Lakewood residents file petition requiring walkability improvements before school redistricting

Community NewsLakewood, Ohio. (John Benson/cleveland.com)John Benson/cleveland.comBy John Benson, special to cleveland.comLAKEWOOD, Ohio -- A resident petition with 1,668 signatures seeking adoption of an ordinance via citizens’ initiative was recently turned into City Hall.“This citizens’ initiative is seeking to have a lot of those infrastructure improvements completed prior to any changes in school usage,” Lakewood City Council President Sarah Kepple said. “It’s not surprising to me considering we have so many folks interested in this topic of protecting the most vulnerable users in our rights-of-way -- people using multimodal transportation, walking, biking and, particularly, kids. “We hear all the time from residents with concerns about speeding and reckless driving and, of course, with the school redistricting, even more folks, parents in particular, are concerned about their kids getting to school safely.”The citizen effort points to previously approved City Council initiatives including the Active Transportation Plan, the Safe Streets Plan, the ADA Transition Plan and Climate Action Plan. The next step for City Council is to explore the legality of the citizen initiative, which was referred to committee with a “tight deadline.”Kepple also expects reports from the public safety director, public works department and city engineer. “We’re looking for feedback from all of these different groups about how it would intersect with their current operations, the impacts on the budget from the finance department and then, of course, from the law department about what legal authority we would actually have to prevent the schools for making changes based on the timing of implementation of these infrastructure improvements on the city side,” she said.The timeline includes a Nov. 16 committee discussion, with Kepple also adding an additional meeting for Nov. 30 if needed before reporting by Dec. 21 to City Council.“We’re trying to gather all the information that we can,” she said. “We’re hopeful that we can work with the citizens who brought this forward to achieve our shared goals of higher levels of multimodal safety.” The council president acknowledged the citizen petition is in response to the Lakewood City School District’s elementary transition plan, which transforms Lincoln Elementary School into the Lincoln Early Learning Center beginning with the 2027-2028 school year.“Certainly some of the motivation of the folks who sponsored this legislation is regarding slowing down the redistricting process with the schools and changing of buildings,” she said. The real question is whether the resident initiative represents overreach by the city attempting to control school district policy.“It’s going to be an interesting question when in committee we hear whether or not under the charter and the Ohio Revised Code (ORC), which parts of this are legally enforceable,” she said. “Can the building commissioner withhold permits under the ORC if this ordinance with infrastructure improvements under the Active Transportation Plan has been enacted? “There could be some conflict there. It’ll be interesting to see what legal advice we get from the law department and whether or not the city has the authority to prevent the schools from making these decisions about how they use their buildings.” Read more news from the Sun Post Herald here.