Shaker Heights Safety Forces Misused a Week After Issue 1 Passage: Letter to the Editor
Shaker Heights resident Angela Marino writes about an incident she believes exemplifies what's wrong with the police department and city government following the passage of Issue 1
(Tuesday evening), around 5:45pm, there were 3 police officers, 2 police cruisers and the K-9 unit on my street, Rawnsdale Road. There were officers on my property and I asked them what was going on. They said they were looking for a kid without a bicycle helmet!
There were 2 members of the bike patrol there also. What a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. A few weeks ago, Mayor Leiken threatened the residents of Shaker to bully residents into voting for an unnecessary income tax increase by stating that the police department would only be able to respond to the most serious of crimes if the income tax increase did not pass. Well, now that it passed, it looks the police department is bored but has to justify their double and triple overtime so they send out 5 city employees to look for a kid without a bike helmet.
Unbelievable.
On July 4th, my 15 year old son was jumped, beaten, robbed and had to be taken to the hospital. When I called 911, the response was that there was no one available to help him because all employees were at the fireworks!
Fortunately, the county prosecutors are doing their job and the criminals are about to be sentenced. Shaker was the laughing stock of the state, but now they have the great distinction of being the laughing stock of the country, Bloomberg report, etc.
I'm sure the 4200 residents who voted for this increase will be very happy with the way Shaker spends its money, the other 18,000 registered voters, not so much.
Mark Zetzer
11:13 am on Thursday, August 16, 2012
I was thinking the same thing this morning as I struggled financially to fill up my aging econobox with $4/gallon gasoline at the local BP. Up pulled a giant Shaker Police SUV, which probably costs taxpayers close to $100 to fill up. Now I know why more of my pay will be missing every two weeks: so that the City of Shaker Heights doesn't have to change their wasteful ways. What we need in this city is a tax levy vote during a general Novemember election. Then we might see how the community really feels about higher taxes!
Katarina Cerny
12:01 pm on Thursday, August 16, 2012
Where were all the people last week? Why did so few turn out for the vote? I can't believe that 18,000 voters were on vacation last week, but I agree that the vote should have been in November. I don't know what the city does with our tax money - the roads are terrible, full of potholes and patches which come out in winter. It's a disgrace.