Since June, 2003, bio-defense industry world-leader Ronald B. (Ronn) Richard has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Cleveland Foundation, the nation's oldest community foundation. Since January, 2005, Richard has also served as a Director of Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a leading biopharmaceutical company whose marketed product is BioThrax(R) (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed), the only FDA-licensed vaccine available for pre-exposure protection against anthrax infection - www.emergentbiosolutions.com.

It recently came to my attention that one of the most serious sources of pollution in Cuyahoga County is literally in my back yard. Less than two kilometers upwind from my home are the coal and natural gas fired external boilers at the power plant shown above, at University Hospitals, operated by Medical Center Company (MCCo), polluting the surrounding neighborhoods since the 1930s.

Dear REAL NEO,

I had an idea to start a scholarship fund in Ward 14 for graduates of Lincoln West High School, honoring Rocco Olivero.  I wrote up all the concepts from my experience to motivate and promote civic involvement and inspire community service from our local students. 

Over the past 20 years, I've spent most of my "professional" time as an entrepreneur, with world-class expertise conducting multi-dimensional, multi-client relational comparative data and best practice analyses of any aspects of the world's largest and best global enterprises, environments and systems, and developing and consulting on innovations and total quality improvement. This work has generated a wealth of knowledge on large general systems, with a unique expertise in information systems and telecommunications. REALNEO is a product of this highest level expertise, drawn from the best practices of the best organizations on Earth. What REALNEO has developed for Cuyahoga County - what has been generated out of the REALNEO-generated Real Cooperative - takes general systems innovation to a whole new level of making us the brightest greenest place on Earth. So, we really do have a purpose to Cuyahoga County owning the Breuer, and the vision is beautifully expressed in this great rendering above, to be REAL COOP citizen headquarters of the open source capital of this brightest greenest state of Earth.

Are you concerned that your children's health is affected by pollution?
Do you want some answers about your industrial neighbors?
Do you want to build your environmental campaign skills?

Location

May 20, 2009, 7:30 a.m.-9:00 a.m.: Environmental Division Meeting
Shula’s 2, DoubleTree Cleveland South, 6200 Quarry Lane, Independence
Discuss upcoming CES events, updates on regulatory issues, and whatever interests you. Free to attend, breakfast is on your own. Register online:  http://www.cesnet.org/evtView.asp?evtID=166

May 27, 2009, 7:30 a.m.-9:00 a.m.: Climate Change Roundtable

Topic: An Economic Forecast for Northeast Ohio

Speaker: John Burke, President, Burke Rosen & Associates; Professor Emeritus of Economics, Cleveland State University; Adjunct Professor, John Carroll University

Program Sponsorships and tables available. Earn 1 Continuing Professional Development hour.

Location: Hilton Garden Inn Cleveland Downtown

Location

This event has been cancelled.  Information about future Climate Change Committee programs is available here: http://www.cesnet.org/newsAnnouncementView.asp?nwsID=109

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Discussion about issues related to climate change. Topic TBA. Free to attend; breakfast is on your own.

Local: Shula's 2 in the DoubleTree Cleveland South

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This was your NEO

This is your NEO on FFOEF

This just in, via Cleveland City Council, via Facebook... "Another step taken toward Breaking the Cycle of Abandonment". This is about how City Council has decided to spend our community's $25 million in Federal taxpayer funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) - the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - intended to help our impoverished inner city. You must ask yourself, who decided how your $25,000,000 should be spent here, how did they really decide this, and is this a step forward or backwards?

While on the subject of cities, some analysts look to the nation's economic woes, it's impact on tax receipts for cities and foresee municipal bankruptcies growing at alarming rates.  Cities may need to look to municipal bankruptcy, chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code, to protect themselves and taxpayers. We haven't seen this since the Orange County bankruptcy in 1994, which lost over $1.5 billion.

Ward 13 Councilman Cimperman was attacked in his Tremont home by vicious forces, which caused him personal harm and made him homeless. His trauma was relatively brief, as Councilman Cimperman is a powerful man with powerful friends and considerable resources at his disposal - it is safe to say he had insurance against his losses and could borrow money at a reasonable interest rate to rebuild.

I thought I'd share some reflections after just spending Cinco de Mayo facilitating dialogues around regional economic development in Akron, Ohio.  I, like so many other colleagues who have participated in various phases of the Voices and Choices process had my fair share of reservations and issues with various aspects of the two-year, multi-million dollar investment and experience.  While I found great value in working hard to facilitate regional dialogues with a healthy mix of participants representing diverse demographics, I learned firsthand how difficult it is to drive meaningful outcomes from such activity.  I, like so many others, was very candid about the many difficulties endured and faced during the process - perhaps the most prolific of which was a failure to have the mechanisms in place to capture the heightened energy and activation of the masses in an effective and timely manner to drive meaningful and positive outcomes.  A candid conversation I had today with Advance Northeast Ohio's communications director, Chris Thompson, completely validated my feelings, as he was in complete agreement on this point.  I laud Chris for such candor and really appreciated his astute comments. 

If you owned a $40,500.000.00 parking structure,  would these images concern you?  (by the way, if you live in Cuyahoga County, you DO OWN IT)

I attended the KennedyConCenter meeting this morning - held before the scheduled meeting of the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners.  

All the TV cameras and paper reporters were there.   Big news was afoot!

Tonight I saw the hot new mockumentary The Green Chain at the film fest.   The best part is that we used our 'private screening' tickets from Pat and Dan Conway's gig tonight to get past the ticket taker then re-appropriated our access rights to see this mockumentary that got started around the same time slot.   To wrong the right... I offer up a nice plug:

Who:

Moebius Nature Center & Buckeye Sustainability Institute

What:

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In living and working around University Circle, it occurs to me how stupid it is that there are literally five or six police forces operating within overlapping turfs... Cleveland, University Circle, Case, University Hospitals, and the Clinic each have significant police forces. In addition, Cuyahoga County has patrols in the area... all intersecting within a mile of each other... and you are probably as likely to get shot within a mile of that intersection as anywhere in America.

And break.

Then when it warms up like it did over the past two days, the pipes thaw out.

And water floods everything.  

And when the building is filled up, the water pours out under the doors and into the street - just like it is doing at Sweet Daddy's.

Cleveland365.com (what persons/names/$ are behind this anyway?) is sponsoring what they call a 10,000 little ideas convo. 

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