Gloria Ferris

Normally, Tim and I don’t do very well when we write out a list of New Year’s Resolutions based on self-improvement. This year we jointly wrote out our New Year’s resolutions and this is number 1 with us. Shop Locally. I added a codicil to share what we find on this blog. Here is the first entry THE SAUSAGE SHOPPE. Those of us who live in Ward 15 are an incredibly lucky group of people. Pick up any newspaper today and if there is an article about health and nutrition it will say somewhere in the article cut down on perservatives, nitrates, and msg. This business has been in our neighborhood at 4501 Memphis Avenue for years. The lunch meats, sausages, and other treats contain no nitrates, no msg, and no preservatives. The sausages and lunch meats are made on the premises. So everything is fresh, fresh, fresh and not always available.
They have a great catalog on their website.There is a great selection and although prices may be higher than what you find elsewhere, Tim and I find that they are much more satisfying than other processed meats. So if you are looking for healthful alternatives in the food you eat and you also like to shop locally–the Sausage Shoppe is the place for you.

It was standing room only at Corpus Christi Hall Tuesday night. Councilman Kevin Kelley Ward 16 and our councilman Brian Cummins from Ward 15 led the meeting. Fire Chief Stubbs was there with three assistant chiefs; Interim Safety Marty Flask attended; former fire chief Kevin Garrity flew in for the meeting; State of Ohio Representatives Shirley Smith and Annie Keys were there. Over three hundred neighbors, businesspeople, firefighters, policemen, and EMS workers came. Mayor Frank Jackson was unable to attend due to another engagement. All of them were there to engage in a dialogue
on the safety of our neighborhoods and the city.

Folks, if I know one thing now that I didn’t know then, it is this–this issue is BIG! The Ladder 42 “brown out” is only the tip of the iceberg. (Really, folks, I think they need to find an alternative terminology for what it is they’re doing here, at Ladder Company 42.) Questions were asked and answers were given, but the answers given only gave rise to more questions. And on and on it went until 9 p.m. The two-thirds of the iceberg under water is the SAFETY of the WHOLE CITY.

Before we discuss the browning out of Ladder Company 42, we need to know this fact: Safety Director Marty Flask stated that Mayor Jackson wanted us to know that the “browning out” of Ladder 42 is not imminent. A full review will be conducted before the final decision is made in mid-April.

I wanted to paraphrase former Fire Chief Garrity’s remarks as well because his comments frame the issue facing Fire Chief Stubbs and his seven assistant fire chiefs. Essentially, Garrity said that the national response time standard for an engine company is FOUR minutes, and SIX minutes for a ladder company. The city is not providing the dollars that the fire chief needs to do his job.
When Chief Stubbs spoke, he first wanted everyone to know that no firefighter, including himself, wants to see a company “brown out” and that any plan that came out of his office would adhere to “1710.” (I learned later that this is how the national fire-safety standards are referred to in firefighter circles).

There are huge traffic issues that do not appear to have been taken into consideration when making the decision to “brown out” Ladder 42—the closing of the Fulton Road Bridge for two years, the resurfacing of Denison Avenue, the Jennings Road reconstruction, the impending ODOT project on I-71, and the opening of Steelyard Commons in 2007.

Since our Ladder Company 20 will be the next in line to back up Engine 42, I asked these questions: “ It is my understanding that our Ladder Company is known as a first responder what does that mean? And when ladder #20 is responding to an Old Brooklyn call, who is my backup?” No one sitting around me thought that my questions were answered adequately because our Ladder #20 covers I-71 and I-490 as well as Metro Hospital and some of downtown, so it often is out on a call and wouldn’t even be available for Old Brooklyn. The answer was a vague, noncommital “the next available ladder.” I learned later that there is NO strategic plan in place for the city of Cleveland for the deployment of fire equipment.

An Old Brooklyn resident, Norm Ezzie (www.storminnorm.com), asked what plans are in place for preventing fires, given the aging housing stock in the Old Brooklyn neighborhoods. I loved this comment of Norm’s: “I refuse to be disposable!” When you stop and think about it, his question and comment pertain to the city as a whole.

Another Old Brooklyn resident who is also a Cleveland firefighter stated that he agrees with Mayor Jackson’s vision of wanting to make Cleveland great again, but he had a few suggestions for Mayor Jackson to help him find his way. One suggestion was to focus on the established middle-class neighborhoods in the city, to enhance the services to these neighborhoods, to support the efforts of these residents of Cleveland, and to promote these neighborhoods to the outlying suburbs as good places to live, and then to build out from there rather than trying to build new neighborhoods in downtown Cleveland and ignoring the foundation of the city already in place. I have not done this man’s suggestions justice, but I agree with him wholeheartedly. I may be a bit biased because this firefighter is not bound by residency laws but CHOOSES to remain in the city. He is not alone; there are a lot of us here, and we want to stay.

It appears that the main reason for suggesting the “brown out” of Ladder 42 is a 2004 consultant’s report requested by the Cleveland Public Safety Director. I certainly don’t know much about this report because even Councilman Kelley is still waiting for a copy of it through the Freedom of Information Act. Word has it that there is a clandestine copy out on the street, but here is what I have been able to find out about the study. The consultants are from Phoenix— Kevin Roche, the assistant to the Phoenix fire chief and Charles N. Hood, deputy fire chief. They visited Cleveland for two days. During that time, they talked to the fire chief, the safety director, members of city council, and the president of city council, The Vanguards, Local 93, and all in all visited four fire stations in the city of Cleveland. One of those stations was Station 42. I understand that someone is presently working on dissecting that study. Consultant studies usually reflect the conclusion that the person or entity paying for the study wants. I am not sure that the safety of our residents should rely on such a study when there are self-studies that can be utilized by municipalities to make sure that their citizens are safe.

The way I see it the safety and welfare of Clevelanders should be the number one consideration when our mayor and our city council members sit down to make decisions. There should be 44 fire companies in the city of Cleveland. Four are already “browned out”–
Ladder 42 would be the fifth. How many of the men assigned to that “browned out” equipment have been reassigned? How many will be reassigned? The population of Cleveland has dwindled, but the geographic area of the city has not. Therefore, it still takes time to get to a fire from other stations still open in other parts of the city. Oh–and the response times I mentioned earlier those are based on 20 mi./hr on any city street chosen as a route to a fire. As I said earlier, this issue is huge, and we need to stay on top of it and get involved.

The following comes from the Audobon Society:

I do not believe that it is prudent for the state to create a marina project that may jeopardize the natural habitats on Middle Bass Island. I believe that a marina servicing several hundred boats promotes the overuse of a natural island resource which is rare in the state and easily subject to abuse. Creating a large marina invites overuse and congestion which then promotes additional development which cannot be easily projected or controlled. The original statements by the Taft administration during the purchasing of the Middle Bass Island acreage indicated a concern for a natural gem that would be protected by the state.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is a public agency entrusted with protecting wetlands and should not destroy them in the name of progress for active recreation such as the development of this marina and campground. The proposed project involves impacts to Category 3 wetlands, Category 2 wetlands, and Category 1 wetlands. Middle Bass Island is within the Audubon-designated Lake Erie Western Basin Important Bird Area and provides important habitat for migrating birds. Furthermore, proposed mitigation for the wetlands includes a project at East Harbor State Park which is not on the island. The project also affects the Lake Erie Water Snake, a federally-listed threatened species found only on the Lake Erie islands.
There are real concerns over the destruction of rare wetland habitat on a rare Lake Erie island, and there is not a demonstrated need for hundreds of boats at Middle Bass Island which would override ODNRs charge to protect wetlands. I am advocating that ODNR select its Non-Degradation alternative that would have no impacts on the waters and wetlands of the state. The existing marina would continue to operate as is in the southern basin and the seasonal docks and Middle Bass Yacht Club as is in the north basin. As such I urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny authorization for a permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

For the past few days, I’ve been using a free service called FEEDblitz, and it really cuts down on the amount of time I need to devote to monitoring my favorite blogs. Here’s an excerpt of what they say About themselves:

FeedBlitz is a service that monitors blogs, RSS feeds and Web URLs to provide greater reach for feed publishers. FeedBlitz takes all the headache out of converting feed and blog updates into email digests, delivered daily to subscribers’ inboxes. FeedBlitz manages subscriptions, circulation tracking, testing, and is compatible with all major blogging platforms and services such as Blogger, Typepad and FeedBurner. Unlike other blogmail services, FeedBlitz is reliable, scalable and fully supported. No betas, wish lists or road map items here. You’re in production, and so is FeedBlitz.

FeedBlitz also enables end users to monitor any feed or blog, anonymously if they wish, regardless of whether the publisher of that feed is using FeedBlitz. FeedBlitz therefore provides a simple way for users to receive updates from their trusted sources using a familiar and ubiquitous medium – email.

FeedBlitz is privately held and managed from metro Boston, Massachusetts

Now, I suspect things are going to be moving quite fast around here this year, so I’m recommending you use FEEDblitz to keep track of my blog and others you think are critical to forming the dialogue here in Cleveland and in Ohio as to what our lives are going to look like and be like now and in the future. It’s best to use http://www.gloriaferris.net instead of the shorter http://gloriaferris.net when it comes to registering my blog with FEEDblitz, and for what reason, I do not know.

It’s all about speed and connectivity, and it’s all beginning right here, right now. In my campaign last year, I wasn’t just whistling Dixie when I said, “It all begins in Ward 15.” We’re all stakeholders, and we know it, and we’re doing something about it.

First of all, I think that we all need to get past the ODP Christmas Party issue and move on. The past is the past, and we need to talk about the present. Read Brewed Fresh Daily for more details. I am more disturbed that Sherrod Brown’s staff would in essence paint all bloggers with one brush. As I understand it, the altercation between Tim Russo and Sherrod Brown was one-on-one until Sherrod included his wife Connie Schultz.

To me, that certainly does not seem in any way, shape, or form look like a Meet the Bloggers Interview. I have listened to the podcasts of the interviews, and I have yet to hear Tim speak disrespectfully to anyone.
Does he at times ask hard questions? Yes. Is his tone at times in question? Maybe. Go to Meet the Bloggers and listen for yourself. But even if it’s so, with Sherrod Brown’s years in the public arena, I would think he would have the ability to turn things in his favor.

And what about the rest of us, cancel a meeting with the rest of us because you have a problem with one of us? Hardly fair and just.

But alas, Saturday will be what it will be–an open forum without the invited guest. Time will only tell what the outcome will be, but I know one thing: That Sherrod Brown’s campaign will not be as prepared for their coming battles as they could be, and this is why. Every candidate that has met with Meet The Bloggers has walked away with a better picture of what Northeast Ohio sees as the issues in a statewide campaign. And yes, maybe statewide candidates need central and southern support, but Northeast Ohio can certainly tip the scales when necessary.

I was waiting for somebody else to comment on the item from yesterday’s paper, Without Moe or a certain future, Ruthie closes her diner….”It’s a very sad fact that we have to close,” said the provider of distinguished matzo ball soup, fresh-cut french fries and mile-high coconut cakes. “We’ve been open for a long time.”

I’m sure we’re not alone in our sentiments, so I’ll take the lead.

We are crushed. We feel empty. We feel as though somebody died. We feel guilty, as well–culpable, liable, somewhat responsible. Could we have taken more people by there, could we have been more supportive, could we have made a difference? Could we have spent more money there?

In the Platonic world of forms, the older front end of Ruthie and Moe’s fills the bill for being the embodiment of the concept of the “diner.” That new shiny diner-lookalike thing up the road and to the north apiece–Ruthie’s competition–really can’t be considered a fit substitute for the unique product Ruthie and Moe’s brought to the table–it lacks the “soul” of the diner, that certain panache or ambience that Moe and Ruthie and their regulars understood so well. It was genuine, it was authentic, it was a “third place” some used as their office, and some used to find a sense of community. It was Cheers without alcohol, and we don’t really know right now how we’re going to replace it in our list of places to hang out, places to tell people about, local items to brag on. It stood out in this area, in this culture, because it had a “cosmopolitan” air to it, and there are no others like it, locally, that we’re aware of–but then again, we have used an “outside Cleveland” frame of reference on this one, having cut our diner teeth in The Miss Worcester many years ago.

We wish Ruthie the best. We’ll always be fans.

This morning I picked up my Saturday PLAIN DEALER and read the following headline:

“Could miners have lived?… By following procedures, they may have missed best chance for survival”

In my usual rational way, I began to rant and to rave in the general direction of my husband, Tim, who has learned to listen with one ear and continue whatever he is doing with the other. How can they be so insensitive? Aren’t these miners families’ facing enough without all of this second-guessing? And then, Tim says, well what does the article say?

Silence filled the room. Then I quietly sat down in the rocking chair with a cup of coffee and proceeded to read an article that actually was not badly written and did nothing more than state that the miners could not have known that less than 1500 feet away from them was good air. By the way, this article was written by two NEW YORK TIMES reporters. To read the article go to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

I am referring you to the NEW YORK TIMES because the headline in that publication was,

“Miners Went by Book, but Time and Air Ran Out”

I don’t know exactly why, but for some reason, it just hits me as being a much more accurate headline. What do you think?

This morning, when I pulled out of my driveway on my way to a meeting on the east side of Cleveland, I noticed a significant change in the way my street looked. Today is trash day in my neighborhood, and usually that means bits of trash flying all over the neighborhood and empty trash cans strewn where they land–sidewalk, street, or treelawn. Today, the empty trash cans were neatly stacked upside down on the tree lawns. How pleasant to see our street look so neat and clean on trash day! Not two weeks earlier, Tim was requesting help from the blogosphere trying to get our trash picked up. And now, I am marveling at the change in the way things are on trash day.

To some of you, this event might not seem like much, but those of us who live in the city know that the “little” things mean a lot. Today I have hope that our city is on the verge of something new and exciting. Today, I “expect great things.”

Early endorsements probably don’t mean much of anything any more now that the limits on individual contributions are obscene. One person having the ability to contribute $10,000 to one candidate is outrageous. Unfortunately, I see our government officials being those individuals who can raise the most money and then spend it to reach the most people. We are definitely becoming a state of Haves and Have Nots.

I would like to think that voters are still the most important part of the process, but that seems more and more unlikely when HB3 is on the table and electronic voting is all the rage without the safeguards needed. Funny, how on one hand we were told to embrace electronic voting to ease long lines at the polling places and make it easier for people to vote, but on the other hand, we are now facing increasingly longer lines with the advent of the photo ID phase of our voting lives. Unfortunately, every day I see more and more voters who feel disenfranchised. More and more people tell me that their vote doesn’t count. I have worked for years on voter registration campaigns and when it is all said and done the impact it has is usually nominal. People do not like to say “no” so they will spend the time to fill out the registration card, but when the day arrives to go to the polls other factors are set in motion. The litany of “my one vote won’t count”, ” what’s the point none of the politicians care about me” and “my life won’t change no matter who is in office” begins, and the new voter or the old tired voter decides not to go to the polls and wait in a long line to cast a vote that they feel does not matter anyway.

Until we have true campaign finance reform and integrity restored to our election process, our voter base will continue to erode and we will have less and less people deciding who will govern us. We all need to work as hard as we can to prove to voters that one vote can make a difference and each and every vote is important. Early endorsements have a way of squelching this dialogue and make our task more difficult. So I agree that early endorsements should be discouraged vehemently.

This is my response to what my friend, Jill wrote today on her blog, Writes Like She Talks. In the past, there was no endorsement of a primary candidate. Candidates “slugged it out” on the issues, and the voters of each party decided who should represent them in the general election. But then the expense of campaigning increased, but the dollars available to contribute didn’t increase. Hence, the decade of the early endorsement to try to save contribution dollars for the general election rather than having the party dollars divvied up among candidates of the same party rather than being used to defeat the other party. In an overwhelmingly registered Democrat area like the city of Cleveland, an early endorsement essentially can kill chances for any other candidate in that race receiving significant dollars. On a state level, the idea is basically the same: Tto put the dollars behind one single candidate so that the push can be for a win in November. The problem as I see it with early endorsements is that the political process is not allowed to work. The process should be that the VOTERS decide in the primary who will represent them in the general election.