Gloria Ferris

I just received this notice from Nathan Rutz of Ohio Citizen Action  informing me that we are again being forced to defend ourselves against this abomination that Cleveland Public Power and the City of Cleveland promote. 

Dear Gloria —
In 2012, after facing widespread public opposition to their plans for a new garbage incinerator on Ridge Road, the City of Cleveland fired project developer Peter Tien for incompetence and claimed they were going back to the drawing board.

However, the City has continued to pursue this project behind the scenes, even thoughsome new consultants (Gershman, Brickner and Bratton) just told Cleveland City Council  last week that a new “gasification” plant would be far more expensive than other options.

The city has now asked Ohio EPA to issue an air pollution permit for the proposed garbage incinerator on Ridge Road.  The draft permit, which was issued on May 10, 2013, is very similar to the one proposed last year,  and can be found on the Ohio EPA’s website at:http://wwwapp.epa.ohio.gov/dapc/permits_issued/1010783.pdf

The Ohio EPA and City of Cleveland Division of Air Quality have just announced that they will hold a public hearing on this permit on Wednesday, June 12^th, at 6:00 p.m. at the Estabrook Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road.

Loud and clear, the citizens of Cleveland told Mayor Frank Jackson and city officials that we want a strong recycling and composting program, not a highly polluting and unnecessary garbage incinerator.  Apparently they didn’t get the message.

Please plan to come to this hearing, bring your “No Cleveland Incinerator” signs if you can, and be prepared to testify against this proposal.  We will be preparing some additional information for you to use, but wanted to get the word out about the date right away.

Also, please call Mayor Frank Jackson’s office, 216-664-3990, and tell the mayor that the city should withdraw this permit and go back to the drawing board.

With thanks,

Nathan Rutz

Cleveland Campaign Organizer

http://ohiocitizenaction.nationbuilder.com/
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We are posting this email here for the record with regard to the city’s arrogant and high-handed attempt to destroy mature, big trees in W. C. Reed Park. Portions of this communication are mine, and others are Laura McShane’s:

Hello all-

This kind of high handed "full steam ahead" without adequate community engagement is unacceptable.

Destroying trees that have a value of $192,973 per tree and replacing them with 2 in. saplings because they MAY BE toxic is unacceptable.

Trashing a neighborhood park in the name of "remediation" with funds from the EPA is unacceptable.

For years, residents near the park have asked for routine maintenance of the trees only to be told how long the maintenance list is, how small the Urban Forestry budget is, and how short handed they are is unacceptable.

In the light of the unwillingness for the City to provide the documentation that provides the FACTS concerning why the trees must be destroyed is unacceptable.

I find it exceedingly strange that when new housing was proposed along the park and on Denison Avenue, these environmental concerns were down[played as "having no effect" but when park improvements that are strictly discretionary and DO NOT have to be done, environmental issues that will allow EPA funds be used for a contract for remediation the landscape changes.  WHY???

Please provide the documents the residents requested posthaste and STOP the forward momentum until the community has answered.

Gloria Ferris

__________________________________________________________________

 

On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 9:56 AM, Laura McShane <lmcshane23@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello Ms. Roberson,

Please release all planning and informational documents pertaining to the renovation and   remediation of WC Reed Field.

Residents have not received materials as promised at public meeting held at St. Barbara’s Church in December 2012.  Commissioner Cox assured residents that these materials would be made available for review at the Cleveland Public Library Brooklyn Branch 3706 Pearl Rd. Cleveland OH 44109.

We are now being told that the City of Cleveland plans to proceed with contract under Ohio EPA for remediation that is to include removing all trees at the park. 

For the record, residents have not been given adequate information or notice for this to proceed and residents are opposed to removal of mature oak trees in the park.

Regards,

Laura McShane

216.739.1809

City of Cleveland :: Division of Park Maintenance and Properties

by Gloria Ferris

“Trees give you a connection to the past, and a sense of continuity in a neighborhood.”

Benjamin Swett, New York City photographer of trees, gave the above quote during an interview with Ian Frazier in the March 4th, 2013 issue of The New Yorker. It is a fitting beginning to Brooklyn Centre Naturalists’ (BCN) annual Arbor Day article. (Arbor Day was observed on April 26th).

The history of trees in Brooklyn Centre and Old Brooklyn is a rich one. When the neighborhoods were initially settled in the early 1800s, a forest of oak, beech and maple trees greeted the first pioneers.
In the 1850s, Cleveland became known as “The Forest City”. Brooklyn Centre and Old Brooklyn certainly are part of that heritage. In the 1900s when these areas became bustling communities, planting trees along streets and boulevards was part of the strategic plan. The giant sycamores along South Hills
Blvd. in Old Brooklyn, for instance, remain as a bastion to this time of uniting nature with communities.

Sadly, the majestic trees of Archwood Ave. were decimated by the tornado which roared down city streets in 1953. More recently (last autumn) trees in both neighborhoods were hit by Hurricane Sandy.

In 1902, William Stinchcomb planned and oversaw the building of the bathhouse, tennis courts and main building at the new zoo at Brookside Park. Stinchcomb’s vision of the Emerald Necklace included Brooklyn north and south of the Park. Presently, our park neighborhoods are holding their own. Many
70 to 100 year old trees remain, but storms, updated street plans and age are destroying them regularly.

For years, City budget restraints have also taken a toll. Instead of the City automatically replacing a lost tree on a tree lawn, a home owner must request a replacement. When utility companies replace or make improvements to failing infrastructure, a disclaimer such as this one is often made: “Every effort to save
shrubbery and trees will be made. If necessary, they will be removed. They will not be replaced.”

Residents must act now or the neighborhood history of tree-lined streets will become only a memory of the past instead of a part of the future. Today, every resident can help to solidify Cleveland’s label of “the Forest City”. They can replace trees which have been removed because of storm damage, age and progress, instead of waiting for the City to do so. And they can plant new trees because trees contribute
to utility cost containment and storm water management. (Older homes were built with the intention of using trees for coolness in summer and warmth in winter.)

Planting a tree is a way to combine nature and progress. Join BCN in their effort to make sure that Cleveland — the Forest City — is a reality in the future and not just a memory. Plant a tree in honor of Arbor Day 2013. And when it’s mature, it just might increase the value of your property by many thousands of dollars.

(This article also appears at http://www.oldbrooklyn.com/OBN/13MayOBN.pdf)

Yesterday was the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s anniversary. I wonder about Mary Todd Lincoln who on that fateful Good Friday dressed for a night on the town with her husband, who attended the theater to enjoy a play with the well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, when he shot her husband in front of her eyes. I wonder what she thought as she watched her husband slowly die from the assassin’s bullet. I wonder if she had the chance to tell him she loved him and that now he would be with their beloved Willie. I wonder how she coped with such a public end to her husband’s life. I believe Walt Whitman’s tribute to him is appropriate.

O Captain! My Captain!

***The white areas on this map have fewer than 1000 Hispanic people per Square mile.***

Given the recent events of Ward Redistricting I thought it was a good time to pull it out and see where the concentration of Hispanic people lived.

Seems to me that it should be relatively easy to create a ward that has a 41% density of Hispanics without causing major disruption. Then again, maybe not.

Friday I attended Neighborhood Connections City Repair. Since I have been focused on poetry these past few days when I saw the beautiful paintings at the intersections in Portland Oregon I remembered this e.e. cummings poem.

“anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain”
? E.E. Cummings, Selected Poems

I discovered Gwendolyn Brooks and her beautiful poetry during college in a “Kiddie Lit” class that I didn’t even want to take.  I learned so much about literature and poetry in that class that it remains one of my fondest memories of college.

I related to this poem then and still do now.  Being a bit obstinate, i have never done what was expected. And since, my voice doesn’t stay in key any time I would decide to sing would be quite terrible.

The Crazy Woman

I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I’ll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.
I’ll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I’ll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.
And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."

                    -Gwendolyn Brooks

Tim walks into the room as I am posting yesterday’s entry today and says The other day when you posted “To My Coy Mistress” I thought of “ I never Saw a Goddess Go”.  So today’s entry is from my spouse who keeps me entertained with his original poems as well as his knowledge of not only the poems I know but of many I am unaware.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)

by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794

I first heard this poem one year when the tiger lilies began to bloom.  My father recited it in its entirety.  I told him I didn’t think it was about a tiger lily. his answer was, “oh you got that”.  Anyone who knew my dad will think this story odd,  but i will have more throughout the month.

On Day 2 of National Poetry Month, I chose a poem that I remember from my college days when Time seemed like it would go on forever. Reading it forty-five years later, my perspective has changed, but my love of the metaphors remains unchanged.

To his Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
        But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.