LifeLongClevelander

Definitely feel that Jackson's policies were significantly influenced by his family. How many generations of his family that share his name have legal troubles? I think the dirt bike park may have had some bearing due to family activities as well. Jackson has surrounded himself with people who are more than willing to be his mouthpiece and have their strings pulled by him. With the violent crime problem as bad as has been, in most cases it would have cost the chief his job. It hasn't hurt Williams in the least. How many top aides and advisors were retirees but found nice paying jobs working for Jackson (and pulling in a pension, too)? They do his bidding, say everything the mayor wants and they have nice jobs. Hopefully the next mayor will get rid of the whole lot. I am very concerned about the overall lack of a stand to combat violence in the campaign. If just by the shock tactics, it puts Kucinich on the radar due to his saying something about battling crime, it could very well put him in the top two in the primary. That is outright frightening in itself.

Here are multiple sites that list Cleveland as the 6th or 7th most dangerous city in America for years 2018, 2019 and 2020: Maybe not top 5 (but other sites have had Cleveland ranked as #3 or #4). CBS News Ranks Cleveland as the 6th most dangerous city in America (2019 FBI Statistics) https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/ World Atlas ranks Cleveland as the 7th most dangerous 2018: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-united-states.html 247 Wall Street ranks Cleveland as 7th most dangerous 2019: https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/11/16/americas-50-most-dangerous-cities/10/ Crime in America ranks Cleveland as the 6th most dangerous in 2018: https://www.crimeinamerica.net/most-dangerous-cities/ Itravelnet.com ranks Cleveland as the 7th most dangerous in 2020: https://www.itravelnet.com/travel-blog/top-10-us-cities-with-the-most-violent-crime/ Though a bit older, Forbes ranks Cleveland as the 9th most dangerous in 2012 (so it has been this way for a while): https://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlj45jggj/1-detroit/?sh=66cfa9b369d9 Sites like CBS News, World Atlas and Forbes are well known news sources and their numbers are based upon FBI data (which in itself should answer “who”). Definitely not "baseless". All of the articles cite per capita numbers for their rates, so population differences aren't a factor. Homicide totals in Cleveland 2014-2020: 2014: 102 2015: 120 2016: 144 2017: 130 2018: 130 2019: 133 2020: 190 Cleveland.com article on 2020 Homicide Rate (numbers taken from 12/20/20, before final count was in) https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2021/01/its-like-war-numbers-cleveland-endures-worst-homicide-rate-in-recent-history-in-2020.html 1982 Homicide rate: 33.9 per 100,000 residents – 195 homicides (the most recent number with a count higher than 2020) 1972 Homicide rate: 44.3 per 100,000 residents – 333 (all-time high in homicides) 2020 Homicide rate: 48.6 per 100,000 residents – 185 (homicides - at time of data compiled) 2020 Homicide rate: 50.0 per 100,000 residents – 190 (homicides - final tally for year) These are per capita homicde rates that take into account the homicide total based upon population change. Does this meet the definition of negative numbers?

Yet, the voters quite decisively re-elected Jackson to a fourth term. Even in 2017, the numbers were going in the wrong direction and it didn't matter. Part of the problem in 2017 was Reed's history but back then Jackson already had a weak track record on crime and safety that had been getting worse. It should have caused him to not be the 2017 November election. In the last few decades, Cleveland has unfortunately had mayoral candidates that were weak, had a poor track record, lots of baggage, were awful campaigners or suffered from a lack of experience.

Whomever is elected mayor in November will be inheriting a huge crime and violence issue; a problem that the current mayor has done little to curb and the negative numbers have risen substantially over the last eight years. Under Jackson's tenure, Cleveland has risen to be in the top five of the most dangerous cities. The police department is severely understaffed and shrinking in size while having to be tasked to do more. Aside from the shock-tactics used by one candidate, there has been little from the candidates on how they will reverse the crime trends and bolster the police department. The primary is less than 2 months away and it is troubling that we have heard so little on these subjects.

Based upon how youth problems are getting worse, there isn't much in the way of "adult oversight" in their lives now. For many of the ones causing trouble, the only "adult oversight" they are receiving is steering them in the wrong direction. This may be the sort of "adult oversight" that straightens at least some them out. Enough with the punishments amounting to no more than a scolding of "don't do it again". They get shown so much leniency now and the opportunities to commit felonies then getting released just to do it all over again. It is a never-ending cycle that shows the current system is a massive failure.

Another point to consider is how it will be paid for. The Federal COVID relief money will only last so long and then it is gone. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out regarding the loss of income tax revenue from workers doing their jobs at home with the legislation and legal challenges. Beyond that, how much will be lost due to more people working at home going forward. Jackson's pitch for getting the last tax increase passed was that he was going to hire more police officers. That was a distortion of the truth as the increased hiring really was only due to keeping up with attrition. With the information posted hear from somebody in the know, the number of new hires could not even keep pace wit attrition. Regrding Kucinich's campaign material, will those 400 new "community based" officers be an expansion of the police department from its 1550 pre-COVID size or will it be 400 officers hired to increase current staffing levels. Then again, the problems facing the department will work against finding, training and keeping new officers.

The police brass may think the department will recover to pre-COVID size in 4 years, but the numbers and trends indicate say something else. This sort of information indicates the police department will be in the range of 1200 officers in the not too distant future. If someone wins the mayoral race that holds an anti-police stance or is from the same line of thinking like Jackson, I don't want to think of the consequences.

So, based upon what you are saying, there really isn't any light at the end of the tunnel. With such a large percentage of the department nearing retirement, the academy classes will have trouble keeping up with the loss of officers. Too much experience and knowledge will be lost without the proper time to pass it on to the younger officers. Then, the city will have to face a hiring freeze in the not too distant future. It really sounds like it will be a challenge just to get up to the pre-COVID staffing level. It sounds downright impossible that any inroads will be made to increase the department's size from pre-COVID numbers. I can imagine that burnout will hit the department big time, if it hasn't already. The other thing that one has to consider is that in almost any profession, one tends to be more open towards changing employment when starting out. They get their first few years of experience and move on. If the job of being a Cleveland police officer ends up not being worth it due to all of the stresses and lack of support from the top, that young police department will be facing significant attrition. Cleveland will train them and get them their initial on the job experience only to benefit the police departments that will hire them away. Wonder if the high percentage of officers nearing retirement is in large part due the financial crisis faced by Mayor Campbell when she came into office with the layoffs, hiring freezes and cutbacks.

As much as I agree that you have posed a possibly an excellent solution for a problem that is escalating out of control in the wrong direction, I feel that I already know how some will call it (I will leave it at that). At least one of the mayoral candidates should add this to their campaigning platform. It has to start somewhere. If it doesn't, it won't be too long before there will be a spike in serious criminal activity by pre-teens.

What was the size of the police department pre-COVID? I thought it was around 1550, but that number may be high. Even if it was 1550, that would put the number around 1300 and that is downright scary, for both the citizens and the department overall. I would imagine that morale must be awful. A loss of 250 officers from 1550 is nearly a sixth of the force. Regarding what you stated regarding academy classes every other month starting out at about 75 recruits shrinking down to 50 when they graduate and every month the loses through retirement and other attrition of 20 officers makes the numbers even more dismal. It translates to gaining 50 new officers every month yet losing 40. Gaining only 5 additional officers a month at this rate and it will take over 4 years to just get back to pre-COVID levels. That doesn't even take into account other potential surges in retirements and attrition. Supposed to start a new academy class every other month? Does that in actuality happen? Lose just one class a year and it is just treading water. Thank you for the information as bad as it is.

How bad is the staffing problem for Cleveland's police department? Several months ago, numbers were supplied stating that due to COVID-19, attrition and small/canceled police academy classes, the department's size was approaching approximately 1400 officers (if I recall correctly). Has any progress been made stemming the net loss in officers or has the contraction continued? What does the outlook appear to be in the foreseeable future? I know that the results of the mayoral election will have a bearing on the direction is taken, but how do things look now?

The youth criminal activity is getting way out of hand. These teenagers are playing the system as good as, if not better than adults. Recently there was a case where a teenager who had been arrested and was awaiting trial for his actions. He was able to play the system to get monitoring and in-house detention lifted all under the guise of "good behavior" and the need for going to school. Not long after the restrictions were lifted, he was back committing more crimes. Carjackings, robberies and violent acts are being committed by kids who are barely teenagers at the ages of 13 or 14. Agree with you about them being unemployable. How many will find a job, but won't bother to show up or use a job to enable other criminal activity. And, it won't make a difference whatever minimum the minimum wage get set at.

Sure, many of the homicide victims in Cleveland are hardened criminals who have been involved in violent crimes, robberies, drug dealing and other homicides. However, there are many innocent victims who get caught in the crossfire or happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They can be sitting in cars, waiting for a bus, driving along some road or in their own house. They can be conducting their own legal business activities in their place of work or going into a legitimate business. Those are the ones who suffer the ultimate consequences and whose families have incalculable losses. What has made the matter far worse is that the current mayor has done nothing to address the problems and they have gotten much worse. He has closely related family members that have problems with illegal activities. He conducted an income tax increase campaign with the "promise" to hire more police officers. That "promise" ended up being a play on words as the city needed to hire more police officers to deal with attrition. I don't think there was ever any attempt to increase the size of the police department. Unfortunately in this contest for mayor, there are current members of city council, including the city council president. Where have they been the last several years on city council? What have they done OF SUBSTANCE to push back against the inaction of Jackson? Why haven't they banded together to force the police department to be expanded? It will be interesting to hear of their plans to address the safety issues of residents and visitors. They also need to be pressed on why they didn't do more while they have been serving on city council.

Disgusting, distasteful, sickening, appalling and revolting to use such campaign tactics? Absolutely without a doubt it is. Shock tactics pulled right out of his playbook. Will it cost him votes? Don't know about that. When one looks at the triple-digit homicide totals seven years in a row from 2014 to 2020 with 2021 certainly going to make it an eighth consecutive year with that sort of total. From 2014 to 2020, the total almost doubled from 102 to 190 homicides. That total of 190 per capita is greater than the 333 when the city had its all-time high of homicides in 1972. There may be more than enough knee-jerk voters who won't look into his track record and history regardless of age, gender or race. Those voters will look at the homicide totals, see how the crime and violence have affected how they live or know somebody who has fallen victim. It could carry enough voters to decide the race. The lack of digging further has happened before, gotten somebody elected and it should be very scary.

All of RTA's current highway coaches are 45-foot models with a seating capacity of 57. Their now-retired original 40-foot models seated 49. RTA has never had any issues with carrying standees and if packed, another 25 or so can be carried as well. All of the early trips return downtown for second trips. They can complete two trips in the time that a local bus can perhaps complete one round trip. If patronized, those highway coaches can carry 114 seated and another 50 standing. Sure, the intermediate boardings and disembarkings don't occur, so the number of paying fares are reduced. To make up for it, RTA should have a bigger difference in local versus park-n-ride fares, $2.50 as compared to $2.75. Laketran, on the other hand, charges a local fare of $1.75 and park-n-ride fare of $3.75. Their highway coach fleet consists of 40-foot models and they almost never even allow standees. The only time that I have witnessed standees on Laketran was for the Cavaliers Championship Parade. Somehow, Laketran is able to make it work for them. Part of it is the greater price differential, but better reliability and security measures help to attract riders. Laketran was approached by the businesses of the Tyler Boulevard area of Mentor. They were able to adjust their routes to fill a need and gain reverse-commute riders. It is a win-win for the agency (without using additional vehicles), riders who rely on transit and businesses to get those workers. As for manufacturing hours, the first two Laketran park-n-ride buses arrive at Rt. 306 and Tyler Blvd AFTER returning from downtown Cleveland at 7:00 and 7:15 in the morning. Those arrivals apparently worked out fine between the agency and the businesses for shifts to start. This is a perfect example of a transit agency meeting a need efficiently and working with local businesses for the common good. RTA has trouble even making slight stop adjustments (for someplace they already use) for the benefit of others (unless they get money thrown at them). Does RTA even try to make itself a partner with any businesses other than those who sponsor the HealthLine, CSU Line and MetroHealth Line? With NextGen, the formerly sponsored downtown trolley routes are mostly gone aside from one route, so that partnership is apparently gone.

I believe that the "least cost effective" aspect of the park-n-ride operations may have been the result of numbers manipulation and poor pricing by RTA. A highway coach travelling from one of the west side lots using mostly the freeways can make two departures from the same lot in less time than one bus travelling via the same points over city streets. Fuel efficiency and wear is much better when stop-and-go operations are greatly reduced. It very obvious that as RTA degraded under Calabrese's control as many through routes were truncated into feeder lines involving transfers. For many, it turned into a series of shuttle bus routes. A park-n-ride freeway run does not fit that model. I also feel that offering a premium service for only an additional quarter, only 10% more than standard service, isn't going to have much of an additional return. When RTA started operations in 1975, local service was 25 cents and express/flyer service was 35 cents, 40% over the local fare. Translated to today, park-n-ride service, especially with equipment far better than RTA had in its early days, should be in the vicinity of $3.50 a trip. RTA's park-n-ride services should not be confused with the subsidized highway operations offered by Akron's METRO. RTA's services are within their operational area that basically covers Cuyahoga County, whereas the METRO and Canton service to Cuyahoga County are multi-county operations where only one fare-generating trip can be made by a single bus per each peak period. About half of the Laketran runs from/to Eastlake and Mentor have buses that will make two round trips per peak period. The only other highway coach route offered by Laketran involves the 2 trips from/to Madison during each peak period. Laketran also maximizes their usefulness as a commuting option by promoting reverse commuting (i.e. return runs from morning rush hour trips will carry passengers from downtown to Tyler Blvd in Mentor and the reverse in the afternoons). They also have scheduled departure times from park-n-ride lots when they make their runs going downtown in the afternoon. Finally, on days where employers will let people off early either due to holidays or bad weather, Laketran will send highway coaches downtown early. The early runs for holidays are publicized beforehand. When I rode RTA's park-n-ride service, if there was a possibility of early dismissal, I would drive to work as I did not want to face an hour using the local bus to get back. As for the demise of the Euclid park-n-ride service, it was directly due to security problems. Cars were regularly broken into, damaged and stolen from the lot. Homeless individuals, even during good weather, would sleep on the station benches. Security camera coverage of the parking lot was virtually non-existent. Unless somebody called for transit police, they weren't around and Euclid didn't have their police on patrols there either. By taking the actions over the years to basically eliminate most park-n-ride operations will probably mean that RTA has lost those passengers for good. Transit oriented development, though something that is desirable, will be dismissed by people who feel that RTA has failed to do their job in promoting and encouraging mass transit usage.

At one time, RTA must have felt that providing good service to its suburban riders was worth it. When the four park-n-ride facilities opened in Euclid, North Olmsted, Strongsville and Westlake, they all had parking for 300 to 320 cars. Euclid's capacity didn't change, but North Olmsted's capacity increased to 489, Strongsville to 650 and Westlake to 715. RTA does own land where it could have expanded the Euclid facility to about 500 cars if it wished. When RTA started providing park-n-ride service with far more comfortable highway coaches (which also had longer planned service lives, 18 years instead of 12), they used 23 40-footers. Not long after, they augmented the fleet with 3 45-footers. Later they added another 12 45-footers. When RTA operated a mix of both sizes, the 45-footers almost exclusively operated on the west side routes. In 2020, RTA retired the last of the 40-footers and original 3 45-footers with 12 new 45-footers (costing about $8 million total for the 12). With NextGen's implementation, the highway coach service from North Olmsted and Westlake ceased. The faster service using comfortable buses traveling mostly freeway routings has been replaced with more frequent service, but the travel times are much longer in duration using city-type buses and their hard plastic seats over city streets. In 2013, RTA spent $252,000 to rebuild the 320-car capacity Euclid park-n-ride facility. In 2016, the highway service ceased from that facility and it was replaced with indirect service downtown over city streets. Riders rejected it. Today, that lot has been mostly cordoned off with guardrails attached to barrels. At most, perhaps 15 cars could park there. As it has been shown for the Euclid change, riders will not be interested in lengthening their commuting times. How long before those expanded lots be contracted in capacity in a similar manner in North Olmsted and Westlake? This is not the way to increase ridership, let alone retain it, for a system that has been annually dropping to new all time lows. If RTA comes calling for an increase in tax revenue, either from a hike in the county-wide sales tax or additional property tax, will suburban voters that have seen service downgraded or eliminated be inclined to increase their taxes? Since the original vote to create RTA by increasing the county's sales tax rate by 1.0% in 1975, the percentage of the county's population has increased significantly to the suburbs. It is unwise for RTA's leaders to ignore the segment of the population that it needs to pass at tax increase on the county level.

Unfortunately, the way that RTA is currently structured, the only way one can reliably reverse commute is by driving. They don't offer the frequency of service or the speed of service to make it a desirable option. Even if somebody can use the rapid transit lines, unless the ultimate destination is practically next door to the stop, one has to wait for another connection to finish the commute. There are some major employers that have little or no bus service at all. The Next Gen changes that RTA recently implemented did increase the frequency of some major bus routes, but those routes are hampered by stop-and-go traffic on surface streets. As it is, a downtown to an outlying suburb trip via a bus in either direction for either the morning or evening rush hour can easily take an hour one-way. Double that time if it it is from the far side of the county to the other. At least the traffic is such that the amount of time that it takes by car to do these types of commutes aren't too bad, especially compared to other cities.

True, that is part of it, but local media has not bothered to do their part either. Local news outlets will do stories about the increased crime and homicide problems in Cleveland, but they do not focus on how bad it is in Cleveland. A certain local publication for an extended period of time would completely avoid any sort of mention of actual numbers. They would even go out of their way to shut down questions about the numbers. That should have nothing to do with whomever is in the White House. That publication reports the numbers now, but only every couple of weeks or following another particularly violent weekend. Maybe if local media did their job and put more light on the problems faced in Cleveland as compared to other bigger cities, there would be more outrage about the problem. Perhaps they feared "getting shut out" by the Jackson administration.

The over saturation of retail shopping space is not just a problem in this region. It is a national problem and it has been growing for decades. The problem is only getting worse as shopping habits have accelerated away from brick-and-mortar businesses. Evolving to a newer retail model (i.e. Legacy Village, Crocker Park, Pinecrest, etc...) isn't going to solve it. They will make it worse. The new shopping shopping districts will just leave more decline in their wakes as retailers either move to the new developments or go out of business due to excessive competition. Older shopping areas will see lower-tier businesses move in and vacancies increase.

It is unfortunate that when comparing the homicide totals for Cleveland to Chicago, the picture is far worse in Cleveland. Last year, Cleveland had 190 homicides and the numbers this year are higher than the same time last year. Chicago, population-wise, is about 7 times that of Cleveland. Using your numbers, per capita, the homicide rate in Cleveland would translate to 1050. On the national media front, a few years ago when the homicide totals for Chicago were rising, it received all sorts of coverage. Cleveland's problem never received the national attention, even though the rate is much worse. Looking at the numbers the other way, that projected number of 650 in Chicago for this year would translate to about 93 for Cleveland. The last time Cleveland had under 100 homicides was in 2013 when it had 88.

The real world is far different that school. Internships are usually temporary positions. There are many people who have nicely framed degrees to hang on their walls. Yet, when it comes to putting that education to a real, longer-term commitment solving real problems with extended implications well into the future, the solutions aren't found in some textbook or reading a research paper. People can be masters at interviewing (and self-publicizing) and end up being exposed for being totally overwhelmed and unprepared. Opponents with decades worth of experience can seize that inexperience and work it to their advantage. Can Cleveland deal with the consequences of inexperience?

Well, the incident was one of the lead stories on all news outlets. That is exactly how things started the decline at Beachwood Place. A social media-induced mob of older kids/young adults rushed one of the anchor department stores (Dillards?) or the mall. Whichever location wasn't rushed the first time got rushed another time, again by a huge mob of kids/young adults. Robberies, multiple shootings and drug deals in the parking lot got significant media coverage. One bad "event" doesn't mean that much. If nothing negative along these lines happens, it gets forgotten about. When they starting happening at Beachwood Place more often, the seeds get "planted". A bad reputation starts forming.

When the campaign dollars and fund raisers are held in Gates Mills, just like they were Jackson, you will be proven correct.

My thoughts on Kelley is this: Why hasn't he at least done any sort of real push-back on Jackson, especially with seven years of triple-digit homicides that will turn into eight this year? It seems like his "leadership" on city council has basically been as a "rubber stamp". The same goes for any other member of city council. You get noise in the generation of sound/video segments on the local news outlets, but not much more. City council has never stood up against Jackson and held their ground regarding the crime problems in the city. They never forced getting any sort of action to combat the problems. They should be held accountable for their inaction. As for Kucinich, a decent part of his Congressional district included Cleveland. With his track record of running the city, that in itself should have never got him elected to Congress, let alone winning eight times. His lack of doing anything for Cleveland while holding that office should have got him voted out long before he fell victim to redistricting.