Cheryl L. Stephens - Cleveland Heights City Council Candidate

Cheryl L. Stephens

CHERYL L. STEPHENS  

3370 Hollister Road, Cleveland Hts. 44118 Age: 53 E-mail:stephenscl@sbcglobal.net:  

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Education: BA  and MPA Occupation: Director of Acquisition, Disposition and Development for the Cuyahoga Land Bank Qualifications:  25 years of experience as a public administrator with leadership experiences at both state and local government levels. Community: Cleveland Public Theater Fundraising, NEO Susan G. Komen Subcommittee Chair, and Cleveland Heights Planning Commission.

 QUESTIONS and RESPONSES:

1. Improve life: Create and support more economic development opportunities for vacant properties in Cleveland Heights.

2. School bond issue:I’m inclined to support the school bond and levy issues, however currently the school system has failed to manage it’s vacant or under utilized former school buildings well so I’m concerned about their ability to manage well.

3. New development: Careful analysis is required of the financial projections for a development as well as the developer’s track record.  In order to consider tax abatement the City Council should exercise its best efforts to see that the taxable income stream (income taxes and real estate taxes for the non abated value of the project) from a project will exceed the tax abatement.

4. Revenue: Developing the vacant and under utilized real estate in the community is one way to increase revenues and the other is to continue to have the collection of income taxes be done by the Regional Income Tax Agency (RITA) which has a higher efficiency rate than the City’s self administered collections.

5. Housing market: Require the forclosing banks to maintain the exterior of the homes as to minimize the impact of vacant properties on adjacent properties.

6. Regionalism: This trend will effect Cleveland Heights very slowly.  All past experiences with collaboration brought only minimal savings to Cleveland Height but usually more work    

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Volume 6, Issue 10, Posted 12:33 PM, 10.02.2013