In living and working around University Circle, it occurs to me how stupid it is that there are literally five or six police forces operating within overlapping turfs... Cleveland, University Circle, Case, University Hospitals, and the Clinic each have significant police forces. In addition, Cuyahoga County has patrols in the area... all intersecting within a mile of each other... and you are probably as likely to get shot within a mile of that intersection as anywhere in America.

Yesterday, around 10 PM, I was watching a small, preppy girl who probably pays $40,000 a year to be a Case student scurry through the bleak, dark cold-Case hell, from the isolated "Village" across and down the Euclid wpund to the blighted Triangle, and I honestly feared for her safety... yet she was probably within a mile of over 1,000 security and police personel, under a wifi cloud, in the heart of "Downtown University Circle".

As I pictured her being dragged into a passing car, in the center of the "world's most powerful learning environment" and Heart of OneCleveland - I wondered where is the nearest working video camera so the news could show the girl's parents their daughter's last day alive.

Now, imagine the money spent on five or six polices forces being focused on really transforming the public safety experience in Cleveland. Crunch all the best people and technology together - spend the same amount of money (still paid by the primary customers) - and really make Cleveland safe.

Of course, the Cleveland Police Department is dwarfed by comparison to all the private police dedicated to these institutions and places, so this would represent a huge growth in our community policing power... if they all cared about "the community". And, as the dominent policing model would be private - non-union - the police union would be eliminated, and wages paid to police would be reduced dramatically, allowing for hiring more police, and improving services. Without the protection of the unions, most of the Cleveland police would probably be fired immediately or quickly, for many flaws not acceptable in the competitve, real world, so an entirely new police force would be developed.

This proposal would meet all the objectives stated as "Advance Northeast Ohio", of the Fund For Our Economic Future orchestrated "Voices and Choices" regional planning process:

BUSINESS GROWTH AND ATTRACTION

TALENT DEVELOPMENT

GROWTH THROUGH RACIAL & ECONOMIC INCLUSION

GOVERNMENT COLLABORATION AND EFFICIENCY

We don't need to look very far to identify such huge waste in how this community operates. Another example is all the Dommunity Development Corporations and planning departments around Cleveland, which are for the most part overlapping in services and staffing, which may be entirely restructured for greater impact. All this without leaving the borders of the City of Cleveland.

Forget about "regionalism" as 14 counties - Cleveland is the only "region" that matters to Cleveland - think about how to have smart, efficient, open, honest government and community development here in our city-region, united.