Gerald McFaul street signs
By Plain Dealer staff
January 18, 2010, 5:00AM
GCPOMS Signs will be posted for
THIS YEAR's EVENT
May 19-23, 2010
View
Whatever happened to the Sheriff Gerald T. McFaul street
signs outside the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland?
They came down around the end of March, soon after
the long-time sheriff resigned amid a criminal
investigation. And now they're stored in a city of
Cleveland traffic sign shop, where they may be recycled
into new signs.
But now there's a request for new ceremonial signs at West Third Street and along Lakeside Avenue. "And this is one that I don't think we're going to have to ever change," said City Councilman Joe Cimperman.
Gerald T.
McFaulThe proposal -- slated to go
to City Council next month -- pays tribute to police
officers who have died in the line of duty.The intersection at West Third Street and Lakeside Avenue would be designated "Police Memorial Square." That's home to Huntington Park and The Greater Cleveland Peace Officers Memorial, where every May officers from the United States and around the world come to remember fallen officers at a parade and memorial service.
The stretch of Lakeside from East 12th Street to West Third Street -- which is the parade route -- would be called "Police Memorial Way."
The idea came from Cleveland Police Sgt. Charles W. Lane Jr., president of the Greater Cleveland Peace Officers Memorial Society. He says the request had nothing to do with McFaul's exit, but was timed to the society's 25th anniversary next year.
The honorary designation "raises public awareness of the sacrifice of officers who die in the line of duty and their family members who survive them," Lane said. "It also calls attention to the memorial that's located in Huntington Park."
That black granite memorial currently bears the names of 175 officers from Northeast Ohio who have died in the line of duty since the founding of the Western Reserve. Lane expects as many as 3,000 officers to attend next May's silver anniversary commemoration and see the memorial rededicated after $155,000 in renovations.
An Avon police officer stands by
the names of the three police officers who died in the
line of duty in 2007 during a memorial on May 9, 2008
In 2004 Cimperman surprised McFaul
with the signs to honor his decades of service. But
McFaul resigned after a series of Plain Dealer stories
this year spawned a criminal investigation and detailed
questionable fund-raising, hiring and spending practices
under his watch.
The ceremonial signs were quickly removed and are being
stored - not to resurrect them -- but because the city's
standard practice is to hold on to old signs and recycle
the boards to make new ones.
And what was the reaction after the McFaul signs disappeared from the roadways outside the Justice Center? There was none, Cimperman said. "It was weird," he said. "As if they never existed."
For more information about next year's memorial commemoration visit: www.policememorialsociety.com
-- Sandra Livingston, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
