Petition asks Lakewood to fix walking routes before school changes

Five Lakewood residents have put an ordinance before City Council that would require the city to build the safety improvements in its own street plans before children are sent on new or longer walks to school. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections found 1,421 valid signatures on their petition, above the 944 the city charter requires, and the Clerk of Council certified it Monday, November 2.

The Lakewood Provisional Post read the ordinance and watched the November 2 meeting.

The petition follows the Lakewood Board of Education’s decision to turn Lincoln Elementary into an early learning center starting in fall 2027, leaving six elementary schools with new boundaries. The district does not run school buses. It says the average walk grows by no more than a tenth of a mile in any attendance area, while Friends of Lakewood Schools, a parent group, has counted 816 students affected.

The ordinance would apply to any decision, by the school board, the city or a private owner, that opens, closes or moves a school, preschool, child care center, park or library. It is triggered if, as a result, 50 or more children would newly walk along or cross a street the city has rated high-risk, 50 or more would walk at least a quarter mile farther, or 100 or more would be sent somewhere new.

Before the first day, the city would have to finish every crossing, signal, sidewalk and curb ramp its plans list for the affected routes, or council would have to approve a plan leaving those routes no less safe than before. Crossing guards and police would count only as a stopgap. Until then, the city could not issue street permits, grants or tax-increment financing tied to the change.

The ordinance says it does not limit the school board’s power to set attendance areas or close schools. Council could waive any requirement only by a two-thirds vote after a public hearing.

□SOURCE · portal.laserfiche.com · Checked November 3Ordinance 30-2026, the petition ordinance (November 2 council docket, pages 3-10)↗

Council President Sarah Kepple and Vice President Kyle Baker wrote that the petition “appears to embrace” plans council has already adopted, and asked city departments to report on its cost and legality.

Council sent the ordinance to its Committee of the Whole on a voice vote, after five residents spoke in support. Matthew Badgett, a pediatrician and one of the five petitioners, said the group’s own mapping found children’s daily crossings of the city’s high-risk streets would rise from 713 to 844 under the new boundaries. “These routes will not be safe in August of 2027,” he said.

“It’s not that you have to convince us that these are good ideas, because we passed them,” Kepple told the audience. The fixes cost money, she said, and would come up in budget hearings over the next month and a half.

The Committee of the Whole is scheduled to take it up Monday, November 16 and Monday, November 30, and must report by December 21. Under the charter, council then has 30 days to act. If it rejects the ordinance or passes a changed version, the petitioners can collect more signatures and send it to voters.

The petitioners are Matthew Badgett, Amy Ciepiel, Kelly Moyer, Gina Rhodes and Kathryn Slife Rustad.

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WRITTEN BYCory RobertsA Lakewood resident since graduating from Case Western University in 2012.15 articlesView profile →