The residents didn't know until two months ago when the PD started covering it. Don't forget that in 2010, the tax increase hardly passed and 80% of the people who had their taxes raised didn't live in Beachwood and couldn't vote. The Mayor told everyone in 2010 they were operating on the leanest meanest budget to campaign for the increase. If it was known then all the things the PD has reported but were kept from the public, I bet it would have failed by a good margin.
Everytime someone says the residents of Beachwood don't care, I have to remind them that no one knew of this stuff until recently. Now they know, we will see if they care.
In the PD today, there was an article about Moreland Hills, Orange, Pepper Pike and Woodmere deciding against merging. These four cities combined have 13,500 residents vs Beachwood's 12,000, they have 18 square miles vs Beachwood's 5 square miles.
These cities combined are very similar to Beachwood in the fact that they all offer top notch services and have a wealthy population. One would logically assume that the combined cities spend more in total on the cost of providing government than Beachwood. After all, these four cities have more residents and 3.5x more square miles as well as the inefficiency of four separate governments each with their own police, fire and service staff. If you assumed Beachwood spent less, you would be very wrong.
These four combined cities spend $27m annually while Beachwood is projecting to spend over $61.5m this year. How can this be? These cities are also known for their nice neighborhoods, housing, schools and services. They have more people and way more land than Beachwood. They must have a lot of overlap and inefficiencies since there are 4 separate governments. Despite all this, they spend half as much as Beachwood?
I laugh when some of the spending is explained as "Beachwood has a great brand and the spending in question are important to keep this brand". Pepper Pike, Orange and Moreland Hills all have equal or better brands then Beachwood and they are able to achieve this without spending $42K to pay for the Mayor to have a fancy car. This is just an BS excuse to justify this illogical spending and a perfect example of how poor Beachwood has been managed.
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The residents didn't know until two months ago when the PD started covering it. Don't forget that in 2010, the tax increase hardly passed and 80% of the people who had their taxes raised didn't live in Beachwood and couldn't vote. The Mayor told everyone in 2010 they were operating on the leanest meanest budget to campaign for the increase. If it was known then all the things the PD has reported but were kept from the public, I bet it would have failed by a good margin.
Everytime someone says the residents of Beachwood don't care, I have to remind them that no one knew of this stuff until recently. Now they know, we will see if they care.
These cities combined are very similar to Beachwood in the fact that they all offer top notch services and have a wealthy population. One would logically assume that the combined cities spend more in total on the cost of providing government than Beachwood. After all, these four cities have more residents and 3.5x more square miles as well as the inefficiency of four separate governments each with their own police, fire and service staff. If you assumed Beachwood spent less, you would be very wrong.
These four combined cities spend $27m annually while Beachwood is projecting to spend over $61.5m this year. How can this be? These cities are also known for their nice neighborhoods, housing, schools and services. They have more people and way more land than Beachwood. They must have a lot of overlap and inefficiencies since there are 4 separate governments. Despite all this, they spend half as much as Beachwood?
I laugh when some of the spending is explained as "Beachwood has a great brand and the spending in question are important to keep this brand". Pepper Pike, Orange and Moreland Hills all have equal or better brands then Beachwood and they are able to achieve this without spending $42K to pay for the Mayor to have a fancy car. This is just an BS excuse to justify this illogical spending and a perfect example of how poor Beachwood has been managed.
Mike Burkons