You know Susan--in NEO we live with an alternative reality.  Opportunity Corridor = Green Corridor.  Carbon emissions are GREAT!  Drive a hummer, it's good for the economy and good for the environment. Coal is KING.  The Clinic will make FAT people disappear by NOT hiring them.

And, turning down money to dedicate Dike 14 for environmental use--well, that's just SMART and Green!!! 

Just start thinking in the alternative reality.  Aren't you happy now?!
 

Seriously ya'll.   Politico dirt wads.  I'm all hacked off. 

1. They knock down part of the Howard Johnson.  Not cool

2. They cite in the draft Environmental Impact Assessment for the filling in of the 55th Marina as a CDF that it will eliminate zebra mussel habitat.  PUUUHLEEZE

3. They shoot down the fast track process to get public the access to green space it needs to help offset increasing buffer overruns from city life.  Need more greenspace, STAT.  Need undeveloped wilderness, even that atop a confined disposal landfill for hazardous dredge that caused bird kills.

4. I say we have a sit in on the dike.  Lock down, u bolt bicycle locks around our necks.  Julia Butterfly Hill style, squat out there or something.

Terra Prima!  ZM

http://northcoastgreenspieler.blogspot.com/

Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority's maritime director resigns after 3 months on the job

Plain Dealer James F. McCarty

Port directors speechless:

Eight of the authority's nine board of directors did not return calls Friday about the resignation. The ninth board member declined to comment.

Port spokesman Luke Frazier said board members had been told not to discuss Coyle's resignation. But Frazier declined to explain the reason for the secrecy.

Further in describing the CCPA:

The quasi-governmental authority, created in 1968 by Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, oversees the Great Lakes' third largest port, handling nearly $1 billion annually in imports and exports.

Did he mean the queasy-governmental authority?

We like the mystery here in NEO apparently. Keep those reasons close to the vest. Keep the people guessing. Did Coyle say to himself, "Whoa! I have just delivered 32 pages of bullshit to the CCPA - the report they wanted, but there is NO WAY to deliver on that - I better get the hell out of dodge!" Is that what happened? I suppose we may never know. Will they be able to find someone who will do their bidding? I suppose we will see that unfold in the future. Next.

That guy quit that 130,000 a year job because the port is a losing deal,they have no bussiness for this new port,if you read they are hoping to draw bussiness,they don't have much bussiness at their old port. Hawk P.S. My friend Ed talk to me.

OK everyone - this is on the down low...

Port Authority holds 2 closed meetings after staffers quit, investigation report

CLEVELAND-CUYAHOGA COUNTY PORT AUTHORITY SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
(For the purpose of conducting business set forth in the agenda below) 
Thursday, October 29, 2009  8:30 a.m.
One Cleveland Center – 1375 East Ninth Street – Forum Conference Center (2nd Floor)
 
AGENDA
 
1.  Roll Call
 
2.  Executive Session – for the purpose of discussing certain matters under Ohio Revised Code 121.22(G)(1) to be specified at the meeting.
 
3.  Reconvene Meeting to consider business if any
 
4.  Adjourn

and they apparently did not get through these "certain matters" becuase they met again on Sunday.

(G) Except as provided in division (J) of this section, the members of a public body may hold an executive session only after a majority of a quorum of the public body determines, by a roll call vote, to hold an executive session and only at a regular or special meeting for the sole purpose of the consideration of any of the following matters:

(1) To consider the appointment, employment, dismissal, discipline, promotion, demotion, or compensation of a public employee or official, or the investigation of charges or complaints against a public employee, official, licensee, or regulated individual, unless the public employee, official, licensee, or regulated individual requests a public hearing. Except as otherwise provided by law, no public body shall hold an executive session for the discipline of an elected official for conduct related to the performance of the elected official’s official duties or for the elected official’s removal from office. If a public body holds an executive session pursuant to division (G)(1) of this section, the motion and vote to hold that executive session shall state which one or more of the approved purposes listed in division (G)(1) of this section are the purposes for which the executive session is to be held, but need not include the name of any person to be considered at the meeting.

To consider

• the appointment,
• employment,
• dismissal,
• discipline,
• promotion,
• demotion, or
• compensation of a public employee or official, or
• the investigation of charges or
• complaints against a public employee, official, licensee, or regulated individual,

unless the public employee, official, licensee, or regulated individual requests a public hearing.

What were they discussing? The meeting notice said only "certain personnel matters". Did they disclose which one or more of the approved purposes listed in division (G) (1) of this section are the purposes for which the executive sessions were held? No, but the minutes of the last meeting (October 16, 2009) where presumably that vote and motion were taken have yet to be posted. Next board meeting November 18, 2009. And everything is going along so swimmingly. It's good to have staff though with such a monstrous undertaking. The sub rosa meetings - so many in our fair town. I suppose we will find out soon enough.

Can someone point out th sidebar link for storis on the CCPA in cleveland.com? I looked in Metro and in editorial. There is a tag now though :http://topics.cleveland.com/tag/Cleveland-Cuyahoga%20port%20authority/index.html Only two stories there. More if you search port. One thing I'll say, they sure have a bevy of different reporters on the port nowadays.

Must be a complex issue:

Notice is hereby given that a Special Board of Directors meeting of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, pursuant to its Rules and Regulations, will be held on Friday, November 6, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. at 1375 East Ninth Street, Cleveland, Ohio at the Forum Conference Center, Second Floor.  The purpose of the meeting will be to consider certain personnel matters.  Accordingly, the Board may convene into Executive Session upon the meeting being called to order, prior to taking any action.

Minutes of the last meeting (October 16, 2009) still have not been posted.

Meanwhile on the heels of Patrick Coyle's mysterious resignation after only 3 months on the job, Michael Stolarczyk, CEO of Toledo Port Authority resigns for "personal reasons" after just 6 months on the job. Something smells fishy here and I doubt that it is Lake Erie carp.

Wasserman makes his exit. The "don't let the door hit you in the ass" pay out is $300,000. Oh, my!

Rose Ann DeLeon makes her departure. Is this the newest installation of Exodus? CCPA diaspora? Nah, those two guys weren't there long enough. DeLeon was there longer. It isn't a diaspora until Carney leaves.

Now how much office space and port space do they really need? And it begs the question, who's next to go? Wanna place bets on Communications Director, Luke Frazier? He's been there 8 months... General Counsel Joel Pentz? Oops, no he's still working to amend the Hauser Amendment.

So there is a dredge issue for the port. And the Army Corps has had it - they are spent down to the nib (nub?). They say, don't expect more federal assistance for this grandiose plan. But board member and long time NEO politico, developer, John Carney is unmoved (stuck?).

"The state has shown it can come up with money when it wants to," Carney said. "We can go to the city and the people, too."

People are out of work, out of home, hungry, in need of health care and social services - hell the freakin' mayor wants to charge Cleveland residents for freaking garbage pickup. What the fuck, Mr. Carney! You can't get blood from a stone. No matter how many Flats Eastbanks you finance in the neighborhood of your warehouse district buildings, millennials will not be coming.

The port has made itself a laughing stock on both sides of the Cuyahoga. Even in Cincinnati, an elected official recognized that port decision and plans should be open to the public - Hauser Amendment. It took someone from Cincinnati! What? No one locally wants to say no to Mr. Carney? Anthony Moore, put on the gloves dude, you may have the guts.

If the board had been paying attention to its duties of maintaining a maritime operation instead of these opium dreams of container port glory, high dollar executives from abroad, unpaid loans to failing universities, strip malls built on landfills and parking garages in suburbs that are poorly constructed... Well, they might have realized that a shrinking economy needs a shrinking port and made these decisions years ago.

I'd say Carney and his fellow board members are in the soup right about now and the Army Corps just turned up the heat.

You no longer have port a executive, why is that again?

The executive are not presenting to the board concisely and the board is getting tilted by community initiatives, that know less then the board.

Wasserman could not get the Board in line or Washington for that matter….

This is stalled, how anyone can come in at this point would be amazing.

The army corp. of engineers is tapped out? They have and will continue to dredge won’t they. Thats a pretty simple aspect of the proposal, for those of us familiar with that process we all know that they built Dyke 14, they also built Burke and even the land I-90 exists on.

If the city approves East 55th then it is destructive before it can be constructive. It currently is a marina, the executive requested funds to further the business plan, the board says it has yet to see?

I hear nothing of moving the marina and that time frame, only to consolidate the exiting ports site, one can only assume that they want to move the port west to open land for development. I can see that in concept but not in any formal business plan. I am just an outsider, but the board not seeing it is just odd, is it not a complete plan? It is in fact highly speculative, in that it is and requires or is a intergovernmental joint venture and I believe Wasserman did not get the recognition or commitments to support in DC that he hoped for.

Consolidation of the Port at its current site, to open land to the east required an investor to develop that land, they lost that investor. The state will not consider 55th without relocation of the exiting facility, who pays for that?

The Army corp of engineers will use that location to deposit dredgings; but they will not relocate the marina.

This is tough one, all because there is no money, the open land behind the Browns stadium is hard to sell to a developer today in this economy and in that it is not even developable yet. That made the board stumble, why ask for $47M to fill a slip? Wasserman must have wanted to vomit, how can you get all the ducks in a row in this town? I do not know maybe a better presentation of your business plan?

Wasserman got no interest in the port other than the PD and the day dreamers.

Its sad…..

They need to prove they can consolidate the site and without constraining its functionality. They have to have that and the price to reconfigure it, then it’s a matter of recovering that by developing the open land.

Phase one?

Then relocating the marina will not be easy, but not that expensive, they need to define that and its costs. Are you getting the idea of how the board feels, were is all this at in a bussiness plan they are basically asking!

Phase two?

Then the retainers and the filling begins, thats all the corp. but they will not do the other parts; it is not in their charter not for free and they are not staffed to do it.

Phase Three?

Roads rail and infrastructure, thats down the line and tentative to funding, some of it the state and some of it federal, its DOT.

So what is the value of that land, the land behind the Brown’s stadium? What could be constructed there? That would provide jobs and taxes?

I think its all very interesting….a good plan but there simply is no funding. The value if and when it was completed would it be mostly esthetic?

A side form this; Toledo is building a cruise ship terminal, it will run excursions to and from the lake Erie islands. Cleveland should connect to that….if there was a high speed train or even the train that now runs from Cleveland to Sandusky and to Toledo, thats interesting. The cruise to and then the train back. That could be a day train the Amtrak crosses through at night. Maybe an extension of the Cuyahoga Valley Line?

Then you have this med mart switch to the Mall C and that’s the Amtrak station and the RTA as well.

Take a step back RealNeo, what’s doable and something to augment this Casio fiasco. That seem to me as sellable, the cruise and rail trip between three of Ohio’s ports, you have a day at Cedar Point in there. Then see if they can sell that section of land behind the stadium.