When Ed Hauser speaks during the public comment period of a meeting – he is organized. He has his camera running, and he has his visuals – his documents.
Unlike the majority of the members of the boards and commissions he appears before, Mr. Hauser has done his homework. Mr. Hauser has the pertinent documents in his hands, and Mr. Hauser has read them and understands them.
But in most of the dozen or more meetings I have attended where I have observed Mr. Hauser, his presentation falls on willfully deaf ears.
Must be very frustrating for Mr. Hauser. You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
That was the situation today when Mr. Hauser spoke before the Cleveland Planning Commission which was holding a hearing to consider the approval of a resolution concerning the relocation of the Port of Cleveland to East 55th Street.
Mr. Hauser suggested to the commission that the Campbell Lake Front Plan (the document Mr. Hauser is holding in the photo above) is more than 80% obsolete.
“We need to reconsider the entire lakefront plan, not just the East 55th Street relocation.” We need to consider the $1.5 million dollar taxpayer paid for study (the document which Mr. Hauser later held up) which has never been released to the public. Mr. Hauser asked the Board members if they had read the study – and it was clear than none of the Board Members had read it – or even knew what he was talking about.
Pathetic.
Mr. Hauser pointed out to the Board that still in the Port plan was the EXPANSION of the Cleveland Bulk Terminal – the CBT is the area just to the east of the Westerly Sewage Treatment plant. Mr. Hauser showed the Board the plans for this expansion in the Port documents.
There is EXPANSION and there is RELOCATION.
But the Board didn’t get it. The Board acknowledged that they had not read the $1.5 million dollar study – but the Board Chairman, Mr. Coyne, deferred to one of the staff members (Linda Henrichsen) who said she had read it.
I’m not convinced she had.
I thought this hearing was a sad example of why Cleveland is going down the drain. The Board, not even understanding or having fully read or understood the resolution offered by Bob Brown, were too chicken to even defer their approval for a week or two. No one on the Board made any effort to negotiate for a better resolution.
They just moved to approve it, there was a second, and all murmured aye.
For more than 10 years Mr. Hauser has been attending public meetings in his pursuit of the goal of ensuring Whiskey Island is preserved as a public park – he has the patience of Job.
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