Gloria Ferris

Warren Buffett knows if you are going to take on great risk, be sure to negotiate a hard bargain and at least have the option to make millions.  I just received my latest edition of The Economist where I learned this. 

I haven’t seen anything on line about the $700 Billion Bailout of the banking industry.  Personally, I like the idea of loaning them the money.  You see, when they get behind on their loans because they haven’t the money to pay back the American taxpayer, we can have our servicing agent, the government, tell them that their “client” has informed them that they can no longer work with them and that they are in default.  We, the taxpayers, will then own the banks.  In other words, we can foreclose on them. Turnabout is fair play.

Why in the world would we the American Taxpayer give the money to the banks without getting something in return?  Shouldn’t we let the free market decide which banks would survive and which would become part of the collateral owned by the United States?  After all, I believe that is what U.S. Treasurer Hank Paulson recommended not so long ago when told that the housing bubble had burst and that the walls were crumbling down.

Of course, no one knew just how far the rolling stones would fall and now that retirement and pension funds, local and state governments will be affected by this debacle, something should be done.  But I ask you, why should we give them this money with no strings attached so that they can again “play the game” with no repercussions for the reckless way they played “the game” this time?

Could that be the problem with this whole scenario?  It wasn’t a game, it was people’s lives, it was people’s savings, it was America’s way of life.  It was only a game to those who saw only the numbers and never the faces behind those numbers.

I see no reason that we the American Taxpayer should bail out the financial industry without receiving something in return.  After all, according to the investment gurus, our world revolves on ROI (Return on Investment).  Maybe not so much.

I picked up this article form the Cincinnati Enquirer about libraries and the Internet through Crain’s Business Round-up.  I LOVE getting that update everyday in my email.  It broadens my knowledge of what is going on throughout our state through the eyes of the Crain’s Business staff.  I tried to provide the link here but for some reason am unable to do so.  Sorry about that.

I realized how lucky I am to have wireless and a laptop because my access is instantaneous and complete.  Obviously, the American public knows the advantage of access to the Internet.  Education today comes in many different forms and in many different places.  People are willing to wait in line for it.

Our Cleveland Public Library is not called the People’s University just because it is a catchy phrase.  It truly is the people’s university. Voters know the importance of our libraries.  Time after time they vote to raise our taxes so that we can continue to have world class libraries in our communities.   

So how are we going to raise awareness of the advantages of using the Internet beyond those who already know and how are we going to broaden access to the very things that could help our communities prosper through their own efforts?  OneCommunity has begun the process with Linked Communities, but there is more work to be done.

Education comes in many shapes and sizes.  Time is of the essence.

I just posted this over at Midtown Brews.  I think the topic, the speaker, and the opportunities at this event are so important and timely that I have decided to post this everywhere.

“Give me land lots of land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don’t Fence Me In”, the Cole Porter song sung by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters as well as a host of others.  On the other hand, Will Rogers said “buy land, they aren’t making any more of it”.

Our topic for the June 5^th Brews is LAND.  County Treasurer Jim Rokakis will lead our discussion of the proposed land bank legislation that Ohio will tackle in November.  The passage of this legislation is only the beginning of what will be a transformative change in our region and Ohio.  How the land bank advisory board, the disposition of properties, and the decision-making process for local communities are shaped provides a huge opportunity to “get it right”.

Civic engagement and the public process will be critical elements of a “land bank” that will be a deciding factor in a new form of economic development.  How can the land bank be used to draw new businesses to our region?  How will it retain the businesses we now have?  How could it be used to draw in a skilled workforce?  Which communities will find new ways to use this tool to enhance the attractiveness of the live, work and play potential inherent in that community?  What is the potential to use the land bank to strategically plan for shrinking our footprint?  How will we balance quantity with quality?

This brews has the potential to give us an opportunity to start the conversation to begin thinking in new ways and bringing together the best practices of Open Source Economic Development. 

Tomorrow we vote for two very important issues that identify us as a community.  The voters of Cuyahoga County consistently support quality of life issues that affect our communities.  These are hard times financially for a lot of folks in our communities in Cuyahoga County, but I believe that again our voters will rise to the occasion and vote “YES” on these two issues. 

Issue Two will be voted on by the people of Cleveland.  The Cleveland Public Library at its inception was noted as “the People’s University”.  That moniker has been resurrected by Library Director Andrew Venable and succinctly voices the place that this library holds in our community. Ranked third nationally in the “best in research”, right behind the Boston and Chicago Public Libraries, our library stands with some great company. 

While researching for a quote earlier today, I found the perfect one on Dr. John Ellison’s website. Dr. Ellison is an associate professor of Library and Information Studies at the University at Buffalo.  His website was a rightful place to find a quote on the importance of libraries.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words ring as true now as they did then.

“It seems to me that the dedication of a library is in itself an act of faith. To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a nation must believe in three things:
It must believe in the past.
It must believe in the future.
It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.”

                       (Remarks at the dedication of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, June 30, 1941.)   

Issue 15 will be decided by a majority vote of all Cuyahoga County voters. And, a reason to vote for Issue 15 needs nothing more in my book than the words of Hubert Humphrey:  This quote comes to you thanks to Brainy Quotes-a place where I find many of the quotes that I can’t quite place in regards to who said it or how it was said. Please Vote March 4th.  
 
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. 
 

This month’s Brews explored a topic that is fast approaching D-Day- the new  AMP Ohio “clean coal” contract that Cleveland City Council will sign or reject on March 1.  There will be a public hearing held this Friday, February 22 which will provide the last discussion before a vote is taken.

I grew up in rural Ohio and I am puzzled by the expression “clean coal”.  In my book, there is no such thing, but that is the tag line, so I went wanting to know the answer to that question.  I also wanted to know how it could economically benefit our city to sign a FIFTY year contract with a private company.

The format of this conversation was different than the usual Midtown Brews  Thanks to Stefani Spear of Earthwatch Ohio we had a well-versed panel on the subject.  Go here to see the panelists.   We also had approximately 100 people in the room who were extremely interested in the subject.  A lot of things were different about this Brews-we were in a new place, there was live streaming video, Andy Halko, founder of Insivia, our host monitered an ongoing chat so that people watching could enter in the conversation.  Despite all those changes, one thing remained the same.  I departed with a different perspective than when I arrived. 

My first question in regards to “clean Coal” is coal isn’t clean, but what is different about this coal plant will be the requirement for stringent scrubbing and something called CO2 Carbon Recapture Technology .  Those of us who live in Cleveland are well aware of the hows and why and if scrubbing is done.  But then, we found out that the reality of Meigs County is this.  Meigs County is the ONLY county in Ohio that does not NOW have EPA monitors in place.  The Ohio EPA is working feverishly to change this, but the legislation and the paperwork is still not in place.  Meigs County presently has more coal plants than any other county in Ohio.  I also believe it is very high on the scale nationally.  Why does this situation exist?

Councilman Zone then stated that IF Cleveland signs the contract that it will give us a 10% stake (I am paraphrasing here and I may not be stating this exactly, but this would give Cleveland a place at the table where we could then monitor the company and make sure that EPA standards are followed and enhanced) Go to Meet The Bloggers for the whole story.  I believe that the three young men at that table believe that it is better to be involved than to simply say NO, and I agree with that philosophy.  I also believe that we have three very capable advocates for “green” issues.  However, I know firsthand, promises made, and not kept by coal companies. 

I grew up on the border of Wayne and Holmes Counties where strip mining in the late sixties and early seventies was ”big business” .  Promises that said land would be reclaimed, damage from blasting would be reimbursed, “when we leave you won’t know we were here”.  Thirty years later,  the forest on the hills has been replaced by what my father always called scrub brush, structures that were once homes remain abandoned and vacant because of blasting damage to foundations or because wells dried up because of a shift in the water table.  An area never wealthy in money, but an area rich in tradition, rural pride and beautiful scenery is much poorer today than it was when I was growing up.  Promises were made and not kept, and therefore, I believe that these young men who believe that they can make a difference need to proceed with eyes wide open.   

We never really talked much about the economic feasibilty of a fifty year contract or why it is in the best interest of our city except to bring in the CPP (Cleveland Public Power) piece which I understand is quite fragile at this point in time because it cannot expand unless there is a place to buy coal reasonably.  CPP is often brought up as the reason that our rates here in Cleveland are what they are, but I don’t see the advantage.  CPP and CEI rates are comparable.  We have  some of the highest rates if not the highest rates in Ohio.  Bill Callahan often posts on this issue.  Here, here, and here are examples of the questions Bill posits.  And then there is this post about the issue that includes  the independent study paid for by Ohio Citizens For Action that made me really sit up and take notice. 

From what I can glean from this study, the place at the table for those municipalities that sign the contract is on a participartory committee with no real authority.  The authority remains with the company’s board of directors but what I really found troubling was the ability of the company based on “market rates” to set price.  Why would we enter into a deal that does not set some limits to price?  Also, there appears to be no back door.  What if our need for coal dwindles because of new technologies, new ways of conservation, and who knows why else our need for coal may decrease?  If more stringent Federal EPA guidelines are introduced and passed, where will we be holding a contract that ties us to a dying industry for how many more years? How come I keep thinking of the story about Daniel Webster and the Devil?

I am still finding it hard to see the economic benefit for us to sign this fifty year contract.  As many of the people said at the meeting, with or without Cleveland the deal goes forward.  But then, the really, really hard thing for me to get my head around is how do we in Cleveland justify being part of adding one more coal plant to an area inundated with coal plants?

The accompanying air and water pollution, the health issues of breathing dirty air, the fouling of the Ohio River which is one of the largest sources of fresh water which eventually flows into the Mississippi and the possibility of mountaintop mining changing the skyline in are beautiful state  are probably the more troubling issues.  How can we here in Northeast Ohio move forward economically knowing that by so doing, we have sentenced our neighbors in Meigs County to a continuation of a quality of life that consists of dirty air and fouled water? 

If any group of people should understand the moral issue that is staring us in the face, it should be those of us who have lived in sight of the steel mills for generations.  Our economy here took a huge hit when the steel mills began to shrink, but the water quality of the Cuyahoga River bounced back.  Although our air quality is still not anything to put in the plus column it certainly is better than when I moved here in the 70′s.  And no one, in the discussion that night, mentioned the coal miners who depend on these mining jobs.  There will be two coal plants that will close.  Will those miners go to the new plant?  Will there be as many jobs as now?  

Councilman Brian Cummins in one simple statement said it all.  “I worked in the Peace Corps for three years during those years, I had no TV, I could do that I am not sure that everyone else would.” So how do we balance the need for electricty with the health of our planet?   

Conversations enhance knowledge, provoke analysis and strenghten beliefs as well as cause discomfort when met with a challenge to tried and true axioms that don’t appear to fit any more.  The conversations that I have had lately have underscored many of the things I have read, heard, and believe but many of these conversations have provided a chance to revisit many topics as well as make me see that sometimes my vision has been not quite where it should be.

On Saturday, Tim and I had two friends from North Broadway for dinner.  Two tidbits of conversation stuck with me and later, were enhanced by what I read.  The first conversation covered the internet and online communities.  Our friend says that one of the greatest things about the internet is the ability to communicate with people all over the globe about subjects that intrigue us.  The flip side, he says, is very troubling to him because more and more we are becoming isolated from the people next door, down the street, and the day to day community is suffering because we do not see a responsibility to our fellow man.  The next day, I picked up this book Time For Truth by Os Guinness.

This quote took me right back to the conversation of the night before;

“The discipline of living in truth is urgent today because modern life reduces community and accountability to its thinnest, thereby tempting us to live in a shadow world of anonymity and nonresponsibility where all cats are gray.  In such a world, becoming people of truth is the deepest secret of integrity and the highest form of taking responsibililty for ourselves and our own lives.”

I can’t help but think that community is going to be more important rather than less important in our combined futures.  I wonder will we be prepared?

The second tidbit had its roots in education.  It is strange that no matter who I have a conversation with here in Cleveland Ohio eventually there is a thread that talks about education-early childhood, the special challenges for middle school learning, high school drop out rates, and/or higher education.  The story our friends’ related is hard to imagine but nonetheless I am sure is quite accurate.  A few days before, they had attended bible study in their neighborhood.   A young man had struggled to read the verses of scripture he had been assigned.  He stuck to it, and got through it, but our friend said he was almost certain that this young man’s reading level was probably at third grade.  He was a young man in his 20′s and my friend said that the young man had determination and desire but where was he going to find a good paying job with such a dismal ability to read?  And then, Ed Morrison posted this, at Brewed Fresh Daily.  How do we indeed go forward as a community if we do not see that the education level of our community as a whole defines who we are and what we hold dear. 

 If we do not strive to educate every child in our community regardless of where or how he or she was born, what does that say about us as a community.  And this question came to mind, as we look for ways to attain “brain gain” instead of “brain drain” are we forgetting that gaining brains is directly related to the overall brainpower of the existing community?  How comfortable and safe will highly educated people be in a community with a 61% dropout rate?  Should we be fostering an educated community rather than looking outside ourselves for new blood?  In the seventies, when I taught in the Cleveland Public Schools the beginning of the migration out of Fortune 500 companies began.  One of the top reasons for leaving was a sustainable workforce.   Almost forty years later, we are still talking about the gap between workforce development and skills training and the needs of the business community.  How when we were told so many years before are we still debating whether education is important?

Should we ask the college students in our midst how we should improve education at the elementary and secondary level?  How would they have changed their early years so that they would be better prepared for college?  When I was a junior at BGSU, one of my classes-reading development, I believe, required that we spend x number of hours tutoring students in reading.  Since I was a student in the college of education, I had a lot of interaction with school children from the BG City School System.  Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the library at 9 a.m. on a Saturday and the student I was tutoring was a college freshman.  This young man struggled mightily trying to read his textbook, and I tried to show him how to try to read for content rather than words, but he just wasn’t there.

As I walked back to my dorm very slowly, I wondered where we were going when we were teaching remedial courses at the University level.  Now, forty years later, we still have remedial classes, tutoring, and additional help at the University level.  Should we be doing things differently?   Should we accept that not everyone needs a fullblown four year college education?  Should we be stressing workforce and skills training?  Should there be different tracks in high schools?  Are traditional schools not what is needed in the 21st century? Educational change  has moved ever so slowly at the grade school and high school level.  Is it time for change?  There are glimmers of hope in spots throughout Northeast Ohio, but how could we work together to make it work better and faster so that our children become part of the new knowledge economy and prosper.  How do we make it so being born in Ohio is an advantage?