Gloria Ferris

Today we had a pleasant surprise when we took an excursion to Rocky River for Tim’s quarterly shearing, at The Irish Barber. The barber, Sean Gormley, hails from the same village as the Ferrises, Ballymoney, in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland, and this is how Tim’s haircut tenuously fits into our philosophy of “local production for local consumption”–by extension back to the old country.

Sophistry aside, we got a pleasant surprise: Sean has opened up a sandwich shop next door to the barber shop, and he also caters out box lunches. The sandwiches were good, the ingredients honest and natural. We’re planning on using him for some of our seminars or assemblies. He’s already started delivering as far away as downtown Cleveland.

The shops are side-by-side on Center Ridge Road, just up from where it intersects with Wooster Road. Sean, the consummate businessman, has priced everything below the major-franchise sandwich providers and prides himself in his lower prices and higher quality.

Tonight is Taco Night at the Ugly Broad Tavern on Denison Avenue.  Our Brooklyn Centre Garden Tour Committee is going to hold our meeting there and eat some of the best tacos in the city while we finalize the plans for the Garden Tour to be held on Sunday, June 11th from 1 to five.  Details will be up on this site and others after tonight’s meeting.

If you haven’t yet stopped in to Sherry’s bar to have a taco, you still are missing one of the taste treats in all of Cleveland.     

On Saturday March 11 at 4:30 p.m Sherry Perry at The Ugly Broad Tavern will be hosting a fundraiser for Save Our Land. Save Our Land is a group of residents that have bonded together to raise funds to help four of our neighbors defend their loss of land to the Fulton Road Bridge Replacement Project. These neighbors must hire an attorney, obtain appraisals to counter the very small compensations offered by the County and defend themselves against the encroachment of the bridge.

Seven people have entered their Chilis for the cook off. We will continue to accept entries until Wednesday if you know anyone who has a killer chili recipe.

Here are the details:

Where: The Ugly Broad Tavern
3908 Denison Avenue
When: March 11, 2006
Time: 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Price: $5.00

Raffles, prizes, and more!

This is a great chance for all of those people who tell me that they have always intended to stop in at The Ugly Broad Tavern to do just that. See you There!

Saturday March 11th, a community meeting to discuss the FULTON ROAD BRIDGE PROJECT will be held at the Archwood United United Christ Church at 2800 Archwood Avenue. The meeting begins at 2:30 p.m.

The meeting is being sponsored by Brooklyn Centre Community Association, Councilman Brian Cummins and the Save Our Land coalition.

This meeting will deal with many issues facing our neighborhoods before the project begins and when the project begins. The issues to be discussed include:

1. effects of demolition blasting on surrounding houses and properties
2. changes in traffic patterns
3. access to Brookside Park
4. effects on historic-interest areas
5. land seizure
6. public process
7. facts you need

We have invited government officials to attend or send representatives, but after all, this is a Saturday.

Come ready to ask questions about the above topics and more. I am sure there may be issues that we have failed to identify and you may hold the key.

If you cannot attend the meeting, please leave your comments and/or questions at this site and I will make sure that your questions are addressed at the meeting.

We as a community have a lot of unanswered questions concerning the plans of the project. Everyone knows that we need to address the continued detrioration of the bridge, but many of us feel that the community should be in the planning loop.

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.

This morning, one of our friends from Delaware County wrote us this note announcing his renewed assault on paraneoplastic neurological syndromes and, by extension or association, the internet. What he’s doing is important. So, he-e-e-e-re’s Kirby:

After more or less failing to keep pace with my old web log, I started a new personal web site and am now ready to start sharing it.

If you recall, the original purpose of the web log was to keep friends and well wishers posted on my unique health problems. That is still a major purpose of the new website, but there will be more content in the future. I also have had more feedback re. suggested content so hopefully readers will feel free to make suggestions for either news or issues to add to the site.

But mainly, I will be more faithful at keeping you up to date on the comings and goings of a person who still defies science’s knowledge of immune systems, muscle and nerve deteriorations, and a small collection of other unusual symptoms.

So if you have time, try out www.nielsennewswire.com . I promise not to overdo the reminders and I will only sell names to those who pay me in cold hard cash. But if you wish, I will take your name off my list at any time.

Thanks for your patience during the long period of silence.

Kirby V. Nielsen

Tim and I had a full day planned of meeting people. Late last night we decided that we were going to buy an all-day ride pass on the RTA and see if it appeared practical to ride to all of our meetups with various people.

Our first meeting was Tim’s Brooklyn Circle B-to-B Connect meeting at Theo’s at 7 a.m. Since it was such an early start time, I wasn’t sure that we would be able to make the connections we would need. Off I went to the RTA Transit website where lo and behold, there is now a trip planner! All I had to do was put in our address and the address of my destination. Then I put in the day and time. I had five options to choose. Maybe you are aware of this little added feature, but I wasn’t.

Our next meeting was at Talkie’s on Market Street at 10 a.m. So my start point was Theo’s, and I ended up at Talkie’s. Again, I had five possibilities.

We arrived at the West Side Market with so much time to spare that we had breakfast at the Westside Market Cafe. I posted about this great restaurant once before, but Tim hadn’t had the experience of eating there yet so it was a good place to stop before our 10 a.m. I of course, not being an adventurous sort with food went for my tried and true Eggs Benedict. Tim had Market Hash with poached eggs and creole mustard sauce. He said it was some great Andouille sausage, and he was very impressed with his poached eggs.

After we ate, we still had some time to kill so we strolled through the market. We saw Mr. Leu who has now retired but still shops at the Market on Fridays. We always stop to say “hi” to Janet Woyma, a neighbor and friend who has worked for Ed Dabstuter for years and years.

As we walked out the front doors, we ran into two of our neighbors who always do their shopping on Friday morning. They wanted to know where our packages were, and we said that we weren’t shopping, that we had come to the market for breakfast.

After our meeting at Talkies, we again hopped on the bus and saw another one of our neighbors who had decided she had had enough of the corporate world for one day, so she took a half day vacation. We walked down the street with our friend, stopped off at home to check the RTA Trip planner one more time, and decided to hop back on the bus to deliver some paperwork to Roger Bundy’s Law Offices on Broadview. Since Roger was not at his office, we dropped in to see Janie at Janie’s Sewing Corner. She told us to just leave the package, and she would see that Roger got it.

All in all, with the sun shining in the midst of a blue, blue sky and fluffy white clouds, Tim and I had a very satisfying day riding the RTA talking to other passengers and visiting with friends and neighbors. We even squeezed in two business meetings.

And why, did I post about our day on the RTA? This is why. We stepped out of our breakneck pace of rushing back and forth to home and out again for another meeting and back again and out again. Instead, we deliberately slowed down and thoughtfully planned our next move. We both felt that we had an incredibly productive day.