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
