A Very Troubling Evening—Part One

There were several discussions that left me troubled as I left the Feb. 16th Committee of the Whole Meeting

Troubling discussion # 1. Plan by Richmond Heights School DIstrict (RHSD) to Operate Conversion Schools inside the Mayfield City School District.

Dori Mittinger, the RHSD business manager, was not on the agenda, but she was allowed to address council at the request of Mayor Coleman.

 Mittinger informed council that the RHSD was planning to open up three “conversion” schools. She was at the COW meeting, she said, because she was hoping to use the old church building on the city hall property for one of those schools.

What is a conversion school? Basically it’s a charter school that is created by, and from, a public school system.
According to Ohio Administrative Regulation § 3301-102-02(F): "Conversion school" means a community (aka charter) school created by converting all or a portion of an existing traditional public school to a community school.”

RHSD wants to open 3 conversion schools----a gifted and talented school (grades 2-8), a college prep school, and an all-male "alternative" school. All of the schools will be application based----which will allow the school operators to handpick the students for each school. While RHSD kids will have "first preference" in applying, Mittinger made no promises as to how many RHSD students would attend each school.

In fact, Mittinger was  unclear about many details---except for financial ones. Bottom line, RHSD stands to get a lot more funding by operating conversion schools because:

1. The state has educational grants available to establish charter/conversion schools. RHSD is planning to apply for a $ 450,000 startup grant from the state (March 15th deadline).
2. Right now the state gives RHSD around $1,300 per pupil for each student that attends the public school. In contrast, the state will pay RHSD at least $ 5,718 per pupil in 2010 for each charter/conversion school student.

In my estimation, the plan represents a direct threat to the well-being of the Mayfield Schools (and that of other surrounding school districts) both in terms of loss of talent and loss of revenue.

Mittinger was frank in acknowledging that RHSD hopes to draw students from other school districts to attend the conversion schools (hence, I suppose, the interest in locating at least one of the schools in Highland Heights). Significantly, the $ 5,718 per pupil payment that RHSD would receive for each nonresident student would be deducted from the funds that the students’ home school districts receive from the state.

That means a loss of $ 5,718 in revenue for every Mayfield student that attends one of the proposed RHSD conversion schools.

In fact, the RHSD School Board President confirmed that the conversion school plan is being driven by financial concerns rather than curriculum needs. He told the Sun Messenger this week that, "We have been discussing ways to receive additional funding... Every journey starts with a first step and this is the first step."

From where I sit it certainly looks like RHSD's financial plan depends entirely on using the conversion schools to poach students and revenue from surrounding school districts.

Very troubling indeed.

To read more about “community” and “conversion” schools, go to: http://education.ohio.gov/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=662
end part one

My Hero of the Week: Highland Heights Council

Kudos to Council
Council deserves a pat on the back for pressing Mayor Coleman to rethink his staffing of the Building Department and for insisting that the Building Commissioner position be publicly advertised.

In taking that stance, they were looking out for you and me and for the city’s best interests.

My Jan. 7th blog posting describes the brouhaha that resulted when Mayor Coleman attempted to get his proposed 2010 city appointments rubber-stamp approved immediately following council’s January 5th swearing-in ceremony. One of the proposed appointees was a building commissioner candidate, whom the mayor had privately tapped while council was out on its winter break.
Although the mayor put heavy pressure on council to rubber-stamp approve his proposed Building Commissioner appointment, council stuck to its guns and insisted that the job be publicly posted and that regular procedures be followed in filling the position.

The result? Well, here is a timeline and some numbers to consider. See if you agree with me that council deserves “Hero of the Week” status.

2008-2009. Mayor Coleman adopts a dual-appointment approach to staffing the building department. He appoints an uncertified “Acting Building Commissioner” (ABC) and a certified, part-time “Interim Building Commissioner” (IBC). Total cost to taxpayers in 2009 for this dual employment arrangement = $76,500 ($62,000 for the ABC and $ 14,500 for IBC).
January 5, 2010. Two of the items on Mayor Coleman’s agenda for the special meeting are approval of his privately-tapped Building Commissioner candidate and adoption of a pay ordinance. The salary that Mayor Coleman wanted council to approve= $78,000 a year to begin with, going up to $ 80,000 on July 1st..
February 9, 2010. Mayor Coleman reports to council that he received applications from around the country in response to the city’s ad for the Building Commissioner position, that he interviewed several good candidates, and that he wanted to hire an individual who was familiar with the city and was certified not only as a Chief Building Official, but also as a residential housing and electrical inspector. The final salary approved for the position: $ 72,000.

Public advertising = good candidates at a cost savings to taxpayers. Way to go, council!

Read more on this topic: http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/02/highland_heights_names_grabfel.html

Just in time for St. Paddy’s Day
Service Department Director Thom Evans announced to council that the city will be using a new product on the city streets this winter, which contains salt, magnesium and a rust inhibitor. Oh yes, and it has green dye in it too.
The dye will allow the service department to monitor the effectiveness of the product compared to regular road salt. Evans said that to do the comparison, he will put salt on one side of some city streets and the new product on the other side.
Although the new product is 25 % more expensive than regular road salt, it may be worth the cost because it works in much colder temperatures (due to the magnesium content) and it has a longer-lasting effect. Evans thinks it might save the city money because less of the product will have to be used and the streets won’t need to be re-treated as often---which will reduce the number of man hours required to keep the city’s streets safe and dry in the winter.
Green streets, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day! How festive!
Read more http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/02/green_salt_to_be_tested_on_hig.html

Water, Water everywhere
Service Department Director Thom Evans also reported on the water line leak underneath the stamped concrete plaza in front of city hall (not to be confused with the leaking water main along Highland Road).
It is unclear at this point why the city hall water line has failed (usually water lines last between 40-50 years according to Evans; this one is only 25 years old). The estimate for replacing the water line is $ 25,000—provided that they don’t have to go through the city hall foundation in order to connect the new line up. If they have to do that, said Evans, “the money (cost) will grow.”
Meanwhile, council directed the representative from the city’s engineering firm to apply for an EPA grant to replace the stamped concrete plaza with porous pavers. That took quite a bit of nudging on council’s part. The representative told council: "I don’t want to go through the motions to put in a grant that I don’t feel will be successful.” Apparently he thought it was his decision to make. Council directed him to apply for two grants on the city's behalf: the plaza replacement project and the parking lot project favored by Evans.

Welcome Baby!
Fire Chief Turner and Police Chief Cook regularly provide council with statistics regarding the number of calls their departments responded to during the prior month. Chief Turner had a new statistic to add for January: during one of their runs last month, members of the fire department assisted in the delivery of a healthy baby boy. Congratulations to the parents and to the delivery crew!

Coming Up
There are currently 3 items on the agenda for the Feb 16 COW meeting: the old church building, the city’s sidewalk replacement program and Home Day.
Yes, Home Day.
Councilwoman Lisa Stickan (the council rep to the Committee) reported last week that Mayor Coleman is looking to shrink Home Days to a single day this year and that he has asked Recreation Director Dave Ianiro to head the Home Day Committee.
Post-script: Mayor Coleman has yet to officially appoint the head of the Committee. It could be that he will come up with a different choice for that appointment.
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Bits and Pieces From the Feb 2nd Committee of the Whole Meeting

MIA: Mayor Coleman. He called a special meeting for Feb. 2nd, but failed to show up for either the COW meeting or the special meeting.
Property For Sale

The “For Sale” sign on the Glen Eden water detention basin (“1.2 wooded acres with a ravine”) prompted the Vice President of the Glen Eden homeowners’ association to appear before council with the following proposal: If the city buys the land (which the current owner purchased for $ 400 at a tax foreclosure sale), razes the obsolete pump station building and cleans out the basin (which the developer was obligated, but failed, to do), then the association will agree to maintain the property after that.
Law Director Tim Paluf, who agreed to discuss the ad with the listing realtor, seemed reluctant to have the city take on the responsibility of owning the basin. But according to the representative from the city’s engineering firm, the city already owns several similar water detention basins in Highland Heights.

Councilwoman Cathy Murphy, who is the President of the Glen Eden homeowners’ association, recused herself from participating in the discussion and stated that she will not cast any votes on the issue.
The Sun Messenger posted a story on the discussion. You can read it at: http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/02/homeowners_association_wants_h.html

Does this add up?

In 2007, the building department had $152,000 in receipts and was staffed by a fulltime, certified building commissioner, a fulltime inspector, and a fulltime office support person.

In 2009, the building department had $ 85,000 in receipts and was staffed by an interim, part-time building commissioner (who works fulltime for the City of Mayfield Heights), a fulltime, uncertified acting building commissioner, a fulltime inspector, a part-time inspector (who works fulltime for the City of Cleveland) and a fulltime office support person.

In 2010, the building department is projected to have $ 80,000 in receipts. In addition to a fulltime certified building commissioner (who should be hired within the next two weeks), the department will be staffed by the fulltime inspector, the part-time inspector, and the fulltime office support person---and CT Consultants.

Mayor Coleman called the special meeting so that council could approve a contract that authorizes CT Consultants to provide up to 4 hours of weekly services to the building department. The cost? Between $ 40 to $ 130 an hour, depending on the services provided.
Although Law Director Tim Paluf assured council that he understood that CT Consultants would be used only on an “as needed” basis, the contract, apparently, does not explicitly state that. That prompted concern on the part of Councilwoman Lisa Stickan. As a lawyer, she understands that judges enforce contracts as they are written and that, therefore, it is extremely important that contracts clearly explain what the contracting parties intend.
Paluf, however, did not find it necessary to include the “as needed” language in the contract, nor did he recommend adding the language via an amendment before council approved the contract.
A Failure of Communication

The EPA announced in early December that it was offering grants (up to $ 300,000 per project), to be used to address water runoff and water quality issues in Cuyahoga County.
Without notifying or discussing the grant opportunity with council, Mayor Coleman apparently went ahead and authorized the city engineer to work up a grant proposal for repaving the municipal complex parking lot----an idea that City Service Director Thom Evans admitted that he pitched and that, as it turned out, clearly did not fit the requirements for the EPA grant.
Unfortunately, council was not brought into the discussion until the Feb 2nd meeting---barely a week before the grant applications were due. It was particularly unfortunate because several council members had interesting grant ideas---including Councilman Bob Mastrangelo who suggested using porous pavers to replace the nonporous, stamped concrete plaza in front of the city hall building, which would allow water to be absorbed in the ground rather than running off to the storm sewers
It turns out that Mastrangelo’s suggestion was a timely one because there is a significant leak in a water line located underneath the stamped concrete (it is leaking 4 gallons a minute according to Thom Evans). That means the concrete will likely have to be opened----and result in a potentially expensive repair job for the city.
The city engineer was encouraged to explore Mastrangelo’s idea for grant purposes. City Service Director Thom Evans, meanwhile, apparently had a hard time giving up his idea of repaving the parking lot. He pushed a twist on his original idea: applying for a grant to replace a small portion of the municipal center parking lot with porous pavers.
It is unclear whether the city engineer will pursue one or both of those proposals on the city's behalf. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Post-script
Team Energetics---the local fitness club that tried to obtain public money from Highland Heights and several other cities to keep its business operation afloat recently called it quit and closed its doors. A new club has opened on Beta Drive.
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/02/team_energetics_health_club_cl.html

Here are several other Sun Messenger items pertaining to stuff I’ve blogged about:
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/02/highland_heights_council_presi.html
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/01/sun_messenger_editorial_cartoo_4.html
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