done before: he went into attack mode. Legan insisted (as is his right) that the matter be added to next week’s Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting. Legan made clear that he wanted the item on the agenda not because he wanted one last opportunity to pitch his plan, but because he intended to try to strong-arm his fellow Council members into “say(ing) on the record why” they don’t support it.
Talk about NOT making friends and influencing people.
No doubt Councilman Frank Legan gets very frustrated when his fellow Council members don’t respond enthusiastically to his ideas. Still, it’s hard to see how his aggressiveness and obstructionism will lead to better collaboration and support for his ideas in the future. Apparently quiet discussion and one-on-one negotiation just isn’t his style.
As my dad used to say: “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
Despite his many years of experience as a Council member, that seems to be one concept that Frank Legan has never truly embraced.
