Last week, the NEOMG’s Editorial Board called for the recall or resignation of Richmond Heights Mayor Miesha Headen. Headen, a former auditor and city councilwoman in Richmond Heights, has displayed “such stunning incompetence on the job,” the NEOMG claimed, “that she ought to step down.”
The crimes against her? In office for less that six months, Headen has fired key personnel — the finance director, the interim finance director, the law director, the city’s prosecutor, to name a few — and has created a culture of such hostile disarray that others have quit or intend to quit just as soon as it’s fiscally responsible to do so.
Richmond Heights’ City Council, which has pleaded ignorance to many of Headen’s actions — “All we know is what we read in the newspaper,” is their prototypical (and sort of quaint) stance on the developments — refused to honor Headen’s appointees when she tried to repopulate some of her staff in a council meeting last week.
But the thing that really got the NEOMG’s goat — you could see Chris Quinn almost chirruping with glee on the Opinion Show — was Headen’s attempt to “bat away” the video camera of cub reporter Sara Dorn, who covers Richmond Heights, Mayfield Heights, and Hillcrest with poise and aplomb for either Sun News, the NEOMG, the PD, or some other affiliated acronymic neighborhood rag.
“Don’t attack me!” Dorn can be heard telling the Mayor in the video posted to Cleveland.com and later re-posted by media blogger Jim Romenesko. Dorn was trying to get answers from Headen about her knowledge of assistant Brandeye Mells’ criminal record. Mells has come under scrutiny for two minor offenses in Lucas County. The charges came to light only after Mells took a city car for four days with Headen’s permission and left it parked in a garage in Cleveland Heights, a violation of the city’s vehicle policy (a policy Headen herself wrote).
Dorn hadn’t had much luck on the phone with Headen, so she tried to snag her in the parking lot after a meeting. Headen resisted. She later said that she was taken off guard because Dorn had always asked her permission when taking her picture or recording her for a story.
Regardless, Chris Quinn and his hound dogs have redoubled their efforts, kicking the story and its sundry spinoffs into sensationalistic gear. Online commenters sympathetic to Headen argue that Dorn tends to report the mayor’s latest “wrongdoing,” and then offer the city council’s perspective. Indeed, at least one resident feels that the NEOMG’s editorial board overlooked the fact that Richmond Heights was in desperate need of an overhaul, and though Headen may have been a tad “heavy-handed” in her dismissals, she wasn’t wrong in wanting a fresh start.
Much of the hostility between Headen and council emerged in late April, when council unanimously voted to pass a pay ordinance which ensured that Headen could not get medical benefits paid for by the city.
You heard correctly. The city’s mayor doesn’t get medical benefits. Headen makes only $15,000 as mayor of Richmond Heights and $16,000 more for her role as safety director. In total, it’s “less than any secretary working for the city,” according to Headen.
Just for some perspective: Down in Beachwood, two or three suburbs south, with a population of about 12,000 (roughly 1,000 more than Richmond Heights) Mayor Merle Gorden is the most lavishly paid elected official in the state of Ohio, collecting a base salary of $175,000, $122,000 in retirement benefits, $34,500 in social security, thousands of dollars in meals and charity events and his $42,000 GMC Arcadia.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Editorial Board.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2014.
Thank you for covering this story. The Plain Dealer’s editorial — and the amount of coverage they have dedicated to Mayor Headen — suggest to me that it is their objective to drive this lady out of office because the citizens of Richmond heights had the audacity to elect her without the PD’s endorsement.
Thank you Scene Magazine for printing facts closer to truth than what has been printed by the PD/NEOMG/Sun. This woman has been the target of council’s wrath since she began her run for mayoral office. Her fight for fiscal responsibility started when she sat on council prior as Council At Large. Richmond Heights’ books would still be years behind in the auditing process if it was not for her insisting it be done. The good old boys’ network has got to go, and they have made it more than obvious that they are NOT for the good of the people, do NOT represent nor do they WANT change OR reform. I hope your article is just the beginning. The residents of this city deserve better representation than what council in the past and currently has offered them.
Comparing Richmond Hts.’ Resources to Beechwood’s is like comparing a diamond with zirconium. Miesha Headen knew what the pay when she campaigned for the position. In short, everyone needs to stop whining about “the pay” and do the job, which she was elected to do. She is clearly an angry, frustrated woman, who used negative campaign tactics to get the position. NOW DO YOUR JOB FAIRLY AND PROFESSIONALLY. I UNDERSTAND THAT SHE ALSO FOUND A JOB (with the City) FOR THE BLOGGER, WHO WROTE STORIES DURING HER CAMPAIGN.
That is a boldfaced lie, RHResident, as the mayor could not have known in advance of the council’s evil plan to slash her salary in half and deny her health insurance. Their illegal move was nothing less than a sub rosa attempt to force the mayor out of office.
As for hiring a campaign worker, I’m not aware she has had any success in hiring anyone, as the council have blocked every single appointment she has made.
How can she do her job when city council refuses all of her highly qualified candidates?
Instead of addressing the negative commenters here who can be found by the HUNDREDS at the NEOMG website, I will address Scene Magazine here and request of them to do an investigation into RH city business for the past 20 years or so. I request that you put together a timeline on when the city decided to get into the real estate business and how that decision financially and negatively affected the Recreation Department, the Finance Department, the Police Department, which in turn started the decline of the city itself. City Hall is entrenched with individuals who are stuck in an era that existed way in the past and can’t open their eyes to the realistic diversity to which this city is encompassed. The people have been DENIED true representation and when they came forward to vote for change and reform, those entrenched in their old views showed their backward ways of thinking and behaving on many different levels. And through all the negativity they’ve shown, none of it has been in the best interest of the city itself OR the residents. An investigation into past practices on how things got done would bring all of that front and center.
Oh, and let me add quickly here regarding a possible investigation by Scene ——do it quickly before the opportunity to possibly shred documents takes place………………………
Mr. Allard, if you look into the history of Greenwood Farms and contrast that with the declining services Richmond Heights has been able to offer, you will have a capsule version of all that is wrong with the good old boys who ran this city for 20 years and who now try to frustrate every attempt the mayor has made to get this city back on course.
Thank you for this much-needed coverage.
RHResident, Your comments are so out in left field that I seriously considered not commenting. However, you are right, The Mayor did know the pay for the job. She did not know that the council would find it necessary to deny her healthcare benefits paid for by the City. And I know no one who is whining about the job. There is a lot of outcry against the council for stonewalling, stalling and denying perfectly good appointments. AND MY QUESTION TO YOU IS,,,,,WHO DID THE MAYOR HIRE FOR A JOB AT THE CITY THAT USED TO BLOG FOR HER CAMPAIGN? YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY IN KNOW, SO DIVULGE!