Decision Time

Hey, Hey-- Goodbye??

At last night’s special meeting council formally accepted Ace Demolition’s $ 29,317.69 bid for demolishing the decrepit, substandard Old Church Building (OCB) that sits on the City Hall property.
The vote was 5-2, with Councilman Ed Hargate and Councilman Frank Legan voting no.
The contract is in line with the structural engineer’s estimate for razing the building and is within the amount budgeted for that purpose in the city’s “401” capital improvements fund.
Apparently Mayor Coleman did not handle the vote with much grace. I heard from a source that following the vote. the mayor declared, off-microphone, that he would not sign the demolition contract.
Of course, the mayor is legally obligated to execute all council-approved contracts—even ones he doesn’t like. He can’t veto contracts or pick and choose which contracts to sign.


I’d dismiss the tip as mere rumor except for the fact that Mayor Coleman withheld his signature from another OCB-related contract earlier this year. Readers of this blog will recall that Mayor Coleman kept a contract for a needed asbestos study sitting on his desk, unsigned, for nearly a month (until council got wind of the situation)---which according to Steve Hovanscek prevented the City Engineer’s Office from getting the demolition bid specs to council before it adjourned for its annual August recess.


It is extremely disappointing to think that any mayor would openly declare their intention to flout their legal duties and responsibilities simply because they disagreed with a council decision.
Taxpayers have high expectations for their mayors---they expect them to act like chief executives, not four year olds...


I Ain’t Never Gonna Give Up.. Mayor Coleman and the Club Molisani “Partnership”


Before the vote, Mayor Coleman made a last-ditch attempt to keep council from approving the demolition contract. Citing a legal memo issued by Law Director Tim Paluf last week, Mayor Coleman asked for a delay, so he could meet with Club Molisani to see if they were still interested in trying to work out a deal for renovating the OCB.
The memo, however, apparently simply recapped what Paluf told council during a July 20th council committee meeting --- namely that the city could accept a donation of work and materials, but it couldn’t enter into the proposed “quid pro quo” “partnership” with the club.


The reality is this: Mayor Coleman knew as of July 20th that the city couldn’t accept the club’s “partnership” proposal. He had plenty of time after that to speak with the club, and he could have invited club representatives to come to last night’s committee meeting if he truly thought it would be fruitful to engage in further dialogue with them. But the mayor didn’t choose to do that.
Which leads to one conclusion: his request had nothing to do with working out a deal with the club and everything to do with stalling and delaying the vote on the demolition contract.

I have to say that I feel badly for Club Molisani. They offered their proposal in good faith. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the administration withheld the 2008 structural engineer’s report from the club when they were formulating their “partnership” proposal for presentation at the June 1st council committee meeting. It appears that the club then got painted in a corner by Mayor Coleman’s repeated public pronouncements (repeated again last night) that the club had agreed to pick up the whole tab for completely renovating and bringing the OCB up to current building standards. That is simply not the case.
Read the minutes from the June 1st meeting yourself. http://www.highlandhts.com/docs/city_council/committee%20minutes/2010/06-01-10_council_committee_minutes.htm


What the club offered to do was to “restore the church part of the facility to build two (later 3) bocce courts” and to “be responsible, long term, for the roofing, plumbing, sewer, cement, furnace and AC” (if they had seen the engineer’s report, the club would have known that the OCB lacks air conditioning). The club also said that they would be “willing to undertake other restoration projects” over the “long term,” that they wanted “sole use of the bocce courts at night,” that they were “ thinking (in terms of) a ten year lease,” and they didn’t “want to pay rental again” for indoor bocce courts, as it had been doing elsewhere in the past.


As I have said before, what the club actually promised is much less than what Mayor Coleman claimed---and continued to claim last night.


Impossible Things Are Happening Every Day...


Councilman Frank Legan returned to his usual themes in speaking out against demolishing the OCB—and added a new claim as well.
Legan continued to assert that although council has spent the last 2 ½ years discussing what to do with the OCB, it was “being hasty,” it was making a decision “too quickly,” there “hadn’t been enough dialogue,” and that council shouldn’t act because it “still hadn’t come to a consensus on the ideal use for the building”---a consensus that in Legan’s mind could never include demolishing the building and creating a green public gathering space.


Councilman Legan also claimed---as he has done in the past—that once council settled on a need for the building, the city would be able to obtain awards and grants to pay for renovating it. The funny thing is, as long as he’s been saying it, Legan has never identified any financial sources for such alleged awards and grants, nor has he done any leg work to actually submit a grant application on the city’s behalf.


As a new twist, Frank Legan also argued that residents wouldn’t have to pay the operating costs, if the OCB was renovated and used as a senior or recreation center---He claimed,“It could be self sustaining.” Does he mean like the Community Center---which taxpayers already subsidize to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars each year?


Gosh, if we’re going to engage in wishful thinking along with Councilman Legan, why stop with grants and awards and self-sustaining fees? Why shouldn't we believe that maybe if council votes to renovate the OCB, the Tooth Fairy won't come down and leave 25 bucks for each of us, under our pillows? Wouldn’t that be neat?



I Won’t Tell You Why I Did What I Did, I’ll Just Tell You What I Don’t Want To Do...


Councilman Ed Hargate doesn’t seem to like to stick his neck out or go on the record. He doesn't talk much at council meetings, and the last time he voted no on a council resolution (against the recommendation of Law Director Tim Paluf), he did so without explaining his decision.
His logic has been extremely hard to follow given the brevity of his statements, but Hargate’s primary reason for opposing demolishing the OCB seems to be that he thinks it will be a waste of money if, after buying the church property, the city ends up with only a green space. “That’s not why I bought the property,” he said.


Ed Hargate has never explained why he wanted to buy the property in the first place. The OCB was already in very bad shape--with mold, a leaking roof and an inoperable heating system---when the city bought the property in January 2008. The 2007 council minutes do not indicate that council had any plans for using the OCB. Mayor Coleman, in fact, has acknowledged that he wanted the property for the city, not the building.


Sworn deposition testimony given in the Bass Energy lawsuit indicates that the city did not buy the church property with the intention of renovating and using the OCB. Rather, the city needed the property in order to drill a gas well near city hall---as Mayor Coleman planned to do. In fact, council eventually authorized the mayor to enter into two separate drilling leases with Bass Energy--one for the Community Park and one for the City Hall property. Bill Hlavin, the President and Owner of Bass Energy, testified:

"They (the city) had two properties, the city hall property and the city park property, and we talked about..we proposed, the number of wells on each property ... There was no question that there was room for ...one well on the city hall complex.... they were going to have to add on, to comply with state laws, the chruch property to the west side of their driveway which if they---they thought there was a chance that they could acquire that property and if they did acquire it, then we would use that...it would then given them an ideal location to put a well just the the south of the city hall complex." Hlavin Deposition, Sept. 26, 2008, pps. 45-46.

So there you have it. Apparently the city bought the church property in order to drill a gas well near City Hall. Now that the drilling deal has fallen through,Councilman Hargate is opposed to razing the OCB because he thinks it would be a waste of money to use the property as a public green space and community gathering place.

I don't know. You tell me...

In my next blog, I’ll let you know what the supporters of the demolition contract said, to justify their decision.

And The Winning Bid Is.....

How Low Did It Go? Try $29,317
 The lowest and best bid for demolishing the Old Church Building (OCB) on the city hall property was $29,317. The bidder: Ace Demolition.
The bid includes razing the building, removing the west and center circle drives, hauling the debris away, and grading, filling and reseeding the property. The east drive and parking lot will remain in place.

After researching the company, the City Engineer’s Office recommended accepting Ace Demolition’s bid. Council will act on that recommendation during a special meeting next week, after the Sept. 21st Committee of the Whole meeting (COW).

The proverbial $773,000 Question

Although council accepted the City Engineer’s recommendation to accept Ace Demolition’s demolition bid...
...and although Law Director Tim Paluf was directed to draft the necessary legislation for awarding that contract...
...and although Paluf previously declared at a July 20th COW meeting that the city could not enter into a proposed public/private “partnership” with the male-only, private social club...
Mayor Scott Coleman asked that Club Molisani’s "partnership" proposal to convert the OCB into an indoor bocce facility be placed on the agenda for discussion at next week’s COW.

What’s up with that? What's the mayor thinking?
Your guess is as good as mine. Feel free to choose one (or more) of the following:

• “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”
• “Blah, blah, blah. I can’t hear you.”
• “I've already cut a back door deal with this group. I can’t go back on my word. Maybe I can still push it through.”
• “Just wishing and hoping and dreaming that my wishes will come true....”
• “I’ve pledged my support to Councilman Frank Legan, and he wants to make this the centrepiece of his next (perhaps mayoral?) campaign. See how supportive I am? Are you watching me, Frank?”

Okay, I said it, But I Didn’t Really Mean It

 Service Director Thom Evans said in a July 12 Sun Messenger story that the contractor who goofed in removing too much concrete when working on the Millridge Road resurfacing project would pick up the tab for fixing the mistake. “It will be costly, but not to the city,” said Evans.

http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/07/highland_heights_gets_a_little.html

 Oh really?

The contractor recently submitted a $22,000 “change order”, seeking reimbursement of its mistake-related material and labor costs.

A representative from the City Engineer’s Office, Brian Mader, pitched approving the change order---arguing that the project would still come in under budget if taxpayers picked up the repair tab.

You know...the tab that Thom Evans said the city wouldn’t have to pay.

Score One For The Good Guys

I previously wrote about a theft from a Hawthorne Drive storage shed. The shed was located near the city-owned walking path that connects Bishop Road and the Community Park---which raised some concern about the safety of the path.

I am pleased to report that the Highland Heights Police Department located the stolen item at a pawn shop and then followed the trail back to the perpetrator, who apparently confessed to the crime---which took place in the middle of the night.

Kudos to Chief Cook and our Highland Heights police officers. Another job well done.

Shredding Day Is Coming October 2nd.

 Time to clean out all those old tax files and other papers you hate to throw away in the garbage. The industrial shredding truck will return to the city on Oct. 2nd.

It couldn’t be any easier. Just drive over to the Service Department. Service Department employees and volunteers (including Council President Scott Mills, who hasn’t missed this event yet) will help you get rid of whatever you bring. You don’t even need to remove staples or binder covers or anything like that.

There is one restriction: NO PLASTIC BAGS.

My summer project was to clean out my basement. You know I’ll be there on October 2nd...!
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(Finally) Time To Decide?

The bids for demolishing the Old Church Building on the city hall property were opened last Friday (Sept 10th).

 I hear that the lowest demolition bid was well below the 2008 structural engineer's $38,000 estimate for tearing the building down and capping the utilities .

Will residents see more stonewalling and stall and delay tactics on the part of Mayor Coleman and Councilmen Frank Legan and Ed Hargate. Will they continue their campaign to prevent council from accepting a demolition bid? Tonight's council meeting should tell that tale.

Meanwhile, here's my Letter to the Editor on the issue, which the Sun Messenger printed last week.
http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2010/09/sun_messenger_letter_to_the_ed_37.html

Highland Heights Council has spent more than two years debating what to do with the vacant church building on the City Hall property.

In all that time, no needed use for the building has been identified. Claims that council hasn’t explored possible uses and is rushing to judgment are way off base.

Residents can read for themselves what a professional structural engineer said about the building in 2008 (go to http://www.highlandhts.com/ and select “Read the Church Property Evaluation report by CT Consultants“). That report details the building’s poor condition, including long-standing roof leaks, interior mold, minimal insulation and single-pane windows, and obsolete and/or inoperable plumbing, heating and electrical systems. The engineer estimated it would cost $773,262 to bring the building up to code and $38,000 to demolish it and cap the utilities.

Recently a private social club proposed converting the building into an indoor bocce facility—pitching the deal as a public-private “partnership.” Although Law Director Tim Paluf flatly declared at a July 20 council committee meeting the city couldn’t enter into such a “partnership,” supporters continue to spread misinformation about the plan, hoping to convince residents it is a good deal.

For example, Mayor Scott Coleman wrote in the July 2010 Highland Highlights newsletter the club would “renovate the entire building at their cost,” and Councilman Frank Legan was quoted in an Aug. 26 Sun Messenger story (“Church moves closer to demolition”) as saying, “we (the city) wouldn’t have to pay for it.” Those statements are simply untrue.

In a June 30 written proposal, the club promises to do far less than “renovate the entire building at (its own) cost.” In addition to installing 3 bocce courts — which would take up most of the building’s interior space — the club agreed to: reroof and paint the building; repair some interior ceilings; remodel a kitchen and two small “meeting” rooms; update the bathrooms; and inspect the building’s HVAC, plumbing and sewer systems, with “possible” repairs. In exchange, the club expects to receive a “long-term, multi-year” lease and city-provided liability insurance coverage. The city would also have to pay all of the (energy inefficient) building’s ongoing operating and maintenance costs.

Renovate and restore the entire building at no cost to city taxpayers? Who are Coleman and Legan kidding? Club Molisani doesn’t have the money to do that — and neither does the city. Attempts to sell the arrangement as a “public-private partnership” are almost laughable. Examined realistically, the deal translates into little more than public subsidy of a private social club’s recreational activities — all in the name of saving a decrepit, substandard building that would have been condemned by the city, had it remained in private hands.

Given its location next to the municipal complex, the decision to buy the church property was a good one. But that decision will turn into a bad one if council saddles present and future taxpayers with the cost of renovating and operating the outdated building that sits on that property — as Mayor Coleman and Councilman Legan seem so keen to do.

Amy R. Feran
Highland Heights

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