With a prayor and the promise "this is not some kind of a trick", East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer fulfilled a promise to his citizens, this Saturday, April 8, 2006, and organized a community day to help residents of his city who have criminal records to move forward with success in life. Around 200 citizens turned out to learn how to clean up their records, as much as possible, and find jobs in a world that largely views ex-offenders as unemployable.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden at The City Club of Cleveland

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The Board of Trustees of Case Western Reserve University announced today that it has elected Dr. Gregory L. Eastwood, MED '66, to become Interim President of the University effective June 2, 2006. Eastwood has been President of SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York since January 1993. "As an alum and member of the Board of Trustees of Case Western Reserve University, I am eager to assist the University during this transition period. I look forward to working with the faculty, students, staff, our alumni, and the Cleveland community" Eastwood said.

Do you know this famous Cleveland-area company? When was the last time you saw someone using some of their lip gloss?

Northeast Ohio is about to see an explosive, high profile, living, learning and enlightening force hit the scene and landscape, as area filmmakers, learning institutions and the public come together to create NEO Central - a bleeding-edge collaborative media arts center for NEO now and the future.The center will be based on like-minded initiatives around the world, and will provide shared film/media education, incubation, production, distribution, business and technology resources, and facilities, which are currently located in the historic landmark Gillota Building at 300 Central Viaduct (Carnegie) and will be expanded significantly as part of an area economic development plan. More on all of this is found in the links below, which will grow...

Here's a posting from a friend at Tribe.net interested in green roof development, and I wonder how hard can this really be, and how much of this goes on in NEO?   From Georgie's Tribe blog...http://people.tribe.net/terraverde:    ...I'm helping James Kalin prototype the Green Roof on the LBOW (LEEDS Building On Wheels) project. In my system, run-off water will fall into the Slow Sand Filter. I'll have to check with a structural engineer to make sure I can support the additional weight. James showed me the GreenGrid (www.greengridroofs.com) trays going on the LBOW roof. It's basically a recycled-content HDPE tray that holds your plantings.

The manufacturer highlights the following benefits:
• Reduced Energy Costs
• Reduced Urban "Heat Island" Effect
• Sound Insulation
• Extended Roof Life
• Stormwater Management

This is a good primer on GreenRoofs:
www.damonfarber.com/Green_Ro...0Roof.pdf

JOHN SIBLEY BUTLER, Ph.D, is a University of Texas Professor, who will be the keynote speaker at the Butler Jones Dinner Lecture, Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 6 pm, at the CSU Wolstein Center.

He will discuss “Lessons of Black Success from Business and Military
Organizations.”

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006, 6PM (dinner lecture); 5PM (cocktail hour)
CSU WOLSTEIN CENTER (2000 Prospect Ave, 4th Floor). For ticket information, please call 216-687-4500. (tickets are $50, with proceeds benefiting the Butler Jones Endowed Lecture Series)

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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.

The Tubbs-Jones Economic Impact Award is given to an individual, a CAAO Sponsor, and a CAAO member organization that demonstrate the spirit of CAAO by providing economic opportunities in the African American community of Northeast Ohio.  “The winners are the cream of the crop who don’t only ‘talk the talk’, but ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to giving back and doing business with African Americans in Northeast Ohio,” says Theron Cyrus, Chair of CAAO.  The 2005-6 winners are:

Something for everyone! Research Showcase showcases what people are doing in University Circle; CASE students and faculty, UH, and the museums are all involved. Veale Center, CASE's huge gymnasium will be filled with 100s of people with displays of their research. Please check out the Website for a list of events and presenters.

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Constant Systems' Aidan Audouy and Diane Brown drew a diverse audience for a roundtable dedicated to closing the economic development loops needed to attract their company to Northeast Ohio. Roundtable attendees had the one challenge: to learn enough about Constant Systems to determine who we know who may help Constant Systems succeed here - an experiment in viral social networking, open source economic development and the power within very few degrees of separation. In other words, among the diverse thirty-or-so folks who came together for the Excellence Roundtable, we expect to be able to connect the representatives of Constant Systems with the people they still need to meet here to succeed... customers... very specialized customers, primarily in medical-related R&D, of which NEO has many, and access all world-wide.

I'm pleased to say the 03.21.2006 Excellence Roundtable featuring Steven Fong gave PD Architecture Critic Steven Litt a chance to catch up with Dean Fong, and be the first to learn huge news for this region... See http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/entertainment/

KSU dean wants architecture grad program moved to Cleveland
Kent State University will move its entire graduate program in architecture to Cleveland "as soon as possible."

So says Steven Fong, the new dean of KSU's College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Fong, who assumed the post at KSU in December, described his plans publicly for the first time Tuesday in an interview following a public forum at the university's Urban Design Collaborative in Cleveland.

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.

Please come together at the Charter One Global Enterprise Center for a very special Excellence Roundtable with a specific purpose - Closing Constant Systems.

For this proactive lunchtime discussion, Constant Systems' Aiden Audouy and Diane Brown will demonstrate their technology and explore with us the factors influencing whether their company will locate valuable business operations in NEO, or Research Triangle. By being at this Roundtable, you can help them determine NEO is the best location in the nation and prove that to their CEO.

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CAAO is one of the ten non-profit organizations that were selected in BrownFlynn's Circle of 10! Out of 63 entrants, 10 creative and passionate non-profits rose to the top.

Join Steven Fong, the charter Dean of the Kent State College of Architecture and Environmental Design, for a March 21, 2006 Excellence Roundtable at their Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC - http://www.cudc.kent.edu/index.html). Steven will share his vision on his college, CUDC, Cleveland, NEO, and urban and regional planning here - we shall discuss the future of planning NEO's future.

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Entrepreneurs for Sustainability (E4S)
Connecting People, Planet and Prosperity
 

Design : Transform : Sustainability

Presenting Sponsor - Great Lakes Brewing Company

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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

Hannah Fritzman writes  http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/theview/index.ssf?/mtlogs/cleve_theview/archives/2006_03.html that Mayor Eric Brewer of East Cleveland is in conversation with the Civic Innovation Lab. I have also heard that leadership at the Intergenerational School is in conversation about the possibility of expanding into the city of East Cleveland. If the city can reverse perceptions about its safety and the quality of its schools, perhaps it can become home to young professionals who will launch independent small businesses and generate a second heydey for the home of John D. Rockefeller...

We hear of CAFTA, NAFTA, PAFTA, and how our government wants to help those people in areas with low wages by spreading democracy, “stabilizing” their governments, and letting our companies go and set up shop there. Reducing tariffs - we are told - will bring economic prosperity to economically “underdeveloped” regions.

Fantastic new article on the World Business Council for Sustainable Developments website  regarding biofuels  that I wanted to make you aware of.   It is freely available to those with internet access. If you dont have internet access, you dont know, unless you bring trees into the mix.

    At the last Cleveland Next meeting, Guhan Venkatu, an economic analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, made a presentation .  He has kindly let us post his power point with the usual sort of proviso...the views espressed are his and "not necessarily those of the FRBC, the board of governors of the FR or its staff".

Since we have spent a lot of time, on this site and at roundtable discussions sponsored by Realneo, discussing the region's strengths and weaknesses, I thought readers might be interested in Mr. Venkatu's experiments comparing Cleveland's economy with that of the nation and also with the rest of Ohio. Perhaps we can suggest some other parameters to be considered.