Luke_S

Cuyahoga Valley National Park projects could be affected by layoffs, conservancy says Ideastream Public Media | By Zaria Johnson Published February 21, 2025 The Cuyahoga Valley National Park lost a biologist, maintenance worker, engineer and planner to federally mandated job cuts last week, and park officials remain concerned about the longterm effect the cutbacks will have. The layoffs at CVNP were among about 1,000 cuts to probationary employees at the National Park Service. All four of the potions cut were essential to the CVNP operations, said Deb Yandala, the president and CEO of the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. ... For members of the public concerned about protection of and access to the CVNP and other National Parks, Yandala said the best thing to do is contact congressional officials. https://www.scriptype.com/2024/12/23/cvnp-considering-path-improvement-rail-service-expansion/

^Building off this, it would be nice if we could delete our own posts. Again, would probably make sense as an option under the "..." button.

This may promote sprawl more than regionalism, but given how developed Cuyahoga County already is maybe could be a useful tool to employ so municipalities are working cooperatively rather than competing. Looks like the only JEDD in Cuyahoga County is Olmsted Falls and Olmsted township. JEDD fact sheet New Ohio bill would loosen rules on Joint Economic Development Districts The Statehouse News Bureau | By Jo Ingles Published February 18, 2025 Joint Economic Development Districts were created in 1993 to allow Ohio municipalities and townships to work together to develop township land and share taxes that are collected in that district. And they have to include at least one township. Now there’s a bipartisan bill at the Statehouse that could ease rules for these JEDDs in place throughout Ohio, allowing more communities to participate. ... The bill would not require annexations of property. A similar bill was introduced in the last general assembly but failed to pass after other controversial measures were attached to it. https://www.ideastream.org/2025-02-18/new-ohio-bill-would-loosen-rules-on-joint-economic-development-districts

I've heard work on the Gorge Dam has been halted as a result of the pause in federal funds.

Get ready for the auction of public lands...

This grant funded the acquisition and remediation of the Diamond-Shamrock property. My understanding is that alternate funding sources will be necessary, and maybe that means a much smaller scope that just includes enough land for a trail along the lake.

This seems like the start of a good idea, but it seems to me that operational control should at least be merged with county airport operations. City Council exploring possibility of shifting Cleveland Hopkins airport governance to independent authority Published: Feb. 16, 2025 By Susan Glaser, cleveland.com CLEVELAND, Ohio – Members of Cleveland City Council are exploring the possibility of turning over the management of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to an independent authority, in an effort to improve the operation of the city-owned facility. ... [Council member and chair of the Transportation & Mobility Committee, Kerry McCormick,] and fellow council member Charles Slife, who is vice chair of the Transportation Committee, recently directed staff to research the possibility of establishing an independent authority to provide oversight to the airport. The authority could be structured in a number of different ways, but the most likely scenario would involve the city maintaining ownership of the airport but without day-to-day involvement in operations. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/02/city-council-exploring-possibility-of-shifting-cleveland-hopkins-airport-governance-to-independent-authority.html

This grant would have created a large public park on land that is currently a brownfield site that could have included the longest lakefront trail along the Great Lakes. It would also close a coal-fired power plant and create a solar field and battery storage facility, using some of the funds for job training for the power plant employees so they could continue to work on the new solar field. Without this grant the land will likely lay fallow. There is no plan here. It's just reaction against what President Biden did because it was President Biden who did it. Trump freezes $129M climate grant meant for Painesville, Cuyahoga County and Cleveland Published: Feb. 14, 2025 By Sean McDonnell, cleveland.com CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Trump administration has frozen a $129 million federal grant that Cuyahoga County, Cleveland and Painesville had won last year, under the Biden administration, to fight climate change. President Donald Trump has also frozen a $156 million Solar for All grant that was won by a coalition led by Cleveland nonprofit Growth Opportunity Partners. That money was earmarked for 30 communities across eight states, including Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. ... Under the grant, Cuyahoga County was supposed to receive about $30 million, Cleveland would receive $20 million and the City of Painesville would receive $80 million in grant funding. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/02/trump-freezes-129m-climate-grant-meant-for-cuyahoga-county-cleveland.html

Resigning give him the opportunity to hand-pick a successor, no? Still is surprising to go from making a play for Council President to resigning within one election cycle. I don't know Spencer as well, it seems she doesn't have many fans on this forum, but McCormack is a loss for the city IMO.

One of Akron's iconic downtown buildings sold to out-of-town buyer February 13, 2025 Dan Shingler L. Jayson Lemberg and his firm, Rye, New York-based Pioneer Acquisitions, have made a $4.5 million bet on downtown Akron’s office market. Pioneer purchased Akron City Centre (50 S. Main Street), one of the city’s “big five” downtown office buildings, on Sept. 20, 2024, Lemberg said. And with 195,000 square feet of space and an occupancy rate of 74%, Lemberg said his cap rate on the building is an astounding 27%. ... Unlike other developers who have purchased major downtown office buildings in Akron and Cleveland, Pioneer will not spend ten times or more of what it paid for the building. The building won’t be converted — like apartments or a hotel — and will primarily remain an office building with some retail and restaurants on the first floor, as it has been since it was built in 1982, Lemberg said. https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/akron-city-centre-office-building-finds-new-york-buyer

I hope I didn't miss this and it's actually news. So I think this should be taken with a grain, maybe several, of salt, but my partner works at the clinic and was talking to a visitor who volunteered that the urban Meijer in Fairfax wasn't doing well and they are pulling back all their planned urban format stores in the area, including, apparently, the CASTO development. I guess this guy admitted that Lakewood would be a better location for the store but I guess Meijer was the grocer and the Fairfax store is the reason for pulling out.

Akron to plant 1,800 trees on devil strips, spend $750,000 to increase canopy by Susan Zake February 5, 2025 About 1,800 new trees will be planted on Akron’s tree lawns (often referred to as devil strips in the city) in 2025 at a cost of $750,000. The native tree species of Northern Red Oak, Serviceberry and Sugar Maple will help increase the city’s tree canopy, which is projected to decrease 4% over the next 15 years. ... The city is planning a nursery that will break ground in the spring, said Jon Malish, the city’s arborist, with the intent of growing street trees and possibly developing a tree giveaway program. The idea, he said during the committee meeting, is to help increase the canopy in the city. He said the only way to successfully grow it will be to plant more trees on private land. Several years ago, the City of Akron employed one certified arborist who had to oversee and manage every city tree in all 10 wards. Three certified arborists are now working for the city to help manage and maintain tree planting and maintenance. Tree planting this year will be focused in the south and southwest areas of the city, where tree canopy coverage is most limited. https://signalakron.org/akron-to-plant-1800-trees-on-devil-strips-spend-750000-to-increase-canopy/

Surveys show Medina residents, businesses support DORA Published: Feb. 07, 2025 By Emily Canning-Dean, special to cleveland.com MEDINA, Ohio – While plans likely won’t be finalized this year, community partners are looking into creating a Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area in downtown Medina in the future. said the endeavor is a partnership between the city, the Medina Chamber of Commerce and Main Street Medina. ... [George] Sam, [executive director of Main Street Medina,] said that under the proposed DORA, downtown visitors would be able to purchase alcoholic beverages from designated businesses in the downtown area and would be permitted to walk around the area with the beverage while shopping and sightseeing. Each business would reserve the right to either allow or prohibit the open alcoholic beverages within their establishment. Stickers would be placed at the entrances of the business to let visitors know if they can enter with their drink or if they need to discard the drink before entering. Sam said both Brunswick and Wadsworth have DORAs in place, but added their policies allow visitors to walk around with beverages every day for most of the day. https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/02/surveys-show-medina-residents-businesses-support-dora.html

Since Chris's Letter from the Editor here are the stories Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer published covering the Trump Administration. I don't even know what to say, this should be deeply embarrassing for him but he knew the state of their coverage when he wrote the original letter. Is he delusional or just shameless. Trump renames Denali to Mount McKinley in honor of Ohio’s William McKinley By Sabrina Eaton, cleveland.com Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, raising prospect of higher costs for US consumers By The Associated Press

It's cute that Chris still pretends he run a news room with a stable of reporters that can effectively cover the Trump administration. Though he really gives away the game that he had to choose between covering national politics and the normal course of investigative stories. Inside story of how our newsroom mobilized to cover a Trump memo: Letter from the Editor Published: Feb. 01, 2025 By Chris Quinn, Editor, cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer Our newsroom normally enters a new year with significant investigative and enterprise projects on the calendar, but when Donald Trump won the November election, we opted to keep our reporters free of such assignments. Trump, after all, campaigned on a plan to remake America at many levels. We decided that fully exploring how each of Trump’s initiatives might impact Ohio and Northeast Ohio would be the most valuable journalism we could provide to the community, at least as 2025 dawned. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/02/inside-story-of-how-our-newsroom-mobilized-to-cover-a-trump-memo-letter-from-the-editor.html

Right, as @Htsguy said I think all infrastructure money is under "strategic review" since, in the eyes of the current administration it was "Green New Deal Infrastructure". Also the Medicaid funding freezes hurts state budgets, and as the state adjusts their budgets to fill those gaps that will presumably trickle down to county and city governments as well.

Why? All local governments are going to be in the same position meaning they wont be any more likely to provide the funds to lure the Browns away.

Budgets from the state down to the city are going to be trying to backfill gaps left by the federal grants that will at least be delayed. I haven't seen it explicitly stated anywhere that city, county, or state funding wont be available, but its safe to assume that budget cuts will be a direct result of the revocation of federal grants.

Main Street Medina exploring possibility of DORA Published: Jan. 27, 2025 By Marc Bona, cleveland.com MEDINA, Ohio – Main Street Medina has begun the process of mulling the possibility of implementing a DORA. ... Main Street Medina, the non-profit that works to promote historic preservation and economic endeavors in the community, has taken the first steps of investigating whether a DORA is wanted by issuing a survey. ... If results are favorable, he said, the DORA proposal would have to be an ordinance from City Council eventually. https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2025/01/main-street-medina-exploring-possibility-of-dora.html

City Council proposes first major funding overhaul for CDCs in decades Kim Palmer January 27, 2025 The legislation's goal — which has been at the heart of ongoing discussions between the council, City Hall, and the CDCs — is to address the inefficiencies of small, often understaffed neighborhood organizations' current reliance on highly restrictive, cumbersome Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds as their main source of revenue. ... Councilman Kerry McCormack, who represents downtown and parts of Ohio City, sponsored the measure which would swap out about $8.6 million in CDBG dollars — from two types of funds — for the same amount of earmarked city general fund dollars. The funds will then be split up amongst the council members who, in turn, will disperse the money based on annual applications to the city’s 20 eligible CDCs. https://www.crainscleveland.com/politics-policy/cleveland-city-council-considers-cdc-funding-overall

Ideastream's write up included some pictures that I assume were from last night's presentation. 'New era' for Shaker Square promises programming, signage, housing to increase patronage Ideastream Public Media | By Zaria Johnson Published January 23, 2025

Vivek has some competition. Attorney General Dave Yost officially jumps in 2026 Ohio governor’s race Published: Jan. 23, 2025 By Jeremy Pelzer, cleveland.com COLUMBUS, Ohio—Attorney General Dave Yost is making official what’s been perhaps the most poorly kept secret in Ohio politics the past two years: He’s running for governor in 2026. “Today, there’s no more hints. There’s no more consideration. This is an irrevocable decision, and I’m presenting myself as candidate (for governor) to the people of Ohio,” the Columbus Republican said in an interview Thursday morning. Yost, 68, is the first major Republican to fully launch a campaign for Ohio governor in 2026, when current Gov. Mike DeWine is term limited. Two other prominent Republicans -- 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and state Treasurer Robert Sprague – are also expected to roll out their campaigns soon. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/01/attorney-general-dave-yost-officially-jumps-in-2026-ohio-governors-race.html

Phase one of Chippewa Lake public access approved Patrick Rhonemus, The Gazette Jan 23, 2025 LAFAYETTE TWP. — Medina County Park District commissioners approved the first phase of the public access project at Chippewa Lake. Park district Planning Manager Isaac Smith said the project would be the first phase of site development at the property that includes the former amusement park. ... LAFAYETTE TWP. — Medina County Park District commissioners approved the first phase of the public access project at Chippewa Lake. Park district Planning Manager Isaac Smith said the project would be the first phase of site development at the property that includes the former amusement park. https://medina-gazette.com/news/417950/phase-one-of-chippewa-lake-public-access-approved/

Land swap with the post office and build the stadium there.

Difference of tens of thousands and ~10 million. Also actually developing the lakefront will go a long way in improving first impressions for cruise ship passengers.