5 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

I thought the screenshot I posted would be a damn good hint as to where to find the data. 

 

 

Your snark isn't helpful or appreciated. I think it's best we try to be respectful in disagreement. (And I haven't even disagreed with you!)

 

My understanding of your comment is that you are comparing the total number of public sector employees across the three major Ohio Counties. That's an interesting and nuanced idea, but I wasn't able to find numbers on that. If I have time later I might look deeper through the Bureau of Labor statistics, but I've already sunk enough time looking for this information at the moment. 

 

Also, your screenshot came later, after I asked and you responded "yes," and it was to a different person, about a different topic. 

Just now, Ethan said:

Your snark isn't helpful or appreciated. I think it's best we try to be respectful in disagreement. (And I haven't even disagreed with you!)

 

My understanding of your comment is that you are comparing the total number of public sector employees across the three major Ohio Counties. That's an interesting and nuanced idea, but I wasn't able to find numbers on that. If I have time later I might look deeper through the Bureau of Labor statistics, but I've already sunk enough time looking for this information at the moment. 

 

Also, your screenshot came later, after I asked and you responded "yes," and it was to a different person, about a different topic. 

 

Your dislikes and poison tags aren't appreciated either, so I guess we're even?   

 

My apologies if you've mistaken my boot strap mentality for disrespect. I put in the time and did copious amounts of research on this topic, so can you.

Not to push any buttons, but I think we owe it to ourselves to focus on solutions that are actually attainable. And from what I've read (especially that presentation I posted yesterday), merging municipalities is virtually impossible.

27 minutes ago, coneflower said:

Not to push any buttons, but I think we owe it to ourselves to focus on solutions that are actually attainable. And from what I've read (especially that presentation I posted yesterday), merging municipalities is virtually impossible.

 

In this case, attainable solutions aren't solutions at all.

 

Until real mergers happen, NEO will lead the state in high tax rates and substandard levels of government service. That's a fact.

 

Listen people, I know the likelihood of going from 59 municipalities to 25 are the same odds as me meeting Jesus tonight. That said, changes can slowly happen over time (decades) and will most likely need to start happening by the mid 2030's. Younger generations and voters do not have the same hatred and fear of cities as boomers do, so we wait.

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

2 hours ago, Ethan said:

Care to share with the class? I usually don't like the "please provide a source or your argument is invalid" culture you sometimes find online, but in this instance I'm genuinely curious and spent some time looking and was not able to find anything. 

 

It's kind of like when politicians would interfere with our personal lives, theirs become fair game.  When people debate like that, it's a fair question back.  

 

A step beyond "source?!!!" is "educate yourself".   Invariably it means "learn to agree with me".

1 hour ago, Clefan98 said:

Younger generations and voters do not have the same hatred and fear of cities as boomers do, so we wait.

 

I would not call it hatred or fear, but those are the new terms for dissent in this day and age.

 

But you really do sound like the 1970s "liberals" here, assuming each generation will be further left than the last.    Those of us with kids under 18 know better.

21 hours ago, KFM44107 said:

Doubtful considering police alone we have like 1500 less than the 80s

 

Congrats, didn't think this was possible.   :0

 

 

1 hour ago, Clefan98 said:

Until real mergers happen, NEO will lead the state in high tax rates and substandard levels of government service. That's a fact. ...

 

Younger generations and voters do not have the same hatred and fear of cities as boomers do, so we wait.

 

This from someone warning the rest of us about making assumptions.

 

Part of the video @coneflower posted was a retelling of the story of the proposed four-municipality merger of Moreland Hills, Orange, Pepper Pike and Woodmere (a story which many older urbanists and regionalism advocates here will already know).  You can't possibly say that that fizzled because "hatred and fear of cities" from "Boomers."

21 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

I would not call it hatred or fear,

 

 

You haven't been involved in the same meetings as I. Unfortunately, hate and fear do exist.  

20 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

Congrats, didn't think this was possible.   :0

 

 

 

What I find funny is we all want the same thing, I think. Improved services, less red tape and taxes. We should all be on the same side but it's the fear of losing power that's holding everyone back.

7 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

This from someone warning the rest of us about making assumptions.

 

Part of the video @coneflower posted was a retelling of the story of the proposed four-municipality merger of Moreland Hills, Orange, Pepper Pike and Woodmere (a story which many older urbanists and regionalism advocates here will already know).  You can't possibly say that that fizzled because "hatred and fear of cities" from "Boomers."

 

Outliers do exist, of course. 

42 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

A step beyond "source?!!!" is "educate yourself".   Invariably it means "learn to agree with me".

 

So you believe I'm wrong in that Allegheny and Franklin counties each have thousands of less public sector jobs than we do in Cuyahoga? I used these two counties as examples because they are very close to us population-wise.

 

 

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

When was the last time a fortune 1000 enterprise from outside of Ohio moved their HQ or major operations to NEO?  It doesn't happen despite our low COL, abundance of clean freshwater, and rail infrastructure because instead of collaborating to win, we compete against each other and lose. Cleveland/Akron could be the Atlanta of the north.

 

Metro Atlanta’s labor market continued to grow through the end of 2022. Job numbers recovered rapidly from the effects of the global pandemic, and despite recent national economic headwinds, metro employment figures climbed steadily. By year-end 2022, Atlanta recorded 22.8% job growth since April 2020, outperforming the U.S. growth rate of 11.7%.

 

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/us-articles/atlanta-employment-update

 

Merge or continue to die a slow death. And if anyone thinks our property taxes are high now, wait til you see what's coming in the torrent future.

 

PS. Fulton Co only has 15 municipalities despite a population of just under 1.1M

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

2 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

When was the last time a fortune 1000 enterprise from outside of Ohio moved their HQ or major operations to NEO?  It doesn't happen despite our low COL, abundance of clean freshwater, and rail infrastructure because instead of collaborating to win, we compete against each other and lose. Cleveland/Akron could be the Atlanta of the north.

 

Metro Atlanta’s labor market continued to grow through the end of 2022. Job numbers recovered rapidly from the effects of the global pandemic, and despite recent national economic headwinds, metro employment figures climbed steadily. By year-end 2022, Atlanta recorded 22.8% job growth since April 2020, outperforming the U.S. growth rate of 11.7%.

 

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/us-articles/atlanta-employment-update

 

Merge or continue to die a slow death. And if anyone thinks our property taxes are high now, wait til you see what's coming in the torrent future.

 

PS. Fulton Co only has 15 municipalities despite a population just under 1.1M

How does one even start that conversation of starting to slowly merge services and eventually municipalities? From my view, I feel like common citizens can’t do much.

8 minutes ago, JB said:

How does one even start that conversation of starting to slowly merge services and eventually municipalities? From my view, I feel like common citizens can’t do much.

It's been going on for years and has gotten nowhere. Before my police days I worked on the other side of government and had the pleasure of being in meeting where regionalization was tossed around as a solution to alot of our tax problems. No one seemed to want to go in that direction. And now with work from home really strengthening a lot of these smaller municipalities (excluding the  ones that rely on business tax) I would say there's no chance in hell. 

 

On top of that the worker shortage has pretty much guaranteed that no one is fully staffed and therefore overstaffed with glut. Everyone, and I mean everyone is down public employees in this region from 2016. 

Despite the tenor of this thread, our region is looking at ways to merge services. Once can argue it's not happening fast enough, but across the region jurisdictions share schools, 911 call centers, ambulance, libraries... The way you can advocate for more of this is let your council people know you support it. A lot of times when this stuff comes up as a way to collaborate and save money across borders, certain residents freak out. Nobody wants to give up control to "outsiders," and that's true if you live in Cleveland and if you live in Rocky River. There was coverage recently out of Solon where some folks are unhappy with ambulance response times (which are part of a regional suburban service that serves multiple towns), and they are making their voices heard. 

 

All this discussion of merging/not merging has to deal with the reality of our political system. In Ohio today, merging cities into each other is the local government equivalent of ammending the US Constitution. Possible, sure, but you're likely not going to be happy if that is your #1 political solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve.

58 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

This from someone warning the rest of us about making assumptions.

 

Part of the video @coneflower posted was a retelling of the story of the proposed four-municipality merger of Moreland Hills, Orange, Pepper Pike and Woodmere (a story which many older urbanists and regionalism advocates here will already know).  You can't possibly say that that fizzled because "hatred and fear of cities" from "Boomers."

 

I remember this well and I was very excited for it to happen. Ultimately, there is fear but not necessarily fear of cities. I think it's the natural human instinct of fear of change. 

An idea floated by Lee Weingart during County Executive campaign was to create a countywide local income tax rather than each municipality having different ones. I really like that idea but I don't know how feasible it would be in reality. Having some services handled at the county level while maintaining autonomous municipalities could be a reasonable goal for regionalism.

51 minutes ago, freefourur said:

An idea floated by Lee Weingart during County Executive campaign was to create a countywide local income tax rather than each municipality having different ones. I really like that idea but I don't know how feasible it would be in reality. Having some services handled at the county level while maintaining autonomous municipalities could be a reasonable goal for regionalism.

 

I'm curious: How many residents of Cuyahoga County currently live in either unincorporated townships (which IIRC cannot legally have an income tax) or municipalities that voluntarily have no income tax?  That would be where you'd expect to find the hottest concentrations of opposition.

 

In Summit County, where not only Akron is smaller than Cleveland but there aren't too many incorporated suburbs around it, my guess is that you'd find a proportionately larger share of the population lives in zero-income-tax jurisdictions (though we make it more complicated with things like the JEDD here).  Considering the variance between that and Akron's 2.75% rate, I doubt you could get much traction with that here.  But if you looked and found that, for example, 75%+ of Cuyahoga County residents live in a municipality with an income tax beween 1.50% and 2.00%, you'd possibly have enough commonality to build on.

1 hour ago, Clefan98 said:

When was the last time a fortune 1000 enterprise from outside of Ohio moved their HQ or major operations to NEO?  It doesn't happen despite our low COL, abundance of clean freshwater, and rail infrastructure because instead of collaborating to win, we compete against each other and lose. Cleveland/Akron could be the Atlanta of the north.

 

Metro Atlanta’s labor market continued to grow through the end of 2022. Job numbers recovered rapidly from the effects of the global pandemic, and despite recent national economic headwinds, metro employment figures climbed steadily. By year-end 2022, Atlanta recorded 22.8% job growth since April 2020, outperforming the U.S. growth rate of 11.7%.

 

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/us-articles/atlanta-employment-update

 

Merge or continue to die a slow death. And if anyone thinks our property taxes are high now, wait til you see what's coming in the torrent future.

 

PS. Fulton Co only has 15 municipalities despite a population of just under 1.1M

Well technically in 2022, Avery Dennison made NEO their global HQ. Made little to no press, oddly enough, but they list mentor as the HQ now and showed up in this year’s fortune list. 

4 minutes ago, Klingaling87 said:

Well technically in 2022, Avery Dennison made NEO their global HQ. Made little to no press, oddly enough, but they list mentor as the HQ now and showed up in this year’s fortune list. 

 

To the detriment of another NEO community:

 

The payroll is expected to exceed $40 million annually. The decision to move to Mentor is a loss for Willoughby Hills, which had offered incentives for Avery to locate at a site proposed by Snavely Development Co. at SOM Center Road and I-90. The new building means Concord Township will lose the headquarters of the two units of the adhesive materials maker.

 

https://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20050411/REG/504110734/avery-taps-mentor-for-unit-hq

4 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

I'm curious: How many residents of Cuyahoga County currently live in either unincorporated townships (which IIRC cannot legally have an income tax) or municipalities that voluntarily have no income tax?  That would be where you'd expect to find the hottest concentrations of opposition.

 

In Summit County, where not only Akron is smaller than Cleveland but there aren't too many incorporated suburbs around it, my guess is that you'd find a proportionately larger share of the population lives in zero-income-tax jurisdictions (though we make it more complicated with things like the JEDD here).  Considering the variance between that and Akron's 2.75% rate, I doubt you could get much traction with that here.  But if you looked and found that, for example, 75%+ of Cuyahoga County residents live in a municipality with an income tax beween 1.50% and 2.00%, you'd possibly have enough commonality to build on.

There are only 2 townships in Cuyahoga County with a total population of about 15,000. It appears that Hunting Valley has no income tax but they only have a population of about 500. Most municipalities are between 1.5% and 2.5%. So a countywide tax could find some traction here. 

 

The benefit of countywide taxes is that the county as a whole can compete for new businesses to the region instead of the individual municipalities poaching from each other. 

1 hour ago, coneflower said:

All this discussion of merging/not merging has to deal with the reality of our political system. In Ohio today, merging cities into each other is the local government equivalent of ammending the US Constitution. Possible, sure, but you're likely not going to be happy if that is your #1 political solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve.

 

I wonder how happy people will be when they see their county property taxes doubling over the next 12 years to sustain 59 municipalities and an ever growing budget.

 

 

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

If people on this forum reflected the views of the majority of people in the County we would already have some kind of a regional government. 

 

This most recent discussion is arguing nuance. We are all pretty much pro regionalism. But we're not going to get it because voters don't want to seed control of their local municipality and their pols really don't want to lose control. Taken as a whole, we are a stupid and selfish group - those on this forum notwithstanding.

 

 

16 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

To the detriment of another NEO community:

 

The payroll is expected to exceed $40 million annually. The decision to move to Mentor is a loss for Willoughby Hills, which had offered incentives for Avery to locate at a site proposed by Snavely Development Co. at SOM Center Road and I-90. The new building means Concord Township will lose the headquarters of the two units of the adhesive materials maker.

 

https://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20050411/REG/504110734/avery-taps-mentor-for-unit-hq

That’s from 2005 and was only about their rolled materials division. As of 2022, their global HQ moved from Glendale, CA to Mentor. 

1 hour ago, KFM44107 said:

On top of that the worker shortage has pretty much guaranteed that no one is fully staffed and therefore overstaffed with glut. Everyone, and I mean everyone is down public employees in this region from 2016. 

 

Not saying there isn't a labor shortage but the number of people holding government jobs in Cleveland's MSA is only down .96% since 2016.

3 minutes ago, Klingaling87 said:

That’s from 2005 and was only about their rolled materials division. As of 2022, their global HQ moved from Glendale, CA to Mentor. 

 

Why does their website still list Glendale as the corporate HQ?

 

https://www.averydennison.com/fr/home/new-world-wide-offices.html

13 minutes ago, cadmen said:

This most recent discussion is arguing nuance. We are all pretty much pro regionalism. But we're not going to get it because voters don't want to seed control of their local municipality and their pols really don't want to lose control. Taken as a whole, we are a stupid and selfish group - those on this forum notwithstanding.

 

 

26 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

I wonder how happy people will be when they see their county property taxes doubling over the next 12 years to sustain 59 municipalities and an ever growing budget.

 

 

 

I would be curious to see a credible study on whether there would actually be major tax savings here in Northeast Ohio. The big budget items are things like schools, police and infrastructure. If we were to regionalize all these services at the county level, for example, would we really have less expenses? It seems more likely the same amount of resources would be redeployed more equitably throughout the region. That would be a worthy outcome but not really a cost savings.

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by coneflower

21 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

Why does their website still list Glendale as the corporate HQ?

 

https://www.averydennison.com/fr/home/new-world-wide-offices.html

 

Their LinkedIn page says Mentor.  

 

2 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

Their LinkedIn page says Mentor.  

 

Yes, for their Packaging and Containers Manufacturing HQ, which was poached from Willoughby Hills.

 

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

2 hours ago, Clefan98 said:

 

You haven't been involved in the same meetings as I. Unfortunately, hate and fear do exist.  

 

They exist, but there are other reasons as well.   Simply preferring smaller government that is more accessible being one of them.   It's the same reason so many states oppose federal intrustion.

 

 

15 minutes ago, coneflower said:

The big budget items are things like schools, police and infrastructure. If we were to regionalize all these services at the county level, for example, would we really have less expenses?

 

How do you quantify the savings we'd see from preventing future tax increases? Budgets aren't going down and eventually our entrenched sprawl and numerous fiefdoms will drain even more resources leading to more and more tax increases. How do I know this?? It's already happening!

 

A true county level merger could eliminate 5,000 public sector jobs in Cuyahoga Co alone. I don't think many here realize how screwed we are if nothing changes.

 

 

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

5 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

 

Yes, for their Packaging and Containers Manufacturing HQ, which was poached from Willoughby Hills.

 

 

Their 2022 10K lists 8080 Norton Parkway, Mentor as their Principle Executive Offices

9 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

 

Yes, for their Packaging and Containers Manufacturing HQ, which was poached from Willoughby Hills.

 

 

Wikipedia says Mentor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avery_Dennison

 

This is (usually) a non-controversial topic so Wiki is a pretty reliable source.

20 minutes ago, coneflower said:

 

I would be curious to see a credible study on whether there would actually be major tax savings here in Northeast Ohio. The big budget items are things like schools, police and infrastructure. If we were to regionalize all these services at the county level, for example, would we really have less expenses? It seems more likely the same amount of resources would be redeployed more equitably throughout the region. That would be a worthy outcome but not really a cost savings.

 

It's being assumed here people want efficient government.     That's debatable at best.   The way the President's party always does poorly in midterm elections suggests people are more interested in restraining government.

1 minute ago, E Rocc said:

 

It's being assumed here people want efficient government.     That's debatable at best.   The way the President's party always does poorly in midterm elections suggests people are more interested in restraining government.

 

Mergers are a great way to restrain government and cut red tape.

3 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

This from someone warning the rest of us about making assumptions.

 

Part of the video @coneflower posted was a retelling of the story of the proposed four-municipality merger of Moreland Hills, Orange, Pepper Pike and Woodmere (a story which many older urbanists and regionalism advocates here will already know).  You can't possibly say that that fizzled because "hatred and fear of cities" from "Boomers."

 

Absolutely no one suggested including Warrensville Heights or even Highland Hills in that merger.   That's what a county merger would be more like.  

 

Regionalism can and does happen with similar municipalities, but pushing for larger mergers can sabotage even that.

1 hour ago, Luke_S said:

 

Their 2022 10K lists 8080 Norton Parkway, Mentor as their Principle Executive Offices

 

Regardless, Avery Dennison is a bad example because they already had a large presence in Ohio.

 

I specifically asked, "when was the last time a fortune 1000 enterprise from outside of Ohio moved their HQ or major operations to NEO?"

 

Allow me to rephrase.....When was the last time a fortune 1000 company, with no current operations, moved to NEO? I'm genuinely curious.

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by Clefan98

8 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

Mergers are a great way to restrain government and cut red tape.

 

Or do the opposite if the people running the larger government are so inclined.

1 minute ago, E Rocc said:

 

Or do the opposite if the people running the larger government are so inclined.

 

That's not what happened to regions who have been through mergers though. What you're perpetuating is more fear.

6 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

Regardless, Avery Dennison is a bad example because they already had a large presence in Ohio.

 

I specifically said, "when was the last time a fortune 1000 enterprise from outside of Ohio moved their HQ or major operations to NEO?

 

When was the last time a fortune 1000 company, with no current operations, moved to NEO? I'm genuinely curious.

 

How common is it, in general, for an F1000 to move its HQ somewhere it has no pre-existing presence?

I would suspect very rare, in this era.

5 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

 

That's not what happened to regions who have been through mergers though. What you're perpetuating is more fear.

 

Skepticism, which is always valid.    Look how grabby the county council has gotten since it was formed.  

Just now, E Rocc said:

 

How common is it, in general, for an F1000 to move its HQ somewhere it has no pre-existing presence?

I would suspect very rare, in this era.

 

It happens. Sherwin looked at sites in Atlanta because of lower corporate taxes and less overall levels of government to deal with.

47 minutes ago, Clefan98 said:

Regardless, Avery Dennison is a bad example because they already had a large presence in Ohio.

 

I specifically said, "when was the last time a fortune 1000 enterprise from outside of Ohio moved their HQ or major operations to NEO?"

 

Allow me to rephrase.....When was the last time a fortune 1000 company, with no current operations, moved to NEO? I'm genuinely curious.

The only one I can think of is Figgie International who moved to NEO from Richmond VA.  Of course they were originally in NEO before moving to Richmond, so they probably don't count. They did have a couple small operations here when they returned, but I believe most of the others were elsewhere. 

 

Edited July 6, 20231 yr by LibertyBlvd

Here is an example of regionalism "stalling." Do we think outreach to Cuyahoga County council people makes a difference? 

 

https://www.wvxu.org/2023-07-18/north-coast-community-development-corporation-plan-stalls-in-cuyahoga-county-council

On 7/6/2023 at 2:56 PM, Clefan98 said:

 

Not saying there isn't a labor shortage but the number of people holding government jobs in Cleveland's MSA is only down .96% since 2016.

What's the population of the Cleveland MSA -- about 2.0M? So about 6.5% government employees?  How are we defining "government jobs" here?  Teachers and firefighters included? Is this municipal employees only?  County employees?

 

How does that compare to other big cities -- Minneapolis has a big regional government, right? -- what about NYC, LA, Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte, Boston, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville -- how do these other big cities compare on percentage of population being government employees?

 

In Ohio (tenth in population, 22nd in per capita government spending, and 39th in government employees at all levels) we're at 14% government employees (but that is at all levels, not just local).

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/13/states-where-the-most-people-work-for-the-government/39461227/

 

 

Are there other big cities that have consolidated their municipal governments and employ far fewer people per capita than the Cleveland MSA's 6.5%?

 

 

Interesting tidbit on how Cleveland Water and the City of Cleveland are negotiating new contracts with the burbs:

 

Middleburg Heights mulls new 20-year Cleveland Water contract

 

"A long discussion ensued because CWD and Middleburg Heights would be bound to a contract that forbids business poaching. If a business with an annual payroll of $500,000 or more relocates from Cleveland to Middleburg Heights, Middleburg Heights must pay Cleveland 50 percent of future income tax revenues from that business for five years."

 

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2024/02/middleburg-heights-mulls-new-20-year-cleveland-water-contract.html

 

1 hour ago, Mov2Ohio said:

Interesting tidbit on how Cleveland Water and the City of Cleveland are negotiating new contracts with the burbs:

 

Middleburg Heights mulls new 20-year Cleveland Water contract

 

"A long discussion ensued because CWD and Middleburg Heights would be bound to a contract that forbids business poaching. If a business with an annual payroll of $500,000 or more relocates from Cleveland to Middleburg Heights, Middleburg Heights must pay Cleveland 50 percent of future income tax revenues from that business for five years."

 

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2024/02/middleburg-heights-mulls-new-20-year-cleveland-water-contract.html

 

Good,should be the case for the whole region