Author: West Park Times

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From Mayor Jackson’s newsletter covering the City of Cleveland:

“”The City of Cleveland will continue to partner with federal law enforcement agencies to combat violent crime in our neighborhoods within the realm of constitutional policing,” said Mayor Jackson. “Residents and their families have a right to feel safe and be safe in their own communities. Coordinated efforts between local, state and federal law enforcement agencies will allow us to more effectively address and reduce violent crimes in Cleveland neighborhoods to build a safer Cleveland for all.”

·       Click here to view the release from the Department of Justice

·       Click here to watch the press conference Mayor Jackson held last week

·       Click here to watch today’s press conference with the DOJ

City of Cleveland Statement on Upcoming Presidential Debate

“The City of Cleveland was informed that Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) were looking to host the first presidential debate and received confirmation of the selection prior to the announcement. While we were informed, we were not a part of the planning process and refer all requests regarding the details to both the Clinic and CWRU. The City of Cleveland looks forward to working with its partners, the Cleveland Clinic and CWRU, on the next steps in hosting the first presidential debate in Cleveland. When we have more details to report, we will share those in our daily media update.”

The City of Cleveland Releases CDPH COVID-19 Non-Compliance Report

CDPH continues to monitor COVID-19 non-compliance complaints. Since March 20, 2020 through July 29, 2020, CDPH has received 2,512 COVID-19 non-compliance complaints. To date, CDPH has received 1010 mass gathering non-compliance allegations, 794 mask non-compliance allegations and 430 social distancing non-compliance allegations in the City of Cleveland. To view and download CDPH’s COVID-19 non-compliance report, click here.

Note: The City of Cleveland will begin to share this report each week in its daily media update.

Middle Neighborhoods Presentation Released

In 2019 the City of Cleveland partnered with the Cleveland Foundation to launch the Middle Neighborhoods Initiative (MNI).  This work focuses on communities within Cleveland that are historically stable but teeter on the edge of distress. These “middle neighborhoods” are areas with unique challenges that must be addressed with specific policy interventions, new mechanisms for investment, and efforts to promote the high quality of life families or individuals can find locally.

In 2020 the MNI partnered with Case Western Reserve University to develop a citywide analysis tool capable of showing practitioners and policymakers which areas in the city will see the greatest impact through investment. Using this tool, MNI continues to develop a toolkit of policies and interventions that can stabilize and grow the middle neighborhoods of Cleveland.

Recently, the presentation here was shared at a Cleveland City Council Committee meeting.

Calls Regarding COVID-19 Complaints
With the passage yesterday by Cleveland City Council of an ordinance authorizing penalties for non-compliance with Mayor Jackson’s mask mandate, enforcement is now in effect.

There are two numbers Clevelanders should call regarding non-compliance:

·       Business complaints: CDPH hotline at 216-857-7165

·       Individual or private residence complaints: Cleveland Police non-emergency line at 216-621-1234

Cleveland City Council recently approved the mandatory use of masks in public spaces as well as certain penalties for individuals and businesses that do not comply. On July 3, Mayor Jackson signed an amended order mandating the use of masks in public in the City of Cleveland to slow the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. This includes mandatory use in bars, restaurants, shared office settings, rideshares and other shared spaces.

Citations may be issued with fines for the following:

·       Any business or person violating the mask or safe-seating order (which maintains social distancing of at least six feet between patrons) is subject to civil penalties. In accordance with Ordinance No. 556-2020, specifically chapters 602 and 236.

·       Any business in the City of Cleveland with an employee who becomes ill with the coronavirus is required to immediately disinfect and sanitize the premises. Following a warning, they may be subject to a civil penalty of $1,000 for the first offense and a civil penalty of $3,000 for each subsequent violation.

An excerpt from Cleveland.com’s newsletter (signed by Chris Quinn):

“If you’ve never been in a debate with columnist Ted Diadiun, think dog with a bone. When he digs in, there’s no prying that bone loose.

I cannot count the hours I’ve spent going at it with him on whether newspapers erred when they made all of their content free online at the dawn of the Internet. Ted’s thought: Why would any company spend a fortune to produce a high-quality product – our content – and give it away? He says people should pay for things they value.

Come Monday, Ted will get his wish. Partly.

This is about so much more than an academic debate about strategy, though. The simple truth is we need your support to continue producing the journalism you value. Our watchdog reporting. Our bounty of information on surviving the pandemic. Our unique perspectives on your favorite sports teams. Our exclusive take on spending your entertainment dollar.

Ask yourself this: Where did you turn this week when you learned that the speaker of the Ohio House, one of the three most powerful people in the state, appears to be a crook, someone accused of masterminding a $60 million bribery scheme? For many people reading this, I know that answer. You turned to us. 

You turned to us because when big news happens, you turn to the source you trust. Just as you did when the coronavirus became a pandemic.

My asking for your support is about whether you feel reassured by the fact we are here, whether you take solace knowing we care about you and look out for your interests. Do you rely on us to make sure tax dollars are not wasted, to ask the necessary questions of those in power, to keep you informed on what is happening in Northeast Ohio.

If you do, then please help us keep doing it. Please consider subscribing, to our website or to The Plain Dealer. Digital subscriptions to cleveland.com cost $10 a month or $100 for a year. At $100 a year, we are talking less than 28 cents a day. You can sign up here.

Starting Monday, access to some of our journalism will be limited to our digital and print subscribers. You’ve been seeing stories tagged as exclusive on our website for more than a month, and on Monday, we’ll reserve those stories for people who support our work.

Rest assured that most of the content on our site will remain free. Perhaps 10 to 12 stories a day will be tagged for subscribers only. We will experiment to see which stories have the greatest value for paying subscribers. And as we learn which stories our subscribers engage with the most, we will work to expand those offerings… ”

Says ongoing FBI investigation is an unnecessary distraction from the people’s work

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State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) today called for the resignation of Republican Speaker of the House Larry Householder (R-Glenford) following federal charges that he engaged in a $60 million bribery, racketeering scheme. This is the second FBI investigation into House GOP leadership in three years.

“Larry Householder must resign the Speakership immediately. The staggering allegations against him are an unwelcome distraction from the important work that must be done to serve the people of Ohio during a once-in-a-century pandemic,” said Rep. Sweeney. “Ohio’s nearly two decades of one party rule have culminated in a Republican culture of corruption and the FBI investigation of two GOP Speakers of the House in three years. Ohioans deserve far better, and I am committed to restoring public trust and accountability in our government. If Householder does not resign in the very near future, then I will call upon on my colleagues across the aisle to convene the House and vote him out.”

But a complete repeal is needed as a minimum to undo the bill’s gutting of the clean energy standards, advocates say.

By Kathiann M. Kowalski

This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism in partnership with the nonprofit Energy News Network. Please join our free mailing list or the mailing list for Energy News as this helps us provide more public service reporting.

Both Republican and Democratic Ohio lawmakers are pushing to repeal the state’s nuclear bailout bill after this week’s release of a federal criminal complaint against House Speaker Larry Householder and others. Clean energy advocates say that would be a start, but more is needed to address eight years of lawmakers’ actions to slow the growth of renewables in the state.

The complaint alleges a $60 million bribery and conspiracy scheme that led to the passage of House Bill 6 last summer, followed by the defeat of a referendum effort to give voters a say on the bill. Amounts involved are about 20 times more than amounts that could be tracked through public documents.

HB 6 is primarily known as a “nuclear bailout” for providing six years of subsidies for the FirstEnergy Solutions/Energy Harbor nuclear power plants in Ohio totaling roughly a billion dollars, but it also gutted the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, and provided bailouts for two 1950s-era coal plants in Ohio and Indiana.

And while Gov. Mike DeWine has recently shifted his position from defending HB 6 to saying he wants to “repeal and replace” it, legislators from both parties say the whole thing should be thrown out. DeWine has said his office had no involvement in the alleged scheme. Yet he signed the law within hours after Householder secured its passage last summer.

Whether due to actual or perceived corruption, HB 6 “is a corrupt piece of legislation. All of it — not just part of it,” said Rep. Mike Skindell, D-Lakewood. “Therefore, the entire thing needs to be repealed. … That is one step in restoring the confidence of the citizens which was broken because of this corrupt process.”

“Those of us who are free-market conservatives are against the bill. Those of us who care about consumers and predatory pricing are against the bill. And it’s why those of us who want more renewable energy, not less, are against the bill,” said Rep. Laura Lanese, R-Grove City.

“Ohioans deserve an immediate and full repeal of House Bill 6 in order to restore the public’s trust in the legislative process, and also to get Ohio’s clean energy future restarted,” said Miranda Leppla, vice president of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund. “There is simply no room to consider anything less than a full repeal of this bill, as it is corrupt to the very core. Ohio lawmakers should consider what policies are best for Ohioans, without the corrupt influence of pay-to-play politicians and lobbyists working to influence their decisions.”

“I think this fiasco of HB 6 is just symbolic of the pay-to-play culture that has been in operation for a decade or more,” said Steve Melink, founder and CEO of Melink Corporation in Cincinnati. An analysis of lawful, reported campaign contributions from the utility, nuclear and coal industries in Ohio shows substantial increases in election years after a competitive generation market finally began developing in the state.

Efforts to give preferences to FirstEnergy and utility and fossil fuel interests didn’t start with HB 6. Bailout proposals have been on the table since at least 2014. And efforts to limit or repeal Ohio’s clean energy standards have been underway since at least 2012. A 2014 law imposed a two-year “freeze,” and then former Gov. John Kasich vetoed another bill to erode the standards. Other bills for nuclear and fossil subsidies and for weakening the standards were proposed in 2017 and 2018. And then Householder was elected.

HB 6 “was much more than a bailout for uneconomic nuclear and coal plants. It was an attack on renewable energy and energy efficiency that First Energy, and its allies in the legislature, had been pushing for years,” said J.R. Tolbert, managing director for Advanced Energy Economy’s national business group. 

What more is needed?

“Ohio has some fundamental changes that need to be made to get back on track in our fight against climate change,” Leppla said. “These include fixing our wind setbacks, prioritizing efficiency as a money- and energy-saving resource, and fixing our power siting board process to ensure renewables have an even playing field.”

Removing a 2014 provision that tripled property line setbacks for wind turbines “is the very first change that has to happen” after a full repeal of HB 6, said Sandy Buchanan, executive director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“When the rules changed, it essentially froze the number of wind projects,” said IEEFA data analyst Seth Feaster. That caused communities to miss out on revenues, more financial stability, better credit ratings and indirect job benefits, he and Buchanan noted. Meanwhile, a lot of wind projects moved to other states that were more welcoming.

The constant push to limit or repeal the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standards has also hurt, Melink noted. The portfolio standards act as incentives to attract and develop clean energy and other businesses that want renewable energy by setting enforceable targets, which the market then moves to meet, he said.

“A totally unregulated market is too open to the kinds of things that we’re witness to with HB 6,” Melink said. “Setting standards and rules is a good thing.”

“Businesses need some certainty that before they make investments to grow their businesses, that there are good laws that will be in existence for some period of time — that we’re not going to be going back and forth every year or two years, changing our minds about these things,” Melink continued. “No company is going to make a major investment to grow a clean energy economy with that scenario.”

Other concerns focus on how regulators and the courts have applied the state’s energy laws, including provisions that currently limit or preclude refunds of unlawful charges. 

Even before HB 6 passed, for example, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio allowed a credit support charge. The Supreme Court of Ohio found that the charge was unlawful, but declined to make FirstEnergy refund charges to consumers. A delayed repeal of HB 6 could also let utilities collect charges under the law.

“FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions should not be allowed to financially gain from the poisoned fruits of a crooked tree,” said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center. “If the U.S. Department of Justice’s allegations of corruption are proven true, then the mandatory rate increase imposed by House Bill 6 on Ohio consumers should be invalidated, and FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions/Energy Harbor should be required to disgorge their financial gains and refund those excess charges to consumers.”

Other pending legislation could make matters even more challenging for renewables. House Bill 246, for example, “does little to address the serious issues plaguing the PUCO and [Ohio Power Siting Board]’s opaque and inconsistent processes, especially as it relates to siting renewable energy projects in Ohio,” Leppla said. The bill could also make the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel more subject to political sway.

One or more bills to repeal House Bill 6 are being introduced next week, Skindell and Lanese said. But that repeal of House Bill 6 is not yet assured.

“Given the press of other business, repealing HB 6 is not a good idea because it would result in a rate increase for all Ohio ratepayers,” said House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati. Seitz has pushed to limit or repeal Ohio’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards since at least 2013. He and other House leaders have issued a joint statement saying they are reviewing the federal allegations and do not have knowledge of other representatives’ involvement.

“Repealing HB 6 doesn’t solve all of the challenges faced by clean energy companies or corporations trying to meet their sustainability targets in Ohio, but it’s a good start,” Tolbert said.

“We need to start from scratch,” said Sen. Stephanie Kunze, R-Hilliard. She added that the whole HB 6 process reminded her of baking a cake, in which supporters said “We’ll say that Ohioans want this cake, but really we want this cake, and you have to bake it for us.”

“We didn’t get a choice,” Kunze said.

There’s still time to join Challenge West Park, a community-driven, virtual scavenger hunt open to all ages.

“So far we have 13 teams participating,” notes Lindsay Wheeler of the Bellaire Puritas Development Corp. (BPDC), the organization responsible for organizing this community event. “Including a team from PPG and two from John Marshall.”

“John Marshall School of Civic and Business Leadership is in the lead with 1,200 points,” added Wheeler.

Registration is always open, so you can join any time. The challenge began, Monday, July 20th, and runs for a total of 4 consecutive weeks.

According to BPDC’s web page: “Challenges will task players with locating objects around the neighborhood, creating dances and songs, participating in community efforts, checking into a location or solving a riddle. ”

Sign up here. https://bit.ly/2WRjxXD

COURTESY OF POLICY MATTERS OHIO

50+ groups outline policies to create a 21st century economy that’s good for workers, communities, and the environment

Due to European travel restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 global pandemic, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has had to postpone indefinitely its presentation of the special exhibition Picasso and Paper this fall (September 22–December 13, 2020). The CMA hopes to reconstitute the show in a future year. Changes to the special exhibition schedule will be announced soon.

“For several years, the CMA staff has been working very hard to bring to Cleveland the large and important exhibition Picasso and Paper,” said William Griswold, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “Unfortunately, with the surge of coronavirus infections in this country, the EU has implemented travel restrictions that inhibit the ability of lenders to take part in the installation of the show. There is no way around this, and so we and our exhibition partners, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, have had no choice but to postpone the Cleveland presentation.”

Picasso and Paper is currently on view at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, through August 2, 2020. Tickets are sold out.

Picasso and Paper is organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in partnership with the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Please visit cma.org and follow the museum on social media for the most up-to-date information.

About the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes more than 61,000 objects and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship and performing arts. One of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation and free of charge to all, the Cleveland Museum of Art is located in the dynamic University Circle neighborhood.

The Cleveland Museum of Art receives funding from a broad range of individuals, foundations and businesses in Cleveland and northeast Ohio. The museum is supported in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture and made possible in part by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC), which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally and economically. For more information about the museum and its holdings, programs and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit ClevelandArt.org.

Photo by Daian Gan from Pexels

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Experience, explore, and engage in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville through Cleveland Opera Theater’s abridged mini-series

The first-of-its-kind mini-series event, Cleveland Opera Theater presents a reimagined telling of Rossini’s comedic masterpiece, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), created especially for our ’20 / ’21 online season. Featuring world class artists from Northeast Ohio and around the world, this entertaining and fresh interpretation will provide family-friendly entertainment and laughs for all ages.

• Saturday, July 25, FREE Summer Concert: on “National Hot Fudge Sundae Day” and “Wine and Cheese Day,” with good pairings possible for fans of all ages Streamed at: www.clevelandoperatheater.org/experience

o July 25, Ep. 1 – Premiere of the Barber Mini-Series

o Aug. 1, Ep. 2

o Aug. 8, Ep. 3

o Aug. 15, Ep. 4

• Sunday, August 30, FREE Summer Concert: Streamed at: www.clevelandoperatheater.org/experience in partnership with Dunham Tavern Museum, on “National Toasted Marshmallow Day -” perfect for s’mores.

o Aug. 30, Ep. 5 – Finale of the Barber mini-series

The Barber mini-series is free to all but donations can be made at ClevelandOperaTheater.org and are greatly appreciated.

Donations are accepted through our website at ClevelandOperaTheater.org.

The mission of Cleveland Opera Theater is to advance opera through innovative, accessible, and inclusive experiences. Our vision and our motto is “Opera For All.” We invite you to experience, explore, and engage in opera with us!