Metropolitan Initiative Forum (MIF)
Greater Cleveland Metropolitan Region
July 30, 1997

Meeting Summary

WELCOME

Janis Purdy, Executive Director, Citizens League opened the Metro Initiative Forum by welcoming guests and participants and stating the goal of the meeting: to determine how existing federal programs and policies can better promote metropolitan well-being and develop specific recommendations in that regard.

David Goss, Director, Build Up Greater Cleveland described the meeting in the context of the "Sustainable Development" movement in the U.S. He described the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) and its goal - "to reach out and operationalize" ideas. He complimented USEPA Cleveland Office Director, Rich Winklhofer for his work on this issue.

Robert Jaquay, Associate Director, The George Gund Foundation described the network of professionals and activists at the meeting and explained that The George Gund Foundation was pleased to host this event.

GREETING

Martin Spitzer, Executive Director, President's Council on Sustainable Development thanked participants for attending. He described the President's Council on Sustainable Development and its origins in 1992. A January progress report has been completed and will be made available to participants.

INTRODUCTIONS

Each of the 68 participants stated their name, organizational affiliation and interest in attending.

PRESENTATION

Scott Bernstein, President, Center for Neighborhood Technology and PCSD member began his presentation by stating that the MIF organizers were happy to be in Cleveland. He said Cleveland's public interest capacity is one of the 3 or 4 best in nation. MIF chose to focus on places that can successfully: (1) build capacity, (2) build relationships, (3) concentrate on economy, equity, environment, (4) and decide how the federal government could help. The MIF project is about how to redirect authority; it is not about money. He asked that participants suspend disbelief for the duration of the meeting so that new ideas can surface.

FORUM

Discussion: Recent experiences in regional cooperation - A discussion took place with the participants sharing their recent regional problem-solving experiences both positive and negative.

Positive experiences include:

• Carlton Schnell described the 14 year old Build Up Greater Cleveland (Community Capital Investment Strategy) program and its history of countywide infrastructure project coordination; and its success at securing federal and state funding by gaining a consensus on priorities and coordinated federal and state lobbying.
• NORA - The Northeast Ohio Regional Alliance has been pulling together individuals and organizations interested in regional issues since 1995.
• NEOTEC is a six County alliance, a business network. It makes people feel like partners; each county is given equal stature.
• Most successes have been county by county (not really regional).
• Midtown corridor- It has become a neighborhood revitalized with grassroots business support.

Negative experiences include:

• The current "system" of tax incentives is a hurdle for regions trying to define themselves. This includes: tax abatement (both intrastate and interstate).
• Many advocates are frustrated that news and information doesn't get out to encourage participation.
• No one wants to give up what they already have, but solutions mean we might need to give up something
• State government is intensely uncommitted to sustainable development.
• Public awareness needs to be raised on these issues. The public doesn't recognize municipal, county and regional boundaries the same way that the government does.
• Zoning in rural areas, or lack of zoning, is an issue that does not allow for regional solutions.
• It is a constant challenge to encourage this region to think as a region.
• There is a real challenge and opportunity in the State role of re-thinking formulas and distribution patterns in two areas:
  1. Transportation and public works/infrastructure
  2. Socio-economic segments of the population with a high concentration of lower socio-economic groups in central cities.

Discussion: Toward more effective regional cooperation - This part of the forum was intended to answer the following questions:

1. Is there a distinctive manner by which we now set regional goals and solve regional problems in the economic environmental and societal arenas?
2. How could we better solve problems and achieve cooperative goals?
3. How could we better use regional and outside resources to achieve our goals?

• We need to focus on our human infrastructure because many people with needs or who live in crisis now are not at the table.
• The neighborhood network is under-utilized.
• Young people must be involved through education; they are our community, our future.
• Things are disconnected: we have tools but we need to translate the tools and ideas into action.
• The federal government will work with regions if we can define our regional problems.
• Environmental quality requires money.
• There is a lack of a clear state role in solving regional problems.
• We need a regional GIS system.
• We need to recognize regional systems in the following priority areas:
  1. natural environment
  2. economic systems (HUD describes 18 clusters)
  3. human infrastructure
• We traditionally use a very transactional style of problem-solving that works here. We need a goal to rally around, we need a self-interested goal. We need to examine the incentives that hurt in our tax system.
• The zoning and the land use system in this region needs a logical plan.
• Why is this important to people? "Why should I care?" is missing.
• Regionalism is a concept that is broadly, but not deeply held
• How do we get new programs to the table?
• What are the issues?
• We have lots of information; more than we use. What is missing is a literate public, graphic pictures to show a problem, and a crisis.

Discussion: The federal role in metropolitan cooperation - Dave Goss described the spectrum of possible federal participation; from "get out of our way" to a heavy role. He asked participants to quickly and succinctly describe how they saw the federal's role. The following ideas surfaced:

• Promote Maryland-type "smart growth" with federal incentives targeted at state governments.
• Provide more information at the state, regional and local levels.
• Promote forums which encourage a mix of socio-economic groups working to find solutions to shared issues.
• Reorganize the federal system geographically to encourage consistent regional action/responses, function. Break down functional/bureaucratic walls; including regulatory structure.
• Let local citizens and policy makers define the problems.
• Federal role should emphasize information, "cheerleader"-type promotions, provide and encourage incentives, and mandates. The local role is to deal with "stovepipes" or functions.
• Remove incentives to build new infrastructure, as opposed to maintaining and repairing the old.
• Compare and provide incentives for marginal cost pricing instead of average cost pricing.
• Provide incentives for regional cooperation.
• Capital gains and housing policies should recognize that some people, especially retirees, want to scale back.
• Mortgage interest deductions for large properties should be eliminated.
• Federal standards should be realistic for each different region.
• Realize unintended consequences like the Lead Paint Reduction Act, which actually resulted in people moving farther out and building new structures.
• Avoid conflicts among federal programs that often create other unintended consequences.

Closing Remarks: Next Steps

Scott Bernstein - Scott said that he hoped the Cleveland group will come up with a statement of interest to continue to work on these issues or to agree to be a pilot to test special, new federal programs. Elsewhere, MIF groups are committing to meet again or to create a statement of interest in being a pilot region.

He said that the meeting inspired him. He challenged the participants to partner with PCSD so it can be sure to write the rules in the interest of Greater Cleveland. PCSD believes place matters. Fifteen to twenty percent of a regional economy comes from federal funds. Federal officials are looking to remove their own barriers, and create positive incentives.

Meeting Summary - Janis Purdy

Jan stated that this was a special meeting: it started early, ended early, stayed on time, people stayed, and it was remarkable for its ideas. She made a few crosscutting observations:

• We haven't yet defined the critical regional issues in our community.
• In our region, crisis causes us to act. But we use a transactional style when solving problems. This means that we will probably address regional problems in an incremental way. Therefore, we must identify and agree on the problems and break them down into specific actions that can be taken.
• We need to think more about the question: "Should the private marketplace or public-sector solve regional problems?"
• We came up with two dozen ideas about the possible Federal role, including:
• Tread with care: don't do more harm by triggering unintended consequences.
• Don't ignore the State role in solving regional issues which is also untapped.

ADJOURN