We couldn't help but follow this race closely, on REALNEO. Thank you to all the candidates on new Ward 14 who have set up accounts and moved democracy to our free world - you are all class acts.

You have my respect for putting your hats in the ring and investing so much of your lives in improving your community - I don't know you or your policies directly but I know you care!

I look forward to seeing the smartest race in Cleveland history now play out between Cummins and Nagin, here on REALNEO.

Let the race begin!

Ward 14 Candidates Question of the Day: What will you do differently to address lead poisoning in your community?

Disrupt IT

 At the City Club debate--the candidates discussed hosting a debate in Ward 14 for local residents.  I would love to see the debate take place at Lincoln High School. The School as Neighborhood Resource program starts up in October. 

In any case,  I hope that this will be coordinated soon to insure wide advertising and a greater turnout of residents and to combat some of the voter apathy so apparent throughout Cleveland.
 

This would be nice, Laura, and like you say, get people to vote. The turnout city wide is appalling. 

thank you. I would love to know how you did that. Debbie 

 I have only formatting, edit, preview and delete options. It would be nice to be able to have the above options.

I have thought more about this. Forget my idea; this opens a can of worms that we are not ready for. I am happy to contact an administrator to edit my postings for now. Thanks.

  Like all good efforts to provide forum in this town, REALNEO should not succumb to some control freak behavior. 

When we post original blogs as I have here, I agree that the author of the post should have the edit option to allow comments or not.  The author of any post also has the option to delete their post at any time.  I have deleted some of my posts and to my knowledge so has Susan Miller. When we have done it, we upset the folks who had commented on our posts.  Folks are always going to get upset, but this is the risk you run of contributing to the original author's post. Authors have the ability to delete your comments by deleting the original post, so it behooves all of us to carry on a sane and rational discussion.  If, as Norm proposes we allow everyone, not just administrators, to post blog entries with comments disabled, REALNEO will get REAL boring.  Plus, the comments, even the bad ones, show that a topic merits attention. 

So far, REALNEO's structure is better than many other forums, primarily because of the photos, and because the sidebars--Recent comments, Popular Content, Last Viewed--mix up the content and refresh past material.  The basic format of the site is good and gatekeeping is kept to a minimum.  I do believe that anonymity is a scourge and should be discouraged.  My two cents.  It would be better if REALNEO's topics took up the forum portion of the site--as an example http://www.urbanohio.com/ has very good traffic in their forums.  BTW--REALNEO and urbanohio are the two blogs that Henry Gomez tracks for Inside City Hall, so we are providing some insight to community politics.

For all the new people who have joined REALNEO, recently--thank you.  Please don't let growing pains discourage your input to this site. There is a long history from 2004 (?) ...and the site has been kept alive by the folks who do have administrator capacity.  I am not an administrator and I don't want to be one--because I don't want to play god here.  I know that some folks want the comments frozen so that the option to revise a comment is locked down.  We saw the empty posts meant to lock down comments.  Frankly, I thought it was a childish response, but Jeff Schuler if you can lock down comments to prevent future editting, please do, especially to prevent this type of discord. 

We do need a meeting--how about Shaker Square, again?  But, this time--please post an agenda and unfortunately, we are going to need a moderator.  I can't do Jamaica Kincaid as it turns out (I work) but after any one of the Sunday Writers and Readers Series at CPL is another option to pursue a meeting--see http://writersandreaders.cpl.org/

Neil Gaiman will be at CPL's Lakeshore Facility on Sunday, October 4th--How about we give some traffic to a Waterloo Facility, after the author discussion?

  The next BCCA meeting in Brooklyn Centre is held the fourth Thursday of the month at the beautiful Brooklyn Methodist Memorial Church, built on the same cool Akron plan model as Pilgrim Church in Tremont.
 

BCCA people, please correct me if I am wrong...on the date/place for your next meeting.  Will it be posted at http://www.brooklyncentre.org ?

I work most Thursday nights until 8:00 p.m., so I generally do not make these meetings, but if BCCA will let REALNEO meet after their meeting...I will be there.

BCCA?  Wouldn't that location be too biased towards Cummins?  Isn't that an organization that he helped to set up?  I could be wrong, but I thought I read that in one of these posts. 

Anyone have any other suggestions for a meeting place in Ward 14?  Someplace more neutral. 

but can we please go somewhere with beer?

it sometimes makes things more palatable.

And  Brats and Music on TAP--every second Saturday of the month from 1-4 p.m.
Now, ain't that crazy??  I am off this Saturday, September 12, and as Chris loves beer and brats and organ music--the Bohemian in him--we will try to catch the scene at Trinity Lutheran Church West 30th and Lorain Ave (this is happening 3 blocks west of the West Side Market on a market day).

See www.clevelandbeckerath.org for more information...

And speaking of beer---not all bars have to be bad...if we took a more sane approach to drinking in America--BCCA just sent me word that they are meeting tonight at 6:30 to consider rezoning Brown's Lanes in my neighborhood for music and possible dancing...seems they have removed some of the lanes.  I can live with a place for healthy socializing, but I am sure some of our neighbors might not appreciate the music part...oh how can suburbanites live in their boring little homes, when us city folk have so much fun controversy to complain about!?

 One is the Ward 14 debate that should take place between Rick Nagin and Brian Cummins.  That should take place in...Ward 14--San Lorenzo Club is another possible venue...but like I said--Lincoln West is ground zero. 

The second meeting is needed to hash out standards and posting etiquette for REALNEO and to approve formation of REAL COOP and status of REALNEO as non-profit entity for purposes of funding this mess :)