Clean Water Works
CLEVELAND, OHIO: From the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, an in-depth and fun conversation led by Donna Friedman and Mike Uva on any and all topics related to clean water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and the people, projects, and programs serving Lake Erie and our local waterways and communities.
Clean Water Works
Mayor Annette Blackwell and a Revitalized Maple Heights
Mayor Annette Blackwell of Maple Heights and Keith McClintock, NEORSD Manager of Watershed Funding Programs discuss the transformative impacts of infrastructure funding in local communities. Securing grants and loans have paved the way for municipal growth and enhanced quality of life for Maple Heights residents, and the Sewer District's Member Community Infrastructure Program (MCIP) can help communities address aging sewer systems and stormwater management.
Learn more about the MCIP here
We are so happy today to have Mayor Annette Blackwell with us from Maple Heights. Thank you for being on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here and with us today. Keith, would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:Hi. Yes, I'm Keith McClintock, manager of Watershed Funding Programs.
Speaker 1:So today our topic is the Member Community Infrastructure Program Grant. This is a grant that helps provide funding to our local communities for local wastewater work. Keith, do you want to tell us a little bit more about MCIP?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an annual program where the district provides funding to member communities for improvements to the local sewer infrastructure, basically to help improve the function and condition of our local sewer systems. Infrastructure does age and with age comes maintenance responsibilities and, at times, the need to make improvements and even to provide new improvements to the sewer system.
Speaker 1:Thanks, yeah, so I think the main thing about our member community infrastructure program, in addition to infrastructure, is our member communities, and that's why we've asked Mayor Blackwell on today. Mayor Blackwell, do you mind telling us a little bit about Maple Heights from your perspective?
Speaker 3:Sure, Maple Heights is an entering suburb, just really about 20 minutes from Cleveland. It is a city that's about 25,000 residents. It had been diverse as a history of being a city of immigrants and now we've got most of our residents come from some area of Cleveland, from the central city. We moved to Maple Heights just for a better, more suburban life, more serene, tree-lined streets ie Maple.
Speaker 1:Heights, and we're talking about kind of the southeast side.
Speaker 3:Southeast side of Cleveland right.
Speaker 1:And how long have you been mayor? I am in my ninth year. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:It's my third term, does it?
Speaker 1:feel like you've been there for too long it doesn't, because every day feels like a marathon.
Speaker 3:It's been a journey and for me it's been a ministry. It really is a city that needed a lot of healing and restoration. 2008,. Most people owed more than their homeless work. So many people are underwater. City services suffered. Leap collection went away, recycling went away, the pool closed I mean, it really was the turn to lights off and I came in a city that was fiscally declared an emergency bankrupt and so it was very difficult. We were recycling paperclips and Post-it notes and binder clips. Do you have any binder clips? Make sure you save a few for me.
Speaker 1:Well, and you, I would say you were uniquely situated to help solve that problem. Can you talk a little bit about your background?
Speaker 3:Sure, I have never served in public office, but my service on the Charter Review Commission, I guess, got some attention. They said you've thought about running for city council in Maple Heights, but I had been working with the schools. I ran a parent engagement, parent effective program for the schools. I have a background in property tax and so they asked me to be the chairperson for the school levy, Working with some volunteers I'm sorry, the chairperson for the school levy, Working with some volunteers. We led the campaign for the school renewal levy and it passed and that gave me some success and I found that if you do something well, there's another task waiting for you.
Speaker 3:So, two years later, the mayor at the time said how about, mayor? And I'm like nope, not going to happen.
Speaker 1:And you had a different full-time job at the time I was working at a accounting firm. I was a property tax consultant.
Speaker 3:So I said I'm not sure, I'm busy. It was a busy season, I travel. I don't think I could do it, and so I got a call from the mayor and said you see who the candidates are. If you're going to stay here, you might want to run or you might want to move.
Speaker 3:And I saw who the candidates were and I knew the financial situation we were in. I had just led the successful school levy campaign. I knew what was involved and how to fight back. So I said you know what I mean. What's the worst going to happen If I lose. I can lose gracefully, but I didn't lose, I won.
Speaker 1:And you're here.
Speaker 3:And here I am.
Speaker 1:And Maple Heights is no longer in fiscal.
Speaker 3:And Maple Heights is no longer in fiscal. I must share that we had a five-year recovery. I did it in four.
Speaker 1:Overachiever. Love it and what do you think were the main elements on how you managed to pull that off?
Speaker 3:I think people don't realize the city is a business. It has the same requirements of business. You need talented professionals, really knowing what customer service is. So we have a couple. I call them revenue centers, which drive people crazy. But building is a revenue center and it's controversial. But Mayor's Court is a revenue center. Everything else is an expense.
Speaker 3:So I really focused on the revenue center. What was happening in our building department? Were contractors being served? Were developers? Were they clear? Were we being partners? And so just really watching that revenue, looking at the Mayor's Court, not to make things difficult but make things more efficient. So I looked at those areas of our budget that should have been doing well and really put in measures and challenges people in charge of those budgets to ensure that it went well. And then I study the budget. I like almost know every fund almost by heart. So I actually look at the finance reports, meet regularly with my finance department taking a look at how are we purchasing, where are we purchasing? What are we purchasing? I just became fanatical about it knowing always what my balance is.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that has always impressed me about Maple Heights, and with your leadership, is your eagerness to go after not only grant funding but also your willingness to accept loans. Yes, that is something that many municipalities are not comfortable doing. Right, you recognize that loans don't necessarily have to be bad.
Speaker 3:No, we have loans in our own life. I mean, I don't know how many people can go out and pay $30,000 a year for education, or 50, depending on where you go and so we've had these financing options, having the resources you need to do business. It's a way to achieve or acquire I should say acquire things that you need. Also look at forecasting. I really became very familiar with my regional income tax distribution report. How is it trending? Because that's the largest source of revenue for municipalities. How's that doing? What's my property tax collection? The delinquency why is it delinquent? Understanding the distribution of dollars, I always know what's coming in.
Speaker 1:So loans I'm comfortable because I'm sure we can pay them because, I'm I'm really following the revenue and looking at the expenses, do you feel like they allow you to invest in the future that you're looking for?
Speaker 3:for me, blights absolutely, I think of that with my education right. So I take a loan out now to go to school. My kids take a loan for them to go to school and I believe there's a bigger return on their investment. They'll have this education and we'll pay it off. But it's help and there's nothing wrong with help.
Speaker 3:If you are honorable and you have a commitment to to pay it back, you're asking for help, um, and you're asking people to, to, to believe you in the commitment that if you help me, I will pay you back, and from that help you'll see how that, if you help me, I will pay you back, and from that help you'll see how your help has advanced me in my education or, in this case, in moving the city forward.
Speaker 1:And I bring this up because one of the programs and then we'll move over to MCIP but one of the programs that Maple Heights has participated in is called the Water Pollution Control Loan Fund and that is a fund run through the EPA and through their Office of Environmental and Financial Assistance, DFA, and they offer low or no interest loans as well as principal forgiveness, which is more like a grant, and the city of Maple Heights has successfully gotten both the loan and grant money through that program for their wastewater. So just another way that Maple Heights has really worked to secure funding for their infrastructure future.
Speaker 1:What did those funds end up helping or going towards? It's a very similar program to the Member Community Infrastructure Program grant, where it was their basically local sewer improvements. Mable Heights has an aging sewer infrastructure, santeria and wastewater that sometimes functions as a combined system even when it's not a combined system, and so that's really what it would be going towards Just projects maybe that were in addition to the projects that they had already applied for from MCIP.
Speaker 3:I would say on that, if I could comment on that, I think it's important to engage experts or professionals. So I came in with a set of skills and that I was able to understand the financial part, but I didn't understand engineering and infrastructure. So when you end up in a position where you're the leader, you have to find those that know more than you do and you learn from them, and you have to be coachable and willing to take advice. How do we address the basement? How do we address the sewers? We can't just write a check and fix them all and so you find those individuals. You should vet them. Well, is what they're recommending working?
Speaker 3:And that's certainly the relationship I've had with our city engineer at the firm Sugar and Valley Engineering. They're in other communities so they have Cisco SESs there. I was able to look at what their success record was, what's their education, what's their background, their value added to the city, and I rely on them heavily on how we address these issues. And they said it's a good fund. I have the knowledge of what we can afford and pay back. I've been able to make some really good decisions because the people that are around me are very smart and they know what they're doing and I trust them.
Speaker 1:Keith, do you want to talk a little bit about the MCIP program as far as how it works, just like the process that we go through every year for it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the reason we started it was to provide funding to local communities to address some of these infrastructure problems, like we were just talking about, that are in Maple Heights. So we have a pot of money available every year that the communities will make application to for their projects and we have an internal review committee that reviews those proposals and ranks them and then provides funding to help rehab local sewer systems. Maple Heights, over the years, has received 11 awards for member community infrastructure programs projects from us totaling over $7.4 million, and that's really gone a long way towards helping to improve the conditions for community members. Over 500 basement backups have been remediated because of the improvements and over 56,000 linear feet of new sewer infrastructure and collection systems have been installed in Maple Heights because of the funding that's been provided.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is a lot. That's a lot of projects I've been like reviewing. You know, I've been reviewing these projects with Keith for quite some time and I it's. We look at the data year by year. Right, we don't usually look at it as community, like totals over the running year, and so it's just so great to see 11 awards and that $7.4 million in funding. And does that include the leveraged funds or is that just the MCIP funds?
Speaker 2:That's just the MCIP funds. In addition to that, there's been over three and a half million additional dollars leveraged by Maple Heights towards those projects.
Speaker 3:Wow, I mean, those numbers are wild, I think so I sit here very, very pleased with that kind of success. Yeah.
Speaker 4:When you became mayor, were you aware of the extent of stormwater and sewer issues in the community?
Speaker 3:No, when I became mayor I knew very little. I knew that I was living in a city and we had a choice to make my family and I to move on. We bought a home that we absolutely love. It's absolutely beautiful. My dad lived in Summit County, worked at the Walton Hills plant in Northville, so I was close to him as he was aging and at the time I was working downtown in Key Tower and there's so many ways to go to get there and it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:I live close to the metro parks. I'm right off of Dunham Road and so I'm right near the metro parks in the Chicago Valley National Park downtown. It was just a beautiful place to be close to the airport because I did travel in my previous job. So what I knew was I loved the city. I grew up in the Glenville area on the border of Glenville in East Cleveland. When I was probably about nine years old, my dad gave me a book on Cleveland to read. I didn't realize then he struggled with reading so he would give me these book reports, but it really was for me to read it. I found out later to him.
Speaker 3:He gave me a book on cleveland. It was all about the van swearingen brothers and um euclid. You know the street cars and the whole thing. So I grew up with this unusual knowledge and I saw, living right on the border of of cleveland and east cleveland I lived in the forest hill area what happened to East Cleveland and I knew from what I was seeing and people were saying the next East Cleveland and that bothered me. I didn't think it was fair to the people that had come there for a better life and I believe they deserved better and I was going to fight for them and be the some people say change agent, but the change captain. I decided to stay and do something about it.
Speaker 1:I think the vision that you have is very impressive. I think, coming out of fiscal emergency, I would have been so tentative to be investing in the community further because I'd be like, no, no, no, all the money needs to stay, so we shouldn't spend anything because we might go back into a fiscal emergency. But you've never really been like that. You've been very proactive about yeah.
Speaker 3:It's faithful and I believe in myself and I believe in the people I've put around me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You cannot go on the field to play a game and think you're going to lose. Why bother to go out there? Every member that steps on that field, whatever this, believes they're going to win, and that's just how I lead. I had this slogan in my first two years. It's called we're winning, we're winning, every little thing, we're winning, we're winning, we're still winning, we're winning. And then it became this. I have a cheerleader background, so I'm just saying it became this thing that people began to believe it's like we're winning, we won again. And it just became a thing that we start saying so yeah, you get the butterflies in your stomach, you get nervous.
Speaker 3:But you just got to focus on, you got to believe that you can win. You just got to believe it.
Speaker 4:What are some of the issues sewer and stormwater issues that Maple Heights and other communities are facing.
Speaker 3:I know basement backups, aging infrastructure. The city celebrated its centennial in 2015 to get 100-year-old infrastructure. That's what I know in layman's terms. So that's how I would answer, in layman terms, the knowledge that I have, and I rely on the experts to tell me the details.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you really hit the nail on the head there. I think you know, from the sewer district side we are very invested in our communities and one of the ways that we've shown that investment is through our local sewer system evaluation studies. So those were studies that we did into the local sewer systems, the local sanitary systems, to really try to understand what the problems were as far as basement backup, as far as capacity issues, sewer system overflows into the environment. And we created community reports, after speaking with the engineers and with the community members, that really detailed what those problems were.
Speaker 1:And I think that, and actually, read them and yeah, and that is a beautiful thing. I love that for you. It is so nerdy and wonderful.
Speaker 3:I was like what does this mean? After I read it it'll break it down, but I that for you it is so nerdy and wonderful. I was like what does this mean?
Speaker 2:After I read it.
Speaker 3:I think a report needs to be read. Yes, there's usually something in it.
Speaker 1:Usually yeah, and I know, like I know your city engineer and he certainly has been applying for projects that have come out of that report. So we created this report because we understand that they are very expensive to produce. Those reports require a lot of monitoring, a lot of field work, but we produce them so that communities like Maple Heights will take the findings and implement them. And that's really what we've seen, kind of like a doctor's report, right, right, diagnosis.
Speaker 3:Yeah. This is what it is, and then you look for ways to improve or get better. I always use ROI a lot the return on investment. We're building a lot of homes and you know when people come in to get the occupancy permit they're so excited in the building department and they're at this new home and then our work begins right. Make sure the trash get picks up, the streetlights stay on, the roads are clear, leave collections. So that's our return on that investment. When they choose Maple Heights to live or to do business.
Speaker 4:Can we?
Speaker 2:talk about a couple of the projects that were funded by MCIP and the impact that those projects well, the problems they addressed and the impact they had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in general it's basically sewers that were under capacity, sewer systems that were put into place decades ago and since then the community has developed More impervious services have been generated, more homes tying and businesses tying into the sewer systems and, as a result, they are under capacity and when a sewer system is under capacity, that's what results in sewer backups in many cases. So the MZIP program helps you to design new sewer systems that can be built to take some of that flow, put it into a new system so that you are no longer under capacity, you have additional capacity for future growth and, as a result, you're reducing those basement backups. You know, one of the most challenging things and most heart-wrenching things that we do is have to go out and visit with residents after a flood. You know seeing all of their possessions and things that they've worked so hard for being flooded out, and sometimes on multiple occasions, and then when a project like this goes in and you know that you're curing that problem for those residents.
Speaker 1:It means a lot. Yeah, that area definitely had a lot of basement backups because of the failing infrastructure. I think one of the other projects that I'm thinking of that got funded this year that I'm fairly certain, is Maple Heights, and if it's not, we will cut it. But there was a sewer sanitary sewer that crosses under a bridge. It's a decommissioned bridge. That's Maple Heights, isn't it Greenhurst?
Speaker 1:Greenhurst, yes, thank you yeah see look at you, you know more than me. Yeah, so the sanitary sewer is exposed. There's a manhole structure that is in rough, rough shape, crossing under a bridge that is decommissioned the bridge. They will be removing it soon and I think you also were getting grant funding for that, separate from the sewer district's funds. But one of the projects that was awarded recently for MTAP for Maple Heights was to lower that sanitary sewer so that it is no longer exposed to Mill Creek and able to go into Mill Creek if and when it were to break.
Speaker 3:There's a great deal of excitement around this finally being addressed. We're super excited about it because they deserve it better. It's just become a place where people just don't there and the water there is scary to me because there's a little bit of water in there and it's right between that area and the highway there.
Speaker 1:Right, so I guess, we get addressed. And that's such a good partnership too because it's the MCIP funds and then I think you all specifically got county funds to do that bridge removal. So it's just a really nice collaboration regionally to get that done.
Speaker 4:Some people listening might be thinking of projects in their own community that they'd love to have some funding to address. But what are the main criteria for applying for MCIP funds?
Speaker 2:Basically, you have to have an identified project that results in some improvement to water quality within the community infrastructure. Improvements of septic systems that are failing can work towards bringing those offline and adding sewers to that region to improve water quality. So, basically, you just have to be one of our member communities and have an identified problem and a certain percent of match requirement to address those issues.
Speaker 1:For all the communities. It's 25% match, unless waived because of fiscal emergency. And then if you are in an IFA area, it's 25% match and you do not have to put in additional money. If you're not in an IFA area which Keith will explain in a second you can put in additional money. If you're not in an EFA area which Keith will explain in a second you can put in additional match to receive additional points. But this, go ahead, talk a little bit about the EFA area.
Speaker 2:It's Equity Investment Focus Area. It's an area where you have lower incomes, identified on maps that we provide on our webpage. If you are in an identified area, that 25% match is your only requirement. Many communities can receive extra points if you go above a 25% match.
Speaker 1:And then projects that are in the equity investment focus areas are all scored against each other, and then projects that are not in equity investment focus areas are scored against each other, and then projects that are not in equity investment focused areas are scored against each other. We tried to do that so that it was more equitable about who's getting funding. We didn't want communities that had all additional money to put up match to be going against communities who maybe fiscally were not able to do that. That felt unfair. That's one of the ways that we've improved the MCIP program and we're continually working and updating it as we see ways to do so.
Speaker 3:And I was made aware that through the Ohio Public Works Commission funds we received four awards totaling over $2 million and the Ohio Water Pollution Control Loan Fund that you just talked about. There were three awards totaling over $1 million. And then the Northeast Water Regional Sewer District Community Cost Share, two awards over $500,000. And the Cuyahoga County Department of Public Works Sewer District, 28 funds over $500,000. And then we put $500,000. And then we put $500,000 with it. But the point is how important it is to pursue partnerships and leverage all those partnerships to do as much as you can relieving cities of the general fund and really expediting getting projects done.
Speaker 3:When you're waiting for money, projects that need to be done languish. When you're able to use all of these partners, you're able to expedite the success, and so it's been a lifeline for the city of Maple Heights, as other cities, as you know. It certainly helps us promote health and safety and makes our city that people choose over and over again. It's just been really a story that deserves to be told because it's been so successful and so impactful and so transformative, and I'm glad I got a chance to talk about that today because people need to understand. They see their building, oh, the rates are going up again, um, but the lifeline, the partnership it provides to communities all over this county, I think that's worth sharing yeah, absolutely I, and it's um so nice to hear that the communities are are using the funds right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we did last year move the funding rate originally was $15 million for the member community infrastructure program grant and this past year we did $25 million. And you know what? We had applications for all $25 million, because there's always going to be work and the communities will always apply.
Speaker 3:So it's good to see, I will say I think for engineers, it it's helpful to them. Um, like again, it's it helps them be the value that we need, the expertise that we need, and we don't have to hire another expert, another, we don't have to outsource with anyone else, because the tools that you're able to give our engineering forums and then the end users, the cities, are so important. It just really has moved this entire county forward. What you guys do is so very, very, very important, but it's behind the scenes and people don't see it. You know, know, you see the stories on TV after a big rain and your heart goes.
Speaker 3:My mother lives in Mobile, alabama. I am from Alabama. I came here as a 2-year-old in the second great migration from Selma, alabama, and you see, in Selma it was a little town or I lost everything through hurricanes. I've seen this devastation as a child coming up from the deep rural south to Ohio, the north for a better life, and loss is painful and there's so many things that are irreplaceable, and so not seeing that devastation and what you guys do, I think also needs to be pointed out. Thank you, and thank you for your partnership. Sure, needs to be pointed out.
Speaker 1:Thank you, you're welcome.
Speaker 3:And thank you for your partnership.
Speaker 1:Sure and Maple Heights is such a good story and you're working so hard. So it seemed like the right partner to bring on.
