Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH) has announced that its members will deliver more than 10,000 citizen signatures to City Council this afternoon, setting in motion a process that could put lead legislation on the November ballot if Cleveland City Council fails to act before then.
Only 5,000 signatures are required, but CLASH, whose members have been assiduously collecting signatures since February 15, doubled up as a precaution. Signatures are often deemed invalid. When the Greater Cleveland Congregations delivered upwards of 20,000 signatures in 2017 seeking referendeum on the Q Deal, for example, only about 13,000 were (ultimately) accepted.
CLASH unveiled its detailed legislation in February. It is designed to hold landlords accountable for making their properties lead-safe while also establishing protections for tenants. CLASH says its legislation is in keeping with the recommendations of the “Ohio Children’s Budget,” assembled by a number of state policy groups, and with Federal legislation currently proposed.
The CLASH bill is also an update on legislation crafted by Legal Aid alongside councilman Jeff Johnson in 2017, though that bill never received a single council hearing. The current draft has been presented to Cleveland City Council and the newly formed Cleveland Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition (LSCC).
In a Monday release announcing the signature delivery, CLASH said that LSCC declined to work from the CLASH proposal but is nevertheless “coalescing around” very similar recommendations.
“We invite LSCC to work with us during the City Council review of our proposal,” said CLASH attorney Rebecca Maurer, in the release. “We all have the same goal: protecting our City’s children from lead poisoning. We hope we can achieve that goal collaboratively with City Council and the members of LSCC. But if not, CLASH is prepared to head to the ballot box in November.”
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2019.
And, guess what else will be on the ballot box in November Yep, another ma$$ive tax levy for us property owners to have to fork over!!!
This is initiated by socialists as a means to allocate more tax funds to repair the houses of people who don’t pay taxes. At first I thought it was well meaning until it was revealed how much abating lead from these houses will cost and that this cost won’t be covered by the homeowners. As usual, the socialists are using the children as a cover for their agenda.
Lol are these comments serious? Heaven forbid we spend any taxes to REMOVE LEAD from pipes affecting thousands of POOR people! Thats SOCIALISM and if youre poor then you deserve to have a poisonous water supply! /s
This is not to remove lead from water pipes. It’s to remove lead paint from walls and window frames. All a homeowner has to do is paint over or sand away the paint. If the government is involved this will cost up to $10,000 a house that your taxes will pay for. Your house is probably lead free because you or a previous homeowner already performed the work decades ago.