10/01/2002 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 10/1/2002 a AUDIENCE PARTI,~IPATION ~ Dennis Lambert, 25057 Carey Lane. It was very interesting to read in today's newspaper that the city of Cleveland had negotiated with a company to move from Bedford irno Cleveland. This will bring 630 new employees into Cleveland. Cleveland Mayor Campbell took great pride in this accomplishment and in working out a deal so that Cleveland can enhance itself. He is curious if North Olmsted had any heads-up that this big move was taking place as 630 employees paying income tax would certainly help this community as well as development of property that would enhance the schools. Our community is well located near highways and the airport. Communities that aze "finicky," such as Westlake, one of the most finicky communities to get anything through, has begun doing aggressive developmern. They only have the Interstate 40 area in the Detroit/Bassett area to give them access to the rest of the world. On the east side, Highland Hts. has done tremendous development that has enhanced their tax base. They only have Interstate 271 to enhance their access to the outside world. North Olmsted has I-480, the turnpike, and airport proximity that no other community this size has. This is really one of the most ideal locations to do business in, in the entire county, if not in the entire region of northern Ohio. And we're not doing anything about it. This leads him to the topic for tonight because the schools are going forward and asking that the tax base remain the same, while a small group with its own agenda is pushing their belief that perhaps the schools could get along on a few less dollars. He would like to add one point to this idea. in that the schools receive 62% of the property taxes, and they lay so low and so quiet when it comes to development of land. The only time they raise up their voices and come to the community is when they want an increase from the public. Money comes from two places: development and enhancement of this community; from the people who live here who are going to have to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for the operation. He has not taken an official stand on the school issue, but is just putting out the idea that there's a certain air of responsibility both on the community, the city government and the schools to try and enhance what they think is most important to get the mission done. They should not necessarily take the shortest path of least resistance toward the taxpayer's pocket. A lot of tasteful development can take place in this community, and it really needs some aggessive, professional overview of what could be done. but he thinks the leadership in this community has to get the "cow town" memality out of the way it works and has to start to move forward aggressively anti professionally. Mayor Musial commented that Westlake did lose Manco to a suburb in Lorain County. With regards to North Olmsted, Bennigan's came in, Tops has moved to a new location, Babies-R-Us has increased their facilfties, Charter One has brought in a renovation, and Dillard's is a $26 million investmem in the mall which will add substantially to our payroll records. Mr. Lambert said something the Mayor said was significant, and that is all those projects were retail. There's an old saying: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." We can't rely on places to eat and places to shop indefinitely. Any professional in real estate appraisal will tell you that the first place they look at as an indicator of the economy is to strip shopping malls. That is the first indicator in retail sales of when the economy is beginning to start to go south because the retailers start to hurt. As many developments that have occurred in this community to enhance it, there have been a lot of vacant stores popping up. We're basically at zero, and not making any real headway. '~' We need to look beyond that so we have a good fair share of not only retail but we also 9