Below is nonprofit ClevelandBikes' letter to the Ohio Department of Transportation regarding the ODOT plans for the West Shoreway. Individuals wishing to add their views on the plan can visit the ODOT website (http://www.innerbelt.org/Lakefrontwest/Lakefronthome.htm) or email project officers (craig [dot] hebebrand [at] dot [dot] state [dot] oh [dot] us, Lora [dot] Hummer [at] dot [dot] state [dot] oh [dot] us).  

Steven Litt shared very exciting news today in the Plain Dealer - the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) has announced their choice of architect to design their relocated facility in University Circle, and the potential for something spectacular is astounding. The choice is Foreign Office Architects, of London, which Litt calls "one of the hottest young architecture firms in the world", and their portfolio shows some exciting designs from around the world (some examples posted above and below) - it seems the MoCA project will be their most important ever in the USA... they will be working with Cleveland's Westlake Reed Leskosky. Also mentioned in Litt's column, University Circle Incorporated seem to be making progress working with MRN, Ltd. (developers of E. 4th Street), and Zaremba, Inc., for remaining planning of the Triangle area, so a complete development picture for this important zone is coming into focus.

Last week, my lifelong Republican now Democratic parents told me there is a promising candidate for President in 2008. Barack Obama. They are entusiastic, and even gave me a Time Magazine about Barack. I hadn't had a chance to think too much about this until today, when I got an email from Barack encouraging my support for the Democratic ticket this year. So I went to his website, and saw something very positive about the man... "Since coming to Washington, Senator Obama has made the elimination of childhood lead poisoning one of his top priorities." Add to that, "Senator Obama has been a strong supporter of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration and is a cosponsor of the Great Lakes Environmental Restoration Act (S. 508)" "He is a cosponsor of the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (S. 1151)"... etc.

While I still “live” in NEO, I now largely work in Toronto, and post most of my insight from there. I believe such global insight sharing offers unique perspectives to NEO not otherwise available and encourage more cross-boundary insight trade. As someone long associated with the Northeast Ohio economy and arts, I can't help but compare what I experience in Toronto (and Canada) with my experiences in Cleveland (and the USA), and I feel lessons learned far and wide, like in Toronto, will help NEO develop a stronger new economy at home. For those far and wide, I encourage you to post your observations here!

Two weeks ago saw the second birthday of REALNEO. I started REALNEO in October, 2004, to provide “Regional Economic Action Links for North East Ohio” and implement for the region some exciting open source social networking technology. While the outcomes have not been entirely what I expected, and these years have in ways been rough, I've been thrilled to help drive and support some great developments in the community.

 “Even when it comes to a problem as big as global warming, doing Just One Thing can have an enormous, positive impact on our planet. For instance, replacing four light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs will keep a ton of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that causes global warming, out of the air. And if everyone in the U.S. unplugged their electronics, such as TVs, computers, DVD players, and stereos when they're not using them, we'd prevent 18 million tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Just One Thing is so easy--and so effective.”

Trick My Vote: Science, Intellectual Courage, and the Battle for America's Soul" is the topic of a free public lecture by Ken Miller, biologist at Brown University, expert witness at the Dover, PA "Panda Trial," and author of the book Finding Darwin's God. He will explain why every college student must vote. Program will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Thursday, October 26, in Ford Auditorium, Allen Memorial Medical Library. Visit /scholars/Events.htm for more information.

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The Plain Dealer published early details for a wonderful vision that has been developed by the Beck Board of Directors, with the City of Lakewood and the Lakewood schools, that will offer all of NEO a wonderful arts and learning asset for the future. "The Beck Center for the Arts will stay in Lakewood and form a partnership with city schools to create an arts-education academy that would anchor a possible cultural district in Lakewood's west end." "Other potential partners could include colleges and businesses." Sounds like a great opportunity for the CIA, and perhaps Kent State, wo have a valuable presence on the West Side!

In today's Plain Dealer, columnist Regina Brett posted an editorial acknowledging the decline of PD readership and asking readers to offer suggestions. " How should we change? What do we do to attract young people without alienating the faithful?" I can offer an easy answer: " “When we talk about moving toward sustainability, we need to talk about at least three things,” he says. “Changing the economic structure we’re all working in, changing the culture we live in, and changing our own individual consumption patterns.”

An eye-opening exhibition on environmentally friendly design of affordable housing opens with a panel discussion at The Cleveland Institute of Art at 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 3, 2006. The traveling exhibition, HOME House Project: The Future of Affordable Housing, will be on view in the Institute’s Reinberger Galleries from November 3 – December 22, 2006. See images from the exhibition at the Weisman Museum here. Read On:

The exhibition began in 2003 with a competition sponsored by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Designers and architects were challenged to create appealing, affordable single-family house designs using Habitat for Humanity house plans as a starting point. The 440 entries originally submitted by designers from the U.S. and six countries were judged on their design appeal, affordability and use of environmentally sustainable materials, technologies and techniques.

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Once again the 'agency' makes a move towards increasing the likelyhood of exposure to frankenfoods.  Check it:

On Oct. 11 in the Federal Register notice (71 Fed. Reg. 59,697) the  USEPA has issued a draft rule that exempts some plant incorporated protectants from the EPA's regulatory requirments for pesticides.

Want to know what Greater Ohio has been saying to gubernatorial and legislative candidates this election season? It's in the book - the Greater Ohio's briefing book for candidates, officially titled, "If Sprawl Meant Jobs, Ohio Would Have Full Employment: Policies for Redeveloping a Great State" (also available from Greater Ohio's home page).

Ohio State Representative Mike Foley (D) will be holding a press conference tomorrow, Tuesday October 17 at 11:30 am at the gazebo at Lincoln Park (W. 14th and Starkweather), located in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland’s west side..  

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 Thanks to Ed Morrison for forwarding to me an Akron Beacon Journal article about Akron filing a lawsuit against U.S. paint makers over lead hazards in their community. I don't believe the Cleveland Plain Dealer bothered to report on this important development, and the PD certainly didn't do as good a job of reporting on related litigation in East Cleveland and Toledo, a few weeks prior. Wonder why? As defendant Sherwin Williams' spokesman Bob Wells said, "Ohio is the last place we thought cities would bite their own'', and, in the case of mainstream local media, that line of reasoning holds true... they earn money from Sherwin Williams advertising and don't cover the lead issue in Northeast Ohio, even as 1,000s of children in Cuyahoga County are lead poisoned each year and so fail in life, trapping our core population in toxic poverty. With such a realization that our economy is held hostage by large corporate interests, it is time for the community to get serious about this issue... especially as Sherwin Williams and their attorneys act to intimidate our cities and deceive the people and the courts. Read on!

Shame on Dennis Kucinich, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Terrence O'Donnell and Barbara Sykes for snubbing the City Club of Cleveland and denying the democratic process. 

From Denise Polverine's "Young Professionals" blog on Cleveland.com, there's an interesting "Brain Gain" event coming up at the Rock Hall. I went to an earlier one of these events and they are interesting... if you plan to go, be certain to RSVP as they are strick about that:

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Today, at WVIZ IdeaCenter, Ingenuity Festival founder and director James Levin hosted his peer Steve Dietz, director of a remarkable "sister" arts and technology festival ZeroOne San Jose, along with a group of NEO arts leaders, for intimate planning for the 3rd Ingenuity Festival, which will be held around Playhouse Square and Cleveland State University in 2007. James introduced the discussion by explaining he had been in San Jose last month for ZeroOne and is working with the organizers of that event in his brainstorming for our festival, which is one of the most exceptional of its type in the world. And, based on what was presented and discussed today with Steve Dietz, Ingenuity Festival is about to get much more exceptional... James is looking and partnering very globally and focused on strengthening the integration of "technology" into Ingenuity 2007. This was clearly a strength in the exciting artistic expressions of ZeroOne, as presented in an impressive overview by Dietz.

"Make no small plans" is developer Bob Stark's sentiment toward visioning the future of Northeast Ohio with which I agree completely. Next Tuesday, October 17th, the public is invited to a forum at the Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University, hosted by Dean Rosentraub, featuring Mr. Stark's development vision for Downtown Cleveland, with a panel discussion featuring Steven Fong, Dean, College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Kent State University, and Valerie McCall, Chief of Government Affairs, Office of the Mayor, City of Cleveland. It is exciting to see such a collaborative approach to planning forming around such core stakeholders and the public. The opposite of the command and control process that is giving us the ODOT bridge from hell and so many other bad outcomes in NEO, this public multi-university, public-private exploration has the potential to connect important agendas for consensus building around sophisticated visions of the future of our region, starting with the heart of it all, downtown Cleveland.

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Come to a Cleveland Solar & Wind Open House to inaugurate the first Uni-Solar solar shingle installation in Northeast Ohio.

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There were two important shows on WVIZ/PBS public television tonight. First, locally produced Ideas featured a segment on lead poisoning. Second,  "Bill Moyers on America: Is God Green?" explored  how "Millions of evangelical Christians in America have taken on care for the environment as a moral and Biblical obligation. They believe that as Christians it is their duty to take action against global warming, the loss of species and toxic chemicals in our air, food and water." So, we saw the greatest problem in our local society today... toxic contamination of at least 20% of people's land and lives in Cleveland... followed by the solution, being the 65% of Americans who believe in Christ coming together to battle such toxins. To care about any of these matters without caring about all is to live an incomplete and evil life as, apparently taken from the scriptures,  "those who destroy the Earth shall be destroyed by God!"

One could safely say, before Cleveland went to the dogs it went to the pigs... but, that is a whole other story. Today, the dogs and pigs I'm talking about relate to the public arts series sponsored by the St. Clair Superior Development Corporation to have local artists paint fiberglass sculptures recognizing the animals of the Chinese zodiac - this year was of the dog... next year is of the pig. Much more interesting than the painted guitars concept, these animal forms offer great creative opportunities for artists and the results of the year of the dog efforts were extraordinary - you may see many of them posted here. So, if you are artistic or know someone who is, check out the following details on designing new pigs for Cleveland... below

In 2020 - the year, and with such vision - what postcard do you want to send from your hometown of Cleveland... the "Cleveland of my Dreams" vision above, or the the toxic "Nightmare in Cleveland" reality planned for us by ODOT, below, which is planned to be worse than anyone ever imagined. By 2020, ODOT plans to blight the entire dream zone of the Cleveland Flats and the East and West banks of the Cuyahoga River Valley shown in these renderings, and surrounding neighborhoods, even worse than they and the port have blighted there today. By 2020, ODOT will have finished their slash of concrete and steel rendered in the nightmare reality below, destroying these opportunity zones as freeways have destroyed so much else in NEO. Read on to see how we may be able to make these mightmare visions dreamy, instead.

The rendering above is of the aerial footprint of the new westbound bridge to be built in Cleveland, for over $300 million, in a multiyear, disruptive, near $ billion construction nightmare, which will make life in Northeast Ohio pure hell for commuters and the Cleveland economy through 2012 and leave a massive, ugly scar across Cleveland's greatest asset - the Cuyahoga River Valley - forever. All that is pathetic, but not nearly as sad as the loss of development potential for Cleveland, the city, and the area of the Flats around the current and future bridge sites and on the east and west banks of the Flats and surrounding neighborhoods. Destroying that potential is the whole point of regional leadership creating this disastrous outcome... what could be better for sprawl-mongers than further destroying the urban core?

Northeast Ohio's Blogging community is America's most active civic journalism network. Meet The Bloggers is an exciting, cutting edge community lead by George Nemeth, Gloria & Tim Ferris, and Jason Haas, building a national reputation for supporting freedom of speech, citizen dialogue and strengthening transparent political process - keystones of Democracy. 

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The Plain Dealer finally has their headline article in the battle to protect citizens against lead poisoning - Sherwin Williams is suing East Cleveland, Toledo and Columbus for them filing suit against Sherwin Williams over lead poisoning... this, rather than the impacts and history of lead poisoning, is what has made the headlines in the paper, featured on top of the business section (rather than the front page, where the news belongs). So, Sherwin Wlliams and their local attorneys Jones Day feel they can intimidate or perhaps bankrupt Ohio cities by attacking them over what has already been determined against Sherwin Wiliams and Jones Day in Rhode Island and is in court in 26 other states, all because  Sherwin Wiliams and Jones Day believe Ohio and our courts are so in the pockets of this rich and powerful local company and law firm they will endorse Blackmail.