City News
From Your Cleveland Heights City Government
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ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY!!
And please remember
Fireworks are Prohibited in Cleveland Heights
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City Hall and the Community Center will be closed on Tuesday, July 4, 2023. | |
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Cleveland Heights' Second Lawnmower Exchange Registration Begins TODAY!
June 30–July 3, 2023
| Cleveland Heights residents accept their new, lung-friendly lawnmower from the City at the May 2023 lawnmower exchange. Registration is now open for the second lawnmower exchange. | Exchange your gas-powered mower and help improve air quality! | |
In May, the City of Cleveland Heights launched its first lawnmower exchange program, which generated high demand; registration filled up in just nine minutes. Based on the overwhelming interest in the program, the City purchased another 30 zero-emissions, battery-operated lawnmowers to be exchanged for residents' gas-powered mowers.
Registration for the City’s second lawnmower exchange opened at 6:00 pm TONIGHT, June 30, and will remain open until 6:00 pm, Monday, July 3.
Any Cleveland Heights resident interested in exchanging their working gas-power lawnmower for an electric-powered mower is encouraged to register by clicking the button below.
After registration closes, thirty residents will be randomly chosen and notified by email of the date of the drop-off/pick-up.
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Cain Park Arts Fest is FREE July 7–9! | |
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For 45 years, Cain Park has hosted hundreds of artists and thousands of visitors for what is likely the city’s largest annual event: the Cain Park Arts Festival. Year 46’s event will be held July 7–9.
Cain Park is one of the reasons Cleveland Heights calls itself "home to the arts." It’s the oldest municipally owned outdoor performance venue in the country, with music, dance, theater, and comedy performances every summer.
It was designed from the beginning as a place where community and the arts came together.
Dina Rees “Doc” Evans—a teacher at Heights High and the first person in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in Dramatic Arts—organized Cain Park’s first outdoor theater performance with students and community members in 1932. The amphitheater and theater grew out of her vision.
Under Doc’s guidance, Cleveland Heights built an arts park where generations of staged productions helped inspire a vibrant artistic community.
The Cain Park Arts Fest is free and open to the public, and if you’ve never been—or attend every year—it’s worth the trip. More than 100 accomplished artists from across the country will descend on Cain Park to compete in a juried exhibit and sell their art.
Whether you plan on purchasing or just browsing, you and your family can take in a wide variety of arts under Cain Park’s tree-lined pathways. You can sample some great food and enjoy nine free musical performances during the festival. The music lineup can be found online at www.cainpark.com.
Arts Fest isn’t the only free activity coming to Cain Park in July. During the month's 31 days, Cain Park will offer 15 free performances on eight different days.
Cain Park will present two free concert series that feature blues, roots, rock, jazz, and classical performances: the Tuesday Evening Concert Series and the Sunday Afternoon Concert Series. Four of these performances take place in July.
Cleveland dance company Inlet will present free performances at the end of the month, including a matinee for children on July 28.
It all happens in a park—where one can have a picnic, play tennis and basketball, watch kids enjoy the playground and splash pad, and stroll up to the Evans Amphitheater or Alma Theater and enjoy world-class art and music.
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Helping Cleveland Heights Breathe Easier | |
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Air quality—specifically, the sudden threat to it across a broad swath of the country, including Cleveland Heights—dominated headlines and lives this week.
For the second time in a month, Northeast Ohio woke to warnings on Wednesday that millions of fine particles from Canadian wildfire smoke were a threat to our health. Broad swathes of the country were under Code Red advisories for Unhealthy or Very Unhealthy air quality conditions. USEPA/NOAA/National Weather Service monitors were registering samples that were among the worst seen in decades. Poor air quality trapped tens of millions of people indoors and forced many to dig out COVID face masks for protection.
The City of Cleveland Heights took guidance from regional and federal air quality, health, and public safety professionals and took several steps in response, including:
- Releasing a special, city-wide email about the Air Quality advisory.
- Curtailing city operations involving public works staff and vehicles.
- Advising rec leagues to use their discretion in canceling baseball games at Forest Hill Park.
- Re-instating the moratorium on open fires, including a ban on fire pits until further notice.
- Notifying residents to take precautions such as visiting the Community Center or retail locations in the city that run A/C to provide temporary relief.
Over the longer term, the City will focus on the importance of air quality awareness to protect public health.
Action Earlier this Year
In April, Cleveland Heights took steps to raise awareness of Air Quality with the installation of five local air quality monitors. (See the story from WEWS TV-5 below.) You can visit PurpleAir.com and select Real Time Map to see how Cleveland Heights' air quality is faring. The City is monitoring the network regularly and is working to make it part of an early warning system.
Residents also may download the AirNow.gov app and receive text alerts on air quality from enviroflash.info.
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Cleveland Heights installs local air sensors across central neighborhoods | |
...Due to poor air quality conditions across communities like Cleveland Heights, city leaders have been relying on regional sensors to understand how their area is being impacted.
But Mayor Kahlil Seren told News 5 he and others felt they didn’t have an accurate depiction since they’re outside city limits, so officials took it a step further with this localized tool used to track harmful particles in the air.
“These are ingenious devices. They are hooked up to our wireless signal, allowing us to view these things remotely,” Seren said.
Currently, there are five air sensors located throughout central neighborhoods in Cleveland Heights. They’re pretty small, but the mayor says it gives them an accurate depiction.
“It gives us a lot of data to be able to take a look at our activities and how they impact our environment,” said Seren...
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The latest issue of FOCUS Magazine was published and mailed to every Cleveland Heights household this week.
The 57-page issue includes feature articles on the return of the Martin G. Lentz City’s Policy Academy; a profile on City Council President Melody Joy Hart and Vice President Craig Cobb; a wide-ranging and insightful overview of developments at the City from Mayor Seren, an introduction to the Mayor’s Action Center, and much more.
If you didn’t receive your copy and would like to request one, please email publicrelations@clevelandheights.gov
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Meet Your Police
Thursday, July 6, 2023
6:00–8:00 pm
The next Meet Your Police will be held on Thursday, July 6, 2023, from 6:00–8:00 pm at Cleveland Heights City Hall, Lower LevelCleveland Heights Police Academy, 2595 Noble Road.
Residents are encouraged to attend and speak with an officer about any questions, concerns, or complaints.
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The Cleveland Heights Police Academy Graduates Its First Class Since the Pandemic | |
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On Wednesday, June 28, Cleveland Heights held a graduation ceremony for the class of 15 cadets who completed their training at the City’s Martin G. Lentz Police Academy.
Now in its 50th year, the Cleveland Heights police academy has trained more than 5,000 officers who serve in more than 130 police departments across the country. The Academy was closed for two years during the pandemic; this is the first class to graduate since its reopening.
Officers complete a rigorous six-month training course, the core principles of which include physical training, subject control, and crisis intervention. The training received at the Lentz Police Academy exceeds the requirements of the Ohio Police Officer Training Commission (OPOTC) in enhanced firearms curricula and training in leadership readiness.
The Cleveland Heights police academy is recruiting new cadets for the class beginning in July and will enroll a new class every six months. If you or someone you know might be interested in serving the community in law enforcement, the Academy is a great place to start. Please visit the Cleveland Heights Police Academy for more information.
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Bike with the Mayor
Thursday, July 13, 7:00 pm
Cleveland Heights City Hall
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Cleveland Heights will host a Bike with a Mayor event on Thursday, July 13, at 7:00 pm.
Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren will lead a community bike ride starting at Cleveland Heights City Hall, 40 Severance Circle Drive, on a route that will be primarily slower, residential streets in Cleveland Heights, which is recognized as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists.
The Bike with a Mayor event is part of a series in partnership with Cuyahoga County, whose aim is to discover gaps and opportunities for cities and the county to cooperate in building a connected bike- and greenways system.
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Cleveland Heights designer creates interactive storybook exhibit in Paris | |
Exhibit designer Karen Katz’s work can be found and enjoyed all throughout Cleveland, but for the first time her career has taken her abroad to design an interactive storybook exhibit in Paris.
As Katz traveled to Paris for the June 9 opening of “La Maison des Histoires,” or “The House of Stories,” at Chantelivre Bookstore, she got the chance to see her concept sketches for the exhibit jump off the page and come to life.
“It’s always so fun to see your ideas that you have in your head, you put it down on paper and then to see it built is so cool,” Katz told the Cleveland Jewish News June 23. “But usually I’m there step-by-step, day-by-day, week-by-week. And so, you don’t get this big reveal. So, it was really cool to go there, and to really see from my sketch to it being built was really neat...”
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First Friday Book Sale
At the Harvey & Friends Bookshop
Upstairs at the Lee Road Branch of Heights Libraries
Friday, July 7, 2023
9:00 am–5:15 pm
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Staffed by FRIENDS of the Heights Libraries volunteers, the Harvey and FRIENDS Bookshop is located on the 2nd floor of the Lee Road branch library.
Named for author and Heights Libraries patron, Harvey Pekar, this permanent bookshop within the library is available to shop during all open hours of the Lee Road branch.
The shop is stocked with thousands of CDs, DVDs and of course books, collected through community donations and culled from the library shelves.
First Friday Fill-a-Bag Sales happen the first Friday of each month except when there is Mega Book Sale.
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Rules
- Fill a bag with books, CDs, DVDs and audio books for $5 (excludes specially priced books and sets)
- Cash, Credit Card ($5 minimum) or Check Accepted
- Please bring your own grocery-sized bags.
- Over-sized bags will be charged a premium price.
If you love books and Heights Libraries, you'll love the First Friday Book Sales!
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FRIENDS of the Heights Libraries
FRIENDS of the Heights Libraries is an all-volunteer citizen organization that supports interest in, and appreciation and use of the four branches (Coventry, Lee Road, Noble, & University Heights) of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library system. Membership is open to anyone who has an interest in the Heights Libraries.
Since 1962, the FRIENDS have helped our libraries enhance programming and develop special projects by funding annual grants to the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library system. The FRIENDS raise money through used book sales, membership dues and gifts.
FRIENDS' grants to the library assist their staff in maintaining, improving, and adding to resources and facilities, as well as services for the community. Some recently funded projects include:
- A new library delivery van
- A bike fix-it station
- A new Community Book Bike
- The Noble Branch Community Hub
- The Teen Digital Lab
- Scholarships for students pursuing degrees in Library Sciences
For more information or to become a member, please visit FriendsHeightsLibraries.org.
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Repairing homes, supporting home ownership: Home Repair Resource Center offers help | |
The novelist Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that a “flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build, and nobody wants to do maintenance.” This can certainly apply to the Northeast Ohio real estate market. It explains, in part, why older suburbs deteriorate, as new developments spring up further and further from urban centers, like mountains beyond mountains.
However, organizations like the Home Repair Resource Center (HRRC) in Cleveland Heights ease the challenges of repairing and maintaining older homes and provide an alternative to endless sprawl. In the face of a culture that prizes the new, HRRC helps residents navigate the complex dynamics of purchasing and sustaining older houses...
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Cleveland Heights City Council is on recess until Monday, August 7, 2023. | | | | |
