Something to think about as we review Mayor Jackson's plans to bring a Chinese LED manufacturer to Cleveland... reported in the PD today: CollectCorp, a Phoenix debt collections company, has closed the Middleburg Heights call center that it opened just nine months ago... The company had received state and local tax incentives to open the office. A previous PD article on this relocation reported: The company could receive more than $200,000 in tax breaks from Ohio and the suburb.

Now would be a nice time to learn the details of those tax incentives, and all the other "incentives" given by local government to rearrange deck chairs in NEO the past ten years.

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One thing that is for sure, the Sustainability 2019 leadership movement is behind Mayor Jackson and on the attack against GE.

The highly centralized GCBL Institute has used their portal to promote Jackson and his Sustainability Chief Andrew Watterson and this LED deal, without balance in their reporting, writing "Watterson sees only upside to the deal. Cleveland is attracting a company that is planning on spending an initial $1 million to renovate an existing building in the city and is not taking any tax breaks."

Watterson is given the floor to discuss GE's LED business plans in detail: "Six months ago, we spoke to GE about this and they thought LEDs are only for specialty products like signs. They didn’t see them as part of their main line lighting products for another three to five years. I met with them a month ago, and their tune was different. They told me they could make what we’re looking for.”"

That quote from Watterson seems odd, as the following from a Press Release from GE in Cleveland Ohio makes clear:

CLEVELAND—GE Lighting Solutions, a unit of GE Lighting, has earned more awards than any other company in this year's Next Generation Luminaires™ (NGL) Competition, including a Best-in-Class award for the GE Evolve™ R150 LED Cobrahead Luminaire, a new LED street and roadway light. An additional four GE LED lighting systems for refrigerated display, architectural and outdoor applications were recognized.

Note, at the end of this press release:

GE Lighting Solutions consists of GE Lighting's light-emitting diode systems operation based in Cleveland and its commercial and industrial lighting fixture group in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The units were combined earlier this year to support a strategy to serve as an industry-leading solutions provider for the rapidly growing indoor and outdoor fixture segments that use LED systems and other energy-efficient lighting technologies.

Yet GCBL Author Mark Lefkowitz shows the City of Cleveland is pulling out all the stops to slam this deal through for the Chinese, writing: "Watterson is trying to spread the word to sustainability advocates, including his 2019 email list, that “LED lighting is the lighting choice of the future and it is important that we move aggressively forward towards a path that will position Cleveland and our region to take full advantage of this new technology.""

Regarding the process behind this LED deal, Lefkowitz drops some breadcrumbs that lead to the familiar uberplanners of the region, the Cleveland Foundation: "GE’s presence alone in East Cleveland and Cleveland doesn’t translate to what the city wants to do today: Use its purchasing power to attract jobs while reducing its carbon footprint, Watterson says. He compares the city’s role to the Cleveland Foundation’s who helped create the nationally recognized Evergreen Cooperatives, offering residents a start up business like the Evergreen Laundry by cementing deals for contracts from big University Circle institutions."

I figured this is all part of Ronn Richard's big plans - an extension of the Costa Rica plan - when I read in the PD article City of Cleveland's talks with Chinese LED lighting company continuing: Henderson's March trip to China was his third since last year. He first made contact with Sunpu Opto officials in August during a trip to Japan and China to study waste-to-energy technology and returned to China in December to continue talks with the company.

Somehow I pictured GCBL and the Cleveland Foundation piloting this slow boat from China... I recall GCBL has also been preaching waste-to-energy initiatives here, as they heat their home with MCCO coal-fired steam citizens may never afford, but must pay for in their health. The GCBL Institute does not demonstrate impartiality in the slightest, regarding environmentalism, and appears entirely an extension of their sponsors, largely being area Foundations.

So, the battle of GE vs. Sunpu Opto is really the battle of GE vs. Cleveland Foundations.

The Cleveland Foundation's $1.2 billion or so in assets is chump change next to GEs $150 billion or so in 2009 revenues... I think Mayor Jackson, the PD and Ronn Richard finally have a real fight on their hands.

Go GE!

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story here

From the email inbox: 
 

 GE sent their jobs to China for the high efficient light bulbs, closing Ohio plants. At the same time, a Chinese company wanted to open in Ohio. GE told union officials that there are not any plans to brings those jobs back. GE is also sending the high tech medical equipment manufacturing jobs to China.

Now, a new Chinese company wants to make its headquarters in Cleveland, offer jobs, and not ask for tax abatements. Are we so tied into the way things were down  the past quarter century that this is unbelievable, or is it our healthy skepticism of Jackson, et al?

More facts are needed. People who have some expertise in this area need to go to the press conference and to the council hearings, and ask questions. Otherwise, we will hear what the PD wants to tell us.

 It is GE and not a business that has been an example of high standards re: pollution and labor practices, that is crying foul. 

and I had similar thoughts. GE moved their CFL operations to China, and now we can buy CFLs made in China by GE. I wonder about how they are dealing with the mercury issue in China. Sunpu may not be any better, or could be worse. 

Resounding show of non-support for Jackson by PD and Council - are they actually doing their jobs there for a change? Thinking with independence? Noticing what garbage City Hall has made of Cleveland this Century!

Cleveland's City Council must slow down the Sunpu-Opto deal long enough to really look at it: an editorial

The funny thing about the deal Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson wants to cut with a Chinese lighting manufacturer is that it is shrouded in darkness.

That's not a joke. That's a reason to demand more accountability, more transparency and lots more due diligence before Cleveland City Council approves a no-bid, 10-year agreement with Sunpu-Opto Semiconductor Co. Ltd. to sell millions of dollars in LED lights to the city in return for establishing its North American headquarters here and creating 350 jobs.

A few key points Jackson has not addressed: First, the agreement appears to violate the competitive bidding provision in the city charter. Second, Peter Tien, the New Jersey businessman who introduced city officials to Sunpu-Opto, has now been named president of Sunpu-Opto North America. Third, the Department of Public Utilities -- home of the debacle known as the Division of Water -- would provide oversight. And, finally, the U.S. Department of Energy's top expert on LED lighting told Plain Dealer reporter Mark Gillispie that he has yet to find an LED tube that works well.

Despite a full court press from the Jackson administration, City Council must not rubber-stamp this legislation on Monday.

That's all the PD editors have to say about the situation - no investigative insight, except that LED's don't work well for the applications planned, and there is some guy named Peter Tien in Joisey involved, who has already profited from the deal. Who else is involved and profiting from this deal - what realtors, property owners and partners profit here - who funded these trade missions and who went where for Cleveland, in the past 5 years - what is the deal Jackson is offering Sunpu Opto anyways... where is the proposal??

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