I received an email from the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party with their endorsements for the upcoming election. I thought I would post them here for REAL NEO discussion - I am especially interested in learning what people know about the candidates for the Cuyahoga County Charter Commission, should issue 5 pass - will someone please post the names of the other candidates to complete the list. Any thoughts on this:

For the next three weeks, one of the most important things the people of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo and Ohio in general may do is fight Issue 3, which changes the Ohio constitution to give a monopoly on casino gambling to Dan Gilbert, owner of Quicken Loans, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and other financial and gambling interests.

Meet the Public Utilities Commissioners of Ohio - five "public servants" of the State of Ohio who have approved an electricity demand side management program that is so unfair and costly to residents of Northeast Ohio, and so advantageous to a select group of public utility companies, as to raise absolute doubt about the integrity, competency and honesty of those setting energy policy and regulations for our state. Of course, energy policy for Ohio determines our levels of pollution, which are high. These dubious people are:

Over the past four years, since I became involved with the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council, I have been astounded by the lack of concern about childhood lead poisoning among our largely DINK and empty-nested, baby-boomed, sprawled, childhood-lead-poisoned suburbanite sustainabilly Illuminati, who view today's lead poisoning issue as a poor, urban, peeling-paint code enforcement problem of little societal importance, other than proof the poor are pigs. They think old, suburban farts are not harmed by lead poisoning, and lead is not of long-term interest to them.

In coverage of truly depressing news in our region, the Cleveland Plan Dealer today reports "Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port authority passes on grant for Dike 14 preservation". The Plan Dealer reports:

"It is more prudent to allow for the Dike 14 planning to mature along the time frames anticipated for the lakefront projects as a whole," wrote port attorney Joel Pentz in a letter to a group of environmental agencies working to rescue and preserve the area as a wildlife refuge.

Pentz is absolutely correct. The Port Authority is working with these same environmental groups to plan the relocation and development of facilities so disruptive to the local environment and Lake Erie that it would be entirely foolish to spend a penny on any environmental initiatives within miles of the planned port relocation - especially along the lakefront. If we are seriously allowing over 1/2 billion dollars to be spent reconfiguring our lakefront for container traffic, do not spend a penny on anything not container port related around there until done - for the next 30 years or so.

If we are going to have zoos and aquariums at all, we should use them for more than entertaining the masses... like for real education, including for enhancing real early childhood development, including having a preschool at the zoo! Sound too innovative for NEO? Yes... this is in Real NWO... Toledo, Ohio...

An anthem for Real NEO today, from the day - vintage Gang of Four performing Anthrax in 1980 - my first year in college - one of the great bands and songs of then and all time. I think the love many of us may feel for this corrosive, punk town is like a case of Anthrax, and that's something I don't want to catch. Read the lyrics below from our context in NEO... concluding "I don't think we're saying there's anything wrong with love, we just don't think that what goes on between two people should be shrouded with mystery." That's REALNEO! Listen, read, and surprise yourself with great music.

Gang of Four: Anthrax

It is heartwarming to occasionally see signs of enlightened, concerned people from Cleveland's storied past who still care about Cleveland. The best example I have seen in a long time is reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer today in an article titled "Widow of Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum founder comes to Cleveland for answers about car sales", stating:

In an article in today's Cleveland Plan (Plain) Dealer titled "Issue 3 will hurt businesses near casinos, group of restaurants, bars says", it is written "The Ohio Licensed Beverage Association commissioned the study by four professors from Hiram College to blow holes in Issue 3, the constitutional amendment on the Nov.

At around 5 PM, on September 23, 2009, WKYC Channel 3 news reported "shocking and disturbing photos, allegedly of incumbent Mayor Eric Brewer, are being circulated in the community, The Investigator Tom Meyer has learned." Photographs that appear to be East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer in woman's clothes, some that are pornographic, have apparently been circulating in East Cleveland for over a year - reportedly many years - and been broadly published by the mainstream media since the 23rd.

On the 24th, I was called by one of the mayor's confidants and told to watch out for retaliation. It seems that Mayor Brewer told the confidant he thinks I distributed the pictures of the mayor. I am not the only person being targeted by such paranoid delusions.

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.

A song for the day to our failed and disgraced leadership of Northeast Ohio, and those who want to be... "The Dope Show", by Canton native-son Marilyn Manson:

There's lots of pretty, pretty ones
Who want to get you high
But all the pretty, pretty ones
Will leave you low
And blow your mind

Dear Cleveland Cavaliers,

As you well know, 100,000,000s of people look up to you as community leaders and role models - these are responsibilities you accept as sports and public figures who are intentionally "in the news", for profit.

Severe Particulate Matter 2.5 Hourly Reading in Cleveland at 8:00 AM on 09/23/09 - see current here

There is clear evidence the leadership of Northeast Ohio has failed to create an environment encouraging world-class monitoring, analysis, research, notification and controls of pollution created in our region of Ohio, and the consequences on residents and society. As a result, the people of this region have suffered significant health consequences, including early death, and impaired learning ability, crippling our schools and workforce, and society and the regional economy have suffered greatly. As much of our pollution is exported beyond our region, our failure to be world-class addressing pollution here causes harm world-wide.

When my friend Kieth called and asked me to come over, last Thursday night, I could tell by his voice something was very wrong. When I arrived, he looked in shock - he told me his youngest son's mother had called to say their child had shot a mail carrier in Maple Heights.

A realneo member contacted help to report that the header image was loading in the Comment and Reply body fields... I was having the same problem in Firefox, but not in Safari.

REALNEO administrator Jeff Schuler replied that he ran some upgrades on our site software last night (thanks Jeff!) and he suggested we try clearing our cache, which I did and that cleared the problem up. If you are having this problem, try clearing your cache.

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.

For the 30+ years of my life spent in Northeast Ohio, in childhood and as an adult, University Circle has been at the center of my universe. What Place is at the Center of Your Universe?

Thanks to REALNEO's lmcshane for pointing out one of the most interesting developments in the American "sustainability movement" ever - what appears to be Chicago's real news source, The Chicago Reader, broke the news, September 4, 2009, that "The Green Mayor's Green Policy Maker Leaves for Vancouver". This is the story of former Cleveland and Chicago area sustainability guru Sadhu Johnston, now set to become the deputy city manager of Vancouver.

The Real Coop Local Food and Info proposal submitted to Cuyahoga County, for new economic and workforce development in Northeast Ohio, is designed to create 1,000s of new jobs in Northeast Ohio in career fields as diverse as journalism, communications, engineering, building trades, farming, food processing, warehousing and transportation.

You can sure feel the tension on my street and in my neighborhood, because some neighbors started speaking up about problems in the neighborhood and with other neighbors, who are causing harm. While my street has quieted down, there is bad energy here and directed from surrounding streets, from which teens have come to start fights here.

South African Boerboel and Cane Corso

After reading the story in today's Cleveland.com, "Owner of razed Cleveland warehouse still fighting city, Precision Environmental over lost vehicles", about a second Frank Giglio in Cleveland - this one on the East Side - named Michael Ayers, who had his property condemned, stolen and destroyed under the direction of the Cleveland Building and Housing Department...