Mayor limits public comment at city council meeting

Thank you all for signing this petition. We support the environmental health of our community and we need sewer improvements to be done in a responsible way. We believe the responsible path in this changing environment is to achieve both. 

At the July city council meeting, the Lynnfield/Lomond SSO project was NOT on the agenda. City Council was aware residents were going to share the petition status with them and raise many other concerns.  After the formal meeting, residents were given only 2 of the 3 allotted minutes (per the website) to share concerns. The mayor said this was at his discretion.  Thankfully, Cleveland.com did an excellent job of giving these concerns an even broader audience than council anticipated.  The city council exists to serve the residents of Shaker Heights not quash concerns. 

The city attempts to go forward on the sewer project but dates and plans and announcements from them are changing weekly.  It is as if they do not know what they are doing. Because of their lack of understanding and clarity on the plan, the city has not yet given proper notification to residents with a public notice which would give us 30 days to appeal.  

We learned that the Shaker Heights Streets and Sewer Superintendent Tony Smith is a former Fabrizi employee.  He is new to the Shaker Heights DPW and his name is not listed on the staff directory as of August 1, 2026 (now archived). If Tony Smith is the city's onsite supervisor of Fabrizi's work, how well has this gone in your opinion? We have documented numerous safety hazards at the site over time and many additional issues all of which deserve their own update.  

Fabrizi drove equipment over tree lawns all along the street to remove sidewalks last week (pictured above).  What authority do they have to do this? The Shaker Heights Law Department confirmed in writing that there is no written authorization that Fabrizi Trucking and Paving work in the tree lawn.

 We do not know the final details / status of the city's original EPA CATEX (exclusion from environmental review) for this project since the city met with the EPA last month.  We will make a public records request. Residents' confidence in this project is at an all time low. 

The city has not proven through a publicly available professional engineering study why the sewer improvements cannot be accomplished in the street.  We have requested this evidence verbally at a June 18th public meeting and in writing since. This is not about money, according to the city, so the question of why not work in the street should be answered if the research has been done and documented in a professional report.  

Thank you for reading if you made it this far.   Our community is worth the fight.