Cleveland – Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones will host a
fourth public forum to discuss the proposed Medical Mart/Convention Center
project.

The purpose of the forum is to share as much information as possible about
the Medical Mart and Convention Center projects with the public.

The forum will be:

I distrust local politicians and the mainstream media enough that I don't believe anything they say any more... CON!

Politics and the media are corrupt. The endorsement isn't in writing, so it is hearsay. I don't believe what I'm hearing!

I still have faith in our political process and media, and the Lewis Succession Plan sounds good to me. No problems!

Society must trust politicians and journalists, and the Cleveland Foundation is involved. They wouldn't all lie about this!

The Coit Road Farmers Market is one of the most endearing places in real NEO. Hidden away in a near-dead industrial graveyard of East Cleveland, with the curb-appeal of a brownfield, it is not a place one goes without intent. So it amazes me that just about every time I go there I see someone I know. I guess I know some pretty smart people.

The most important message communicated at today's press conference kicking-off Lead Awareness Week was that our government leadership at the state, county and municipal level stand united to eradicate lead poisoning in Northeast Ohio by 2010. Publicly expressing their concern about lead poisoning here, and their commitment to its rapid elimination, East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones added important voices to the chorus of public health and social service champions of the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council... a unique, world-class collaboration of around 85 organizations.

The Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) will be holding a Press Conference in recognition of Ohio Lead Awareness Week, which will take place the week of July 20th – 26th, 2008.  Scheduled speakers will address the significant progress made in reducing the number of children affected by lead paint hazards, as well as the importance of continued vigilance and prevention in light of new evidence linking childhood lead exposure to crime, low school-performance, as well as numerous lifelong health problems.  Scheduled speakers, representing a City, County, and State unified effort to eliminate the dangers of childhood lead poisoning are:

 

• Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners
• Mayor Frank Jackson, City of Cleveland
• Mayor Eric Brewer, City of East Cleveland
• State Representative Mike Foley, District 14
• Stuart Greenburg, Executive Director, Environmental Health Watch
• Nakiaa Robinson, Program Manager, Office of Early Childhood, Invest in Children

 

Location

If these are average Clevelanders, living in older urban neighborhoods like around University Circle their entire lives, they have been lead poisoned, perhaps severely. Thursday morning, May 22nd, join 100s of NEOs leaders concerned with our community's health, intelligence, safety and economy meeting at the Cleveland Natural History Museum for a free breakfast, keynote discussion and breakout sessions about lead poisoning and urban redevelopment. I guarantee you will leave this brief event with a completely realigned understanding of the core barriers to the success of our urban neighborhoods, leading to better planning for a healthy, effective region in the future.

Welcome to The Star Market and Cafe! What would make you walk, ride and drive out of your way and stop here? When? Why? Now is the time for Star Neighborhood Development to reinvent a blighted urban convenient store into a community asset. But how? That depends on you. What will you support here?

So I am just back from 14 days in Japan.  Interesting to be on the sidelines as 3,000 Japanese police protect the olympic toarch from what I thought would be a calm, reserved crowd.  Dont get me wrong, I was not in Nagano, I was in Shibuya / Tokyo.. but it got a lot of attention.  Pro and anti China student groups and observers literally throwing punches, 70 year old Japanese men going to jail for throwing tomatoes in the face of the police protecting the toarch... etc.  It was akin to what I saw in the USA when the toarch came thru California.

Clipper's Steelwinds project in Lackawanna, New York is passing through a dark and uncertain repair/redesign.  This photo taken on March 28, 2008 shows 6 of the 8 turbine towers without their blades.  Earlier in the week only the tower on the right hand (north) had blades, so it appears that the lattice boom crane  in the center of the photo is installing, not removing, the turbine hub and blades - presumably after the repair of the gear box.  

Tonight I saw the hot new mockumentary The Green Chain at the film fest.   The best part is that we used our 'private screening' tickets from Pat and Dan Conway's gig tonight to get past the ticket taker then re-appropriated our access rights to see this mockumentary that got started around the same time slot.   To wrong the right... I offer up a nice plug:

The Intergenerational School is holding a Wine & Cheese Open House (with Student‐Led Tours!), this Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 5:30 pm until 7:00 pm - and I strongly encourage those interested in innovation in education and aging to attend. Read through the whole invitation to learn more about the school - it is astounding, as are the founders... Cathy and Peter Whitehouse. This is the school that I hope to expand in the former Hough Bakeries complex, as the anchor for redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood, so if you are interested in that project then you are interested in TIS.... I hope to see you there Thursday... be sure to RSVP!

Location

Who:

Moebius Nature Center & Buckeye Sustainability Institute

What:

Location

In living and working around University Circle, it occurs to me how stupid it is that there are literally five or six police forces operating within overlapping turfs... Cleveland, University Circle, Case, University Hospitals, and the Clinic each have significant police forces. In addition, Cuyahoga County has patrols in the area... all intersecting within a mile of each other... and you are probably as likely to get shot within a mile of that intersection as anywhere in America.

Dear Cleveland City Council Members: This is an urgent plea to exercise your right to cancel the 50 YEAR obligation by Cleveland Public Power to purchase 100MW of electricity from American Municipal Power’s proposed $3.4 billion power plant in Meigs County, OH.

A hundred showed for the MidTownBrews session held yesterday evening at gracious host Insivia  on Superior in Cleveland, Ohio for a public discussion (moderated by Gloria Ferris, George Nemeth, and Betsey Merkel) concerning the pending City of Cleveland, Ohio City Counsel’s upcoming decision to withdraw from the 50 year power supply contract with AMP OHIO which Counsel entered into two months ago.

Cleveland365.com (what persons/names/$ are behind this anyway?) is sponsoring what they call a 10,000 little ideas convo. 

Location

The Buffalo News reports today that the complicated gearboxes on the Clipper wind turbines in Lackawanna, New York have caused the facility to shut down.   The photo above was taken in September of 2007 and shows the eight Clipper turbines on the old Bethlehem slag heaps with Buffalo in the left hand background.

The US designed and built Clipper  turbines are a radical departure from the direction turbine engineering is headed in Europe. 

 

Carl Pope is in Cleveland and on December 4, 2007 I heard him present his  (second to last of ten public presentations)   “mind of Cleveland” “bill board public art”  project at Cleveland State University’s (CSU) Levin College forum.

Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has been collecting a quarter percent more sales and use tax for almost 3 months now - since October 1, 2007.   Projected by Commissioners Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora at about one million per week, that extrapolates to about 11 million in the County coffers from the added sales tax.

I accompanied Cleveland City Councilman Zack Reed, (center with clip board above) a number of times as he collected signatures in order to allow a County wide referendum vote to determine if the voters would support such a tax.