To the editor:

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: The knitting of blue, yellow and pink booties and underwear for parking meters and tree trunks is going to give the great city of Cleveland Heights a sense of “community?”

Wouldn't it have been more helpful for the project artists to have knitted sweaters and socks for actual people? Like those who might not be able to afford such things in tough economic times?

Upon reading Councilman Sims’ letter in the online version of the Heights Observer, I would like to reply that if he refers back to the Council Minutes of Sept. 8, 2009, his Finance Committee report stated: “…There was a brief update from the Finance Director, in which he reported that the City is on track with revenue collection and is holding the line on expenditures. He does not foresee any real budgetary problems…”

Until the last vote is cast on Nov. 3, I will encourage residents to vote NO to changing our city government from an accountable-to-voter Mayor-Council to a less accountable and unnecessary City Administrator form. I find it intriguing to hear current council members support a change which ultimately gives the council more power and less accountability, while at the same time arguing that an Administrator is needed to handle the day to day operations of the city. This city does not need additional management, it needs leadership.

Our city is facing many real and present challenges that require immediate attention, including the need to:

1. Reverse deficits and negative financial trends.
2. Fund the equipment and facilities necessary to provide quality services to residents.
3. Identify the means to replace, repair, improve, and maintain the City’s streets, curbs, sidewalks, and water and sewer lines without tax increases.
4. Work to revitalize and make higher use of our business district, as well as work to preserve and improve our housing stock in order to attract and keep homeowners.
5. Explore opportunities for inter-jurisdictional cooperation as a way to cut costs.

We are Cleveland Heights residents who assembled six months ago to focus on the City Council election in order to have a positive impact on our city’s future. We articulated a Citizen Agenda and solicited community endorsements of its ideas, interviewed each candidate about the agenda, and held a candidates forum.

Heights is fortunate to have ten knowledgeable candidates for Council who endorse the agenda, have valuable expertise to share, and different strengths.

The Step It Up Steering Committee is sharing its assessment of the top candidates in light of their leadership qualities, vision and appreciation of the issues articulated in the Citizen’s Agenda. We hope voters will consider these recommendations.

To the Editor:

Heights Parent Center in Cleveland Heights and Family Connections at Shaker Family Center in Shaker Heights need our help. In this economy, their traditional sources of support are being cut. They must depend more and more on individual support.

As a new parent, I found these centers to be a great resource. As an early childhood educator, I am impressed by the services they provide. Families with young children gain education, resources and support to help them be the best parents they can be!

As a resident of Cleveland Heights I am struck by its vibrancy. With colleges, strong small business districts, Severance Center, great public schools and wonderful public services, Cleveland Heights is a strong city.

We also have an electorate which wants its leaders to tell it the truth!

The truth is that, despite our vibrant city, we are losing population. In 1970 we had 60,767 residents. In 2000 that had dropped to 49,558. Estimates for July of 2008 are 45,827 – a loss of almost 4,000 people in 8 years. That’s a 7.5  percent loss in the last eight years., and a 25 percent loss since 1970! As population drops the tax base shrinks, and in Cleveland Heights, since 1970, we not only lost 25 percent of our people, our median income also dropped 25 percent.

RTA wants to build a new station at the bottom of Cedar Hill. This is being touted as "the Gateway to The Heights."

I am having difficulty understanding why it takes $1 million to plan a new station and another $10 million to build it. There is also a new station being built on the west side for $9.5 million. Why does it take a Taj Mahal to board a bus or rapid train?

I was disappointed in the negative tone apparent in the July 7 article on Douglas Heuer’s selection as CH-UH superintendent. Let’s start with the ludicrous suggestion that he may be unqualified because his current district has “only” 5,000 students compared to CH-UH’s 6,000. How close do we need to come? Why would the Observer even print such nonsense?

As a 40-year veteran of the classroom (30 in a public school system with an overwhelmingly African-American population), I have always felt that the superintendent’s chief function was to be an effective communicator of the school system’s mission and policies to students, staff, parents and the general public.

Dear Editor, 

First let me say that I am one of the community residents that supported Christine Fowler-Mack for CH-UH superintendent. Her professionalism and passion for the CH-UH school district; the fact that she lives in the school district, is a parent of a child in the district; the respect she has earned from parents and staff alike; and her experience as an educator and interim superintendent, made her, I felt, a strong candidate for the position. Was I disappointed when she wasn’t chosen – absolutely.

Dear Editor,

I think it is a good idea to stop littering because it makes the area not look and smell nice. It also hurts animals.

I think good ways to stop people from littering areto have cleanups, clubs and fairs. I also think more good ways are to make more fines for littering, add more recycling cans and make comparison studies (littered vs. non-littered areas).

Cleveland Heights is a wonderful city in so many ways.  There is nothing more beautiful than driving down the streets on a beautiful spring day and looking at all the blooming flowers and budding trees.

There is nothing less beautiful, however, than driving down the same streets and seeing people's garbage on the treelawn or in the street, in some cases the day after trash collection, or two or three days before trash collection.

On my block of East Overlook Road, there are more than a dozen abandoned, probably foreclosed homes. Some of the lawns are covered with foot tall grass and dandelions. I called City Hall and a patient, helpful, articulate person in the Housing Department said that all City Hall can do is call the owners or banks that own the home and ask them to cut the grass. In the past, the city would have cut the grass and charged the owner/bank for the service. But now, because of massive layoffs, the city can no longer do this. They can only make phone calls. They have no way of enforcing the basic upkeep of lawns.

Why would a small city such as University Heights, which is doing well, want to be absorbed by its larger neighbor Cleveland Heights, which isn’t doing well at all in these economic times. What would we gain from it? Absolutely nothing.

Contrary to some of our other larger neighboring communities, we have a balanced budget, we live within our means, no employee has had to be laid off, all of our quality city services continue to be delivered. Our city has only been on the ballot once in the 32 years I have been mayor for an income tax increase, which passed easily several years ago. Also, our debt load is low.

To the Editor:

Part of the character that defines our community is the enthusiasm of our residents. The letter submitted in the April issue of the Heights Observer regarding Heights Community Congress (“HCC should direct its efforts towards fighting blight”) is a good indication of that spirit, though perhaps somewhat misguided in its approach.

To the Editor:

As a member of the Heights Community Congress board, I take issue with Fran Mentch's April letter to the editor. I believe in HCC's continuing mission to ensure access to housing for all groups, and to foster a community atmosphere in which diverse people live harmoniously together. These are not outdated goals, nor are they goals that have been fully achieved. In fact, they are very much in line with Ms. Mentch's admonition that HCC "should work to stop the resegregation of our city by race and class."

To the editor:

I enjoyed Greg Donley's witty SkunkFest '09 article in the April 7 Heights Observer, with its polyglot puns Anna Roma, Witold Nostrille, Urs Tench, and Linnae Dégouté. "Now that's somebody clever enough to work at someplace like a museum," I told myself. His story may alert us to the many other puns in the news, including a V.P. who's Bidin' his time, a crook who Made Off with the money, and a president whom we overeducated liberals instinctively liked because his name backwards is amabo, Latin for "I'll love 'im."

Dear Editor,

The other day I was given a copy of the Heights Observer by Stan Soble of Nela Florists and was amazed at the wealth of information that was contained within. Having lived in Cleveland Heights since 1947 at my present address and received various publications, including for years The Sun Press, there has never been anything like the Heights Observer. The coverage of Cleveland Heights and University Heights is great and the articles are very well written. Because of the Observer I am joining FutureHeights.

I wish that more people knew about you folks!

Sincerely,

Thomas C. Haywood

Roanoke Road

Cleveland Heights

Dear Editor,

We have chosen to send our children to public school. We want to share with you our reasons for making this choice and the experiences we’ve had in the school district. We are proud of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District and love our community.

Did you know that 96 percent of Heights High School students graduate? Did you know that 95.5 percent of our African-American males graduate? Do you know the colleges that our 2008 graduates were accepted to? They include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Howard University, George Washington University, Cornell and so many more. Did you know the Heights High Class of 2008 was offered more than $9 million in scholarships to attend college?

Dear Editor,

After reading the Opinion piece, “Heights Community Congress still fighting” in the last issue of the Heights Observer, I decided Heights Community Congress (HCC) has lost touch with our community and is on the way to becoming irrelevant. Diversity is what HCC claims to honor and promote, and no doubt it did at one time. But HCC no longer does, as far as I can tell. HCC is stuck in the past and chastises our community on the grounds that we remain a hotbed of housing discrimination. 

I would like to make a suggestion that would reduce the time, effort, and cost needed to collect our city's trash.  It could be done on a volunteer basis, and it would save the city lots of money, both in manpower and in truck-related costs.

My husband and I are stalwart supporters of the Cedar Lee Theatre and shopping area. Over the holiday, we went to see a movie. Our enthusiasm was almost dashed when we encountered a long line of people trying to pay for parking in the parking garage. It took almost a half-hour just to get a parking ticket, only to repeat this process at the cinema. Having only one machine in each stairwell is ridiculous and creates a bottleneck. At least the parking garage should have a machine on each floor for consumers to pay quickly and get on their way.

I read with interest the December 2008 article about Helene Morse and her craft. Not only does she repair precious items, she creates them! I have included a photo of the piece she created for me. It is quite detailed and enjoyed by everyone who stops by my desk. It is a wonderful personalized gift that I will cherish. Thank you Heights Observer, for profiling a real gem in our community.

Karen Hahn

Office Administrator

Ruffing Montessori School

In 2008 millions of us woke up to our new business: bail bondsmen.

But, we forgot to hold collateral against the bond of $75 billion to the financial tycoons.

I'm writing to express my displeasure at the choice of a word in the headline about the Open Doors Academy trip to Harlan, KY. First, let me say that Kentucky is my home state, having grown up in Lexington. I am very proud of my state and my heritage. This is one of those times that a word may be used by the people themselves, but it should be avoided by "outsiders." I am speaking of the word "poor." I read the headline and reacted negatively toward the article. Would the headline have read " the poor in the Heights Area"? I think not. There are those living in the Heights area who fall under urban poverty and have a different culture. Why didn't it just say "the people" of Harlan, KY?

The first time I had a TV in my classroom was when JFK was inaugurated president. His handsome image and stirring words are forever seared into the consciousness of the people who bore witness.

We have the chance to do it again. The world is watching and cheering for a young charismatic leader. He is intelligent, calm, passionate. We, the people, will have to keep him going in the right direction, keep his feet to the fire, and keep him working for justice and equality for all. But the people had to do that in the 60’s, and we ended a war, enacted legislation to help those in poverty, and passed civil rights laws.

Vote for Barack Obama who instills hope in so many. Then we, the people, rejuvenated, will direct our government on its proper path in this world.

Claudia Vondriska

DeSota Avenue, Cleveland Heights

Moving to Cleveland in early 1965, after release from the Navy, a real estate agent put my wife and me up in a motel out near Chagrin and Richmond and showed us houses from Solon to Mayfield Heights to Westlake. Unhappy with the houses and with the distance from University Hospitals where I was starting a psychiatric residency, I looked more closely at a map around University Circle. I found Cleveland Heights to be a good jog or bicycle ride away. My wife scanned the newspapers and found a house which we pressed the realtor to show.

The City of Cleveland Heights has lost a treasured friend with the death of Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Our community could always count on her to listen and to respond on topics that affected everything from housing programs to senior citizen concerns to transportation issues. She truly believed in doing everything that she could to help her constituents. There was no one like her. Our City Council and our entire community are mourning her loss.

As a westside to eastside convert, I have never regretted making that taboo change and enjoy raising my family in this wonderful community.

Hello, Heights Observer!

To the Editor:

I take note of the recent criticism of the Cleveland Heights University Heights Library Board over the cancellation of a film about the conflict in the Middle East.

I take issue with several statements made by Fran Mentch in the April 10 issue of the Heights Observer.

To the Editor:

The good news of the Reaching Heights Spelling Bee is in: Students from Heights High placed second in the competition [a team of CWRU faculty won after three tiebreaker rounds].

I was pretty angry when this whole thing started with the Library cancelling the program on the Middle East primarily due to the pressure of one individual. Like most public libraries, the CH-UH Public Library is an important and respected part of our community. Many of us have fond memories of taking our children to story hours and other children’s activities, and attending the adult programming ourselves. We love being able to have free use of new books, films, music, and access to computers and the Internet. The CH-UH Library branches help form the fabric of our neighborhoods, and we have a great deal of affection and respect for the library staff, who work to keep the library a valuable part of our community.

To the Editor,

Welcome Heights Observer! May you in the years ahead: