Allison Urbanek, candidate profile for Lakewood City Council 2025 election

All responses have been submitted by the candidate.

Candidate name: Allison Urbanek 

Candidate contact: urbanek4lakewood@gmail.com 

Candidate age: 42 

Candidate’s stated party affiliation: Democrat 

Position Sought: Lakewood City Council, At-Large 

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? No 

What is your educational background? 

I have a Bachelor of Arts degree from The College of Wooster with a focus on History & Philosophy. I have completed Masters level course work in Social Work and Non-Profit Management.  

What is your occupation? 

I am an Executive Leader at a Local Non-Profit Affordable Housing Provider for Older Adults where we focus on creating high-quality housing with wrap around services for our residents to ensure that they have access to services that will help them live the best-life possible. I have spent the past 20 years working in the non-profit sector and of those 20 years, I have been in leadership positions for over 15 of those years.  

Do you have any previous experience as an elected official?  

No. 

Why are you seeking office? 

I am seeking office because of my love of Lakewood and the amazing people who live here. I have spent the past 18 years serving our community through my volunteer and professional work, and I see all of those efforts, projects and experiences as my love letter to Lakewood. My whole career has been dedicated to serving others and I feel like it is a natural transition to take the knowledge and lessons learned over those years to City Council so that I can share my experience and passion with residents and our community as a whole.  

What do you think the single most pressing issue facing city council is? 

I believe that the single most pressing issue for our community is affordability. I believe that the increasing housing values and costs surrounding owning a home is making it very difficult for low-moderate and middle income families to stay in our community. This issue is also impacting the rental community and longtime naturally occurring housing is starting to disappear, leaving only higher-rents apartments and luxury apartments which is making it difficult for families and young professionals to stay in our community. While City Council cannot directly affect the cost of housing and related costs, they can work with the City Administration to create long-lasting and effective legislation to create and promote common-sense programs that would help to reduce costs for our residents to find and stay in healthy, safe and affordable housing long-term. 

What differentiates you from other candidates? 

I have spent the past 18 years serving the Lakewood Community through my work with local non-profits as well as my volunteer work. Through that work, I connected with residents in all corners of the community. Throughout my professional career, I have worked with the City Administration, small business owners, City Council, volunteers and regular folks to create a sense place and community as well creating long-standing programs that helped to keep folks in healthy and safe housing, as well as remain in their homes as they aged- in-place. Over the past two years, I have been involved in all aspects of creating and maintaining affordable housing for older adults in the Lakewood Community as well as Cleveland and western Cuyahoga County. My entire career has been people focused, with a lot of attention spent on creating opportunities for all residents to thrive in our community. If elected, I will take my people-focused approach to City Hall and work to create a bridge between residents and our city government. 

Please summarize your campaign platform. 

My primary focus when elected to Lakewood City Council will be a simple one, work to improve communication between residents and City government.  

I will also put a focus on:  

1) Affordable Housing Policy- The City of Lakewood has an 8 point Affordability Plan, which we are lucky as a community to have but I would like to take the plan and work to review and update it to implement more long-standing programs and legislation that will create affordability in perpetuity. My 20 year career has been focused on creating and implementing these types of programs. I hope to work with the City Administration to create more programs that will help residents make Aging in Place/Universal Design improvements so that residents are able to live in their homes longer and more safely.  

2)Comprehensive Housing Study- most of Lakewood’s housing stock is 100+ years old and as they enter into their second century, it would be good for our community to have a plan that will help to guide our approach to future development and redevelopment. Since our community is so dense, there are not many opportunities so this plan would help us to take advantage of opportunities large and small based on evaluation and studies to create housing that will continue to meet the needs of our community as it ages, grows and changes.  

3) Economic Development Plan- Small businesses are the heart of our community. Lakewood is home to so many locally owned-small businesses and it is important that we continue to build out programs and resources that will help our small businesses thrive. Small business owners put their hearts and large amounts of collateral on the line to make their dreams come true, as a community that welcomes small businesses with open arms, we should work to create more access points for small business owners to find the resources that they need to thrive as well as more support for the organizations that provide these resources and programs. This plan will also help to work to create a plan to encourage businesses to relocate and invest in our community, helping to grow our tax base and diversity of businesses in Lakewood.  

4) Pedestrian and Bike Safety- residents of all ages deserve to be able to get around in our community without the fear of getting hurt or worse. We need to continue conversations and ultimately projects that will improve pedestrian and bike safety. The Complete Streets Program that is currently being discussed at the City Council level is a great start to addressing these issues. It is a complex issue that has many layers but I believe that we need to start with some low-hanging fruit approaches like ensuring that all crosswalk pedestrian signals work without needing to be engaged through a button. This quick and easy fix will ensure that folks will be alerted automatically when they are safe to cross the street. I also believe that more conversations, planning activities and task forces would be helpful to get insight and real-time insight into the needs of the community.  

What past experiences indicate that you’ll succeed as a councilperson? 

In my work with LakewoodAlive, the local Community Development Organization, which I had the pleasure of working with for 10 years. In my time there, I was able to work on a wide variety of projects that impacted our community. From hosting large scale events like the Lakewood Summer Meltdown and Light Up Lakewood to working with small businesses by hosting workshops and networking opportunities. My primary focus was the Housing Outreach Program and through that program I was able to connect with thousands of residents in their homes to help them find resources to help them make improvements or necessary repairs, as well as learning about their experiences and working with them to find available programs that could help them overcome hardships and challenges that were affecting their quality of life. Through that work, I have developed many relationships and awareness of available programs which I think will be helpful when working one-on-one with constituents. I have also had the pleasure of working with hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating volunteer projects from large scale projects like roof and garage replacements all the way down to weeding and mulching projects. In my current role as President of a local affordable housing provider, I lead a staff of dedicated individuals who work together to provide high-quality affordable housing for older adults. I also work with a team to create and develop new projects throughout northeastern Ohio. All of this work boils down to leadership, organization and relationship building and when it comes down to it, our community needs approachable leaders who are good listeners and problem solvers and I believe that my 20 years of professional work experience (12 of them in Lakewood) have trained me well to work with folks, be a good listener and help to make City Hall more approachable.  

Is there anything else voters should know about you? 

I would like to the Lakewood Community to know that my entire career has been people focused and I hope to take all of the skills and relationships that I have learned and made to Lakewood City Council. My career path has allowed me the pleasure of working with every City department as well as working with the small business community and residents and visitors to Lakewood. For the past 12 years, I’ve had the honor of working with two local non-profits (LakewoodAlive and Barton Communities) and it has allowed me to get to know the Lakewood community in a unique way. My experience will allow me to bridge the gap between residents, small businesses and City Hall and I will work to improve the sense of connection and community between all groups.