The Emerald Necklace grew a little bit bigger last year. The Cleveland Metroparks added 68 acres to its holdings in 2025, according to a real estate report presented during the park system’s March board of trustees meeting Thursday.
The transactions brought the Metroparks’ total acreage up to 25,418, almost twice the size of Parma.
The parks system spent $6.2 million on that land, with most of that money — $5.8 million — coming from grants. Of the 68 acres, 30 were donated.
One of the Metroparks’ major acquisitions last year was the former Euclid Beach mobile home park, a more than 28-acre site along Lake Erie. Signal Cleveland’s Olivera Perkins has closely followed the Western Reserve Land Conservancy’s relocation of 107 mobile home park residents. Read her coverage here.
The Metroparks’ land deals helped the park system in developing a handful of trails, including at Irishtown Bend and the Solon-to-Chagrin Falls trail.
Check out the Metroparks’ full real estate report here.
Cuyahoga County behavioral health center gets a lifeline
Cleveland-area social service agencies have struck a deal to help finance a new behavioral health center on the campus of the former St. Vincent hospital.
The project’s funding was in doubt after Jason Joyce, the new CEO of the county’s Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board, warned that paying for the center would mean cuts in other services.
But this week, the ADAMHS board announced a deal with The Centers — a nonprofit service provider that would run the behavioral health center — to keep the project moving.
The agreement reduces the ADAMHS board’s projected cuts from $12 million to $6 million, according to a news release. The board would spend $4.5 million a year on the new center. (Previously, the board had committed $10 million.)
The Centers would assume responsibility for managing $6.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that the state pitched in for the project. Both groups are going to need Cuyahoga County Council’s help to make the budget work. That’s why the ADAMHS board and The Centers also agreed to lobby for $12 million from the county’s opioid settlement money.
The ADAMHS board won’t make its cuts universally, the news release said. Instead, it will issue a request for proposals from its service providers and evaluate their budgets and programs.
The agreement will go before the ADAMHS board for a vote on Wednesday.
Reading the consent decree tea leaves
U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver has kept everyone guessing about how he will answer Cleveland’s request to end court oversight of the police.
That oversight was established through a 2015 deal, known as the consent decree, requiring broad reforms to a police force that federal investigators said too often violated citizens’ rights.
Oliver hasn’t yet ruled on the request from the city and DOJ to terminate the agreement. At a hearing this week, he listened to testimony from the city and the DOJ. He also heard from the consent decree monitoring team, which highlighted Cleveland’s progress and shortcomings so far.
Immediate coverage of the hearing emphasized that Cleveland hasn’t gotten out of the decree yet. Mayor Justin Bibb’s office stressed the other side of the coin. The subject line of the mayor’s post-hearing press release: “Judge Solomon Oliver, Jr. Commends City of Cleveland Following Major Compliance Findings Under the Consent Decree.”
At the end of the hearing, the judge said the city and federal government gave an “on point, excellent presentation.” He added, “The city has made a lot of progress.”
But on the other hand, he said, “It’s also good to hear candid conversations about the areas remaining and the work that needs to be done.”
Read our recap of the hearing here. See our graphic here laying out Cleveland’s consent decree progress. And if you have plenty of spare time, you can read the latest monitoring report on the consent decree here.
This story was updated to note that the behavioral health center proposal will go before the ADAMHS board for a vote on Wednesday.