The Coventry School Study Committee, meeting the public for the first and last time on May 13, will take back to its deliberations a good bit of citizen input. About 40 interested residents attended the meeting and many spoke to what they'd like to see the school become and how they perceive the work of the committee.

We pride ourselves on diversity in the Heights - and we have that - but we also need unity. Many times it's our kids who bring us together. And they often do it through their love of sports - like soccer. That's the beauty of our local travel soccer club, the Eastside Kickers, now becoming known as Heights United Soccer.

Cleveland Heights has been my home for the last eighteen months. Previously, I was living in Paris, before that in London. France and England respectively, not Texas and Canada. In Paris, I was working as an English teacher. Most of my students were professionals, learning English for professional reasons, many of whom were readying themselves for their first work-related meetings with Americans. So, naturally, a large part of the lessons consisted of cultural coaching which proved a lot of fun for an Englishman working with cosmopolitan French professionals. Among the many things to distinguish the French, for better or worse, is their willingness to share their opinions. And for the last few hundred years, they have been particularly opinionated about the USA. George W. Bush’s statement ‘the French don’t even have a word for “entrepreneur”’ certainly raised eyebrows. But I must say that in five years, I didn’t meet one person who didn’t enjoy working with their transatlantic cousins.

On April 30th, teams of volunteers from four area Catholic churches simultaneously presented the first draft of a plan to merge their congregations. Parishioners from Saint Ann and Saint Louis of Cleveland Heights and Christ the King and Saint Philomena of East Cleveland gathered at their respective churches to hear the report. Those at Saint Ann were generally receptive to the recommendation that all four churches combine to form one parish. The parish would have two campuses, one at Saint Ann and the other at Saint Philomena. Saint Louis and Christ the King would close and the number of priests currently serving the four parishes would be reduced from four to two.

As Heights citizens join thousands of people across the country to celebrate National Preservation Month this May they join a growing movement of individuals who are working to protect the unique character of their neighborhoods.

“I don’t know that we would consider University Heights historic,” says Walter Stinson, community coordinator for the City of University Heights. But, according to a study conducted by the Cuyahoga County Department of Development and released to the city in the fall of 2007, 2,261 homes in the western section of the city “represent one of the largest collections of early 20th century middle class homes in the suburban Cuyahoga County” and may be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Currently the city has no properties listed in the National Register and does not have a local landmark program.

Throughout May 2008, the National Trust (www.nationaltrust.org) and its thousands of partners across the country will demonstrate the importance of our nation’s heritage as they highlight the preservation movement. The theme of this year’s month-long celebration is “This Place Matters” and the City of Cleveland Heights Landmark Commission, FutureHeights and the Cleveland Heights Historical Society will present a lecture and two tours to celebrate our community and encourage historic preservation of its architectural beauty.

Soon after graduating from CH-UH High School, Kevin Richards started giving guitar lessons at Dick Lurie’s Cedar-Lee studio. Eventually, Richards opened his own school, the Fairmount School of Music, where he continued to teach, while also playing in rock and bluegrass bands.

The Coventry School Study Committee will open its work to public comment on Tuesday, May 13th, at 6:30 pm. at the school.

The exciting thing about a publication like the Heights Observer is the great variety of personal perspectives that make up the editorial content. It would defeat the purpose to homogenize those into a single editorial voice, yet there are some standard procedures we suggest to our writers.

On almost every continent there are celebrations planned for May 10, 2008 in honor of World Fair Trade Day. The celebrations aim to “increase the awareness of the campaign for justice in trade.” Fair trade is an alternative way of doing business that ensures the producers earn a living wage. This makes a tremendous impact on the producer communities. Children’s school fees are paid; nutritional needs are met; health care costs are covered; the poor, especially women, are empowered; and the environmental impact of production, sourcing, and transport is mitigated.

Neighborhood blight, home values, lost tax revenues and city services, copper theft - the housing crisis and resulting rampant foreclosure rates affect everyone. The city of Cleveland has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. The crisis has been moving into Cleveland suburbs, affecting Cleveland Heights for a number of years and now moving into University Heights and beyond.

New listing to highlight local volunteer opportunities

Finding volunteer opportunities in Cleveland Heights and University Heights has become a lot easier thanks to the Heights Observer’s Volunteer Match.

Many volunteers help feed the hungry of Cleveland Heights, University Heights, South Euclid, and Lyndhurst...but more are always needed. The Heights Emergency Food Center (HEFC) needs your assistance. Opened in October of 1981 with the aid of the Heights Interfaith Council, HEFC provides more than 575 families with a three day supply of food once a month. Staffed by volunteers and overseen by a volunteer board of directors, the nonprofit agency is supported through gifts from religious institutions; service and social organizations; public, parochial and private schools; federal grants and supermarket settlements; and individuals.

Last fall neighbors in the Severance area began working with the president of the Cleveland Heights Citizens Advisory Committee, Jim Cull, to clean-up and beautify the area's streetscape. The Severance Neighborhood Organization (SNO) was formed to improve the street aesthetics in the neighborhood that includes the newly formed Inglewood Historic District and is served by Noble and Oxford Elementary Schools and the Noble Neighborhood Library.

The Heights Observer is looking for people, ages 1-100, to get involved in the paper. After all, the Heights Observer is all about citizen journalism and its power to tell local stories at a grassroots level. We are looking for volunteer writers, photographers, designers, and illustrators. It doesn't matter if you are a professional or amateur, our editorial staff will be glad to have you.

They had to set up extra chairs to accommodate the overflow parents attending the Cleveland Heights City Council meeting on Monday, April 2nd. The parents were there to voice their disapproval of the city’s decision to discontinue paying for crossing guards and to cancel the community center’s after school program. The city of Cleveland Heights had announced these and other cuts to the city’s budget in response to the March defeat of a proposed income tax increase.

If residents living near Superior Park Drive in Cleveland Heights have felt dormant, recent criminal activity has been enough to produce some unpleasant wake up calls.

Every generation in human history has faced seemingly greater and more difficult challenges than any previous. We have all heard of the difficult times during the Great Depression. We know about the ‘Greatest Generation’ that responded to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. Within months, Detroit’s auto industry was transformed into a war-fighting industry producing military vehicles and equipment to face the Axis Powers.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe, a social justice activist, suggested honoring mothers on their own special day as a way to promote a peaceful and sustainable future. Today, moms have the very same dreams. The biggest threat to those dreams is global warming. But if we act now, it’s not too late. And mothers can play a powerful role in reminding us what’s at stake.

There are times when I have a taste for culture. When this happens, I head for a wonderful ristorante italiano owned by Antonino Calandra, Il Bacio.

The small but classic ristorante offers a menu filled with authentic, yet contemporary Italian dishes and desserts. Inside, the sound of Italian music fills your ears, the smell of Italian food fills your nose, and soon, the taste of delicious Italian recipes will fill your mouth.

Lucinda Stevens’ culinary challenge is her husband Carl Goldstein, a vegetarian. Former high school sweethearts back in Flint, Michigan, Carl and Lucinda reconnected in Ann Arbor 20 years ago, married and moved to Cleveland Heights a year-and-a-half ago. “When I first visited Cleveland Heights, I immediately fell in love with the urban character, friendly people, small businesses, landscaping and cultural offerings. Ann Arbor was getting too pretentious,” says Stevens.

On the bayou, they call this a Fais Do-Do. Cleveland Independents is calling it N’awlins Night. Whatever you call it, it’s going to be one heck of an evening.

Paula Sonkin CHHS Class of '75 catches up on the hometown news in Los Angeles!

 

A mulch sale is currently underway to benefit Home Repair Resource Center (HRRC), a nonprofit organization serving Cleveland Heights. In partnership with Heights Garden Center, HRRC is offering vouchers for Double Shred Dark Hardwood Mulch at a discounted price of $4.00 for a two cubic foot bag (regular price $4.50). A portion of the proceeds will benefit HRRC.

Grey skies and a few rain drops didn't keep a record number of attendees from the 12th Annual Cleveland Heights High School Alumni Foundation's Pancake Breakfast. Over 500 guests dined on all you can eat pancakes and then took tours of Heights High, taking in the latest in renovations. Proceeds from the breakfast help to support scholarships the Foundation awards to graduating seniors, with nearly $20,000 to be awarded this spring.

 

I joined the board of Friends of Cain Park (FOCP) in 1994, three years after the group was founded by Chessie Bleick. After a couple of years, I made the mistake of missing one meeting. At that meeting, I was elected president of the board. Now, apparently, I am president-for-life. That has served as a good incentive for other members to attend meetings. But, of course, it’s a worthy endeavor and Cain Park is one of my favorite places in the region.

As an "almost lifetime" resident of the Heights area, I have seen businesses come and go, but rarely have I had the opportunity to witness the birth, development, evolution, and reinvention of a family-owned-and-operated full service facility. This is exactly the case in Quintana's Barber and Dream Spa which recently expanded into an exquisitely renovated three-story facility at 2200 South Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights.

One of the simple ideas behind Heights Arts is that the way our community looks can express the creativity of our residents. Many who live here are trained in the arts, work in the arts, or simply love the arts—so it is natural that our public spaces would be enlivened with creativity. And many of us love our older homes because of the craftsmanship of the moldings, the unique architecture, the extra attention paid to details for purely aesthetic reasons.

While most of the students at Heights High will be breathing a sigh of relief for summer vacation in June, Miles Walker, an 11th grader at the high school will be packing his bags for a seven-week stay with a host family in Japan. He will attend school to study Japanese language through the AFS Student Exchange Program. AFS (formerly the American Field Service) is a leader in intercultural learning and offers international exchange programs in more than forty countries around the world through independent, nonprofit AFS organizations, each with a network of volunteers, a professionally staffed office, and headed up by a volunteer board. AFS-USA works toward a more just and peaceful world by providing international and intercultural learning experiences to individuals, families, schools, and communities through a global volunteer partnership.

The Cleveland Heights High School Singers performed at the Ohio Federation of Teachers Convention in Cleveland in April, which included keynote speaker Governor Ted Strickland. The Singers received a great reception after their performance before over 300 delegates at the convention.

Two Monticello Middle School students are among a select group recognized by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council to honor and inspire the most exceptional middle school students in Ohio and across the nation, distinguished by their academic excellence, leadership potential and maturity.

Three Roxboro Middle School sixth grade students were recognized as semifinalists in "Letters About Literature.” This is a contest for students where they write to an author explaining how that author's work changed the student's way of thinking about the world or themselves. The students were selected from over 1,200 entries from across Ohio.

Home Repair Resource Center recently benefited from the efforts of a group of University School students. Approximately forty students, grade nine through twelve, spent several hours mulching, pruning, weeding, and otherwise beautifying the landscape around HRRC’s office/teaching center on Noble Road. According to Andrew Swank, Senior Prefect for Hawley House (one of ten organizational divisions among the student body at the school), each house takes on a number of volunteer activities each year. The students of Hawley House previously assembled and distributed food baskets at Thanksgiving and worked with Habitat for Humanity.

Ari Warner, a 2007 graduate of Heights High School, is remembered by many in the Cleveland Heights Community as a talented violinist. Now he can add another achievement to his resume: that of published illustrator!

Ruffing seventh grader Caroline Anderson-Nhok advanced to the State Finals of the 2008 Power of the Pen Interscholastic Competition for Young Writers. In Ruffing’s first year in the popular program, two teams of six writers represented Ruffing and competed with students from area public and independent schools at the district event.

Editor’s Note: Noble Library’s Branch Manager, JoAnn Vicarel reviews mysteries for literally thousands of librarians across the US. Many of these libraries use her critiques to select titles to add to their collection. If you are a mystery lover, we recommend stopping at the Noble Library to see what a great collection JoAnn has created.

Don't miss out on these exciting Heights Libraries Programs:

Stephen D. Wood, director of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library since 1988, will retire effective August 31, 2008. A nationwide search will be conducted for his replacement.

The Coventry School Study Committee continued to explore use recommendations for the empty building in Coventry Village at its April 22 meeting.

It almost sounds like Cleveland Heights . . . about four years ago, the near-west-side community of Lakewood found itself embroiled in controversy over a plan to develop land overlooking the Rocky River--land that would have to be taken by eminent domain because some of the homeowners who lived there weren’t interested in selling. As the heated discussion took place on a community web site, three guys--one of them vehemently opposed to the project, another adamantly in favor, and a third remaining neutral--decided it was time to launch a community newspaper in which discussions such as these as well as other important civic matters could reach a broader audience than a web site could. The Lakewood Observer was born, a printed expression of that diversity of opinion.

Snow and ice may be covering the ground but the Coventry Village Special Improvement District in Cleveland Heights is already making plans for warmer days ahead.

Turn on the local TV news at 6 p.m. and you won’t find it. Flip through the pages of any local “news” paper, free or otherwise, and you won’t feel satisfied. Sit down at your computer, search for “Cleveland Heights Local News,” then sift through banners and pop-up ads, and you might get lucky. You would probably learn more while sipping a mocha at the local coffee shop, or walking down your sidewalk hoping to encounter a talkative neighbor. All you want to know is what someone (anyone) in your community thinks about the new housing development being built down the street, or when that new restaurant on Lee Road is going to open, or when that pot-hole riddled road around the corner is going to be repaired.

None of this news is terribly important on a national or even regional level, but it is, perhaps, the information that is most relevant to your daily experience. And, it is information that has not been easy to find.

Stop by your local merchant and pick up a copy of the inaugural edition of the Heights Observer, a project of FutureHeights.

FutureHeights' stakeholders encouraged us to continue to innovate and to find new ways to promote community involvement, public expression, and communication. Study of the increasingly popular concept of “hyperlocal journalism” - and a timely encounter with the publishers of The Lakewood Observer - convinced us that our communities need this new voice, the Heights Observer.

Reaching Heights is now accepting applications to the Heights Summer Music Camp to be held June 16-21 at Wiley Middle School. Students residing in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district who are currently enrolled in grades 5-8 in their school’s instrumental music program are invited to participate in this intensive week of music making. The fee is $130 for the week and scholarships are available. More information and applications are available at www.reachingheights.org or call camp coordinator, Betsy Neylon at 440-725-6845. Application deadline is May 15. Space is limited.

Be hip.  Volunteer.  Cleveland Heights Meals On Wheels is an all-volunteer, non-profit, non-subsidized independent program working in cooperation with the Cleveland Heights Office On Aging to deliver meals to elderly and disabled residents of Cleveland Heights.