Ord. 829 LED lighting - comprehensive draft amendments prepared for discussion

 The following is an excerpt from the  linked documents (see below) that were completed this morning and represent comprehensive alternative provisions and strategies for the LED Lighting Ordinance Cleveland City Council is deliberating on today.

There is a potential that Council will try to move for a vote on the ordinance this evening as an "emergency measure" as it is only in its 2nd reading.  Proponents will need 13 of 19 member's votes to allow it to be heard under an emergency measure.  We have had difficulty over the past month with trying to pin-down meeting dates and times and as a result any guest speakers that could provide an independent perspective on this important piece of legislation.

We  were able to have some informative speakers once last week and again this past Monday.  The amendments provided here are the results of working with Dept. of Energy officials, other industry experts and more recently individuals with professional experience in supply chain management and regional economic development and jobs creation strategy.

It is my hope that we'll not move to vote on this tonight, but wait until at least August 18th - the next scheduled Committee of Whole meeting, as we're technically in legislative recess and we're not on our regular Monday evening, weekly meeting schedule.

If you can take the time, particularly  if you have any skills in this topic area, please read the ordinance and review the amendments and provide your feedback.  The opportunities that LED lighting technology  provides are enormous.  All of our lighting products will be migrating to this IT driven technology.  There is every reason we should be seriously considering how to leverage and involve our local and regional lighting companies.

An example of focusing on industry clusters is our very own Cleveland+/Team Neo/Advance NorthEast Ohio's 12 initiatives [1].  LED lighting would fit well as a 13th initiative as there are many overlaps with the current Advanced Energy initiative - see Nortech's Advance Energy Enterprise and Cluster [2].  The administration appears to have relied primarily on the advice of Peter Tien, who introduced the City to the Japanese waste-to-energy technology for which we've contracted with him for design work ($1.5 million) [3], and the team we have at Cleveland Public Power, and yes, officials at China based Sunpu-Opto.

To enter the market in the way the Administration is proposing is extremely risky and unfortunately short-sighted and restrictive in the ordinance's terms, which inhibits the competitive nature of the bidding process and ultimately the potential for long-term, sustainable, quality products and jobs.