Shameless In South Euclid

South Euclid rates city streets according to their structural condition. In late 2009, Mayor Georgine Welo held unadvertised invitational meetings with residents of some of the most poorly rated streets. According to city officials, the meetings were held to offer a presentation explaining the need for a road levy which will be up for a vote in May 2010. It is uncertain why all members of city council were not privy to those meetings or why those meetings were not made accessible to all citizens.

At the council meeting on February 8 it was revealed that in order to have the road levy on a May ballot it would require submission to the Board of Elections by February 18. This matter was about to progress through the legislative process without any general notification to the public had there not been intervention by Councilpersons Jane Goodman and Sunny Simon. A public meeting was requested. It was determined that the best and only time to hold that public meeting would be on Monday, February 15th at 5:00 p.m.

The only upstanding decision City Council can make at this point is to postpone the levy request until August or November. Bringing this decision to the public a mere ten days before the Board of Elections deadline is inexcusable. To rubber-stamp Resolution: 03-10 at this point would enable Mayor Welo to game the system of checks and balances which are in place for situations just as these.

• time: 9 min. 26 sec.

• time: 9 min. 27 sec.

Below is an exact copy of the home page from the City of South Euclid website as it appeared on Friday afternoon, February 12th. Four days after the hasty decision to actually have a public meeting, even though the meeting is at a time of day guaranteed to yield as little public participation as possible – “Fencepiration” is deemed more important than a pending tax increase. Ward 2 Councilman Moe Romeo determined his February 15th ward meeting required notifying his constituents through the use of the reverse 911 system.  So far reverse 911 has not been utilized to announce the road levy meeting. To date there has been no message regarding this public meeting on the electronic sign in front of city hall.

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