The Observation Deck

Ten years later, the region is still shedding people faster than ever.

Regionalism as preached, is like hugging the anchor.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111709/us-cities-running-out-of-people


FWIW

_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

CLE+ is not a symbol of a new reanisance it is a symbol of surrender. It is the epithany, the realization that the game is over; rather than renew Cleveland and make the County competative the leaderhip simply redifined success.

The new attitude is: It doesn't matter if a Cuyahoga County company moves to Summit or Lorain or Lake County or Youngstown or Toledo; the region will still benefit!

The living symbol of CLE +:

Building Cuyahoga Community College's new campus in an industrial park on the borders of Lorain County. It would be nice if some of our community leaders would speak out against it. Our leadership has to challenge the institutions. Don't hold your breath.

I would venture to say Tri-C went west because that is where the customers are. The area has boomed over the last decade. Like any good business, it pays to be close to your customers. If you lived in Westlake/Avon and were to go back to school and you had a choice of either Tri-C downtown or Westlake, where would you go? Or would you drive another 20 minutes to LCCC? It’s all about convenience.

The corruption in Cuyahoga County over the last decade (if not two or three decades) has cost hundreds of millions if not billions in economic damage to the County. There was no way in hell that Cuyahoga County would have ever been competitive with the culture of corruption that we’ve seen. You don’t pay, you don’t play. Nepotism and cronyism. All forcing honest businesses to shut their doors or move while costing taxpayers untold amounts. I’m ecstatic that we have new leadership in the County that will root out corruption in all forms and set a straight path for the future (lets hope the Council gets with it soon). No one will ever know what the County would have looked like if the corruption like we’ve seen had not existed. It will take a long time and include the efforts of many, including CLE+, to dig out of the hole the County is in.

_________________
I was going to sue her for defamation of character but then I realized I had no character – Charles Barkley

Exactly. I've seen Bill bring this topic up a number of times, but he seems to be overlooking this fact. Say that Tri-C decided to open their new campus in Lakewood instead of Westlake. Certainly this would be a great convenience to students living in Lakewood, but would it do anything to attract students from Westlake or Bay Village who might otherwise choose to attend LCCC? Probably not. And it certainly wouldn't do anything to attract additional students from Lorain County. I would argue that to maximize enrollment growth potential, and to be competitive with LCCC in the northwestern part of the county, the new campus should be located as far west as possible (which it was). Tri-C is funded by the taxpayers of the entire county; therefore their expansion plans need to be made with the entire county's best interests in mind.

edit: I should add that Tri-C isn't exactly an engine for growth. I don't think that having them in Lakewood would've been much of a boon to the City, nor do I think that its presence will cause many people or businesses to relocate to Westlake. Their plan to expand westward is clearly a reaction to sprawl, but I can't see it causing much additional sprawl.

http://www.lorainccc.edu/Tuition+and+Fees/default.htm

http://tri-c.edu/payingforcollege/Pages ... edule.aspx

I suspect you are correct; Tri-C might have made the decision to build its new campus in the middle of an industrial park on the borders of Lorain County to better serve the residents of Lorain County. But why would they do that? After all, Lorain County residents do not pay taxes to support Tri-C and Lorain County has its own community college.

http://www.tri-c.edu/about/Documents/08 ... gs_web.pdf

Property taxes: $82 million
Tuition: $35 million

Lorain Community College
Property taxes: $11 million

http://morningjournal.com/articles/2010 ... 595733.txt

Property taxes in North Ridgeville: 1.7% of market value
Property taxes in Lakewood: 2.89% of market value

Cuyahoga County resident tuition - $84.56
Lorain County non-resident tuition - $119.00
Lorain County resident tuition - $98.80

I guess the new Western Campus is an example of CLE+ in action. The people of Cuyahoga County pay 70% more in property taxes but the residents of Lorain County get to use the facilities that those taxes pay for.

I think we can all appreciate the plight of the Bay Village student torn between his desire to get an education and his fear of driving to Lakewood.

I think you misunderstood my point - I wasn't suggesting that their intention was to better serve Lorain County residents. It appears that their intention is to steal LCCC's potential students. Tri-C can serve its Cuyahoga County tax base from the far western location just as well as it could from Lakewood. However, the fact is that Cuyahoga County's population is shrinking. If Tri-C wants to bring in additional tuition dollars through growing its enrollment, locating a new campus in Lakewood (or any other inner ring suburb for that matter) won't do anything to help that cause.

Also, Lakewood is already pretty well served by the Metro campus 10-15 minutes away. The far western part of the county is not. Bill, like you I would've loved for that new campus to have been located in Lakewood, but it wouldn't have made sense on a lot of levels.