CH City Council Candidate: Julie Love

Julie Love

JULIE LOVE
3185 Oak Rd.  44118   Age: 44
 
E-mail: friendsofjulielove@gmail.com
Wweb: http://friendsofjulielove.com
Twitter: julieforcouncil
Friends: Friends of Julie Love
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
 
Education: Bachelor’s degrees in Finance and Accounting, Certified Public Accountant (inactive) Master’s degree in Journalism, Scripps School
Occupation: Owner and manager, direct selling business
Qualifications: Worked in accounting/finance for 10 years. Have had my own business for 8 years and understand financial statements and budgeting.
Community: I volunteered for the Heritage Home Tour helping with writing the tour book. I am active in community activities with my children, swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, ice skating and tennis.
 
QUESTIONS and RESPONSES:
 
1. Most important :  Taxes – our taxes have become a barrier to entry in Cleveland Heights. I have had multiple people tell me that they are leaving and/or their friends aren’t moving here because of our taxes. We have the case studies already– Detroit, Chicago and Greece. Crippling taxation doesn’t bring people in, it drives them away. Everyone has had to make cuts to keep their household budgets in order, the city needs to do that, too. I would work to bring the city budget back down to the 2011 levels, before salaries increased by $2.8 million.
 
2. Privatizing:  I would be interested in exploring options to privatize trash collection. I have read the water proposals and have heard the issues involving the water problem. I support the option of working with Cleveland, not the ESG option.
 
3. Funding:  You can’t control revenue. Increasing a tax rate doesn’t guarantee a corresponding increase in revenue. We must cut our spending, cut taxes and bring more people in. Having more people and businesses here will increase our tax base and will increase our revenue. I am against the tax levy. It will not generate the revenue that the city needs. It will drive more people away and further exacerbate the problem. It would be better to keep people here paying 2% than have fewer people here paying 2.25%.
 
4. Development: The city should provide an attractive tax structure to entice people and businesses to move here. We should not spend tax payer dollars on small business loans. That is what banks are for. Property tax abatements for businesses could attract new businesses to locate here. They can use the cost saving to build their businesses. The additional income tax revenue could provide relief to our overtaxed citizens and could be more than offset by the property tax abatements.
 
5. Why you?: I have a financial background. That experience can help me with our budget. Currently, we issue long term capital bonds for short term assets. This is a poor way to manage our city. We pay for the bonds, plus interest, far longer than the value of the corresponding assets. I want to serve on city council to turn our city around, we are headed in the wrong direction. Raising taxes doesn’t fix or solve problems. We just need to raise them again and again. We need to fix our problems.

Julie Love

The material contained in this publication was assembled in the following manner: Questions were selected by members of the League of Women Voters Cuyahoga County - CH-UH Chapter and addressed to the candidates. Word limits were placed on candidates responses. Candidates were informed that their responses would be printed in their own words, which has in fact been done, and that each would be solely responsible for the contents of the replies. For publication, the order of presentation of the candidates is alphabetical with the first candidate chosen by lot and succeeding candidates in continuing alphabetical order.

Read More on Voters Guide
Volume 8, Issue 10, Posted 9:16 AM, 10.01.2015