Norm,

I'm more than happy to help facilitate this moving forward but the task gets all the more exciting when we find support for our initiatives from talented folks like we have been lately.  I'll help convene and facilitate progress  however I can but key information from those already familiar with the East Cleveland systems will be essential to our success.  We are working on compiling this now.  I'll be sending out a network-map building spreadsheet tomorrow to anyone interested to help determine not only who is working in East Cleveland now, but who isn't and might have great competencies to share and help apply.  Then we can build and put the map on our site for all to benefit from.

Taking the initial draft we have and refining it to implement proper best practices and key initiatives that have already been successful elsewhere will be paramount.   Input from E-City, Progressive Arts Alliance and EECO will be helpful as well.    These are exciting times!  More to come soon - as well as continuing thoughts on this plan via my blog.  Thanks!

First of all, welcome - your postings are great and I appreciate you being part of REALNEO. This site is focused on regional economic development in Northeast Ohio and anyone is welcome to add content. The best way to find content is to search at http://realneo.us/search/node - for example, search for "Brewer" and you'll find a great podcast with the mayor.

I'm the co-founder of REALNEO, a regional proponent of Free Open Source Software and social networking (REALNEO is a free, open source software social network), and of bridging the digital divide. In 2004, Ed Morrison, the former director of the Case Weatherhead School of Business Center for Regional Economic Issues, asked me to provide East Cleveland with information technology strategy as part of the East Cleveland 2010 initiative (EC2010).

EC2010 is an ad hoc collaboration, launched by Ronn Richard, President of the Cleveland Foundation, supporting his interest to help East Cleveland. The collaboration includes Case, Cleveland State University, Kent State University, an IT consultant named David Porter, and REALNEO. The collaboration worked with your two former mayors and their administrations, and works now with Mayor Brewer and the current East Cleveland administration. Throughout my relations, I've worked most directly with East Cleveland IT Director Abu Alli (abu [at] eastcleveland [dot] org).

My staff and I have provided free technology and support for the East Cleveland virtual community at http://eastcleveland.org (an all-in-house effort by the city staff, using the same software as REALNEO, which is about to be upgraded in many exciting ways).

We also collect donated used computers and process them with free open source software (Ubuntu, OpenOffice) and give them for free to East Cleveland residents - we are committed to insuring each home in East Cleveland has a computer, and are working with many community organizations on developing enhanced computer-related education, training and workforce development initiatives in the community.

We are also working to bring free or very-low cost wireless broadband internet access to every resident of East Cleveland, completing the bridge of the digital divide. Toward this goal, we have arranged for OneCleveland to install a high speed wireless network between all East Cleveland government buildings and the Internet (in the process bringing the city $50,000 in foundation benefits and saving the city $12,000 per year in operating costs).

With this network in place, it is possible to collaborate with other OneCleveland network partners, like the Cleveland Clinic's Huron Hospital and the Cleveland Museum of Art. It also enables transformations through eGovernment, rich media, VoIP, and innovative use of technology for community building. We are also now engineering the public side of this wireless network, providing wifi connectivity throughout East Cleveland, which will require outside funding or a “business model” based on fee for service (perhaps $5/month per user). A final proposal should be crafted in the next 30-60 days.

Another EC2010 IT project, lead by David Porter, brought into the city $24,000 in foundation money to upgrade computer systems and fund programming to collect past due RITA taxes, bringing the city $ millions over years, in many cases from outside contractors not paying RITA taxes while doing work in the city.

The EC2010 work of CSU, lead by Sy Murray, also funded by the Cleveland Foundation, was what brought East Cleveland out of fiscal emergency - he is a world leader in urban affairs and East Cleveland was fortunate to have his skill and expertise to address this challenge.

Kent State Cleveland Urban Design Center's (CUDC) multi-year efforts, lead by David Reed, have provided East Cleveland with 1,000s of hours of time of planners and students developing visuals of what East Cleveland is today, and what it may be. Their process, which will be formalized with the Cleveland Foundation, involves extensive community engagement and discussion, and constant revision, all in development of documents the community uses to sell opportunities to developers and the public and private sector - CUDC isn't a developer and they work for their university and city (and other cities). They are located at Huron and Prospect and are very accessible - contact David Reed at dreed2 [at] kent [dot] edu

We all do the work we do because that is our expertise. We are helping East Cleveland because the past three mayors of East Cleveland have all asked for the support of the Cleveland Foundation, and we have all been pleased to help - that support has been managed ad hoc as EC2010, and so is not centrally documented – I'm working on putting together a more formal overview... that is what Sudhir calls a “Map”.

But, we are also working on an open source GIS mapping project that will help better plan the future of East Cleveland... for example, by cross-referencing high lead exposure risks to pregnant women, so the two don't meet. This global GIS initiative brings the insight of world leaders in mapping to focus on East Cleveland, offering value no community can create internally.

All the other East Cleveland initiatives you read about on REALNEO are bottom-up – like the mapping initiative – undertaken by great people because you and they are there. We don't control that - we encourage it. For example, we are reaching out to GE Nela Park about supporting East Cleveland sustainability. We're working with Mort November planning a community garden on the street named after his daughter, and other community gardeners are offering to help the community in other ways. Again, everyone seems to do this because it is what they do well, and they are happy to help out in East Cleveland.

In closing, I'll say it is not as easy to enable positive change in Cleveland, where there are more political battles, larger wars, and fewer empowered leaders. Deep down, everyone I know who is helping in East Cleveland does so because we see East Clevelanders take care of their city just fine, so great accomplishments are possible.

BTW: Much of the digital divide work is explained at http://echolink-org.bryght.net/, and we are starting to organize all related content at http://eastcleveland2010.org - that site is "secure" so you need to set up a new log in there - please do.

If you can, try to see on East Cleveland Cable Access station - the last half of the May 5th Town Hall meeting (Mayor Brewer presiding).  It dealt with the split in the community regarding the wall.  It also reminded folks of how the wall got started.  By a woman from Euclid who's son was killed somewhere other than East Cleveland.  There are lots of claims and counter claims.  But it will be the people who live in East Cleveland and have to deal with it everyday that will decide on what is going to happen to that wall and that building.

It does make difference if you live in a place - or not.  Doesn't negate or prevent, but it does make a very real difference, an important one.  And when you come into a place you don't know, even an "act anywhere to improve society" can "cause a virus ruckus." 

    My question remains:  If you are NOT a resident of East Cleveland, then WHY are you working for change in East Cleveland?  For what kind of benifit?  (Not all benifits are immediate, obvious or monetary).  And to benifit whom?  Perhaps it is better for folks to grapple with that question within themselves before they come to the place of direct action.

KMaCK
************

    I have a long history of volunteering.  I also have a longer history of asking questions before I get into something. 

    Have I volunteered in East Cleveland since moving back here in the last 3 years?  No.  Do I want to?  Very, very, very much so.  But I also have two very huge obligations right now that do not allow me to put my physical prescence directly on the front lines just yet?  (I take that back ... something very recently but that's besides the point.)

    Have I volunteered in East Cleveland in the past?   Yes, years ago when I lived here before. 

    Have I ever volunteered at anything here or else where?  Yes - enough to be awarded by two different governors.

    Was I then or am I now some big time player, a scion of a "famous" family, connected to money, or politically connected?  NO!  I'm a very small bit player - then and now.

    The question about motive is also about being clear and clean, as I call it.   Because we often fool ourselves about our own motives, muchless being ill at ease with the motives, real or asumed, of others.  In this muddled mess of delusion and fear, people don't give as fully, they hold back.  Projects get stalled and stymed for "unknown reasons".  Things never seem to jell or get off the ground.  Circumstances and finances are not the only reason for projects, programs and initiatives to falter and fail.  The "he-said'she-said-I-don't-know- about" buzz in the background, behind closed doors and rambling around inside of our own heads can wreck a good thing almost faster and worse then no money or a natural disaster.  (New Orleans comes to mind.)

    When talking about East Cleveland, the demographics do say it.  This is a poor, predominatly black community.  So what does the rest of the metropolitain community that is not poor and not black expect to gain by doing something for East Cleveland?  It might be they see a lot of vacant land that can be turned into the next hottest thing since MicroSoft.  It could be that some major something is about to be developed or built on the eastern edge of East Cleveland that the BIG MONEY wants access to.  Guess what.  THAT'S OKAY!  BUT - It's okay as long as EVERYBODY is clear that that is the real objectives, the real motives AND that everybody gets a peice of the pie.  (Please understand that those are purly hypothetical scenorios to make a point.  I know of no such "development" any where.) 

    But I, for one - and I strongly suspect a good deal other black residents of East Cleveland as they learn of these efforts - will ask the same question.  WHY are you interested in helping a community that has been so grossly neglected and abandoned? 

    And lets say you are truly altruistic - even in that mode.  WHY are you being altruistic?  WHY are you coming to aid and help?  As you said, the murder rate is claimed to be the highest in EC then any where else, WHAT - even on an alturistic level - what do you expect, what do you think you will gain by apparently risking your life doing this work?  Acceptence?  Love?  Being a Hero?  The Nobel Peace Prize?  Good Karma?  Friends?  WHAT motivates you?

    Beacuse if you don't get what ever it is, what then?

    What is it you or others want to get out of working with East Cleveland, and why?  Seems to me, if you don't know that, then you don't know what your aiming for or how to get there in a direct and efficient manner.  I'm talking both raw politics and core fundamental philosophical self awareness here.

    The question of WHY is a question that asks for clarity, cleaness, and directness.  And in a world that is anything but, we need as much of it as we can.  Other wise we will be side swiped and derailed by our own unspoken hidden motivations and buried aggendas, that will spring forth unannounced, unexpected and at the worst possible time.  As I said before - it does not mean we can't work together.  It means we have to be straight up about it.

    Besides - Is it allowed for one to ask about the nature of a thing before they get envolved?  And is it not allowed for the helped to ask why they are being helped?  If the answer is no, then it is not help, it is paternalism.

Trust is a good thing but real trust should never be blind and is best if it is first earned. 

***
... I must say this.  Without knowing you, thank you for risking what every you seem to be implying that you risk every time you come here to do what ever it is that you do for East Cleveland, but I find you comment about the murder rate highly offensive.  I live here, park my car here, vote faithfully here, walk these streets, shop at stores and resturants in East Cleveland.  Is my life any less worthy of concern vis-a-vie the over reported and I supspect a bit exagerrated murder rate statistics - compared to any volunteer that comes  for a few hours every few days?  You may have said more then you realize or intended about your own fears and perceptions then anything else.
****

KMaCK