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"Envision Lorain" Touted As Model

The plan is the result of several years work by Lorain officials, with help from the Public Services Institute at Lorain County Community College.
Mayor Tony Krasienko says the idea was to give the city a sustainable plan through the year 2020.

MAYOR TONY KRASIENKO:
"This city will have a direction, and a plan of where it's going no matter who the mayor is. And we'll be able to have achievable initiatives and that it all works toward these strategic priorities that have been given to us from the citizens of Lorain."

He explained surveys of city residents conducted at the outset revealed a wide gap between the people's wishes and the government's ideas.
They showed residents favor things like bringing a hotel and restaurants back downtown, and redeveloping some other areas. Those are now part of the new plan.

Another part is collaboration with Lorain County, and with the city of Elyria, which is characteristically very similar to Lorain. But there are obstacles the two cities must overcome to work together. They considered possibly merging services like health or emergency dispatch units to gain efficiency and save money, but found Ohio law requires the cities be contiguous to fully merge departments.

Krasienko hopes to petition state lawmakers for a change in that provision.

MAYOR TONY KRASIENKO:
"For us to be able to continue as a city, as a government, as a nation, we've gotta get past those obstacles, and they're gonna be difficult."

In the past, when manufacturing was king in Northeast Ohio, Elyria and Lorain considered themselves rivals. But Elyria Mayor Bill Grace, and the police chiefs and health directors of both cities joined Krasienko for the unveiling on Monday.

The mayor says projects such as revitalizing the route 57 corridor or building a deep water port on the Black River could be years off - but the city needs to start planning now, he says, and this "Strategic Plan' is the first step.

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Rick Jackson is a senior host and producer at Ideastream Public Media. He hosts the "Sound of Ideas" on WKSU and "NewsDepth" on WVIZ.