Elyria is no ghost town despite what Republican Party billboards claim

Republicans couldn't have chosen a more laughable location for their woe-is-Elyria billboards. Proof that Elyria is not "The largest ghosttown in Ohio," as one of the billboards puts it, is literally under construction across the street. There, on the opposite side of East Bridge Street, the 62-unit, three-story Bridge Pointe Commons is taking shape. It will provide chronically homeless people permanent housing and support, testifying to the private and public sectors' joint commitment to ease their fate. A ghost town wouldn't care about them. Elyria's Republican Party, which paid for the messages on the billboards — the other one requests that "the last person leaving Elyria — Turn out the lights" — cares about making inroads on City Council, only one of whose 11 members is a Republican. The GOP is running an unusually robust slate of seven candidates for those offices this year, including four for the four at-large seats, and it has an obligation to make a case for change, absurd as its case might be. Republicans aren't the only ones who've targeted Council, either, although they've done so only implicitly. Their billboards don't mention elected officials. On the other hand, Frank Whitfield, an independent who won a four-year term as mayor in 2019 by unseating the Democrat Holly Brinda, explicitly accused Council members of disrespecting him and neglecting important duties. His attack wasn't as hyperbolic as the Republicans', but neither was it particularly fair. Let's start with the GOP's case that the city's loss of population is a crisis. Yes, Elyria reached its zenith in the 1980 census and has declined in population since, but even if the billboards had been placed next to the remaining hulk of the burned-out former Uncle Vic's building on Broad Street — it's reminiscent of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of World War II — the GOP still would have had a hard time putting a scare into voters. Between 1980 and 2010, the most recent completed census, Elyria lost slightly more than 3,000 people, or 5.2 percent of its population. Lorain, by contrast, already had started losing population by 1980 and lost 15 percent more of it between then and 2010. Cleveland lost almost 31 percent of its population in the same period. True, the U.S. Census Bureau has estimated that Elyria lost another 1.4 percent of its population between 2010 and 2019, but the larger point is that it has done a better job of holding onto people over the past 40 years than neighboring cities similarly reliant on industry for jobs. Housing is growing, too, in three new subdivisions on the southern and western edges of Elyria. Only a block away from the remains of the old Uncle Vic's on Broad Street, a new central city library is under construction, and Whitfield said in his State of the City speech March 4 that the owner of the Uncle Vic's building and others downtown still plans apartments, retail outlets and restaurants. The expectation, in other words, is that lights will be turned on, not off. As for Whitfield's complaints about Council, which he posted on Facebook, they stemmed largely from its push to restaff the Parks and Recreation Department, which had been downsized at the outset of the pandemic. Without naming them, he accused eight of the 11 members of paying him too little respect and one or more "rogue members" of "grandstanding." He also said Council should pay more attention to lowering water bills, to directing more resources to downtown and areas that bring "higher quality experiences" to Elyria, and to opening a connector road from Chestnut Commons to East Broad Street. A day later, though, during his State of the City speech, he said nothing about his attack on Council and a week later his administration announced the rehiring of the parks supervisor Council had been lobbying for. Snit? Maybe his complaints reflected in part his previous lack of experience in elective office and his lack of political-party allies on Council. Whatever the cause of his disenchantment, though, Whitfield seems to have put at least some of it behind him. In a brief video about the billboards posted Friday on Facebook, he said he was choosing to celebrate Elyria's good qualities, not to focus on "negativity" or partisan politics. Further, Council just last week approved a zoning change the administration had sought to broaden options for redevelopment of Midway Mall. It has a record of acting in the city's best interest, whether by advocating for a Parks and Recreation Department that many residents consider to be one of the city's treasures or cooperating with the Elyria Schools on construction of its new buildings or approving annexations and rezonings for new subdivisions. Even Council's objections to Bridge Pointe Commons — many members thought housing for the homeless should go elsewhere, not so close to a zone where they were trying to encourage commercial development — reflected its interest in what was best for the city, although in that case too parochial an interest. As Brinda put it when Council objected 9-0 to a funding option for the project — the vote did not prevent its construction — "The city is in favor of this type of project, and will certainly welcome any individuals associated with this project." A ghost town doesn't extend a welcome mat, or even have one. Andy Young is editor emeritus of The Chronicle-Telegram. Contact him at (440) 329-7111 or ayoung@chroniclet.com.