Talks of four east side suburbs merging into one are continuing following news that Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald selected the Rochester, N.Y.-based Center for Governmental Research to oversee the study process.
In mid-2011, county leaders and four local mayors announced intentions to merge Moreland Hills, Orange Village, Pepper Pike and Woodmere. The study will begin shortly, funded by the state’s Local Government Innovation Fund grant and a $34,130 NOACA grant, and is expected to yield information this summer.
(We still think MoreOrangeWoodPepper would be a most excellent name for whatever community comes out of this whole thing.)
Former Sun News reporter Faith Boone reported in June 2011 that one hope is to have an issue on the ballot this November.
“Because merger may be challenging for residents to accept, we must also take advantage of the excellent benefits to be gained from regional cooperative opportunities, short of formal merger, which the study should reveal,” Mayor Richard Bain of Pepper Pike says.
…Which means the unprecedented nature of a merger like this will be weighed alongside other collaborative opportunities. “Regionalism!,” as shouted from on high at the county administration’s HQ, is the budget-dictated soup du jour and one can bet that this study will act as a bellwether for future examples of sharing resources and crossing political boundaries.
This article appears in Jan 2-8, 2013.
Watch this word regionalism very carefully, and pay special attention to who is saying it.
If suburbs are talking about combining for economic benefit, that could be a good thing.
When the City of Cleveland starts saying it, it is the City trying to recapture the tax base it lost because of the forced busing fiasco of the 1980’s. And the people who are in charge still think that was a good idea. And that is still a bad thing.
When the super-rich and their corporations and net worths pool together it generally means more accumulation for them and more political power based in dollars and cents and taxes and tax breaks on capital gains. And an unstated desire to maintain the rich status quo which means the poor will mostly reamain that way and good jobs will not be created as a result of the pooled capital power, and when good jobs are created they will be given to those who are closest to the rich corporations and their owners and lawyers.
I understand how this can be a good thing for pooling resources and such, but the answer isn’t always to band together as part of a group to get the best results. Look at the European Union for example. Great idea as long as everything works, but once things get rough people start to panic that it’s going to all fall aprt.