Business View Civil Municipal - July 2023

173 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 7 LYNDHURST, OHIO emphasis. “They train constantly. When I started in public service, you never heard of these things. Or they were things you never thought you’d need. We instituted trauma training. How do we recognize the collateral damage in a situation?” Ward cited incidents of domestic- violence situations, crimes wherein the victims are kids and more. “How are we responding to that?” he rhetorically asked. “How are we treating them? Are we able to bring resources to bear on that–– on what they might be experiencing? It really is an important aspect of what our people do. And having the training sensitizes them in ways that are important.” More about Ward and his many more hats Ward wears so many other hats as well, they almost defy listing. He is actively engaged in the following: He is the president for the Regional Council of Governments RITA (or Regional Income Tax Agency); a member of the board of directors and treasurer of the Senior Transportation Connection; a member of the Cuyahoga County Emergency Services Advisory Board; chairman of the Suburban Council of Governments for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District; a member of the board of the Heights-Hillcrest Regional Chamber of Commerce; a member of the board of Destination Cleveland; and chairman of the Council of Governments for the Community Partnership on Aging. The mayor and Judy Ward, his wife of 46 years, have three adult children, Patrick, William and Linda, as well as two grandchildren, Patrick and Grace. Mayor and Mrs. Ward are now on their second home in Lyndhurst. The mayor got involved in local civic matters early. As a younger man, he was involved in Lyndhurst’s annual hometown celebrations: Home Day, which now actually lasts three days (“But the name is still not plural!” Ward hastens to add with a laugh) and is in its 98th year. These efforts made him known to the city fathers, and this led to writing a hand-delivered newsletter for the City: Lyndhurst Crossroads, 1988-89. The current newsletter is Lyndhurst Life magazine. Beginning as a park picnic, Home Day grew from there. This year’s event is slated for Sept. 8-10, as Ward informed. “It’s a great event,” he said. “We have rides now, and it certainly has gotten a lot more cosmopolitan.” Ward noted that he and his fellow citizens have a lot of hometown pride. “We’re proud and resilient,” he observed. “I often refer to us as the ‘lemonade community,’ because whatever life delivers, we muscle through. We will make lemonade out of whatever life hands us.” More on the history of Lyndhurst According to historian Thomas Treer in Images of America, the land that today makes up the city of Lyndhurst was once part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, obtained by the group through a treaty with the Iroquois tribe in 1796. The following year, Moses Cleaveland, a general in the American Revolution and the namesake of the mysteriously re-spelled