Ohio Ethics Commission Proves Councilwoman Headen Correct

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Dear Friends:

I am compelled to respond to the Plain Dealer endorsement editorial published October 24, 2013. In it, the editorial board cites my call for an official investigation into Mayor Daniel Ursu's request for City Council to authorize a $200,000 Brownfield Remediation Grant directly tied to mayoral candidate Dawud (“David”) Ali as "lobbing bombs without much proof."

I am pleased to announce that, on October 21, 2013, the proof came.  I am attaching an official Ohio Ethics Commission guidance letter which clearly proves me correct.  David Ali cannot both be mayor and have himself or his son develop the Chardon-Richmond Road Gas Station.  It begs the question: “What is Ali really running for?  To be a gas station owner, or to be a Mayor.” It cannot be both.

Ali, by his own words, claims it is his son who will develop the gas station at Chardon & Richmond Roads.  Please go right now to www.rtandrews.blogspot.com for a video interview of Ali immediately after the League of Women Voters candidates’ forum.  This is still illegal under the Ohio Ethics laws.

Dan Ursu must take responsibility.  He is a trained lawyer.  He has been Mayor of Richmond Heights for 24 years and is now seeking his seventh term.  He knows Ohio's Ethics Laws.  Perhaps Ali is too unaware of Ohio's Ethics laws to know that he cannot be Mayor and work to have his son acquire a property for the purpose of developing the Chardon Road Gas Station without being in direct violation of the law.  Perhaps, more destructively, Dawud Ali and the Dan Ursu are collaborating, with Ali's reward for an Ursu victory being a city and county subsidized gas station.

Like any public official, I am elected to inquire and ask the tough questions. In this case, I have brought to light to a deal that is suspect and smells - by almost any account.  It required a light to be shone when the Mayor requested City Council to act on the $200,000 grant.  Please know that I have and always will represent the people with honesty and integrity.  Thank you for the opportunity to present this new Ethics Commission guidance information to you.

Sincerely,

Miesha Wilson Headen

Council at Large, City of Richmond Heights

Candidate for Mayor

Is Richmond Heights family friendly? Under Mayor Daniel Ursu, the answer has been no.

A plan for a family friendly Richmond Heights.  

Our DeSan Park

DeSan Park, located on Trebisky Road, is where the children of the Richmond Heights Amateur Athletic Association (RHAAA) participate in youth baseball. For years, our children and their parents have had to contend with broken restrooms, an unusable concession stand, run down baseball fields that frequently flood because of poor drainage and an unsightly adjacent weed-filled lot which used to house tennis courts. Yet, the Mayor still sends the RHAAA a $1000 bill for “maintenance.”

Contrast that with Mayor Ursu’s use of taxpayer funds on the city-owned Greenwood Farms, a seldom used 30-acre property located on Richmond Road. With the help of $21,000 of your taxpayer dollars, the mayor secured a partial grant to build a drainage and stormwater retention basins. That’s in addition to the nearly $500,000 the city has already spent on maintenance.

Our children deserve better.

 

Our Richmond Heights City Pool

In 2013, Richmond Heights was the only community in Cuyahoga County not to have an open public pool. That fact bears repeating. In 2013, Richmond Heights was the only community in Cuyahoga County not to have an open public pool.

Our current mayor has said that the decision to close our pool was a matter of “priorities.” But let’s do the math. Our pool has annual expenses of $100,000. Our pool brings in annual revenue of $90,000. This means that it only takes $10,000 to keep our pool open for the enjoyment of the children and families of Richmond Heights.

Now let’s revisit the curious case of Greenwood Farms. Our current mayor saw fit to use $21,000 of your taxpayer dollars on Greenwood Farms instead of securing the funds needed to keep our community’s pool open.

To put it simply, having an open public pool for the families of Richmond Heights was not a priority for our current mayor.

The families of Richmond Heights deserve better.

 

Solutions for the families of Richmond Heights

As a wife and the mother of two children who participate in RHAAA youth baseball, I understand the importance of recreation services to a community. A strong recreation department and a variety of community activities help foster a sense of pride and inclusion in our community.   

If elected mayor I will:

• Keep our pool open for our families
• Resolve the drainage and maintenance issues of the DeSan Park baseball fields
• Provide our children with a soccer field at DeSan Park
• Utilize our community gazebo for events that attract our entire community
• Start a “Family Movie Night at the Pool” event series
• Have a yearly Richmond Heights Family Day event
• Ensure our city’s recreation activities provide employment and volunteer opportunities to our community’s youth
• Ensure the recreational needs of the families of Richmond Heights are a continuing priority

I promise to make recreation programs that serve our entire community a priority. I promise to treat all organizations and constituencies equally.

Sincerely,

Miesha Wilson Headen

Council at Large

Candidate for Mayor of Richmond Heights

Richmond Heights Candidates Forum - Wednesday, October 16 at 7:00 PM

Hillcrest  Chapter  –  Cuyahoga  Area
LEAGUE  OF WOMEN VOTERS
PRESENTS
2013 RICHMOND HEIGHTS CANDIDATES FORUM 
Wednesday, October 16th
Richmond Hts. Middle School Gym
@ 7:00 P.M.
                           
Candidates for:
Mayor
Council at Large
Board of Education

*All candidates from each contest will be in attendance!


Co-Sponsored  by:
Heights–Hillcrest-Lyndhurst Branch of the American Association of University Women
Friends of the Beachwood Library
PROMOTING INFORMED VOTER PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT

Thank you for coming!

Public Corruption in Richmond Heights: State Auditor Investigation Called For

For Immediate Release

Public Corruption in Richmond Heights: State Auditor Investigation Called For

Richmond Heights Mayor Daniel Ursu and Richmond Heights candidate for mayor Dawud (Dave) Ali collude for an unbid contract to develop a gas station at Chardon and Richmond Roads through enactment of an ordinance authorizing a $200,000 grant application for clean-up of the Brownfield site planning that goes into the pockets of mayoral candidate Dawud Ali, who will acquire the property for free.

Richmond Heights Councilwoman at Large and mayoral candidate Miesha Headen further calls the planned no-bid development contract a robbery of tax payer dollars. “Dan Ursu should have set this out to bid. Instead, he is steering a contract,”said Headen.

The Brownfield site, located at 26102 Chardon Road is delinquent in taxes, owing the Richmond Heights Local School District and the City of Richmond Heights an amount exceeding $100,000. Through his deal with Dan Ursu, Dawud Ali stands to bypass the public auction process, acquire the real property and the environmental remediation for free.

Headen says, “not only does Ali plan to line his pockets with more than $300,000 of our taxpayer dollars, he and Ursu are doing this no-bid contract when other developers might pay the site's back taxes owed to our children. It must stop.”

“Why,” asks Headen, “is Dawud Ali, a person who has no history of civic or government involvement in Richmond Heights, suddenly interested in running for Mayor and spending thousands of his own dollars? It is because he and the Mayor have been working on this back room deal for more than a year.”

“There is an unlawful interest in a public contract at issue. Daniel Ursu has designed a political kickback scheme whereby Ursu gives the Chardon Road property and the cost of its remediation to Dawud Ali in exchange for Ali entering the Richmond Heights mayoral race and diluting the black vote.”

“Why else would Ali run against Ursu while simultaneously working for a $200,000 no bid contract with him? Even worse, by not having bids, our kids lose again through the loss of a true gas station developer who would pay the delinquent property taxes.”

Headen is calling for a Special Investigation from the Ohio State Auditor, the Ohio Elections Commission and the Ohio Ethics Commission today, as well as the further investigation of Ursu and Ali's plan to hide their collusion from voters in yesterday’s passage of the $200,000 ordinance pay-off.