Update: Fox 8 reports that Tuesday night off-duty East Cleveland officers took to knocking on doors and speaking to residents to stump for the upcoming vote on the city’s traffic cameras. The mayor has already said that the cameras are such a cash cow for East Cleveland that if voters decide to get rid of them, he’ll have no choice but to get rid of a large percentage of the city’s police, fire, and other city employees.
“An informed voter is our police department’s best friend. If the residents of East Cleveland know what’s at stake, they will certainly vote with their conscious and we believe that they will vote to keep the security that we have in East Cleveland,” said Mayor Norton.“We’ll lose 44 percent of the police, 50 percent of the paramedics, 31 of the firefighters and then 44 percent of the service workers,” explained Officer Brandon Tisdale, as he spoke to residents.
Then he asked them if they were giving out Milky Ways or Snickers on Halloween. He just wants to know what houses he plans to hit this weekend.
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East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton told residents this week that if they vote in November to get rid of the city’s traffic cameras, he would have no choice but to lay off police, fire, and other city workers to offset the loss in revenue East Cleveland makes from the cameras.
The city employees some 200 workers. 68 of them, including 50 police and fire, got layoff notices Tuesday.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2011.
For some reason, I don’t trust Mayor Norton. Neither do I trust the word of Chief Spotts. I do, however, trust activist Art McCoy to tell me the truth; and because I do, I will vote against the red light cameras. Sorry, but like the lady said, “the cameras have to go!”
At last, truth about what the cameras represent: money, plain and simple. Too bad Norton can’t do his real job: encouraging true economic growth in his useless city. Instead of developing true economic options, East Cleveland will continue to steal from the people passing through its depressed streets. Norton represents economic growth at its laziest: steal from commuters.
Honorable Mayor Gary Norton refuses to let anyone see the financial records of the city. This even includes EC City Council (Not Brewer) who have asked for a forensic audit. The two public records cases I have filed are stalled in both the Ohio Supreme Court and case #2 in the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals (Original Action not appeal).
The bottom line is that Mayor Gary is hiding the truth about these stupid traffic cams and that is the company (not city) is making over 80% of the profits. Too bad there are no more I-Team Reporters around willing to dig into this story. Dang, I am the one who started the county corruption probe. See: Strothers vs. Rish and note the names of those people. Strothers vs. Norton is a carbon copy of that same deal. Pure corruption.