My Plan for Our City

By Matthew D. McGowan

From my experience as Clerk of Council, I can tell you that everyone involved in Cheviot's City Government is working hard to make the city the best possible place that it can be with the limited resources we have available. Nearly every resident I speak to agrees that our city services are top-notch, and everyday I am amazed at the ability of the people who run these departments to do "more with less" in terms of the revenue they have available to run their departments effectively. Indeed, many of the people I speak to, both residents and non-residents alike, mention our city services as probably our city's strongest selling point. Still, it is clear that our declining tax base is becoming a problem that threatens the very services that help make Cheviot one of the most livable neighborhoods in the region.

In my view, the best way to begin to address this issue is to aggressively court new businesses to our city. While our business district can proudly boast some of the best "nightspots" in the region, it is clear that our "daytime" business is lacking desperately. From my experience in sales, the best way to increase your business is to get out and "sell" your company. For us, that means getting out in the business community and "selling" Cheviot as a great place for businesses of any size to set up shop. Indeed, we do have a lot to offer to any prospective business looking for a new place to call home. We have vacant properties of various sizes which would make great office space, we are near a major Interstate and are easily accessible via various major secondary roads, and we can offer incentives through our Community Reinvestment Area program that can help make it a lucrative business decision to relocate to and stay in our city. We also have a one distinct advantage that many cities in our situation do not; a great community that employees of any business in our region could be proud to call home.

I have no reason to believe that we cannot be successful in such an endeavor if we approach it aggressively. By doing so, we will most certainly increase our tax revenues via new business, as well as increasing revenue generated by our existing business community. This will allow us, among other things, to possibly hire a few additional Police Officers to shore up what is currently a small and overburdened force. If we could do something as simple as adding a few more patrols at places such as Harvest Home Park and the Cheviot Fieldhouse, we can make these wonderful facilities the family-friendly environments they are meant to be, rather than the hangouts for troublemakers that many residents view them as now. We could better fund our departments charged with enforcing our property maintenance code, allowing them to aggressively go after residents and landlords who do not take care of their properties, and even help our elderly residents who have the will but not the means to make much needed repairs. If we can couple these efforts with the view of Cheviot as a suburban business center, I have no doubt we will see an influx of people who want to be a part of such a community buying houses here, rather than the absentee landlord investment group types that we see too much of right now. I also have no doubt that many current residents thinking of moving out of the neighborhood will want to reconsider as their property values begin to rise.

It won't be easy, but it is up to every one of us, residents and elected officials alike, to make it happen. It isn't rocket science; we simply must be more proactive, rather than reactive. Cities like Cheviot face different challenges than they ever have before, which requires us to approach them in different ways than we have in the past. I hear of success stories involving small cities like ours every day in this great nation, and there is no reason that Cheviot cannot be the next one. I look forward to the opportunity to work with each and every resident and public official who is committed to the idea of a better Cheviot, for us all, to make it happen.