In pushing the half point tax increase, Mayor Earl Leiken recently sent a letter to Shaker Heights residents. It reads like an “End of Days” scenario, inner-ring style. Leiken says his administration is prepared to enforce cuts to city services…to the letter.
“We would have to eliminate backyard pickup, eliminate support for the Shaker Family Center… eliminate senior transportation..," says Leiken. "We have some “no layoff” provisions that we gave employees in exchange for their wage freezes, but those expire in January, so we’d have police, fire, public works and other employee layoffs.”
The mayor is very specific. The city currently stands to lose about $6 million due to the state’s elimination of the estate tax, the commercial activity tax, and local government support funds. That’s about 17 percent of what the city spends now….outside of schools.
So, Mayor Leiken says if the income tax hike fails, he’d be forced to cut existing fire and police departments by 17 percent; cut the public works department by 20 percent. And all school crossing guards. That’s on top of the nearly 60 jobs he’s already eliminated. The mayor says that would be devastating.
“I think managing the quality of life in our community is extremely important both to retaining our existing residents, and to make the community attractive to new residents," continues Leiken. "And retain Shaker’s character as a very strong, attractive, desirable community both within our region, and on a national basis.”
Raymond Rackley isn’t buying it. He’s a physician living on Falmouth Road. He calls the tax hike proposal a “short-term solution” that’ll harm Shaker in the long-run.
“We really want them (city leaders) to start to govern and right-size their government so that we can preserve Shaker," says Rackley. "Beachwood, Pepper Pike, Orange, Cleveland Heights, and Solon are much more competitive as places to live and raise your families, and grow your business, and to pay reasonable taxes in. But it’s not Shaker Heights anymore. And we lost our edge, we want our edge back.”
Rackley is with the Shaker Heights Taxpayers Union, a fledgling group of roughly 40 residents that’s emerged to fight against Issue 1, the tax proposal.
Other critics say the city could renegotiate labor contracts and avoid more layoffs by lowering wages, not just freezing salaries. Angela Marino is a teacher who lives in Shaker’s Sussex area. She calls the prospect of cutting fire and police services “a scare tactic”, and accuses Shaker’s leadership of not fully exploring all its options.
“We’re a city of about 28,000 people, and it’s getting smaller every day. We could eliminate the house department for a half million dollar savings….there’s building inspection, housing inspection, planning, neighborhood revitalization, some of those departments are not really pulling in a return for the city.”
Mayor Leiken defends the current structure of his city’s government, particularly housing.
“…because it maintains housing standards and is what allows us to maintain the stability of our housing stock in our neighborhoods. Through their efforts to check on properties, insist on adhering to certain community standards, and monitoring of vacant properties and so forth.”
The debate intrigues Kevin O’Brien, of the Great Lakes Environmental Finance Center. He says Shaker Heights has branded itself as a model community, and suggests it’s still trying to hold onto that image.
“It’s perhaps the most beautiful residential community in the United States. Incredibly high architectural standards when it was built in the 30s, and 40s, and 50s. And it attracted more affluent people. They liked having a community that was unique and offered great services.”
Shaker is in more of a bind than many Cuyahoga communities. Part of its “character” is that it is overwhelmingly residential. There are few businesses to tax; it’s homeowners and individual income earners.
“I don’t think anyone increases income tax or property tax frivolously," says O'Brien. "It’s very difficult and unbelievably unpopular for elected officials. And obviously a burden on many – if not most – of the people who live in the community to have taxes increase, especially right now following a recession and when property values are low.”
O’Brien adds that in the long term though, Shaker and other communities need to seriously revisit their operations -- and redundancies-- across municipal boundaries.