🚀 go-pugleaf

From 'Scott Nicol':

>As for neighborhoods, east side I'd say Cleveland Heights and
>west side Lakewood - both are large, close suburbs with a wide
>variety of housing and lots of walkable areas.  Both are fine
>places to find an apartment and settle down for 6 months to find
>areas that you really want to live in.  There are lots of nice
>neighborhoods in other cities (including Cleveland itself).

I lived in Cleveland Hts and it's beautiful. But there are two problems.

1. Property taxes are high because CH has no industry. It's all homes, retail
and small businesses.

2. The police are obnoxious. I understand they are there to enforce laws,
and I don't begrudge them their job, but -- well, let me give you an example.

February 1999. I'd moved into the house (a rental property up near Cedar
and Lee) the previous month. There were four people living in our side of the
duplex, and four in the other. Eight cars, and only enough driveway room for
six. So two of us parked on the lawn, which is illegal, but we didn't have
a choice because we couldn't park on the one street our house bordered (no
parking at all) and we couldn't park on the other one after midnight.

One Sunday someone knocked on the door. I opened the door, and there was a
cop outside.

"What can I do for you?" I said.

At this point the cop decided to go ballistic on me. He started yelling.
"You're breaking the law, and I could write you two tickets! What's your
problem?" (There was actually more than that, but I'll spare you the rest.)

He *could* have written two tickets. Besides being on the grass, my car
was sitting partially on the sidewalk. 

But there were a couple issues here.

#1. If he'd written the ticket(s), I would have marched into court and
promptly had them dismissed. As with many cities with parking regulations
regarding front lawns, in Cleveland Heights, it's the OWNER of the property
that is cited for violations. As I mentioned before, I was renting. He
couldn't legally have cited me!

#2. I don't care how bad a day you're having, nor do I care whether I'm
breaking the law -- that still doesn't give you, as a cop, the right to
get in my face and start being nasty to me. There is simply no reason to do
it. If you are in law enforcement and I am committing a crime, your job is
to cite me, arrest me, or do whatever else the law prescribes for the
particular crime I'm committing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not, by any
stretch of the imagination, saying that the CHPD should not be allowed to do
its job... just that they don't have the right to be abusive while doing it.

Anyhow, this guy was going off on me, and although it's not generally a
good idea to yell at a cop, I finally hollered "HEY! I'm just trying to be
polite. What's YOUR problem?"

And he looked at me, and I looked at him, for a few seconds.

Then he apologized.

And I explained, "The landlord is going to widen the driveway after he gets
a variance from the city. He obviously can't do it now, in the middle of
winter."

And the guy said, "Ok, I'll let the other guys know so they don't hassle you."

That saved him from a possible write-up... if he hadn't done me that favor,
I was going to raise hell with the PD no matter how much he apologized.
Since he offered to talk to the other officers, I decided to let the matter
drop.

Also, there have been a couple articles about the extreme manner in which
the CHPD enforces laws, where residents complain and chief Martin Lentz
basically tells them to go pound salt. (Sorry, Chief, but don't we pay your
salary? Is that fact lost on you?)

In the interest of fairness, I have never felt anything other than
completely safe while living in CH. And the couple times when I needed the
police, they were there for me. But if a guy starts being extremely verbally
abusive towards me for a *parking violation*, I shudder to think what they'd
do to people who commit more serious crimes.

It is the CHPD's heavy-handed enforcement tactics that made me decide not to
stay in CH when my lease expired. I love everything else about the city.
It's a gorgeous area with a huge diversity of housing stock from $90K
starter homes to million-dollar mansions; between Cain Park and University
Circle there are lots of cultural events to go to; and there's lots of green
space. There are lots of OTHER things about CH that make it a great place to
live. Except for the PD. (And the school board -- but that's another topic :)


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