The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants to make sure voters know that ballot applications are no longer automatically mailed to voters.  You, as a voter, are accustomed to receiving an application in the mail, but now you must request your ballot application. You must obtain and return a Vote by Mail ballot application if you wish to Vote by Mail in the November 8, 2011 General Election.   Here’s how:

Yard signs are popping up all over town.  To request your “Elect Mary Dunbar, City Council” yard sign, click on “Volunteer” above, fill in the electronic form, and check the yard sign box.  Your sign will soon be delivered free of charge to your home and inserted in your front yard.  Certain placement restrictions apply, and that information will be provided to you.  Yard signs are important in a political campaign because…

Come on Tuesday October 11th from 7 pm to 8 pm to the Lee Road Phoenix Cafe for a roundtable discussion with Mary Dunbar, candidate for Cleveland Heights City Council. I have now visited every street in Cleveland Heights, knocked on thousands of doors to meet voters, and talked to hundreds. You are invited to talk with me about the issues that are important to our community: taxes, housing, our schools and sustainability, among others. Bring your questions!  Here’s a link for more information:  http://phoenixcoffee.com/node/418

I have heard Superintendent of Schools Douglas Heuer speak on several occasions, and I have been impressed by the intelligence of plans to improve our schools’ performance.   The latest testing results suggest that the district’s improvement programs are effective, as virtually all schools improved.  The schools need our support to continue positive momentum with the goal of achieving an excellent rating in three to four years.  Let’s do it!

Friday morning, September 9, I turned in 31 partial petitions with 516 signatures at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (BOE).  I only needed 282 signatures but was advised to have lots of extras since the BOE no longer does pre-checks before the deadline, and that means there is no second chance.  When I turned in the signatures, I was told that if they didn’t call me to tell me I’d fallen short, then I could be assured I was on the ballot.  Looking on the BOE Web site, you can now see my name listed as a candidate for Cleveland Heights City Council.  Thanks to…

Come to the Lee Road Library at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 27,  for a public meeting about a new historic district for Cleveland Heights – the Shaker Farm Historic District.  The meeting will feature a presentation by a representative from the Ohio Historic Preservation Office on what becoming listed as an historic district on the National Register of Historic Places entails.  Because I submitted the application, I will explain the scope and architectural and historic merits of the district.

The August 2011 issue of Scientific American has an article entitled “How New York Beat Crime” that discusses how in the past two decades New York achieved the largest and longest sustained drop in street crime ever experienced by a big city.  It has nothing to do with solving underlying problems of income inequity, poor education or improved housing, though obviously it would be excellent to solve all of those issues, too.

A few years before the Peace Corps assigned me to St. Joseph’s College, Sasse, in West Cameroon, Father Cunningham, a Mill Hill missionary, was made principal of the school and ordered to take back control from unruly students.  Father Cunningham hired Mr. Tansinda to be Master of Discipline.  The two of them figured out who the trouble makers were.  They expelled some and allowed the rest to stay after being caned, for this was a boarding high school for about 400 boys in the British tradition.

Dr. Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, is one of the developers of the Real Age test on the Internet.  You know your chronological age, but go to www.realage.com and take the test to find out what your “real age” is.  The test tells you how well you are taking care of yourself.  Your lifestyle – what you eat, how much you exercise and so on – can make you more vulnerable to degenerative diseases of age such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke or dementia.  Or it can make you much less vulnerable.

On August 7, I completed my first ever Olympic-length triathlon.  I came in #1 in my age/gender group.  By finishing first in my age/gender group, I qualified on my first try for the National Triathlon competition later this month.  What a surprise!