NOW WE KNOW

MYSTERY SOLVED
Work kept me from attending last week’s Council meeting, but the agenda identified who the prior week’s “employee compensation” executive session pertained to--- miscellaneous high level city employees.
This list includes:
Recreation Director Dave Ianiro, Law Director Tim Paluf, and City Prosecutor Dan Taylor among others.

One interesting note...
Although Brian Mader was included on that list---and referred to as "City Engineer Brian Mader"--- that title appears to be a legal fiction.
By law, the city uses its Charter and Ordinances to create and define its structure and organization.
Unlike the other positions listed on the agenda, the city Charter and Ordinances do not formally create a "City Engineer" position, nor designate it as a city job.

There is one reference, in Ordinance 129.05, to an "Architect-Engineer-Plan Examiner" but...
that position is explicitly limited to a "qualified professional architect" (129.05(c)) and it involves, not road and similar public works projects that Mader oversees, but reviewing "architectural and structural drawings and specification on all structures and buildings to be constructed in the Municipality ...." (129.05(b)(1)

Which may explain this.

In the past few years, the city has contracted with Mader's firm (Steven Hovanscek & Associates) to provide engineering services to the city, with Mader being identified as the individual who works with the city on the firm's behalf.
This would indicate that despite his apparent city-employee title, "City Engineer" Brian Mader is, in fact, a contract employee/independent contractor, not a true city employee.

That legal distinction is quite important.
City employees receive taxpayer paid-for benefits, such as sick and injury leave, pension and healthcare benefits.
Those benefits are an increasingly expensive piece of public employment-related costs and an ever expanding piece of the city's budgetary pie.
As good a job as Mader does---and he appears to do a very good job for the city---the city should offer those benefits only to true city employees.

NOT to CEINO---City Employees In Name Only

ELECTRONIC SIGN MORATORIUM

I previously reported about Council’s hurried adoption of an 180 day (6 month) electronic sign moratorium in December, after a local business owner appeared before the Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z), seeking permission to install an electronic sign on his property.

Ordinance 35-2013 explains that the moratorium was adopted because:

“….Council desires to study the appropriateness of adopting one or more ordinances that reasonably regulate the location, size, architectural features, lighting and negative secondary effects on the community that may be found to result from the operation of one or more of this type of sign or message board in the city…”

The moratorium applies to:

“…any sign or changing display, copy or message board composed of a series of lights, including but not exclusively LED, that may be changed automatically and/or remotely through electronic means, whether or not such display has a business purpose or is otherwise of any nature whatsoever…”

Property owners are advised that for 180 days,

“..the city shall not accept or process any application for zoning and or permit approvals for electronic message board signs.”

Fitworks is supposedly scheduled to move into the renovated Catalano’s space in April…while the moratorium is in place.

Which raises this question:

What about  Section 1(c)(i) of the Economic Development Agreement (EDA) that the city oh-so-hurriedly entered into with developer Lance Osborne?

That section states that the over-size, partially electronic monument signs that developer Lance Osborne planned to erect in connection with his earlier voter-rejected mega Get-Go gas station project would be:

 “permitted upon approval thereof by the City Planning & Zoning Commission.”

At the time the EDA was adopted, Law Director Tim Paluf opined that because P&Z approval was required, Section 1(c)(1) didn’t necessarily mean that Osborne would be able to install non-conforming signs on the Catalano’s property.

But the reality is that the ambiguous language that Council rushed to approve doesn’t require Osborne's signs to strictly comply with city laws.... and the referenced drawing displays an immense, non-conforming monument sign.

If I was a betting person, I’d put my money on Osborne using the EDA to get around Ordinance 35-2013, the electronic sign moratorium.

Which is just another illustration of why Council’s decision to cut residents out of the discussion and rush-approve the EDA was such a disservice to residents---and a terrible, terrible idea to boot.

GRANT FOR PARK-ADJACENT PROPERTY IN THE WORKS
A series of would-be developers have approached the city in the last several years hoping to develop a 2-owner, 12 acre parcel on the east side of Bishop Road, south of Hawthorne Drive.
City-owned parkland surrounds the property to the east and south.

As the would-be developers have discovered, the property isn’t fully buildable because it contains significant streams and several environmentally sensitive wetlands.

With the city’s approval, working in conjunction with the non-profit West Creek Conservancy group, Claire Posius of the Cuyahoga County Soil and Water Conservation District has applied for a grant to purchase the property.
If successful, the property would become a protected green space that would remain available to residents for low-impact recreational use.

Residents should hear more about the grant in April.

This isn’t the first grant that Posius has applied for.
Last year she successfully won grant money to buy another environmentally sensitive piece of property in Richmond Heights.
Unfortunately that grant didn’t totally cover the purchase price.
Friends of Euclid Creek, a local nonprofit group that counts, as members, residents from Highland Heights and surrounding communities, is attempting to make up the shortfall.

Keeping that in mind I wonder:

If this year’s grant money falls short, will the same Council that rushed to give developer Lance Osborne an $800,000 economic development package (including a $600,000 outright grant) be willing to pony up a much smaller sum to help purchase this property?

The question really is:

Are Mayor Scott Coleman and Council just as willing to invest in non-economic "quality of life" opportunities as they are in local business ones---especially if a non-economic investment will end up enhancing the city's quality of life and environmental resources for generations to come?

I guess if we're lucky we won’t have to find out the answer to that question…

Go Claire Posius!

ANOTHER WEATHER-RELATED COUNCIL RECESS

THE WINTER THREW ANOTHER CURVE AT COUNCIL THIS WEEK
The January 28th Council meeting was cancelled after temps dipped, once again, below zero.
Unlike the last weather-related cancellation, this one was reflected on the city's online calendar and on the Council Meeting Agenda & Minutes webpage.
Glad the message got through.
The best way to communicate with residents is to use all the tools at the city's disposal.

ONE INTRIGUING AGENDA ITEM
The January 28th Agenda, posted online, contains this intriguing item:

 Motion to adjourn into Executive Session to discuss employee compensation.

Why is this intriguing?
Last year Council approved union contracts and pay ordinances, which set salaries and benefits for every city employee for the next several years. 
Council also changed Jean Buchak, the Clerk of Council, from an hourly to a salaried worker.
So what "employee compensation" is left to discuss? And for whom?
Residents will have to keep their eyes and ears open on this one.
An executive session means that it will be a behind-closed-doors discussion.
The results of that session, if any, will appear as an action item on an upcoming agenda.

WE FEEL ABANDONED. YOU HAVE LET US DOWN
Residents Jack and Victoria Thomas addressed Council at the January 14th Council meeting.
The Thomases live in a lovely model house, sitting at the corner of Highland Road and St. Charles Place.
Next to their home is an abandoned "pump house" that was built when the Glen Eden subdivision was developed.
Behind the pump house is the Glen Eden water detention basin---a large, non-buildable area that collects and holds rainwater and storm runoff from the Glen Eden neighborhood.
Mr. Thomas told Council,

"When we bought the house we were told that when the (Highland Road) sewers came though that the pump house would be ..torn down and the land reclaimed.
No action was taken about the pump house.
We patiently would ask. We heard many messages from Council and from this administration. ...
We feel abandoned. That you have let us down.
In good faith we've been patient, and with so many promises we felt we had to come to you and tell you that we feel you really haven't represented us. We've lost any hope of you following up at this point.
Trucks are coming in after midnight dropping off roofing materials, and the banging going on---if you lived next door to it you would have done something about it.
I do feel I don't have a representative among you that is willing to represent us."

When Thomas finished, Council President Cathy Murphy turned to Law Director Tim Paluf and asked him to comment on the pump house situation.
Paluf said:

"We had (an eminent domain) hearing more that a year ago. I still havent' heard from the judge..I'm not normally inclined to push a judge or magistrate but I'll do what I can."

The Thomases are right to be frustrated.

I first wrote about the pump house and water detention basin in a February 5th 2010 blog posting.
It turns out that the Glen Eden developers never applied for a tax exemption for the pump house and water detention basin.
Taxes were assessed, but never paid. They went into foreclosure.
A woman bought them for $400 at a tax foreclosure sale, then promptly erected a "for sale" sign.
According to a news report, a realty ad described the property as "1.2 acres wooded with ravine. Stable house on land."
What a ridiculous ad.

The Glen Eden Homeowners Association offered to take care of the basin if the city bought the property.
Council debated purchasing the pump house and detention basin from the woman----for far less than her $5,000 asking price. Councilman Ed Hargate opposed the idea of the city taking ownership of the property.
While Council dithered, the woman sold the pump house and basin, at a profit, to several investors, one of whom turned out to be former Mayfield Heights Councilman Howard Sonnenstein.

The new owners tried to cut a deal with the Glen Eden homeowners' association---offering to maintain the detention basin for a fee----and when that deal fell through they threatened to fill the basin in and sell the land as building lots.
I heard that the feds---namely the Army Corps of Engineers---eventually got involved and notified the new owners that they couldn't fill the basin---a dedicated flood control area--- in.
The owners' next gambit was to rent out the pump house---which is where all the truck noise comes in.

Years after it gave up the opportunity to purchase the property for a song, the city finally bit the bullet and began costly proceedings to acquire the property by eminent domain.
The new owners demanded a lot of money, claiming that the pump house and basin are commercially viable.
Hence the hearing before the magistrate over a year ago.

It's not just Jack and Victoria Thomas who are frustrated.
Residents should be frustrated, too, by the city's failure to address the situation early on, when it would have cost taxpayers hundreds, rather than tens of thousands, of dollars to resolve.

Here's a link to a news story describing the early stage of this sad tale
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/02/homeowners_association_wants_h.html

LOUSY COMMUNICATION/COMMUNICATORS?

The newly reconstituted Council finally held its first business meeting of 2014 this week, following a one week weather-related delay.
 Last week’s cold weather turned Council’s scheduled 3 week holiday break into a month-long recess.
With the frigid temperatures and the school closings, I wondered if last week’s Council meeting would be cancelled.
I kept checking the city’s website and official calendar on Monday and Tuesday.
The answer was always the same: “business as usual”.  
The Council meeting remained on the city’s online calendar, and there was nary a word about any weather-related closings.
Thank goodness someone with real information contacted me to let me know that the January 7^th Council meeting had been cancelled.

Unfortunately I never heard about any garbage pickup delays.
Turns out, I wasn’t the only one.
 Everyone on my street braved subzero temps to put their garbage out on Tuesday night….a day early as it turned out.

Sometime later I discovered that the city did post some weather-related information----but not on the city’s official website.
It was posted on the city's Facebook page.
Most Facebook users probably assume that everyone else in the world uses Facebook too.
That’s really not the case.
Lots of people avoid online social media sites due to privacy and data-mining concerns.
Which raises the question:

Given Facebook’s self-selected, limited audience, why would the city decide to post vital emergency-related information on Facebook---and not on the city’s official website?

I raised that issue with Council this week, but got no answer.
As I see it, it’s just another example of the administration’s communication incompetence.

There’s been a lot of discussion at Council meetings over the last few years about the quality and usefulness (or lack thereof) of the City’s website.
Those conversations have resulted in some minor tweaks, but that’s about it.
A local consultant told Council a year ago that it would cost $100,000 to create a spiffy new city website.
That’s absolutely absurd.
Cuyahoga County’s Department of Information Services offers website services at a very modest cost....a fraction of the consultant's estimate.
Several local communities have taken advantage of their services, and the results are easily accessible online.

So why hasn't anything been done?

The city’s website is entirely within Mayor Scott Coleman’s (not Council’s) wheelhouse.
Council can talk, but that doesn’t mean Coleman has to (or will) listen.
Coleman maintains tight control over all of the city’s communication with residents, including the city’s main communication devices… the Highland Highlights newsletter and the city’s official website.
The buck stops with him.

And stopped it has….for quite some time now.

2014 TO BRING  (CONTINUED) MAJOR CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN MUNI CENTER BUILDINGS
A couple of years ago Council spent over $200,000 shoring up the Community Center after it was discovered that the below-ground portions of several supporting beams had deteriorated.
On Tuesday, Council authorized bids for other capital improvements to other Municipal Center buildings.

The Police/Fire building has had long-standing problems with water leakage in the basement.
Service Director Thom Evans told Council that soil borings done when the Building was originally constructed showed there was a lot of “siltstone” at the site.

“A lot of the problem is from the siltstone. It’s a natural material in the soil..it moves with the water table. It has been clogging up the filler drains and the sump pump.”

A consultant has recommended that the city:  fix a load-bearing retaining wall at the rear of the police building; replace several window sills; perform some  brick tuck pointing; and install filter fabric around the foundation to deal with the sill stone problem.
The price tag?
Evans recommended that $500,000 be set aside in the 2014 budget to pay for that work--- and to cover the cost of replacing City Hall’s “inefficient, antiquated” HVAC system.

CITY APPOINTMENTS: REVOLVING DOORS AND MUCH THE SAME
This week Councilwoman Cathy Murphy was unanimously reelected to serve as Council President for the next two years.

Most of the Council appointments remained the same, except the Councilman Chuck Brunello will take Councilman Ed Hargate’s place on the Legislative & Finance Committee.
That committee will continue to be chaired by Councilman Leo Lombardo.
Newly elected (returning) Councilwoman Ann D’Amico will take over as Chair of the Drainage Committee, filling the spot vacated by former Councilman Frank Legan.
Legan, meanwhile, has been appointed by Mayor Coleman to serve on the city’s Board of Zoning & Building Appeals.

One appointment that shouldn’t go unnoticed:
Mayor Scott Coleman has appointed Anthony (Tony) Valentino to the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z), to replace Don McFadden.

McFadden, a local attorney, brought a great deal of professional knowledge and competence to P&Z.
That’s something P&Z desperately needs.
Understanding and appropriately implementing zoning laws is tough stuff.
Zoning ordinances are technical and complicated----it’s not something that most lay people can handle….or at least handle well.

Valentino’s name should be familiar to most residents.
 
Most recently he was named a 2012 " Citizen of the Year" by the Mayfield Schools for his leadership role in the Wildcat Park Foundation.
Mayfield School Superintendent Dr. Keith Kelly recognized Valentino for:

"...step(ping) forward as the Assistant project leader and fundraising coordinator for Wildcat Park.."

http://www.mayfieldschools.org/mobile/News/Details/0?newsId=1052

According to a recent news report, that could be a very dubious distinction indeed.
Among other things "Wildcat Park" involved removing all of Mayfield High School's tennis courts in order to install expanded football stadium parking.
The tennis team was thrown under the bus for the football team.
Paying the price for the expensive, gussied-up football facilities, high school tennis players now have to travel offsite for every practice and match.

Even more disturbing, the news report indicates that Valentino's "Wildcat Park" may be a huge taxpayer rip-off.
Valentino's group has raised only a fraction of the $3 million the Foundation pledged when initially selling the project to residents.
The reporter who investigated the situation wrote:

I found that taxpayers paid for much more of Wildcat Stadium than I initially realized. And I feel a bit misled. The campaign that raised private funds for the project blurred the line in public statements between what it hoped to pay for and what was actually already embedded in district's plan.
The sports complex cost the 4,000-student district about $3.5 million, district treasurer Scott Snyder says. About $650,000 was raised through private donations.

http://www.cleveland.com/naymik/index.ssf/2013/10/mayfield_wildcats_stadium_gets.html
http://www.news-herald.com/general-news/20110826/wildcat-park-project-is-focus-of-fundraisers

Valentino's name should also be familiar to Highland Heights residents because he is also a longtime appointed city official.
Coleman appointed him to serve on the city’s Park & Recreation Commission (P&R) years ago.
 Valentino, in fact, served as the P&R Chair for several years.
It was during those years that a Valentino-affiliated company (Valentino at one point identified himself as the company’s “owner and President”) became the city’s exclusive HVAC services provider.
That company even performed work in the park ---work that Valentino, as P&Z chair, was legally authorized and required to approve.
City records show that Mayor Coleman approved most of the company’s invoices.

Council, however, was apparently unaware of the cozy business arrangement.
That’s significant because city law clearly states that Council’s prior approval has to be obtained before services are purchased from and/or payments are made to any business affiliated with any elected or appointed city official.
Highland Heights Ordinance 117.04(b)(1) reads:

"….no goods or services can be purchased from and no payments made from city funds regardless of amount without prior approval of council acting on motion ordinance or resolution at a regular meeting if the purchase is to made from and payment made to an elected or appointed official of the municipality or any business entity in which that person has a direct or beneficial interest in the business."

Council minutes do not show that Valentino ever disclosed his business affiliation before his affiliated company began providing exclusive HVAC services to the city.
Nor do city records show that Council passed any ordinance or resolution approving the arrangement or authorizing payments to be made for the company’s services, as required by Ordinance 117.04(b)(1).

After the scandal broke Council asked the Ohio Ethics Commission to look into whether any ethics laws were violated---a request that, apparently, resulted in no action being taken.
As far as I know no formal investigation into the legal propriety of the financial arrangement between the city and the Valentino-affiliated company was ever undertaken.

There was no apparent fallout from the scandal.
No heads rolled.
And Coleman continued to reappoint Valentino to his paid P&R position.
Now he has appointed Valentino to an even more lucrative and prestigious position---as a member of the city’s powerful Planning & Zoning Commission.

That appointment raises some questions about Coleman’s judgment and personal ethics.
After all:

If it's the mayor’s duty to enforce and obey the city's laws, should he  reward political appointees who don't do the same?

To read more details about the scandal:http://www.news-herald.com/general-news/20100430/highland-heights-officials-accused-of-running-afoul-of-ordinance
http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2010/05/matter-of-very-serious-concern.html