I'm loving living in Ohio and America these days. We have a new governor, and everything has changed about Ohio, and we have new leadership in Washington, D.C., and everything has changed about America. Every day is a thrill, and the next two years, leading to the replacement of George Bush, and many bush-league politicians, will take what is already globally significant revolutionary social transformation to much higher levels. But, even in the early days of the new era of progress in America and Ohio, we can count many blessings. Most significant for the form and function of the NEO region, for the next many decades, is our new Governor Ted Strickland's elimination of many of the people who have corrupted ODOT for many years, leading to moronic plans for roadway redesigns across our region that have threatened to destroy the long term potential of our regional economy. Former ODOT Director Proctor has already resigned, and, as reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 10, 2007, " incoming Gov. Ted Strickland, who took office Monday, is replacing all 12 district directors who served under Republican Gov. Bob Taft." This means we can throw out all the poor plans ODOT developed for a five-lane bridge out of Cleveland to nowhere, and the destruction of the local economy around the "Innerbelt" trench, as we see all the planners, engineers and contractors of that fired and Strickland's replacements bring sanity to regional planning.

At the recent Green Affordable Housing discussion held at Cleveland Institute of Art, in association with their Home House Exhibit, Cleveland Planning Director Bob Brown stated that Cleveland needs to see more older properties renovated - we have many great old buildings, they add character and quality to our community, and that is the most environmentally sound strategy. Typically, much more energy is conserved by saving an old building than may be saved by building a new building, even if very energy efficient, because the energy required for creating and constructing all the material of a new building is the greatest factor in overall environmental impact, even when factored over a very long time period. So it is very good news for Cleveland and the environment that, just before leaving office for good, Governor Talf signed Sub HB 149 into law, providing critical tax incentives for the redevelopment of historic buildings in older cities and towns. A priority for NEO economic development strategy should including identifying important properties the community would like to see saved and move them on track to take advantage of these tax benefits - make sure as many of the 100 annual statewide projects are NEO project as is possible.

What a great rebirth for Ohio. Sunday night, Ohio swore in our new Governor, Ted Strickland, and within 24 hours he vetoed the corporate and lobbyist planted, corrupt, anti-consumer, anti-American substitute bill 117, which was made to order for scam businesses to harm citizens. As Strickland states, " I will not allow this legislation in its current form, which drastically undermines current consumer protections, to go into effect during my administration." A Plain Dealer article on the veto reports " Strickland also said the curb on suits against manufacturers "prevents cities from being able to seek justice on behalf of their citizens."" "Our new Attorney General Marc Dann, who, like Strickland, is a Democrat, said he would "vigorously" defend the governor's veto." The PD article highlights the fact that the Republican lawmakers who were responsible for the corrupt SB117 are acting as lawyers and judges now, and that they plan to waste Ohio taxpayer money fighting our Governor... " State Sen. Tim Grendell, a Chester Township Republican who voted for the bill, also said the veto is void because the governor acted outside his authority. He said members of the legislature and trade groups were likely to sue over the veto." Go for it... concerned citizens are certain to defend Governor Strcikland, and those legislators who think they can keep acting corruptly under our new leadership will quickly be eliminated from office, as suggested in a previous article on SB117 by Plain Dealer columnist Sheryl Harris, which provides "a list of the Northeast Ohio legislators who voted to curtail your consumer rights". In the new Ohio, such corruption will not be tolerated. Read more about the veto below.

Would'a, could'a, should'a... that may be the best tag-line for Cleveland today. We would'a been a city very comparable to Chicago, but we should'a had different leadership, who could'a... what? Well, to quote Conscious Choice, about Chicago: "The epic renaissance the city has undergone in the 17 years that Daley has been mayor is nothing short of a miracle." We could'a done that! How now? There are answers to be learned from Daley's success and present state of mind. Props to George Nemeth for posting on Brewed Fresh Daily a link to this fantastic Conscious Choice interview with mayor who stole away our Eco-Czar (can't blame him)... the "Green Mayor"... the "Great Green Augustus"...  prefaced by "When all is said and done, Daley’s greatest legacy will be how he revitalized Chicago, making it the ideal place to live, work and play. And behind each great act, is a great idea and a conscious intent. Here, we explore Mayor Daley’s eco-consciousness, philosophy of government and the path that led him to become America’s “green mayor.”" Read a few words from Daley, below, and click through to the full interview, and imagine a city thinking like this, striving to be an ideal place to live, work and play. Then, demand more in Cleveland and of NEO.

Outline Proposal for Integration of Aquaculture (hydroponic /soil based organic vegetable <--> fish farm setup)

Introduction

In a fascinating article in the NYTimes.com today, we learn “The environment is begging for the Wal-Mart business model”... describing "the environmental movement’s dream: America’s biggest company, legendary for its salesmanship and influence with suppliers, encouraging 200 million shoppers to save energy." That Wal-Mart, in October, announced it would pressure suppliers to stop using three chemicals, including the insecticide permethrin, used in pesticides, awoke my attention to good activism by this company that I have not historically liked, but that now Wal-Mart Stores, the giant discount retailer, is determined to push compact fluorescent lamps into at least 100 million homes is truly revolutionary.

Source: Environmental Health Watch 

In a link on Brewed Fresh Daily today (which has really stepped up to create awareness about lead poisoning in our region), I found an interesting article on former Plain Dealer Cincinnati Reporter Bill Sloat's blog "The Daily Bellweather" titled "U.S. EPA Wants to Fine Midwest Landlord $$$$ Over Lead Paint", which illustrates one of the important steps essential to the eradication of lead poisoning in our region - ENFORCEMENT. In "The Daily Bellweather" report, regarding the EPA, we see "Earlier this month, the agency's Midwestern regional office moved to slap a $52,724 penalty on a landlord for failing to warn tenants and buyers that homes and apartments may contain health hazards from lead-based paint."

Thank you again, Ohio Republican legislature, for bringing a second city into litigation against Sherwin-Williams and the paint industry in a single day, December 27, 2006, as Canton has joined Cincinnati demanding that those who created the public nuisance of lead poisoning now clean up their mess, that has harmed 1,000s in these communities. From the Canton Repository: "In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Stark County Common Pleas Court, the city says the paint industry knew lead was toxic as early as 1900 but continued to add the metal to paint and even promoted the product as having health benefits. The city wants the companies to pay for the removal of lead paint and for public education about its dangers, as well as reimbursement for money the city has spent dealing with lead-related hazards."

If we have anything to thank Ohio Republican legislators for, and especially Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican,  it is that their cloak-of-night passage of Substitute Senate Bill 117, which seeks to outlaw cities suing polluters for public nuisances they cause, and legislate-away other consumer rights for Ohioans, has driven our state capital of Columbus and now huge Ohio city Cincinnati to storm their courthouses to sue Sherwin-Williams and other paint companies over the public nuisance of lead poisoning in their communities, which is a legal position proved valid in the courts of the State of Rhode Island. In Columbus, the Mayor has said it was the action of these Republicans that forced them to sue. Of course, Ohioans' greatest appreciation goes to Mayor Brewer, of East Cleveland, who was the man who brought such public nuisance lead litigation to Ohio to protect his residents, the most effected by lead poisoning in the state, and so he is protecting all citizens of Ohio.

On Sunday, December 24, 2006, Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Sheryl Harris wrote a column I thought to write myself, titled "My holiday gift to you: A list of Ohio politicians who sold you out", "a list of the Northeast Ohio legislators who voted to curtail your consumer rights" by passing lobbyist, lawyer and industry-benefiting Amended Substitute Senate Bill Number 117, allowing significant corporate entitlements to soar through the Ohio legislature without community debate. The amendments are most significantly designed "to prohibit the use of enterprise theories of liability against manufacturers in product liability claims, and to include public nuisance claims under the definition of product liability claims", meaning to protect the paint industry here from liability for the public nuisance they have caused by selling lead based paint nearly a century after it was known to harm humans, as proved in their loss to the State of Rhode Island earlier this year. The amendments also protect car dealers, scam loan sharks, manufacturers, etc. from real accountability for harming the public. The legislators who are guilty of this abuse of their offices were listed in the PD article with the suggestion that is "a keepsake you could clip and save." Local blogger Jill Miller Zimon repeated the list on her excellent blog, "Writes like she talks", and I repeat it here, so it may be as present in cyberspace and available to the world as possible. We will need this list over the next many years, until all of these anti-Ohioan men and women are driven from public "service", as they have shown they do not protect public interests. By having this information in as many public places as possible, I hope we the people will be more successful protecting the public than has our legislature under current rule. The list of sell outs and further harms they cause the public is as follows, from Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Sheryl Harris:

Since late June, 2006, a growing team of innovative community leaders has been working together with Lamond Williams, the owner of Hot Sauce Williams BBQ, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and Community Development Director Tim Goler, and government leadership in Cleveland, to determine how best to redevelop the historic Hough Bakery Complex, formerly the Star Bakery, which Lamond also owns. The objective is to use that redevelopment as a catalyst for transformation of the neighborhoods surrounding that significant property, located on Lakeview, partially in both Cleveland and East Cleveland. On the map above, the Star Complex is in magenta, and the green circle marks a 1/2 mile radius surrounding that - the other colored areas are key neighborhoods and assets within that radius.

One might think when the capital of our state sues one of the biggest companies in our state, Sherwin-Williams, which is based in the Plain Dealer's home town of Cleveland, and is defended by one of the world's most powerful law firms, also based in our hometown, seeking over $1 billion, that story would rank a few real column inches in the local paper... perhaps hit Section One, or Metro. Not in the Sherwin-Williams Plain Dealer...

 There is lots of major news related to the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and their plans for the region, these days.

I met a few days ago with Ed Hauser - the "Citizen Hauser" who single-handedly saved Whiskey Island for the public - to see what he's been up to for the past few months. In brief, besides helping save Northeast Ohio from ODOT and their foolish pursuit of their ill-conceived Innerbelt Bridge and Trench plans, and continuing to single-handedly challenge the Port Authority's ongoing attempts to destroy Whiskey Island, Ed is taking next steps in his one man, multi-year battle to save the remarkable National Historic Landmark Coast Guard Station, at the tip of Whiskey Island, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, designed by J. Milton Dyer, also architect of Cleveland City Hall. Ed mentioned to me he in the process of pressuring the city of Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi to seek a court order to force the city to comply with its own landmarks-preservation law, which requires owners of city landmarks to keep the properties secure and water tight, and, if the city fails to act responsibly and lawfully, Ed intends to file a citizens lawsuit against the city. Today, the Plain Dealer picked up the scent of the story, and shared some of the sad commentary of some of those related to the sorry state of this landmark, and the declining historic integrity of this city.

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I saw some Forestry Stewardship Certified (FSC) timber products at Home Depot.  2 years ago they pledged to sell 40% FSC certified timber products.  Last year 60%.  The word on the street is that there is not even enough supply on the street yo.

Nothing like seeing a good old lynching by newspaper editor to make people "Believe in Cleveland" and Northeast Ohio. In an editorial today from the power-brokering "We" of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the "editors" make a move everyone in the know has expected from them since September 29th, 2006, when the City of East Cleveland sued "dear friend" of the Plain Dealer Sherwin Williams for making East Cleveland "perhaps Ohio's most troubled city" by creating a public nuisance and economic and health crisis by selling lead-based paint long after it was well known and proved to cause permanent physical harm to humans. In a strong retaliation against the mayor who brought lead litigation to the State of Ohio, Eric Brewer, the Plain Dealer is creating dubious scuttlebutt about a situation in which the editors acknowledge "We don't know where the truth lies." To the Plain Dealer editors, this is personal... from their editorial: "as we've stated repeatedly, we do know Brewer can be rash, reckless and extraordinarily vindictive." The logical observation is that one of the world's most powerful and troubled companies, Sherwin Williams, and one of the world's most vicious law firms, Jones Day, (which have sued East Cleveland for suing Sherwin Williams) have partnered with the region's most powerful media outlet, to which Sherwin Williams certainly pays $ millions for advertising, and they are all attacking the mayor of East Cleveland in as "rash, reckless and extraordinarily vindictive" ways as they may. Is it the duty of a newspaper to focus on facts, and allow due process, even when the publishers fear that bites the hands that feed them? No, the only purpose of a newspaper is to make the owners money. Read the opinion of the editors of the Plain Dealer here and imagine being the PD's next victim, if you ever hurt their feelings or threaten their bottom line:

Bill MacDermott forwarded to me the following insight on a problem most of us are aware of, but which must stay ever-present in our minds: "We need to change our ways and stop treating the Great Lakes like a toilet,"... this is a multi-billion-dollar issue we as a region must address.

TORONTO (AP) - The untreated urban sewage and effluents that flow into the Great Lakes each year are threatening a critical ecosystem that supplies water to millions of people, according to a study by a Canadian environmental group.

Even though municipalities in the Great Lakes region have spent vast sums of money in recent decades upgrading their wastewater plants, the situation remains appalling, said the Sierra Legal Defense Fund.

In a striking change of direction the USEPA has decided to regulate an ever growing part of consumer culture....  pesticides built into our products.

As you may have noticed you can get just about anything these days in "antibacterial" form.  Windex, socks, deodorant, zebart tidycar antibacterial car wash, hell even my keen sandals have "no odor footbeds" impregnated with what Ray Anderson CEO of Interface calls " Microbial Inhibitors".  Dont be fooled fellow citizens for the fancy terms used in place of the regulatoraly defined word pesticide.  That word, with all this organic food fan fair can cause negitive vibrations.... rightly so, maufacturers are shying away.

 As an excellent sign of the times, on November 13, 2006 it was announced "Carbon Neutral" is the Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year. Unlike what is typically defined here as underpinnings of sustainability, being Business as Agents of World Benefit, I see this trend toward individual social responsibility reflects the real world, being Individuals as the Agents of World Benefit, and, in fact, I believe it is only through individuals as agents that businesses act as agents of anything, and so the rising of Carbon Neutral as the word of the year is very hopeful for the future of the world... this reflects social consciousness becoming mainstream.

I recently caught the end of a TV ad that said "If we all washed in cold with Tide Coldwater, we would save enough electricity to light up homes in 1,000 towns". Now this is fascinating in many respects. Here we have a massive consumer products company, Procter and Gamble,  advertising their detergent in a way that promotes the product, but also raises environmental consciousness... I suppose this is an example of Business as an Agent of World Benefit, promoted by Case. While I'm sure Zebra Mussel can explain all the greenwashing of P&G and this product promotion, it is better to use advertising to raise social consciousness than not. Visiting the Tide Coldwater website, you see many other smart references to energy efficiency. This represents a new "tide" (pun intended) in social consciousness.

As part of the "Home House Project," the Cleveland Institute of Art will host a panel discussion on "Sustainable, Affordable, Innovative Housing Design in Cleveland." Participants will include Cleveland City Planning Director Robert Brown; developer Nathan Zaremba; Columbus architects Beth Blostein and Bart Overly; and Jeffrey Bowen, director of the Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity.

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Cleveland Institute of Art Reinberger Gallery Director Bruce Checefsky has a deep personal interest in green affordable housing, so I was not surprised to learn the CIA was hosting an exhibition on the subject. Still, when I had the pleasure to preview the show "The Home House Project", I was overwhelmed by the breadth and originality of the content. This is an innovative exhibition on innovation in planning, design, construction and architecture, which is timely and opportune to help this community move from generally bland, resource depleting sprawl to intelligent community redevelopment for an age of global conservation, smart planning, urban renewal and economic transformation. This show is all about visioning our new economy at its foundations, literally, as it explores 100s of concepts for building "green" affordable housing... the anti-McMansion show came to town, and it is fascinating.