I THINK IT'S TIME FOR A "COME TO JESUS MEETIN"

  Lincoln West High School is the ground zero for "new" Ward 14--I would like to see a debate there.  I see the church closings, council redistricting and resultant neighborhood destabilization as "planned" chaos by design.  It especially affects our schools, our families and our community.

To my knowledge, there is one debate scheduled so far at Brooklyn Methodist Memorial (which I can appreciate as a location, because the few visible community efforts to organize our neighborhood our based out of this church and Archwood UCC). 

Can we please talk about the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's plans and how they affect neighborhood stability?   Neither candidate has shown any real comprehension or involvement with Lincoln West High School to date.  This school can not be ignored. 

To add to the confusion, there is a new principal at Lincoln West this year and the district is shipping students to this already overcrowded school, while newly built East side high schools are losing neighborhood population. 

The district is also starting to mothball historic John Marshall and redistribute their students, so they can tear it down--despite landmark status. All so the contractors can make a buck off the kids.  New Buhrer School is just a joke of poor planning and design--brand new for who? This is investment in OUR KIDS, while Denison K-8, Mooney K-8, and Benjamin Franklin K-8 get no basic repairs or maintenance?

The district is "shuffling" classes throughout the system, because they don't gauge population change effectively and instead of hiring new teachers or moving teachers to accomodate the need for an additional classroom in a particular grade--the kids get "redistributed." 

This is happening NOW at Denison Elementary--AFTER kids have formed their bonds with other kids in the class and with one teacher. This agitation ripples throughout the neighborhood.

Ward 14 is clearly a powerful, caring place... a sign of authenticity!

Disrupt IT

I do not think they should move Max Hayes they should build a new school and it should be called West Technical.

The school should have technical and also engineering tracks, it should clearly define paths into trade schools, the community college and also universities. It should have internships and work study as well as sports programs.

If they keep designing programs and curriculums for the worst off then they will continue to fail. It should have entrance requirements, student and parent should be made aware of programs and paths early on. They should be informed and encouraged to apply early and earn entrance.

That should begin in grade six and continue bi-annually through grade eight. It's about advertising the school and it also being something worth advertising.

It should align with either getting into real jobs after school and also getting into county training programs that feed real industry. It should be Pell Grant Funded after grade twelve, that being getting applications and funding clearly defined so student know and understand it is possible and fully understand how it all works.

One program would lead into construction and historical preservation, then another would be technology and sustainable energy technology. The new industries that need to be feed. They need to be defined well and then the programs need to be real and seek those with sincere interest and ability.

Restore the old homes and make them energy efficient, not for profit but to break even. That’s using the funds to pay them and buy the material, then sell the home and go on to the next home. It's about adding in the value of the improvements and then subsequently reducing its energy costs.

What goes into homes is material and that is a supply chain and it should be locally derived, it feeds the economy. But it is also a cost and has to be tracked and seeking the best values for the money. But durability and longevity is a factor to the inevitable home owner.

The biggest single factor within the cost of living as a function is the home and its counter part is income.

Income is directly related to skills and knowledge, just being able to do something better than someone else gets you the job. Training is a way of finding the best and getting them involved.

Linking to the community is and does go beyond conversation it is about real functional links.

Energy Efficiency: In 1992, the Department of Energy instituted strict new guidelines that all new furnaces need to convert 78% of fuel to energy. Compare that to the 60% fuel to energy conversion rates that were common at the time. Since then, manufacturers have met the requirements and gone beyond them. Furnaces are now available with energy conversions rates up to 96.7%. The market is now in two segments. 78% to 89.9% conversion rates are termed mid-efficiency furnaces.

Programmable electronic thermostats: A programmable electronic thermostat gives you more control over when you heat your home. It can enable you to reduce the heat during the hours you are asleep and at work, and raise the temperature in the hour before you wake up or return from work. This means that you do not have to sacrifice comfort for energy efficiency. Studies show that using a programmable thermostat can save up to 33% on heating bills.

That combined would shift expenses, it adds about $3,000.00 to the price of a home. But can that cost be reduced? Could these high efficiency furnaces be manufactured locally and could they supply them at a discounted price?

If the county had job training then it could train to the customers needs and that could be often paid for with a Pell Grants through a program of TRI-C feeding young people through to it from a technical school.

If code required a 90% or better efficiency rate on furnaces then you create a captive customer base and then set up a systems to feed into that. But not just new furnaces that would only be part of a home restoration.

Each item added to a home adds costs to it, the cost added to the acquisition price, so they would be buying the least expensive homes and then restoring them. The added costs controlled at each level and labor reduced and controlled as they would be government employees.

Provide the employees housing and utilities, then the wage kept under qualifiers for health and education funding. They are laborers and instilling value back into the community and controlling costs while doing it.

The value of the homes set to meet the market, no profit is involved.

In an area a standing offer could be extended, any home for $20,000.00. Those homes would be restored and sold. Then increase the offer to $30,000.00 at each level the homes would or should be less work and require less value to be added to them.

Adding in low cost rental to a market will offer people lower cost living. The cost of living would be advertised. If the offer was 500 square feet for $350.00 per month then some may take the buyout and rent for less.

There is actually some math in there a relationship, that being when renting is more advantageous than owning. If rentals were plentiful and low cost then many would abandon ownership…save and then reenter the market as an owner.

Its all a matter of qualifications to finances or pay the rent, then also insuring the prices are in the market with low cost methods and systems that deliver them.

The actual market should never be subsidized it all has to recovered or it is actually a loss.

The disfranchisement is do to a closing off of markets, obviously the higher markets require higher incomes. That’s a function of working and networking, all the way up, but it’s the lowest market that is totally isolated it has limits that not only trap people it in some cases corrupts them. Hiding and falsifying is going on and as well networks of corruption that sometimes link back up to the higher incomes.

The market was lost and that is very inflationary, getting it defined at the lowest cost of living and wide open will be the only way to get people to work together.

  Just scrap them--they are useless and evil.  Cleveland needs to be the first to scrap them entirely.  EVIL.  PURE EVIL.
 

 making such statements, Kate? What I had read here  (realneo) was that Sweeney had given Cummins $2,000 at some point, must have been before the falling out, can't see it happening afterwards. My question about Brady was clear and was in response to your comment on suburban members of the Democratic Party. 

I looked at the SII proposals.

Addressing blight has to be handled through a process not though target areas.

The automation of the County Auditors office is really the only way to do that.

Each property should be inspected, then each fault registered as deferred maintenance. Only health and safety violation should be sighted as violations.

If individuals want to improve the home and address the differed maintenance then that’s a matter of ability. If the costs exceed that ability it will not happen…its that simple.

Property tax should be on the land in sq ft and the structure in sq ft. That being the rate of tax should be on or levied as a dollar amount per sq ft.

The evaluation should not be related to taxes that being the price or amount paid should not, its foolish and truly a conflicting interest.

The price of a home is really a function of what people can really afford, there is no may around that.

Property tax should be in fact a resident tax and assigned to the unit of housing. If you look closer you will see so many instances of literally robbing Peter to pay Paul. The high density public housing project are not funding the schools, and have many children that need quality education. If the federal program is there then fund the schools through a resident tax on each unit based on its sq ft.

That’s a matter of getting a good handle on all the housing units, a count of them and by sq ft. The quality ratings and addressing differed maintenance. That to address the real value of the housing in dollars, what a bank will use to define the amount that it will lend against that property. Then that is also a matter of income and dept.

The title bureaus and escrow agents and all the fees…not needed that should all be a function of an Auditor/Register of the county. They would staff up with auditors that actually do point of sale inspections. They would also be responsible for data sets, that being assigned to defined geographical areas that actually align with a section of a data base.

Measuring the size for taxes, then inspecting properties for deferred maintenance. If some of that is actually health and safety violations it then would be flagged and sighted.

For example if home had $50,000.00 of differed maintenance that would be registered on the property. The value of the property would be based on a dollar per square foot determined by the actual sales history of a area less differed maintenance.

When buying a home it is advisable to have it inspected, that’s what this would be and it would present you and the bank with a clear picture of what has to be done. The real way of improving property is to require all deferred maintenance be resolved before a sale can take place.

People caught up in the nightmare could be able to sell homes to the city they live in and then the city would resolve the issues and resell the home. But those leaving the home would want options and that the one thing that will make people move…a better option.

That not about forcing it, it about offering the option and that option has to be better for less. But better for less has to be real and not a trick. So if you make an offer to buy or rent an option then it comes with lower costs and less risk, in fact it should be priced to have little or no risk.

The government is failing and that is because they are not offering low cost and open to everyone. That’s about high quality but modest. That’s about cycling bond money and recovering the costs. That’s about using technology and methodology to build better for less.

It about individualism and taking responsibility in a system that is the same for everyone and easier for everyone to see clearly and understand.

Housing prices should not be so subjective, they should be based on size and also the ability of people to afford the spaces they occupy.

That’s all about P.I.T.I.U.M. as housing has a cost and is a component of the cost of living as a function. Then adding in Maintenance and Utilities addresses it more completely.

The home and household if well managed add to society, if it has disposable capital that cycles through and adds value to society.

Finding the breakeven at the lowest possible costs is deflationary. That levels us off and in a global economy it will ultimately benefit us. It about more for less, not bigger is better. Its about efficiency and balance not about high growth.

Getting off the paper and getting back to actual labor….stop making it look good on paper, make it real.

They think they are going to force it on the poor uneducated populous? The same people that let people borrow on home that was falling apart…they are not going to fix it the bankers are and have not changed they will keep controlling it and with fees and interest.

We really need to see it, you will never get the truth with out seeing it all.

 Devil in 14 asked this question: "It's our money ward 14 how do we want it spent??" and we went off on varying tangents, and it did not get answered.  Anyone care to go back to the original question and throw out possibilities for how we would like to see Ward 14 money being spent over the next four years?

 school, community, youth programs that provide real alternatives to what is out there.

SPORTS - for kids but for young adults as well - MIX up the ages - we have very talented people out here (ie - Todd who does free tumbling classes for kids in OC)

ART - for kids but for adults and elderly as well - MIX up the ages

AFTER SCHOOL programs - keep kids off the streets, homework done and working mothers happy (after school care costs $75 - $100) - utilize senior volunteers - MIX up the ages

IN SCHOOL PROGRAMS - they already have programs that supposedly place community members in the schools (Lincoln West?) but who the hell knows about them and how well organized are they? CMSD does the typical dance of talk and no real action. MIX up the ages

There's a lot that can be done with a little money and a lot of leadership. There is hope in Nagin.