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

 

I received an email that should be open to discussion, as requested. All I know about the Sun Press is that there isn't a newspaper for East Cleveland, so I don't read their product. My parents do, so I'll get their opinion on whether the Sun Press matters to them, or not. What about to you? Here's what one realneo reader thinks....

I lived for a while in Bay Village, along Lake Erie, and the views, microclimate, and bugs were amazing. When I first moved there, I used to take my dog down to the water, at a little "swimming" area by Columbia Road, until we went swimming there after a storm and then both got sick as dogs, and the dog's fur started falling out. I've stayed ashore, since... and keep my kids away from the lake. Perhaps the water is not entirely unsafe, between rains, but all that shit and worse that flows into the lake, when the storm drains and sewers overflow into the lake, stays in the lake. And what industry and shipping dumps into the lake, stays in the lake... or turns into fish many eat. So is this a good use for the lake? Who cares, much less may make a difference? And what does the future really hold for Lake Erie, in times of global warming?

Monday, June 16, 2008 - Fine Particle "Soot" Pollution Urban traffic" />
 
Northeast Ohio - An Air Quality Advisory has been issued for Monday until such time as the front containing rain moves through the region.  This Advisory is for the counties of Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit.

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.

Little Italy has always been core to my REAL NEO experience. From earliest childhood memories,  my family has always had many meals at various Little Italy restaurants, each year, as well as picking-up an occasional pizza (where else in NEO but Mama Santas or Valentino's... well, do try the Gelatoria at Fairhill). I also love getting Lemon Ice and other goodies at Corbos. with their unusual greeting of "Leave the gun, take the cannoli"... as authentic as life gets, in NEO. Last night, I noticed Corbos moved next door to their old home, to a remodeled new space (much as Prestis did, a few years ago) Little Italy has always been a great hyper-local neighborhood, where people live, work, eat and socialize together within, and interact well with the world without. There's always lots of private rehab and strong entrepreneurial business activity here, off the Med-O-Mart grid. Which makes me ask you, what matters to the hyper-local economy in your neighborhood, and how is that doing.

As we begin a new Spring - a new beginning - what are you doing to green your republic?

"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,

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.  

Cuyahoga County owns the University Square Plaza parking garage.  The garage is managed/operated by Inland Management.  Many of the concrete pre-stressed double T planks have failure cracks both at their ends, and all the RAMP planks, like the ones in the photo above, have cracks longitudinally along the outer unsupported edges of the T.  Notice how the gray-colored caulking between the edges of adjacent double T planks is stretched and webbed.  That means the edges of the planks are moving away from one another.  They are moving away from one another because the edges are sagging down.  You can feel the sag as a bumpety bump when you drive up or down the ramp. 

At the City Club recently, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson-Jones suggested that the first priority for the County goverment was "economic development", and that's why the Commissioners and Fred the Fixer Nance were working so hard to be able to pay a wealthy developer from out of state to build and operate a public-private pirate ship here in Cuyahoga.

There is a need for the thoughtful people of Northeast Ohio to speak up loud and clear - sound an alarm - about environmental issues here, and our impact here on environmental issues worldwide.  We should do this in our everyday life, and we should participate in community efforts to speak in harmony about saving planet Earth. One way to shout-out that "This is a state of global emergency" is to become an "Alarmist". As posted on REALNEO here, for this April 11, at 11 AM local time, for one minute, and each 11th of the month thereafter, at 11 AM,  Alarmists declare, "We need to set off the world's alarms. Join in. It could be the alarm on your phone, in your home, in your car. You could gather some friends to make some noise. Organise a flash mob. Schedule a company fire drill. Borrow a vintage air raid siren... Be creative. Raise the alarm." So, people of REALNEO, how should we sound the first Alarmism minute?

I attended the KennedyConCenter meeting this morning - held before the scheduled meeting of the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners.  

While snow piles up outside in NEO,  in Hawaii the anthurium are brilliant, waxy red.   A  friend just arrived Friday from Hawaii and hand carried these spectacular delicate stems.   What a thoughtful present.

Here is a dance video which NEO should watch and understand - and understand how to program.

A dance that union workers, and all workers, need to learn. 

 

The day Ohioans and others around America failed the world and allowed Bush and his clan 4 more years was the saddest of my life, and I was depressed by life after that until I posted the following...

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.

 Committing to American Municipal Power's proposed Meigs County pulverized coal generator for 50 years is a death trap for the City of Cleveland - and AMP knows it. 
 

Attending the Cleveland City Council subcommittee on CPP all day yesterday brought things to my mind that wouldn’t have aligned in my head if I hadn’t sat and listened to the back and forth for hours.       AMP OHIO is negotiating with Cleveland in BAD FAITH.    

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.

When you don't have the money to keep the heat on, and it gets cold, the pipes freeze. 

A page 1 article in the February 2, 2008, Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Dogged security guard caused quite the stir", makes light of international concern over a dog photographed sitting alone in the window of an abandoned, boarded-up house in Cleveland, with the caption "Dog Days: Left behind as foreclosure crisis pounds U.S.", which was published in the Toronto Star, leading to local action in Cleveland to rescue the distressed animal, which turned out to be imprisoned by real estate speculators to protect their shit. They don't even own the dog... the article doesn't care who owns the dog... the article is pointless, yet surfaces pathetic flaws in the character of so many in our region.

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

 Having worked in the construction business for years, I got so I could tell when a Diesel was rev'd a little too high.

So here I was on the Welland Canal in late January asking - was it the ice breaking that was forcing the revs? - or was it time for a coffee break?

It was the Tim  Horton's  coffee!

On January 10, 2008 Bill MacDermott addressed an audience of about 30 at Webtego in Cleveland, Ohio.  

 

At a recent morning function, a “complimentary breakfast” was offered. 

The 15 story Dulski Federal Building in Buffalo, New York is undergoing a down to the steel skeleton re-hab.   This building was constructed in the early 1970’s, and besides the time of its construction, shares other similarities with the Breuer designed Ameritrust Tower built in 1971 in Cleveland, Ohio. 

YOU ARE THE BEST REPORTER IN NEO -  YOU HAVE informative and educational NEWS!

 

Realneo's frequent blogger Bill MacDermott will be the moderator on January 10, 2008 at the Mid Town Brews' colloquia on solar energy.  Everyone welcome!

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.