andrew0816

I don't have much faith in a Geis designed development incorporating creative design elements, but hopefully as details emerge we'll get a better sense of what their plans for the site are. As far as losing the existing building, I'm not that sad about it. Wish the restaurant itself could be revived and be a part of the new development though (or open somewhere else).

Not a huge fan. Would prefer if all that activity on the terrace was on the street level and I think the covered street/sidewalk will become an unwelcoming environment for pedestrians/turns what is currently a multi-modal street with good sight lines into a glorified covered parking lot. Plus, the site itself is already elevated and overlooks downtown, there is no need for a terrace.

Yeah, it'll be in the portion of the building on the corner of Center and Washington

Think it's important to note that this poll was released by North Shore AFL-CIO, which endorsed Kucinich. Margin of error was 5.2% and 451 likely voters were polled, more info on results and methodology can be seen below:

Dude--you're defining communism, not socialism. Google is free...and the definition I posted is similar to the Merriam-Webster definition, but like, whatever dude.

@seicerMy bad, when you mentioned "soicialism" I thought you meant the abolition of private property and the state take over of the means of production, not the misinterpretation of policies and use of fearmongering talking points.

I'm not aware of any candidate that was promoting socialism, but putting that aside I think making broad generalizations/conclusions about this particular election is rather difficult. I say that mainly because this is a gerrymandered district that splits Cleveland and Cuyahoga County (and Summit County) in a non-sensical way. Beyond gerrymandering undermining representative democracy, the borders of the district itself confused a lot of people; several friends of mine weren't sure if they were in the district and some people at the precinct I was working at didn't find out they were in district 11 until the day of the election. Beyond that, turn out was so low, which is sadly common for off year elections, but that low turnout was only exacerbated by it being a special election (the gerrymandering thing probably didn't help either). And anecdotally, there was a surprising number of people who came into my precinct yesterday who just found out there was an election yesterday and/or weren't even sure what the election was for/thought they were supposed to be voting for something else. If not for the above, the election results might've been different. Maybe some day the congressional borders can be redrawn and Cleveland and the inner ring suburbs can have better representation.

@X - I think the driveway is a little wider than average since it's a shared drive

@Pugu thanks for the heads up! From the city's twitter, here's a link to register for the Town Hall meeting

^No problem! And not surprised it was hard to find, their website isn't user friendly and seems to suppress stories that weren't posted the day you're visiting the site. As for the mayor's race, Bibb is still ahead of the pack for me. His past job experience is acceptable to me and I don't think not holding public office is a disqualification. In fact, I think Kevin Kelley's experience in public office is what has caused me to not support him at this point. I feel like he has not done much for this city and think he has accomplished very little for Cleveland given the amount of power and influence he currently holds. He also has upheld the corruption that has run rampant in this city. Jackson is guilty of the same and the reason why I think his time as mayor, in my opinion, is an overall failure. It seems to me that voting for Kelley would basically be voting for a 5th Jackson term. But back to why I currently support Bibb...I think he is highly intelligent, determined, and passionate and that he can succeed as mayor. We also seem to have similar critiques of the city and I agree with most of the policy ideas he has mentioned/supported on the campaign trail (support for participatory budgeting, establishment of public comment period at city council meetings, updating city hall/improve and increase city services accessible online, his work in transit advocacy, etc.). I look forward to further development of his platform/policy ideas, but, to my knowledge, his platform is more fleshed out at this point than the other candidate's . Also, his comments/talking points in regards to public safety/CPD seem to be closer to what I would like to see (although I think so far my position on the matter is further left than any other candidate's). Overall, I am more politically aligned with Bibb over every other candidate at this point and think I like that he is not a part of the Cleveland/NEO political machine that has been holding our city and region back for decades. This is Cleveland's opportunity to change the status quo and install a more progressive administration that can improve our city and help us realize our city's potential and I believe that Justin Bibb is the candidate who can help us accomplish that.

Getting really tired of this undemocratic practice... Another Day, Another Mockery of the Democratic Process as Phyllis Cleveland Resigns from City Council Posted By Sam Allard on Mon, May 3, 2021 at 4:41 pm It's difficult to comment with any originality on the news, today, that Ward 5 Cleveland City Councilwoman Phyllis Cleveland has tendered her resignation and nominated a veteran community activist named Delores Gray to replace her. This anti-democratic process, council's so-called "appointment tradition," is universally reviled. It has been criticized to death for years by local media and by residents, who naturally object to their ongoing marginalization by the very people who are supposed to be representing them. [...] Martin Sweeney, Joe Cimperman, Mamie Mitchell, Martin Keane, Dona Brady and Matt Zone have all resigned in recent years. They all hand-picked their successors. Among them, only Cimperman gestured toward the idea of a process. He allegedly interviewed multiple candidates before settling on Kerry McCormack in Ward 3, whom he'd been eyeing all along. The rest simply presented the name of their chosen replacement to council, after which council ratified the new member without a word of protest. Council President Kevin Kelley always invokes the Unit Rule to ensure unanimity on these votes. Read More...

You mean like this article posted yesterday morning? State Sen. Sandra Williams announces bid for Cleveland mayor Updated May 03, 1:35 PM; Posted May 03, 8:56 AM CLEVELAND, Ohio – State Sen. Sandra Williams, a Cleveland Democrat, on Monday launched her bid for Cleveland mayor in what is increasingly becoming a crowded race to succeed four-term Mayor Frank Jackson. Williams, who has held positions in both the state House of Representatives and Senate since 2007, joins several other high-profile candidates seeking Jackson’s office. Jackson has not said he won’t run again, but has not raised any campaign money in the past year, indicating he plans on leaving. Read More... As far as the PD not liking her, well, there's plenty of reasons not to; In 2014, she pocketed the proceeds of the sale of Ohio State football tickets purchased with campaign funds and failed to report it to the state (was later fined & suspended for 180 days) She voted for House Bill 6 (the First Energy Bailout Bill Has received thousands of dollars in campaign donations from First Energy ($12,000 in 2020 alone) I'm sure if there were more research into her past more corruption could be found, but she's definitely not someone I want leading Cleveland.

Well, Kevin Kelley has officially announced that he's running... Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley announces bid for mayor There’s another person joining the race to be Cleveland’s next mayor. Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley announced his mayoral campaign during a press conference Thursday on the steps of City Hall. “I talked with residents in every ward across Cleveland,” Kelley said in a press release before the announcement. “They shared their concerns about safety, their desire for strong neighborhoods to call home and the need to have good-paying jobs. They care about Cleveland’s future. They believe, like I do, that Cleveland’s best days are ahead.” Read More...

Regarding email addresses, below is what is publicly available and/or who would be the best to contact: Councilman McCormack: [email protected] Katie Hough (his assistant): [email protected] Planning Staff: Matthew Moss (Near West Side Planner): [email protected] Anthony Santora (on staff, he puts the planning and design review meetings together): [email protected] Landmarks Councilman Basheer Jones (on Landmarks commission): [email protected] And his assistant, Veronica Sayles: [email protected] Ohio City Inc. (many of these staff members interact with the block clubs, neighborhood design review, landmarks, and city planning) Tom McNair - Executive Director: [email protected] Ben Trimble - Chief Real Estate Officer: [email protected] Ashley Shaw - Director of Neighborhood Planning: [email protected] Donna Grigonis-Bailey - Director of Neighborhood Development: [email protected] Unfortunately emails for the other Landmarks Commission members and for the Planning Director are not listed. I believe Don Petit ([email protected]) used to be the staff member who worked with Landmarks, but in my personal experience he does not reply within an appropriate amount of time... Landmarks is on twitter though, so, there's that...@CLEcitylandmark

The argument that this proposal does not fit in with the exiting neighborhood and that a five story apartment building is out of scale to a Victorian historic district are disingenuous. Within three blocks of this intersection you will find this same interaction, even amongst historic properties! Bridge & W30th, a block away from the proposed development, a five story apartment building next to a two story building. Then a couple blocks down on Bridge & W28th, yet another five story building next to a two story house. Not to mention that the corner of Fulton & Lorain (not pictured) has examples of commercial buildings between 3-5 stories next to two story commercial buildings and/or houses, and one of those buildings is being converted into apartments! Along the lines of what @MyPhoneDead said, this is a city, if you don't like dense, walkable, urban environments, then maybe this isn't the place for you.

@gruver like @PoshSteve and @Whipjacka said, this fits well within the existing typology of the Fulton corridor. And as Angelo Trivisono pointed out on twitter (see tweet below), during a neighborhood design/zoning charrette in 2019 the community identified this corridor for high density uses/development

@JB - Full details about the investigation weren't released by the FBI, but "city officials said the scope of the investigation involved demolition contracts." For those who do not wish to go through Twitter to access the article, it is linked here. For those who are like me and try to avoid giving views to Advance Publication...the FBI and HUD's Office of Inspector General were looking into allegations of bribery and fraud in East Cleveland and in 2017 federal prosecutors opened a grand jury investigation. As a part of that investigation, federal authorities interviewed former East Cleveland mayor, Gary Norton. Through that interview they informed him of the investigation and instructed Norton to only discuss their conversation and the investigation with his lawyer. The Feds allege that Norton ignored those instructions and discussed the investigation with his former assistant, Vanessa Veals. When asked by the feds if he discussed this case with anyone other than his lawyers, Norton denied he had. However, court documents show that Norton did meet with Veals shortly after being interviewed and informed her of the investigation and his talk with the feds. The documents further allege that in July 2018 Norton emailed Veals several letters and asked that she place them on city letterhead then print and have them sent from an unidentified city employee. It is then alleged that Veals forged the signature of the unidentified employee and deleted the emails/attachments from Norton. It is also alleged that two months later Veals told another city offical about the investigation and the Norton interview. The above is the basis of the obstruction charges as the alleged actions of Norton and Veals prevented the feds from collecting additional evidence in their investigation.

For anyone who doesn't want to read the cleveland.com article but was wondering about this comment, it refers to a point in the article where the developer, Sheila White, said that the first 6 homes are only phase one and "that she envisions 15 homes, 46 brownstones and two buildings with apartments and retail on the first floor" in future phases for the area. Edited to clarify that I didn't want to read the article because I'm still salty about what Advanced has done to our local paper and I hate giving them traffic, but was too curious about the Brownstones comment to not read it and just wanted to add context in case there were others like me who avoid cleveland.com if possible.

@Metz44 That's why the data collection from the census takers is so important, they help fill in that information gap, but I don't think the number of households has decreased that drastically to account for the majority of the lower response rates. @PoshSteve Yeah, there is major cause for concern, which is why so many cities have called for an extension and many community/neighborhood groups and local non-profits have been working on getting the word out/going out into the community and getting responses to the census (mobile tent centers, info drives, etc.). As it stands now, we could possibly see cities across the US challenging the results, which has been done before but is difficult and previously not on the scale that I think we'll see if an extension is not granted. Kate Warren from The Center for Community Solutions has a great twitter thread talking the census results: And NPR came out with an article recently where a "Leak Reveals Warnings Inside Census That Shortened Schedule Risks 'Serious Errors'."

@Dev Great point about libraries, which often fill the role of offering internet/computers and other services to those in the community who would otherwise not have access. Important to note that access to those services were cut off while those libraries were closed to the public due to Covid (the whole system only re-opened on 8/24)

I suppose if you are looking at the county as a whole the assertion that "most people now have smartphones" and the further implication that if that's true then most people would also have an internet connection of some kind would also be true, but let's go a little deeper. According to the 2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 36.9% of households in Cleveland do not have internet access of any kind, including no access to "fixed 4G, dial-up modems, and mobile device data plans." That lack of internet access is predominately found in lower income and majority non-white census tracts mainly clustered on the east side. There are even some census tracts in Cleveland where more than 50% of households lack internet access of any kind, see the visual representation below (Source: Connecting Cuyahoga, June 2019) Now add the lack of internet access with the issues caused by Covid (delay sending out Census workers to collect data, having to change how those workers collect data, and the last minute decision to stop collection efforts on 9/30/2020), I think explains why response rates have been so low (below is a screenshot taken today of response rates). Not to mention fears immigrant populations have of responding to the Cenus, but that's another issue.

Not everyone has access to the internet/a computer though. If you follow Kate Warren on Twitter (her tweet is in the post you responded to) you would know she often discusses the digital divide, how it tracks with redlining in Cleveland, and how that relationship has led to low self-reporting for the Census in large parts of Cleveland. Not to mention low income and non-white communities traditionally being under-counted in the past as well as the struggles/delays to Census efforts because of Covid (and the last minute cut off giving an already stressed Census Bureau even less time to get an accurate count)

I think there was some context left out of Michelle's article, one of the neighbor's "blocked sight lines" complaints was in regards to bedroom windows being blocked in by this proposed building, not about losing views

The VA Clinic located in the building is shutting down and moving to Parma (Scene article here) but the MetroHealth portion is moving to their new clinic on the Urban Community School campus (Lorain & 48th St).

I meant for 2220 and I guess I should've specified their view of downtown will be blocked.