Join the nonprofit organization ClevelandBikes on its annual "Bike to Work" rides, everyday May 12-16, now bigger than ever by partnering with other riding organizations in the first Cleveland Bicycle Week.   Ride and you can be elgible for great prizes!  This year, you can also find partners on your own through a "Bike Buddy" system brought to you by NOACA. And remember, join us for our ride on Wednesday May 14th and wear yellow for Lance Armstrong Foundation's LIVESTRONG Day! 

* ClevelandBikes hosts commuting rides downtown to our host, the Greater Cleveland YMCA (2200 Prospect Avenue), every day during Cleveland Bicycle Week, May 12-16.  Join us for coffee, while the YMCA provides free, secure bike parking, showers and free passes for the day.  Join us and share your goals about riding in Northeast Ohio, while riders are eligible for fun prizes.

* ClevelandBikes is also pleased to assist with the Northeast Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), which is offering to match solo riders through th Ohio Ride Share "Bike Buddy" program, matching riders with common starting points,ride times and common destinations (www.ohiorideshare.com).

* ClevelandBikes also supports a major health initiative, with a "Bike to Work"ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (www.livestrong.org) and "LIVESTRONG" day on Wednesday May 14.

* ClevelandBikes will host "Bike to Work" rides on the final Friday of every month and special rides for festivals and other activities.

Pick a starting location from the list below and ride along with a ClevelandBikes ride leader, or just meet us between 8:00 and 9:00 AM at our downtown host, the Greater Cleveland YMCA,  which is offering free showers, secure bike parking and free day passes for YMCA activities.

East Side Starting Points

7:45 AM  Arabica at 11300 Juniper in University Circle
7:15 AM  Dewey's Coffee on Shaker Square
7:30 AM  Starbucks at Cedar and Fairmount
7:00 AM  Bus Shelter at E. 222nd and Lakeshore
7:45 AM  McDonald's on E. 159th and Lakeshore

South Side Starting Point
7:15 AM  Arabica at 5615 Turney Rd.

West Side Starting Points
7:45 AM  Civilization Coffee Shop in Tremont at W. 11th and Kenilworth
7:50 AM  Talkies Film and Coffee Bar in Ohio City at 2521 Market Ave.
7:25 AM  Phoenix in Lakewood at 15108 Detroit near Warren Rd.
7:50 AM  Arabica in Lakewood at 11604 Detroit near W. 116th

National "Bike to Work" Week is sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists  (www.bikeleague.org), which offers bicycle advocacy and support programs for more than 125 years.

ClevelandBikes , a 501C3 nonprofit organization, is committed to advancing all forms of bicycling as economical and healthful recreation, sport and transportation.

For More Information, Contact:  Kevin Cronin
216.374.7578; kevin [at] clevelandbikes [dot] org
On the Web: www.clevelandbikes.org
When ClevelandBikes. Cleveland Benefits!

Reading along in the Sustainable Industries Website I found this link for the earthnow EXPO.

It’s time to come out from hiding, Sherrod.

Sen. Sherrod Brown doesn’t want to make a choice in the Democratic primary race.

But it’s time for him to show some courage. Bite the bullet and give us your choice for the Democratic nominee.

Some Democrats with backbones need to tell Hillary Clinton that her performance and obstinacy in remaining in the race as a spoiler needs to end.

Her pigheadedness now endangers the chance for a Democrat to win the White House and others to win in the Congress.

Wanted to share this news with our NEO colleague network straight from the I-Open home base ...

Stock Market & Financial News - BusinessWeek: The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) and Near-Time Announce New Approach to Building Innovative Workforce Development Partnerships

What is a "Green Roof" and what does it look like?

At the house on Roxbury, the green roof is where the raccoons still live.

I have always found Kelly Blazek's job stream to be one of the most worthwhile efforts in this town. 
Since she extended the invitation to join, I am posting it here:

Feel free to forward this to job hunters you may know - and have them

Little Italy has always been core to my REAL NEO experience. From earliest childhood memories,  my family has always had many meals at various Little Italy restaurants, each year, as well as picking-up an occasional pizza (where else in NEO but Mama Santas or Valentino's... well, do try the Gelatoria at Fairhill). I also love getting Lemon Ice and other goodies at Corbos. with their unusual greeting of "Leave the gun, take the cannoli"... as authentic as life gets, in NEO. Last night, I noticed Corbos moved next door to their old home, to a remodeled new space (much as Prestis did, a few years ago) Little Italy has always been a great hyper-local neighborhood, where people live, work, eat and socialize together within, and interact well with the world without. There's always lots of private rehab and strong entrepreneurial business activity here, off the Med-O-Mart grid. Which makes me ask you, what matters to the hyper-local economy in your neighborhood, and how is that doing.

A few thoughts on our morning newspaper as it struggles for relevance.

You have to give credit to Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg. She does have moxie that has often been missing in our morning newspaper.

One great thing about a gravel driveway is you can hear them coming.

This afternoon, Claes and I were chilling at home in East Cleveland, minding our own business, when we heard that crunch of rocks under heavy tires. Then the slam of a car door, and heavy feet on the front porch... another drive-by had arrived. It's been happening regularly since we started renovating the house on Roxbury, late last Summer.... especially on a beautiful day like today.

I thought I'd share some reflections after just spending Cinco de Mayo facilitating dialogues around regional economic development in Akron, Ohio.  I, like so many other colleagues who have participated in various phases of the Voices and Choices process had my fair share of reservations and issues with various aspects of the two-year, multi-million dollar investment and experience.  While I found great value in working hard to facilitate regional dialogues with a healthy mix of participants representing diverse demographics, I learned firsthand how difficult it is to drive meaningful outcomes from such activity.  I, like so many others, was very candid about the many difficulties endured and faced during the process - perhaps the most prolific of which was a failure to have the mechanisms in place to capture the heightened energy and activation of the masses in an effective and timely manner to drive meaningful and positive outcomes.  A candid conversation I had today with Advance Northeast Ohio's communications director, Chris Thompson, completely validated my feelings, as he was in complete agreement on this point.  I laud Chris for such candor and really appreciated his astute comments. 

Passport Project is thrilled to announce that we have been selected to host a group of Women Leaders from Korea on Tuesday, May 6 th from 2:00 - 3:30pm . This project consists of six visitors (accompanied by two State Department Interpreters) who are invited to the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program (http://exchanges.state.gov/education/ivp/overview.htm) , and will spend three weeks traveling around to different U.S. cities, Cleveland being one of them.

Location

Welcome to The Star Market and Cafe! What would make you walk, ride and drive out of your way and stop here? When? Why? Now is the time for Star Neighborhood Development to reinvent a blighted urban convenient store into a community asset. But how? That depends on you. What will you support here?

He’s our Jackie Robinson. Do we afford to not take the chance?

Barack Obama is tough in just the way Jackie Robinson had to be tough in 1947.

He has to operate in a non-threatening way and that may make him seem weak. He has had to ignore some attacks upon him without responding in kind. Robinson, a strong competitor, had to turn the “other cheek” to insults and attacks.

Jeff Buster certainly demonstrates "Why Citizen Journalism" regularly, with his impactful and important reporting and photojournalism on many matters of hyper-local, regional and global importance, on REALNEO, followed by the world. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer followed Jeff's lead investigation of a disgraceful, failed development in University Heights, "UNIVERSITY SQUARE MALL PARKING STRUCTURE - CLOSE IT NOW?" The PD's Patrick O'Donnell writes "University Square battles empty storefronts, parking garage problems", offering a very different set of perspectives on all matters related to this failure, while completely validating all construction-related observations first revealed by Jeff, a lifelong construction professional.

So I am just back from 14 days in Japan.  Interesting to be on the sidelines as 3,000 Japanese police protect the olympic toarch from what I thought would be a calm, reserved crowd.  Dont get me wrong, I was not in Nagano, I was in Shibuya / Tokyo.. but it got a lot of attention.  Pro and anti China student groups and observers literally throwing punches, 70 year old Japanese men going to jail for throwing tomatoes in the face of the police protecting the toarch... etc.  It was akin to what I saw in the USA when the toarch came thru California.

April 10, 2008, Heights Observer Volume 1, Number 1 hit the streets with the lead story "Why Citizen Journalism?". Contributing writer Michael Wellman observes "The interaction of two primary themes has largely been responsible for the growth of citizen based journalism: dissatisfaction with the content of traditional media and advancements in technology", and "“A common goal of citizen journalists is to recapture journalism as a truly democratic practice that is thoroughly rooted in -- and thus directly serves -- the real lives and interests of citizens.” (see mcgillreport.org/largemouth.htm)." Wellman also writes of the emergence of "hyper-local" journalism, enabled by Observer Newspapers and preached by Lakewood Observer founder Jim O'Bryan... for good reason.

Bill Clinton said he (we) killed “Welfare as we know it,” or at least as some did think they knew it.

Welfare, as we don’t recognize it – meaning not for poor people – continues and thrives. Skimming the news in the Plain Dealer yesterday so reveals. The PD doesn’t call it welfare, however. Rather, the new welfare represents commitments to, I guess, what some would call progress.

Here's a note just received from Marlon Solano..which we offered to post for the REALNEO community to build connectivity and new opportunities for art in NEO. I've suggested they link to NEO online communities and other communities such as SmallerIndiana.com to leverage resources and capabilities focused around mutual interests...

Cigarette smokers should be burned up.

The following figures tell why smokers should be fuming. Cuyahoga County smokers have been taxed for the following reasons and amounts since 1990:

As we begin a new Spring - a new beginning - what are you doing to green your republic?

The article in the Plain Dealer this a.m. on plans to "fix" the "messy" intersection at Van Aken and Chagrin roads gives my tummy some growls.

No one doubts that the intersection could have been devised better at some point.

Some praise the public effort to keep Eaton Corp., a Fortune 500 company, in Cleveland’s downtown. They are even willing to pay a price to see it happen.

The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority will help to keep the company in Cleveland, we are told, by selling land to the Wolstein/Flats project and by helping to “finance $150 million of the Eaton project,” according to a Plain Dealer editorial praising the deal.

Hope you can join us online for this week's workshop on new practices and tools for Open Source Economic Development. The retreat is lead by Ed Morrison, I-Open, Director, and Policy Analyst and Director of the WIRED initiative in North Central Indiana, Purdue Center for Regional Development, Purdue University. 

Corsair, a private pot of money and investors that seems poised to bail out National City, is an interesting development, but if you're concerned about housing and local investment, where is the encouragement for the future in a bank that got into this mess, at least in part, through poor lending practices and weak management oversight on home lending?