Building trust remains top priority

The past 12 months have seen the city of Painesville continue revitalizing both trust and image to its residents and neighboring communities.

“It’s been an issue for a long time,” City Manager Monica Irelan admits. “Even though the crime’s not what it used to be, people have that stuck in their head and they remember their mom saying ‘don’t walk alone on this street in Painesville.’ Because of that, they’ve grown up fearing Painesville.

“We have our work cut out for us, but we have a concerted effort going in and trying to change that perception.”

Irelan outlined four strategic goals at the onset of 2018 with a primary focus that sought to

“strengthen community communications and engagement.”

To this end, the city hired Guide Studios for a series of focus groups that spoke with residents and business owners to better understand the community’s immediate needs. The Studio will also help in rebranding the city’s logo which will be unveiled in early 2019.

Another of Irelan’s stated goals was to “strengthen infrastructure to support the city’s mission.”

This was helped by city voters approving the renewal of a road levy for another five years. A multi-year plan was then rolled out which shifted away from the triage-based mentality of addressing the worst-looking streets first.

“In the past, roads were always looked at with blinders on. ‘Which roads were the worst let’s attack those’,” Irelan explained. “We took six to nine months to plan out all the main water, sewer, and storm sewer projects that were necessary and tied that back to how bad the road conditions were.

“This plan is comprehensive,” she added. “It’s not necessarily the worst roads in town that are getting fixed as it is the roads tied to the worst water and sewer lines in town so we’re not ripping up brand new roads to put in mains a few years down the road.”

Even with the renewed road levy, it alone will not be enough to finance the five year road plan’s $17.34 million price tag. While several grants will be explored throughout the process, Irelan has stated that there are no new tax increases slated for 2019.

“The only area we will be discussing is water rates,” she adds. “They haven’t been increased or looked at in quite a while. In order to commit to this road plan we need to have some money on the water side, so we’ll have that discussion in ‘19.”

The rehabilitation followed suit within the city’s police force as Dan Waterman rang in his first New Year’s as the department’s chief. His first full year as chief has seen a focus on community policing. Officers can now be found making routine rounds throughout the city’s schools during the day, not only to familiarize themselves with floor layouts but to create and enhance bonds with Painesville’s next generation.

A pair of road safety grants were awarded to the police department totaling $56K and to be utilized through September of 2019. A subsequent drugged driving grant was also awarded and will see implementation in early 2019.

There also was a record for residential calls to police requesting service in 2018. The 22,528 calls was a 4 percent rise from 2017, which in itself was 9 percent higher than the year before that.

While not all of emergency nature, 22.6 percent of calls came from the city’s Ward 1.

Police staff numbers remain healthy, according to Waterman, but the department continues to seek out Hispanic officers to reach parity with the city’s residential demographics.

Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti continued his trend of unusual and specifically apropos sentencing.

In May, Cicconetti sentenced David Luoma to stand outside of a church on Mother’s Day and wish every mother a Happy Mother’s Day for striking his elderly mother.

After cutting the letters “FU” on the lawn of Fairport Harding High School in June, Cicconetti sentenced Cody Scott to cut the football team’s practice field with a push mower. The next month, Painesville Township resident Bayley Toth was ordered to clean out the animal stalls at the Lake County Fair after being caught tipping over Port-a-Potties.

The Painesville School District, while providing community-enriching events, has suffered in testing and earned a district-wide F grade by the Ohio Department of Education. Heritage Middle School was the only school within the district to individually earn a grade above a D.

Superintendent Joshua Englehart offered an explanation in a recent interview.

“We’re really falling down in later-elementary math,” he said. “We, as a district, have invested heavily in literacy instruction. You don’t see that same pattern in math because we have really dedicated time and our limited human resources to literacy.

“At a certain extent its been at the expense of building our math program and curriculum. Now we’re pivoting and trying to make the same investment in our math department.”

Economically, Painesville has seen the benefits with the expansions of pre-existing industrial companies Mar-Bal and Aero Fluid Products.

“That was huge,” Irelan comments. “Those are lots of jobs coming to the community and manufacturing, which is good for income tax.”

New additions like Eastern Revival Skate Shop, Flowers on Main, and Old San Juan Jewelers arrived in the downtown area in 2018. Plans have also been made for the Fairport Dance Academy to join these in 2019.

Administrators are encouraged by the steady growth of business but acknowledge with a residential median age around 30 that there remains opportunities to enhance the city’s nightlife.

Economic Development Director Cathy Bieterman elaborated on the need.

“We continue to hear from the community that they want more activity within the evening in our downtown area,” she said. “So we’re really looking to target more eatery establishments that are open later.”

“We need to find the core businesses,” Irelan agreed. “We need more nightlife. People want restaurants, they want entertainment. We just haven’t been able to provide that in the past but we’re working on it. They want to be here, they want to stay here.”