Cleveland Heights-University Heights Board of Education and Cleveland Heights City Council joint meeting highlights 8-11-2014

AUGUST 11, 2014

  • Facilities update
  • Cleveland Heights development, tax abatement
  • Crime and safety issues
  • Next joint meeting

Council Member Mary Dunbar was absent.

Facilities update

The Heights High stadium will be completed at the end of the month. The project is on-time and on-budget.

Modular classroom structures will probably be purchased, and then sold later, as a market exists for these. They are like regular classrooms and are air-conditioned.

The high school building schematics and designs are almost completed and all major relocation decisions have been made. Wiley will be vacated this year and then prepared to receive the high school students next year. Monticello and Roxboro classrooms are being prepared to receive all middle school students this school year. New parking areas have been established at Roxboro. The Heights Youth Theatre has been moved from Wiley to Monticello, and the auditorium has new permanent seating.

Plans for disposition of the vacated schools were mentioned. It was too early in the renovation process, so discussions were limited and no decisions could be made.

New approaches to managing [the] construction project, such as hiring a construction manager to monitor the building and costs of the facilities projects, were explained to council.

Community meetings produced many suggestions for the program of requirements.

Council assured the school board that parking across from the high school is ample and RTA is cooperative in providing students with transportation.

Cleveland Heights development, tax abatement

City council is considering an income tax levy. Tax abatement issues were discussed in regard to bringing new business into the city. The board will be kept informed. The expansion of the Motorcars Honda service center will be a $2.7 million project with no tax abatement. Council mentioned other new business development ideas and discussed a partnership with University Circle enterprises.

Crime and safety issues

The schools and the city are meeting on safety policies for the schools. The Cleveland Heights police data collection and analysis system has been updated to gather more statistics on security. The roles and relationships of the school district security personnel and the city police were discussed. Police monitor designated neighborhood areas to ensure that students don’t loiter for extensive periods. Schools have set up mentoring programs. A city-run diversion program for juvenile offenders is in place. The police are posted at various schools after the school day so a security presence is visible to both prevent crime and promote a sense of safety.

Next joint meeting

The board and council will meet again on Oct. 14.

LWV Observer: Lillian Houser.

These meeting summaries are abstracted from LWV observers’ written reports. The summaries have been edited and prepared by Anne McFarland, Charlene Mors, and Maryann Barnes. To receive e-mail postings of full reports, send an e-mail to mbarnes9515@gmail.com or join through Google groups using “lwv-chuh observer reports” as a search phrase.

These reports contain member observation and selected highlights of public meetings and are not official statements of the Heights Chapter of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland. This disclaimer must accompany any redistribution of these reports.

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