May 2003

Lakewood Council to Vote on West End Development
Lakewood's city council is expected to adopt legislation Monday night that will clear the way for a much-debated commercial development. The approval would lay the financial groundwork for a $151-million development project for shops, offices, theaters and condominiums at West End.

Parma Councilman's Son Tested After Allegations of Drinking
Police say they were responding to a 911 call Saturday night when they arrived at the home of Parma City Councilman Stuart Boyda, one of the councilmen calling for the resignation of the police chief, and found two boys disoriented and smelling of alcohol. Police say the boys were in the back yard with Boyda's 14-year-old son, drinking alcohol with no adults present. Denying his son was drinking, Boyda took his son to Parma General Hospital to be tested for drug or alcohol use, and a hospital report showed no signs of either.

Latest TV Bachelor Proposes to Mentor Native
If you're in to watching those reality shows, you probably already know this. Andrew Firestone, an heir to the Firestone tire fortune and "The Bachelor" on ABC's television show of the same title, picked Mentor native Jennifer Schefft to be his fiancee. According to her mom, Schefft will be moving to California to get to know her fiance better.

Cuyahoga County Voters Approve Health and Human Services Levy

The much talked about Health and Human Services levy was approved by voters Tuesday. The tax, appearing as Issue 15, will cost the owner of a $100,000 home $150 in property tax, and will raise an additional $56 million a year for several county departments.
 

Cleveland Reconsiders Third Hopkins Runway
The city of Cleveland purchased the I-X Center in 1999 for $66.5 million with plans to tear it down and build a third runway at Hopkins Airport. The plan also included buying more than 300 homes in Brook Park to make room for the new runway. City officials are rethinking the plan. Mayor Jane Campbell said due to the state of the airline industry, the city may invest in improvements to the terminal rather than build the runway.
 

Case Western Adopts Policy to Curb SARS
Case Western Reserve University has asked its graduating class to discourage any guests from attending commencement if they have a respiratory illness and are coming from a country under a travel advisory because of SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Dr. Robert Salata, an infectious diseases specialist at CWRU and a member of a committee of health experts who wrote the SARS policy, says the university has a large population of Asian students, prompting a concern that relatives of some graduates may be traveling from SARS-infected areas.
 

Ohio Bar Exam Error May Disqualify Candidates
Because of a grading mistake on the multistate portion of the Ohio Bar examination, 29 people may not be able to be sworn in as lawyers this Friday. The problem was with just one question, but the question for some of the 20,000 who took the test could be the difference between pass and fail. Those who are found to have passed the test will be able to participate in a smaller ceremony before the Supreme Court in June.

The United Steelworkers of America and Cleveland-based International Steel Group have a tentative agreement covering workers at former Bethlehem Steel facilities.

They include three plants in Pennsylvania: in Steelton, Conshohocken and Coatesville. The other plants are in Sparrows Point, Maryland; Burns Harbor, Indiana, and Lackawanna, New York.

If ratified, the new agreement will be in place until September 2008.

Ratification votes by Steelworkers at the former Bethlehem facilities are being planned.

Union officials say specifics of the agreement won't be available until after the ratification vote.

Bethlehem Steel's board voted February Eighth to accept ISG's $1.5 billion purchase offer.

The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based company had filed for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy protection in October 2001.

An audit says the city of Cleveland must pay $11 million back to the federal government.

That amount represents money the federal audit says was improperly spent on an empowerment zone program.

It says controls over money in the program were not adequate, accomplishments were inaccurately reported, residents of the zone did not benefit from projects and income for the program was not properly managed.

Cleveland's economic development director, Steve Sims, disagrees with some of the findings. He says the program has created jobs, delivered essential services and helped people find employment.

The federal Housing and Urban Development Department established the empowerment zone program to reduce blight and spark economic growth in low-income areas.

University Of Akron Students End Hunger Strike

University of Akron students who were protesting the school's affiliation with companies linked to sweatshops have ended their hunger strike.

But not because of any capitulation by the university to their demands. Junior Sara Cutlip says the students had to study for finals.

Members of the group called Taking Action for a New Democracy, or STAND, met yesterday with Akron President Luis Proenza.

The university agreed to stop doing business with Holloway Sportswear, which produces collegiate apparel in Myanmar, a country in southeast Asia. But Cutlip says the university refused two other measures that STAND was proposing.

She called the meeting very discouraging and said the group will be back in the fall.

Bush Picks Cleveland Lawyer To Oversee Homeland Security Personnel

President Bush's top pick to manage employee benefits and hiring for the new Homeland Security Department is a lawyer from Cleveland.

Ronald James would be the department's chief human capital officer.

His job would be to merge the human resources activities of 22 different agencies that were combined this year to form the new agency with 170,000 employees.

The nomination must be approved by the Senate.

James works for Squire, Sanders and Dempsey in Cleveland.

He has held several other jobs with the federal government at the Labor Department, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Transportation Department.