Come together with leaders of the fight for public health, at the start of National Public Health Week - "Designing Healthy Communities - Raising Healthy Kids", for a globally important program at the City Club, April 4th, featuring Dr. Bruce Lanphear, who will review new data on the adverse health effects of childhood lead exposure. Considering the criticality of lead poisoning in our community, and the huge implications in NEO of the sudden escalation of legal activity around lead poisoning nationwide, it is time to become as informed as possible on this subject. Dr. Lanphear is a world expert on many aspects of this topic, and the City Club will be the place Tuesday for the cutting edge insight on raising healthy kids in NEO.

Greater Cleveland has a higher percentage of elevated blood level children than the national average, and many neighborhoods have significant lead poison problems. This book shares insight generated in the effort to eradicate lead poisoning in NEO, including initiative of the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council... GCLAC.

I've thought for some time about the issues facing East Cleveland, and thought deeply about the potential we have to uplift an underprivileged community by applying a concerted eco-development strategy.  Here I outline some of my core thoughts as framed by our six-sphere model:

 

The grand theater of the Cleveland City Hall rotunda was the perfect setting to see NEO filmmaker Laura Paglin's acclaimed documentary "No Umbrella – An Election Day In The City". Thanks to Mayor Frank Jackson "Arts and Cultural Initiative", probably 100 citizens clearly enjoyed the free showing immediately preceded the city council meeting. The "star" of the documentary, long-standing and much-beloved councilwoman Fannie Lewis, was the star of the screening as well, as she and filmmaker Paglin answered questions following the show.

March 21, 2006, REALNEO and the Kent State University Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC)  hosted a wonderful open-house and Excellence Roundtable featuring, Steven Fong, the Charter Dean of the KSU School of Architecture and Environmental Design, which is based in Kent, Ohio, of which CUDC is part. In prime roundtable form, the attendees were as diverse and remarkeable as is Steven, driving a fascinating hour and half brainstorm through Steven's world of fantastic projects that he's worked on around the world, down to today's reality of NEO, viewed from 30,000 feet down to the streets.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006 12:00 PM Low-Level Lead Toxicity: The Ongoing Search for a Threshold Bruce P. Lanphear, MD, MPH Sloan Prof. of Children's Environmental Health & Dir., Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Ct Reservation

Lead poisoning is still one of the most serious public health concerns facing children in Cuyahoga County. Rates of childhood lead poisoning are well above 20% in many Cleveland neighborhoods and East Cleveland. Cleveland’s rate is in the top five nationally, with the current U.S. overall rate at under 2%.

Dr. Bruce Lanphear, The Sloan Professor of Children's Environmental Health and the Director of the Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati, will review new data on the adverse health effects of childhood lead exposure, review the major sources of childhood lead exposure and discuss the regulations and tools necessary to shift our focus toward primary prevention.

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I was very excited to participate in a "Meet the Bloggers" discussion with East Cleveland mayor Eric J. Brewer, with George Nemeth and others, and it was a fantastic experience... what a great initiative Meet the Bloggers is... and the result is a thorough and revealing look into a man very few people really know, largely because the Plain Dealer has taken great efforts to present him as bad. Well, as far as anyone I know and I can tell, Brewer is good. If you care about truth in NEO, you REALLY MUST listen to Part 1 linked below, as Brewer discusses in detail his involvement in the indictment of former Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor... and in Part 3, don't miss Brewer's explanation for the poor treatment of him by the Plain Dealer - this is a major coup for "Meet the Bloggers".

 

Now posting to realneo... photos from the 2006 St. Patrick's Day St. Baldrick's shave-in at A.J. Rocco's, which will raise over $150,000 this year for Childhood Cancer research... perhaps much more, with your continuing support.... and yes, there is a TEAM NEO and that has Sudhir and Norm of "REALNEO gone bald".

The Cleveland Memory Project: Virtual Networks to Cool Places

Date: Today! Wednesday, March 15 Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M. Place: Myers University, Chester Campus 3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH Map Link

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With the demand by Case Professor Krauss for a no-confidence vote against the Case president and provost, the levee broke flooding Case with the community sewage brimming its highest offices since hurricane Lewis smacked NEO several years ago, demanding the complete reorganization of Case. The rains since from Lewis' further public contempt for Case overflowed all the protection the president and board could retain, and now the Case community is in ruins.

I have a proposal for several actions Case may take to become the "World's Most Powerful Learning Environment", as Hundert proposes.

The first action is for the Case board and senior administration to form a panel of Blue Ribbon Advisors who are qualified and able to develop for the University a renewal plan. The panel must be expert in the subject, globally-respected and ready to begin immediately. Therefore, for the panel I recommend:

William G. Bowen, president, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, president emeritus, Princeton University

William R. Brody, president, The Johns Hopkins University

James J. Duderstadt, president emeritus, University of Michigan

Harvey Fineberg, president, The Institute of Medicine, The National Academies

Malcolm Gillis, president emeritus, Rice University

Eamon Kelly, president emeritus, Tulane University

Scott Cowen, president, Tulane University

Farris W. Womack, chief financial officer emeritus, University of Michigan

Join arts and cultural professionals from around the region to discuss Northeast Ohio’s economic future. The Cuyahoga County Cultural Roundtable is hosting a Voices and Choices Community Conversation.

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Please join a casual collaboration of Northeast Ohio leaders interested in supporting "Film" as a cultural, educational, technological and economic engine of this community. "Film" is an important factor in the NEO economy, with many talented "film" professionals involved here in management, production, creative and other roles, creating $ millions in spending and wealth and making NEO a more interesting and fulfilling place to grow up and live. But, what is film, and what matters to the community and our economy?

Huge news in Rhode Island today - "Jury holds 3 ex-makers of lead paint liable" - will have major impacts in Cleveland. Cleveland is one year into a major regional initiative to eradicate lead poisoning in Greater Cleveland, where elevated blood level rates are some of the highest in the country, and it is very important that the paint companies are part of the solutions being developed. Rhode Island is where the battle against lead poisoning has proceeded the furthest in court, and now a jury has ruled against three paint companies, including our home-town Sherwin-Williams. Imagine some possible next steps... lead goes the way of asbestos and the old paint companies go bankrupt, and so goes away Sherwin-Williams and all its jobs in the region, with the assets going to our next Mittal... yet the bankruptcy settlement and asset sales help pay to eradicate lead poisoning here so our next generations are not mentally impaired and are able to contribute to the economy. What do the people of NEO rally around - saving jobs or saving minds... I can see the fanatical lines being drawn now. Is that the best we can do? Or can lead be viewed as a new frontier for open, responsible collaboration across our community (as is already happening in Greater Cleveland) AND with one of the biggest players on the industry - our own Sherwin-Williams - allowing us to respond here to our dirty laundry being aired in the RI courts, and in the process making Sherwin-Williams a stronger corporate citizen, in a safer, healthier, smarter community more worth living in. Read the complete story, from the Providence Journal.

A community of interest focused on developing an African American Cultural Center and driving innovation in the sharing of understanding and strengthening of African American and all culture in Northeast Ohio.

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"The Best Market in the World" is how a vendor at Basketeria describes the West Side Market, and he's close enough for me. Historic, striking, convenient, accessible, friendly, quality, fresh - a landmark and asset beyond measure - the West Side Market is a regular part of the lives of people in NEO who live right.

Go Out With A Bang - Nathan Margoni - Oil Painting with Mixed Medium. 7'x5'
"Prism - The Artists Supply Store Painting Award"

The Cleveland Institute of Art Student Independent Exhibition 60, running February 17 - April 1, 2006, absolutely engages the visitor and provides the perfect foundation to explore the value of the creative class, the arts, and the CIA to our community. This is an exceptional show of expressive, creative genius articulated by scores of artistic masters, representing a small presentation of the explosive talent found in and radiating from the CIA.

The devastation of whole neighborhoods of New Orleans raised the most uncomfortable race and class issues inherent in our cities.  This forum will explore the fundamental question:  What does the exposure of deep-seated race and class issues and the ambivalent national response teach us about the value we place on our nation’s cities, the people who live there, and the public policies that helped to shape those cities?

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According to Case Management Professor Sandy Piderit, on her NEOBEAN (North East Ohio Breastfeeding Education and Awareness Network) site:

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Pictured from left to right: Julius Ciaccia- Director of Public Utilities, Councilman Matt Zone, Andrew Watterson- Cleveland Sustainability Manager, and David Beach- Director, Ecocity Cleveland.

The International and Domestic Dimensions

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Ohio Congressman Bob Ney is certainly entitled to have the facts proved before he’s considered guilty, but it’s a disservice to voters to claim the charges against him are “just politics” or “the way things work in DC.”  By asserting that these allegations are “the way things get done,” supporters drag politics and government lower and give disgusted voters more reasons to give up on government.  To really understand the accusations and why the allegations are more than routine, readers need to understand the nature of the charges and the facts at hand.

I was reading a series on the working poor from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (you know, Cleveland had two newspapers once--Seattle has the Times and the P-I--but I digress) and I thought of a way to (1) jumpstart Ohio's economy and (2) bring bright, motivated people to Ohio. 

How about this: