East Cleveland will wait until after the first quarter of 2015 to decide whether to seek bankruptcy protection, the city's finance director said yesterday, noting such a filing is only one of several options under consideration, Reuters reported yesterday. The assessment was less dire than comments last month by Ohio's state auditor, Dave Yost, who said that the small suburb of its much bigger neighbor Cleveland was on the "verge of collapse." East Cleveland has been struggling financially for years. Mobile phones belonging to city workers have been disconnected. The fire department does not have a working ladder truck and there is no money to fix street sweeping machines. "During 2014, only sheer luck has kept it from that one unexpected expense that would jeopardize the payroll," wrote Dave Yost in a letter dated Nov. 21. "That luck is unlikely to continue, given the growing number of problems and expenses that have been deferred for lack of money."
