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Beachwood Family Aquatic Center
(Bob Sandrick, Northeast Ohio Media Group)
It seems officials in Beachwood still haven't mastered the art of transparency and accountability.
Take the Beachwood Family Aquatic Center, the envy of Cleveland's eastern suburbs. It's the pool of pools. A water paradise for all ages.
It costs money to go there ($6 for residents, $10 for a guest), unless you are one of the fortunate recipients of a free day pass that Mayor Merle Gorden has handed out in the past to city workers and organizations.
But when the Northeast Ohio Media Group tried to find out who received those passes, Beachwood Assistant Law Director Hope Jones said the records "are no longer available."
Then, just this past week, Beachwood City Council approved spending $15,000 on a Washington, D.C., public relations firm to respond to the bad publicity and social media attacks on employees.
And yet, the unwanted attention stems largely from the behavior and spending habits of Gorden, some of which are reportedly being investigated by the FBI and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty.
Exactly what the Beachwood City Council expects the firm, kglobal, to accomplish that good governance won't is unclear to the editorial board. At least the council had the good sense to approve a new pool pass ordinance earlier this year.
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Gorden told Northeast Ohio Media Group reporter Bob Sandrick that he occasionally gave free passes to council members who asked for them. But six of seven council members
for themselves, family members or friends. Some said they gave them to those down on their luck, businesses or prospective residents.
The new ordinance wisely does not allow council members to receive free passes -- just employees and others, including visitors, under various conditions.
The recipients of those passes should be a matter of public record and retained for a reasonable amount of time. Ohio Auditor Dave Yost agrees.
Beachwood Law Director Brian Reali said records were destroyed at the end of each pool season because the reason for keeping them -- to ensure employees were not taking advantage of the perk more than once -- no longer applied.
But Reali said he will probably recommend that, going forward, the records of who received pool passes be kept for a year or two after the season is over.
Wise decision. Lets hope it inspires more sound decisions in Beachwood.