While the nation has woken up with a fighting spirit, saying "hell no" to a host of efforts to strip them of their civil liberties, women's rights, worker's rights and consumer rights, ... Maple Heights voted back almost the same old crew of years ago.
Nasty (stinking) politics, arrogance, intimidation, and money rocked Maple Heights, and we don't think the place will ever be the same.
Folks are leaving Maple Heights, ... fed up with home foreclosures, negative job growth, and high unemployment (pretty much what the nation is fed up with); and fed up with burglaries, rising taxes (and receiving less for their money), less than desirable student academic performance, and racial disparities.
Malaise permeates the city of Maple Heights.
What is and is not funny about what just happened in Maple Heights, is that for all the mayor's focus on county corruption, his city would not have the homeowner face lift its received, without county money loaned to homeowners to fix up their properties.
What is and is not funny about what just happened in Maple Heights, is that for all the mayor's focus on issues surrounding issue 6 (and his love of issue 6), progressive Democrats, and not the business community, were responsible for most of the large projects in his city.
What's depressing, is that a lot of that money, flowed to people (businesses) who largely did not live in Maple Heights, and who hired little to no minorities from Maple Heights.
We see the mayor of Maple Heights doing what (we think) he does best ... suing people (we aren't saying always successfully) who oppose him. Perhaps he's delivering a message, ... if you criticize him, ... if you oppose him, you may just get sued or perhaps investigated. Will someone please give Ciaravino a phone call?
What's depressing, is that a lot of that money, flowed to people (businesses) who largely did not live in Maple Heights, and who hired little to no minorities from Maple Heights.
We see the mayor of Maple Heights doing what (we think) he does best ... suing people (we aren't saying always successfully) who oppose him. Perhaps he's delivering a message, ... if you criticize him, ... if you oppose him, you may just get sued or perhaps investigated. Will someone please give Ciaravino a phone call?
What will remain (we feel), unless the minority community and all residents of Maple Heights wake up, ... is high unemployment, poor job growth rate, home foreclosures, increasing taxes, continued decline in population and less than desirable student academic performance.
What will remain (we feel), is residents (especially property owners) who will be faced with paying a lot of salaries and benefits to a large majority of people who work in Maple Heights government, but don't live in Maple Heights.
[Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2009: 13.2%(8.7% for White Non-Hispanic residents, 15.7% for Black residents, 13.3% for Hispanic or Latino residents, 0.0% for American Indian residents, 0.0% for other race residents, 24.1% for two or more races residents)]
What Maple Heights residents must not forget, is that the people they just rehired (people who have worked for them before), ... do in fact, work for them and not the other way around; and that, they better pay very close attention to the finances, legislation, and projects ... very close attention. We don't think that these are financial wizards the residents just rehired. We believe most of them have no clue with regards to innovation, social media, and new technologies; and sorely lack vision for this 21st century. We believe most of them are stuck in the past, and most are the same ones who were around when the decline started.
*And you folks near the railroad ... make sure no one messes with your settlement money.
And will someone tell us who bought Southgate USA? Wouldn't it be funny if .......
Update 11/21/2011:
'Income Achievement Gap' Almost Double Black-White Performance Gap, Report Shows
by Louis Freedberg
What Role for Labor in the Progressive Uprising? A Conversation With Labor Strategist Stephen Lerner | | AlterNet by Amy Dean
We love our unions, but damn, ....
Did this portion of a collective bargaining agreement go through?:
[collective bargaining agreement regarding health insurance premiums - yep, it says that this group of gov't employees will pay only $20 (individual) / $40 (family) a month - if Maple Heights residents want to see the entire bargaining agreement, ... call Maple Hts City Hall]
December 12, 2011 UPDATE: When last we heard, Maple Heights approved this bargaining agreement.
[Seems after some Maple Heights residents became aware of this bargaining agreement, the next day Maple Heights City Council held a special meeting and approved the bargaining agreement.]
Interesting:
December 21, 2011 [Politifact Ohio]
Governor's health benefits claim a favorite from 2011
