Wednesday, June 15, 2011

MAPLE HEIGHTS, THE MAPLE HEIGHTS MAYOR, AND THAT DAMN OFFENSIVE EMAIL

May 21st, a person by the name of Marcus B sent a not so nice email to Mayor Jeffrey Lansky (or Maple Hts City Council) about the mayor's salary [which, when last we looked, was around $100,000 a year; ... according to Payscale.com, as of 2011, the average yearly salary for a mayor ranged from $35,000 to $83,000, with some mayors in small cities  earning less than $1,000 per month]


 Maple Hts population / Cleveland population / Cleveland Mayor's salary / Shaker Hts population / Shaker Heights Mayor's salary / Lakewood Mayor salary (pop: 52,000)


We've got a question ... Did this mayor's salary increase or decrease with the decline in Maple Heights population (which according to the 2010 US census was 23,138 - That kind of population puts Maple Heights in the small municipality category).  Unfortunately, the mayor's message page still states 26,000 (hopefully that will be updated before the 2011 elections). [Update 7/2012 ... mayor finally corrected the population number on his message page.]

The mayor got down and (you fill in the word) with his reply to that email, seeming to deflect any criticism of him onto an upcoming mayoral race, dragging his opponent into the mix and also implying his opponent is corrupt (so everyone who works for, or worked for Cuyahoga County is corrupt?), and either a criminal or someone who palls around with criminals (does this sound familiar? -2008 BO was accused of palling around w criminals/ or the big "T" word). Just so happens the mayor is Caucasian and his mayoral opponent is African American. What's interesting is, this Mayor was said to have endorsed County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones (in 2008) who county prosecutors say "traded votes for campaign contributions". To be fair, as far as we know, Jones has not been charged.

About the "double dipping" ... It's not against the law to retire (with a pension) from one employer, and then go to work for another employer (public or private). In addition, there are public employees who work in Maple Heights government, who have retired from another public job.  The mayor chose to single out his opponent.

As hard as his opponent works as a councilwoman for district 7 (in addition to calls she responds to, from residents all over Maple Heights), that little salary (from which she will receive no pension) she gets from Maple Heights, doesn't begin to compensate her fairly.  [Another thing we like about her ... she's not a "kiss ass" ... probably one of the reasons why the mayor has a problem with her]

There's more to this story than meets the eye.

Mayor Jeffrey Lansky is also a former Republican. We call conservative Democrats and  former Republicans who move to the Democratic Party , New Democrats; and these New Democrats seem to be popping up all over Cleveland area suburbs. [Note: Issue 6 pushed by business leaders]

In a city of about 70% minority residents (68%+ African American), it's deplorable that there's never been any African American fire-fighters in Maple Hts. Cleveland had and has African American fire-fighters and fire chiefs, and there are an abundance of African American police officers (even chiefs), so the "they can't pass the test" used to justify no African American fire-fighters in Maple Hts, doesn't fly. [Is the test different? / Do whites receive advanced tutoring on how to pass the test? ]. The Maple Heights police department's diversity record (of hiring full time police officers) is almost as dismal and appears to be getting worse under the current mayor.  [update: As of 8/2011 there was 1 minority / Also learned that candidates may have to go through a 3 part process of hiring which includes being interviewed by the mayor, police chief and one other. African American candidates who have passed the written test, are often eliminated when they go before the "3 man team" for the interview (or so we've been told)],

[Percentage of Maple Heights residents living in poverty in 2009: 13.2%(8.7% for White Non-Hispanic residents, 15.7% for Black residents, 13.3% for Hispanic or Latino residents, 0.0% for American Indian residents, 0.0% for other race residents, 24.1% for two or more races residents)]

Check out the road crews ... if you see any African Americans, please give a shout out cause we've never seen one. As far as we can see, the other 30% (Caucasian) of the population appears to be seemingly catered to in various areas (ever go to one of their summer concerts?), and Caucasian Maple Hts government employees, some who don't even live in alleged financially strapped Maple Hts, seem to be drawing pretty decent to high salaries. In essence, the 30% runs the city. Got something to say about all this ... council meeting at the Maple Hts Senior Center, June 15th at 7pm.

[Maple Heights residents ... start looking into those Maple Heights government employee salaries (particularly benefits), since you're paying these employees.  Remember, they work for you!]

What Role for Labor in the Progressive Uprising? A Conversation With Labor Strategist Stephen Lerner | | AlterNet  by Amy Dean

Is there a pattern that keeps coming up time and time again
[This mayor himself acknowledges he's sued a bunch of folks and counting.  What's up with that?]

Update 11/21/2011:
 'Income Achievement Gap' Almost Double Black-White Performance Gap, Report Shows
by Louis Freedberg 


Contact Fox 8 news for the video  interview with Mayor Lansky, since video is no longer on their server.  We bought a copy of the interview from Fox 8.


Reference with keywords: Richard Trojanski denies involvement,  or "keisha cornbread", or "man named silk"