About sixty people gathered on April 11, 2010 for Severance Neighborhood Organization's first annual meeting.

Sandy Stone, a long-time Crest Rd resident, was elected as a new board member; Fran Mentch, Yan Ling and Teresa Ciz-Madia were elected president, secretary and treasurer, respectively. Sandy was elected to fill the position that was open due to Tamika Williams’ resignation. Tamika will always have a special place in our hearts because she was one of the four people who started Severance Neighborhood Organization.

Following the business meeting, Dr. Dennis Keating gave a presentation titled "Cleveland Heights: How Do We Compare To America's Other Older, Inner-Ring Suburbs?"

Dr. Keating used Bernadette Hanlon’s book, Once the American Dream: Inner-ring Suburbs of the Metropolitan United States as a springboard to discuss the factors affecting Cleveland Heights.  Like many other inner-ring suburbs, our community is showing some signs of decline that include: decrease in population, increase in poverty and concentration of poverty, decrease in median household income, poor performing public schools, fiscal stress from high cost of city services and declining tax base, and aging housing stock. We also face a lot of competition with other suburbs to fill the large numbers of vacant homes and vacant storefronts in our area.

Our strengths include proximity to University Circle, local organizations, including the First Suburbs Consortium, mixture of old and new housing, libraries, the community center, shopping and retail centers.

 Participants suggested that we improve Cleveland Heights’ marketing to people who move here to work at the Clinic or in University Circle, we should focus on our neighborhoods and the amenities they offer (walkability, etc.), we should plan for the housing needs of seniors, build less expensive new housing, and increase grassroots efforts to move the community forward.

Sue Blough complemented Dr. Keating’s presentation by facilitating the Q&A and group discussion that followed, and created a graphic summary. Check out the pictures of Dennis and Sue in action and be sure to look at the graphic Sue created.