Gloria Ferris

A week ago, I attended the ODOT Innerbelt Project meeting held at Myers University. This meeting was held at the request of Midtown Corridor businessmen and the local CDCs situated in the designated “trench” area of the innerbelt.
THE TRENCH: As I said at the meeting, these guys have a great way to set a tone and visual of an area. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “trench” two images come to mind–the first, are the trenches dug across Europe during World War I which afforded little if any protection for the doughboys against mustard gas and the other one, is of the ditches in Wood County, Ohio where I attended college. These ditches in Northwest Ohio are about eight to ten feet deep and were necessary because of the low or high water table–I never could remember which–and usually by late summer were the home of countless mosquitos and the smell of stagnant water. As you can tell, when the officials at the front of the room began discussing “the trench” the visual was not a pleasant one for me. How about for you? What does the phrase “the trench” do for you?

YELLOW HIGHLIGHTED BLOBS: May I say that the presentation by ODOT was “oh so typical”? Of course, I may. This is my blog and my opinion and I am welcome to it. Anyway, there was the usual introduction of speakers, but I will say that the speaker portion was under the usual two hour minimum but even so, the content was much the same. Craig Hebebrand was again in charge of explaining the rationale for closing downtown exits and funneling the traffic onto Chester Avenue and East 22nd Street and the adjacent side streets. On every slide, there were blue lines indicating the innerbelt now, white lines showing the innerbelt of the future and several yellow highlighted blobs. Slide after slide showed these little yellow blobs but Craig never explained what they were. When he reached the last slide, I couldn’t stand it any longer I asked him to explain what the little yellow blobs were. Lo and behold, these yellow smudges were the properties to be taken in the name of progress. In other words, folks, these were the properties slotted for eminent domain. Not a mention of this by any official there until the question was asked. Of course, Craig was quick to say that these were projections and much of the land was parking lots and they really weren’t sure how much impact if any the takings would have on the businesses. Turns out that these yellow blobs represented nineteen separate properties.

EXITS: I found it very enlightening to have Mr. Proctor tell us that we need to eliminate downtown exits because of the number of fender bender accidnets that happen due to the poor design of these exits. He then highlighted how far that ODOT has come since those days of the late 50s and early 60s. We have instituted all of the best practices and advances made when we have added enterances and exits in the upgrades to the one by Legacy Village and the new one to be added at Crocker Park. Anyone else see the irony of this statement? Here we are ELIMINATING exits in the core area of our region–Downtown Cleveland–for those government officials who don’t get it–while on the outskirts of the county we are ADDING exits. As usual when I attend these events as the speakers droned on I began having even more questions than I had when I entered the room. Scott Muscatello has done a very efficient job of “live blogging” the event so to get the play by play description you should go here.

POSSIBILITY OF NATIONAL REGISTER STATUS: When discussing the elimination of the Carnegie exit, Mr. Proctor cited that the possibility that the Walker and Weeks building and the Juvenile Justice Center COULD BE candidates for national Landmark status. Now understand he did not say that they were, that they had been nominated or anything else related to the designation other than that they could be. Now, I understand that The Ferchill Group has extensively renovated that Walker and Weeks building and it is a vision to behold and if the Midtown corridor is to become a vibrant neighborhood this building will probably act as a cornerstone, so let’s talk about the other building that Mr. Proctor suggested– The Juvenile Justice Center.
Architecturally, this building does have some unique features and some things well worth perserving, but lets talk about the functionality of its use in today’s world. It doesn’t. I served on a Youth Services Advisory Board in the nineties, and we all knew then, that the structure could no longer handle its mission. Maybe if it needed to be deconstructed and moved for the safety of the innerstate system, we would finally address the problem of how to have a more effective juvenile justice system. All of you who know me that I am a huge proponent of historic preservation, but the inefficiency of the ” maybe” architectural significance of this edifice pales in the light of what I know as an inefficient space for the mission at hand. Now, I am not saying that tearing down this building is the way to go, but with a project with such significance to not only the downtown area but to the region shouldn’t every avenue be explored more thoroughly than “It may be significant”.

LACK OF IMPACT STUDIES: I was utterly amazed that there had been only a very sketchy traffic flow study done and that basically it was done to justify the closing of the exits due to fender benders and that there would not be a significant rise in drive through traffic. Nothing was said about what the closures would do to the accompanying city streets that would now take on the flow of traffic. And then to stand there and tell us that there had never been a need for an economic impact study in any other ODOT project so therefore, they had not seen the need for it until they were asked by the Midtown Corridor merchants and CDCs. Now let’s ponder that for a minute. No one saw the economic impact to an area that potentially could lose at least nineteen businesses/parking lots and that access would now be funneled through two exits rather than five or six exits onto city streets not equipped in any way to take on additional traffic.

Wait! Wait! I get it. We won’t need the studies because there will be less reason for people to get off the downtown exits, they will simply travel through the trench on their way to the outskirts of the county.
I see– they have it ALL planned out and little if any of it has to do with serving the city’s businesses and residents,but regionally it will be better. Will it?

A few disclosure points I tried to find the slides that were used to show the closing of exits and the yellow highlighted blobs but was unsuccessful. I also didn’t find much on the ODOT site that specifically spoke to the issue of THE MIDTOWN TRENCH. If anyone has found official slides and articles that outline the plan, please let me know. Until then, all I have are reports and articles about the meetings.

We recently received a note from our friend, Valdis Krebs, telling us about a killer conference he’s attending in Washington, DC, this coming week. He’s in the Over the Horizon session.

I got so excited at the possibilities of what he’s going to participate in that I wrote him a note, and I liked the note so well that I’m going to share it with all of you. I must say that I’m having an extremely lucid day.

Valdis:

I think that it might be wise to look at how political parties gained power in the frst place. It started at a grassroots level with people banding together because of an issue or need in their community. For instance, back in the day, precinct committeepeople were usually the leaders in their small community; they then had access to councilpeople and political party bosses. These precinct committeepeople were courted by the powers-that-were to in effect make them more infleuntial in the power circles. Over the years, the grassroots portion has atrophied as the power structure has been come more and more disassociated from the everyday citizen and voter.

Today, we are at a point where a Minority of the American public choose our political leaders.

We are now at a crossroads where people can become reengaged in the political process through citizen journalism, blogs, Meet The Bloggers and other avenues using the internet. We are at a critical point where the grassroots portion of the political process can again be influential. This possibility could be very disturbing to the hierarchy in place now, on both sides of the aisle. In fact, we have seen a few instances right here in Ohio where that has probably been the case.

This is an exciting time in America when issues can again become the driving force behind politics rather than money and influence. I worry that censorship and control will hinder the explosive nature of this movement. I know that it will not be quashed, but it can be slowed down by a hierarchy threatened by networking and community building.

I am so glad Valdis that you are part of the conversation, and I am honored that you asked us our thoughts on the issue.

Enjoy the interaction and I am wondering, would you share your thoughts, observations, and conclusions in an MTB interview?

Gloria

Last night after I watched the 11 p.m. news on Channel three, I went to bed with hope in my heart. The Cleveland School Board has chosen three finalists that are quality people with great credentials. Two of the finalists have outstanding educational credentials, but the third, Bill Denihan has the credentials that it will take to make the Cleveland Schools a success story. Bill is an outstanding administrator who has the ability to listen, debate, compromise, and take action. He will do this without ever losing sight of the goal–educating our city’s children so that they will be successful, productive people.

I moved to Cleveland in 1973 because I was hired as a Cleveland schoolteacher. I stayed five years, but I never lost my interest in education. I taught when there were teachers who remembered the glory years of Cleveland– when it was considered one of THE educational institutions in the United States. Although the city’s demographics have changed since those years with Bill Denihan at the helm we can again be a model of urban education for the nation.

Here is why. Bill Denihan loves this city. He knows the people and the networks that are in this city. He will not hesitate to ask anyone and everyone to help him reach his goal of turning around our city schools and moving forward. He understands the necessity of using the assets you have to build a successful organization. He will not reinvent the wheel. He will hone in on the strengths and weaknesses of the organization so that he can make sure that what works continues to work and he can turn his attention to shoring up the weaknesses so that they do not continue to bring the system down. He will fix the nuts and bolts and grease the wheels so that the school system again becomes efficient and effective.

Bill has the connections in the city, county, and state to make our school system the shining star that it deserves to be. Bill has faith in other people’s integrity and desire to succeed. In other words, Bill brings out the best in people. We need that. We need a leader who can rally the troops and allow those troops to do their jobs with dignity and aplomb. Bill knows Cleveland and Clevelanders. There isn’t a learning curve that will slow him down. We don’t have time for a learning curve. We don’t have time for building working relationships. We don’t need new educational models. We need a CEO who can hit the ground running. Bill Denihan is that person.

Full disclosure: I am glad to call Bill Denihan my friend because he never loses sight of what Cleveland is and where it can go.