Let’s poach Mosdos

The Mosdos Orthodox Jewish congregation wants to buy the Milliken school in Cleveland Heights. The school has been closed since 2004. Mosdos is offering a half-million to buy it. The Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board says it’s worth a lot more than that based on a 2006 appraisal of the property. I spoke before about how asinine the Cleveland Heights school board is to hang on to this decaying property. The usual suspects are all over this one. Fran Mentch wants to stop the sale of Milliken because of the woods behind the building and John Severance’s old barn. That’s what she says at least. Others are justifying this ridiculous position by stating that the property may increase in value with the economic recovery or may be needed again. NEWS FLASH. Decaying asbestos-filled buildings that have limited use do not increase in value no matter how good the economy is. There is no evidence to support the idea that more families will be moving to Cleveland Heights. Not with their low rated school system and through the roof taxes. Who aside from hippies and Section 8ers would want to live there? In fact, with the board’s stubborn refusal to sell Milliken, Cleveland Heights is setting up another population decrease. The Mosdos families will find another property that suits their needs and conforms to their religious restrictions, they will sell the houses they have, and move to that area. And that area will probably NOT be in Cleveland Heights.

And that’s where I got an idea:

Let’s use the Heightsters shortsightedness to South Euclid’s advantage. There must be a suitable facility in South Euclid that’s either owned by the city or the South Euclid-Lyndhurst school board. In just the last few years, we’ve closed 3 schools. It’s possible more may be closed in the future. So instead of tearing the next one down, why don’t we offer to sell it to another school at a low ball price? The school district would take flak for selling the building cheap, but would save itself the cost of upkeep or teardown. The stipulation is that the building would be sold strictly as-is.

If this came to pass, South Euclid would get an influx of new residents who have a reputation as stable families, a reduction in empty housing, an increase in property tax income for the city.

Hey, the anti-poaching agreement the city signed on to refers to businesses. It says nothing about RESIDENTS!