Who will fight for Lakewood's interests?

[Dustin James]

That said, Lakewood sorely needs a grand vision to take us through the next six years of depression. We need a focal point that can bring the community together, something that give Lakewood hopes, and dreams, and dollars in our pockets.

Jim,

I love the grand vision of the peninsula and hopefully it can be figured out some day.

How about this.

Not sure if this idea has ever been discussed here. I know I've heard you mention that the wonderful cliffs on the Emerald canyon continue to be ravaged by the elements and erosion continues. This is especially prevalent along Riverside Drive across from the water treatment plant.

Would it be possible that a massive solar panel farm could stretch the 5 or six blocks along the edge of Riverside and down 70 feet or so covering the surface of the cliffs? The power could be routed over to the water plant for generation and distribution to the Lakewood grid. The cliffs would get needed protection from wind and water.

This would not upset the view of the canyon and few people can see the cliffs from the bottom accept fisherman.

Also, there may be stimulus monies available for viable energy creating alternatives.

Scientific American article: http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-sci ... 2008-08-15

This is not as grand as the peninsula, but might be worth thinking about.


.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Dustin

For the record, I have offered my properties up before for the good of the community. I was willing to take one for the team in the "debacle" when I was told it would increase traffic in front of my house to 2,000 cars an hour past my house, and I would lose 15' of front yard.

I have often stated, we should develop the coast line, and the river edge, including my property.

For any sensible development, my property is for sale at fair market value, and I will rebuy in Lakewood. I have no plans to move, or abandon the city I love. I have never mentioned moving anywhere else, not back to Pittsburgh, or out of Lakewood.

Recently my CEO mentioned that most of our business is on the East Side of Cleveland, and that we could open an office in downtown or Beechwood. That the drive and the parking was a pain in the rear. I bought him a parking pass, and showed him a faster way to get here.

If the city wants to harness, solar panels on the cliffs, it would be grand, and I am all for it. Perhaps they could use the new solar panels that are being installed on every public building in Cleveland to feed power back into the grid and reduce the cost to all.

As for your idea, it would cut down on the wind erosion which is the primary culprit on the edge of the Emerald Canyon. I have to think it would generate vast amounts of energy, and a savings. I am a bigger fan of solar than windmills. As I believe it is more cost effective in the long run. So, all you need to do is 6 months of studies with everyone in the neighborhood. Talk to solar panel people, erosion and green people, everyone effected, and look at long range numbers, write it up, put it in 6 notebooks with notations to where the info came from, and project costs and savings, and your idea would then at least have the background of Savannah's.

Of course you would have a better chance, because of your name. A problem that haunted Savannah.

Speaking of water treatment, a man there had a plan to bring in $5 million in additional revenue to the city. He tried for years to get people to listen. Today he is running the Oberlin Water Treatment Plant, has saved them over $1 million a year and has modernized the entire plant at no additional cost to Oberlin. Here, he was laughed at.


.

[Dustin James]

Dustin

For the record, I have offered my properties up before for the good of the community. I was willing to take one for the team in the "debacle" when I was told it would increase traffic in front of my house to 2,000 cars an hour past my house, and I would lose 15' of front yard.

I have often stated, we should develop the coast line, and the river edge, including my property.

For any sensible development, my property is for sale at fair market value, and I will rebuy in Lakewood. I have no plans to move, or abandon the city I love. I have never mentioned moving anywhere else, not back to Pittsburgh, or out of Lakewood.

Recently my CEO mentioned that most of our business is on the East Side of Cleveland, and that we could open an office in downtown or Beechwood. That the drive and the parking was a pain in the rear. I bought him a parking pass, and showed him a faster way to get here.

If the city wants to harness, solar panels on the cliffs, it would be grand, and I am all for it. Perhaps they could use the new solar panels that are being installed on every public building in Cleveland to feed power back into the grid and reduce the cost to all.

As for your idea, it would cut down on the wind erosion which is the primary culprit on the edge of the Emerald Canyon. I have to think it would generate vast amounts of energy, and a savings. I am a bigger fan of solar than windmills. As I believe it is more cost effective in the long run. So, all you need to do is 6 months of studies with everyone in the neighborhood. Talk to solar panel people, erosion and green people, everyone effected, and look at long range numbers, write it up, put it in 6 notebooks with notations to where the info came from, and project costs and savings, and your idea would then at least have the background of Savannah's.

Of course you would have a better chance, because of your name. A problem that haunted Savannah.

Speaking of water treatment, a man there had a plan to bring in $5 million in additional revenue to the city. He tried for years to get people to listen. Today he is running the Oberlin Water Treatment Plant, has saved them over $1 million a year and has modernized the entire plant at no additional cost to Oberlin. Here, he was laughed at.


.

Jim,

I obviously missed the development of your front yard, river edge discussion. Sounds rather horrifying. Maybe I was too far off subject of the peninsula.

The solar cliffs is just an idea. I was responding to your call for ideas and evidently it sounds like all ideas are shot down because there is a lot of work involved.

It seems like at some time in the future, there won't be enough land to support Riverside Drive. It will likely cost a lot of money to keep trying to ward of the natural erosion. This was just an idea to help protect the surface area, while providing massive coverage for solar voltaic cells. There would be no need for property owners to lose any land with this idea.

As for Savannah's name, are you implying that because she is a woman, her ideas were scrutinized more or dismissed based on sexism? I would suspect not being in the old boy network, but that can be anybody not in the inner circle. I certainly hope sexism played no part. If it did, Lakewood is doomed.

Anyway, just an idea. Also some new advances extract 97% of any available sunlight, which is attractive for your area.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 130924.htm

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[Charlie Page]

We really need to concentrate on making the city more livable for everyone instead of those with yachts and scads of disposable income.

I agree. We can start by having more respect for our City. Not using the streets as a trash can, maintaining our houses, being respectful of each other is a good start. There’s a lot of things we can do that don’t cost much.

And without the 50 million upfront (which is probably 70 or 80 by now)....the peninsula is a pipe dream. We certainly won’t be getting anywhere near that with our cut of stimulus money. I’m guessing 5-10 mill for Lakewood but what do I know.

[Dee Martinez]

I guess my question is where has one dime of money been committed to even looking at this idea, public or private?
I want the damned potholes fixed.

[Danielle Masters]

I guess my question is where has one dime of money been committed to even looking at this idea, public or private?
I want the damned potholes fixed.

You pothole story reminded me of one day in the fall. I was taking my kids home along with one of my 1st graders friends. We drove up Mars (between hilliard/madison) and because the road was so bad the 6 year old thought it was a brick street. Yeah I think fixing things like potholes should be a priority. I know a lot of streets have been repaired but there still are a lot more to repair. I think this gets back to the quality of life issue.

[Bill Call]

I guess my question is where has one dime of money been committed to even looking at this idea, public or private?
I want the damned potholes fixed.

Some think that this housing "crisis" will turn to Lakewood's advantage. I never thought that to be the case except in the short term. The government has a vested interest in the exurbs and will do whatever it takes to insure that they thrive. The help they provide cities like Lakewood will be limited to helping people buy houses they cannot afford.

Even after all we have learned FHA and HUD are still up to their old tricks. It seems they are financing houses for people who never even make the first payment:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02257.html

Todays PD had a fine article about foreclosures that quoted a local Mayor who said, "HUD hates us." He wanted HUD to assume some responsiblity for the houses they foreclose on.

There are things that can be done to help this City thrive but the opposition iwould be fierce. Much of it will come from people who don't live here.

[chris richards]

I think this gets back to the quality of life issue.

Exactly. Quality of life goes a long way in maintaining a healthy city. One or two Grand ideas aren't going to get Lakewood through a recession. It's all the small stuff, like keeping the streets in good condition, and all the small projects that engage citizens like, the art walk, Spooky Pooch Parade, the Car Kulture show, the Lakewood Arts Festival, and all the other little things that get people out on the streets getting to know the city and what services and types of businesses it provides.

And not only are they for Lakewood residents, these things also draw in people from outside the city that will then go away and think, wow, that was a really fun event.

[Jim O'Bryan]

all the small projects that engage citizens like, the art walk, Spooky Pooch Parade, the Car Kulture show, the Lakewood Arts Festival, and all the other little things that get people out on the streets

Chris

I would agree which is one reason we help to underwrite and publicize many of these events and others. The Observer was started to amplify civic and artistic intelligent.

However this also falls into frosting a cake that has not been baked yet. People poor into Lakewood for the Art Festival and Car Show, yet the roads leading into the city are in disrepair. So people come in and go, "that event was cool, but..." We all must do better.

However let's use the roads as a perfect example. Go back and read the deck, during 2006/2007 many people complaining about chuck holes, only to come back on and complain that people then speeded down their smooth new streets.

What I am speaking of, and again I am not discounting any of the thoughts of Dee, Bill, Charlie, or you. Is something that brings the city together, like the Library. I know first hand how much you appreciate the Library and the incredible job Kenneth Warren did to bring that quality to the city. The library project was able to bridge all groups, together with 100% support.

This is what I speak of, visionary projects. The Library, the schools, the Observer... Stuff that brings in people to live here, far reaching projects, that define and build the brand. Quality of life is important, but.

And again with real vision a project like the peninsula that can pay for the roads and more.

FWIW


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[Kenneth Warren]

Bill:

No need to search for the grail. The LO Deck is, in a psychological sense, the grail cup of city’s secret sauce. Thus the LO Deck is, in the grail analogy you have evoked, the numinous bloody container for the pothole complaints, erectile dreams, peninsula Parzivals, and wounded Fisher Kings.

This is the secret sauce that must season any community's economic development strategy.

The city that would know itself better than any other city and thereby enter into the Guinness World Book of Records had better get a collective grip on the inflationary thrust of its desires and dreams.

Remember it was the "dragnet" of an inflated collective psyche that permitted a small priapic band of citizen journalists to capture the predator Brother Petty and save children from his charter school twitchcraft evil.

So inflations are key to moving a community and an economy. Which is why the easily depressed drop off the board and employment rolls.

The great question – “Who does the Grail serveâ€￾ has been answered in Lakewood, of all places. That answer is not the kewpie doll, which comes close. The correct answer is Bo-Bo the Clown who gathers up the precious stones that line the bottom of the Emerald Canyon.

As a Jesuit crusader and student of history, Bill, you very likely can put your hands on telling historical facts about warrior knights. So I will serve one here:

“When the city of Constantinople fell to the Venetians and the pilgrims (as Robert de Clari complained) the common people who had done so much of the fighting were ignored, and the “high menâ€￾ took all the best houses in the city without the common people or the poor knights knowing a thing about itâ€￾ (p77) in The Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parzival by G. Ronald Murphy, S.J.

So that’s another potential explanation for the return of the peninsula and the search for the grail.

But search no longer, Bill, you are in the Grail Castle, a place of dreaming and discovering truths about a city's psyche in a register found nowhere else on the planet.

So what if Bo Bo gets to keep all the gemstones.

Drink up and let us dream further this beautiful mediation between the heavenly peninsula and the earthly pothole.

Kenneth Warren

[chris richards]

What I am speaking of, and again I am not discounting any of the thoughts of Dee, Bill, Charlie, or you. Is something that brings the city together, like the Library. I know first hand how much you appreciate the Library and the incredible job Kenneth Warren did to bring that quality to the city. The library project was able to bridge all groups, together with 100% support.


.

I don't know if I would go so far as say that the Library project brought people together with 100% support. And while I appreciate the library, I'm not sure I would say I appreciate the "incredible job" Mr. Warren did. I feel the library is lacking in many many important areas, and what we got with the amount of money that was spent on it is lacking as well. But let's not make this about the library, or the so called "park" project that was meant to be across the street from it. Because apparently, any critical thinking is deemed as a "negative" and therefore unwanted.

[Kenneth Warren]

Chris:

The job is open.

Go for the job.

Seize the power.

Liberate the library.

Run it your way.

Kenneth Warren

[Jim DeVito]

Because apparently, any critical thinking is deemed as a "negative" and therefore unwanted.

Chris,

As with most things that is only true if you believe it.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Chris

Or buy the Lakewood Observer!


Ken

Although I understand what your day, week, month and years are like. And I
know all too well how hard you have worked to make it the finest library
in America year after year.

All three of us know, I was baiting Chris.

Still, Chris grab the job, buy the paper.

Write the legacy.



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[Gary Rice]

As I was explaining to a bunch of Scouts yesterday taking a tour through the Rock Hall, it's easy to copy, to criticize, to play the songs that someone creates... after they're out on the radio.

With all of the information available these days, beginning guitarists can learn a surprising amount of rock songs fairly quickly.

But when it comes to actually creating those songs? Producing those songs? Selling those songs?

That's another matter.

Lakewood's schools and libraries, and even the Observer Project are stunning functional showcases, pure and simple. They enhance the value of this community to considerable end.

They were not created without discussion and even controversy.

At some point, the visions become realities... through (how else?) visionaries...

It is however, an old story of the human race. The poets, prophets, the messianic men and women...in short, those who come forth asking the hopeful to rise, so often end up paying a bitter price for those efforts.

The visionaries know it will be that way too, yet they proceed...

This is so often true in art and music, but we forget that it happens in business, personal interactions, religious situations...in life generally.

To Jim, Ken, to others having vision?

It is an honor to know you.

Thanks for all of it.

Back to the banjo...