Hotel Bruce

Welcome to the Bruce blog – a weekly update on news, events and issues affecting life in Cleveland. Reporting as it happens on transit, development, planning, environment and arts & culture.

Basically, we write about creative ideas forming, talk to the people who have an inside track on the issues, and sometimes offer a commentary of our own. (For disclosure purposes, the Bruce blog should mention it works part-time with nonprofit organization EcoCity Cleveland).

The next time your friend from 'Chi-town' sports a little too much ‘tude, tell him that his town is learning how to be ‘green’ from us. That’s right, recently, Chicago Mayor Daley came through town for a guided tour (from Mayor Campbell and Detroit-Shoreway CDO) of the Cleveland EcoVillage’s green-built town homes and Cleveland’s first commercial green building, the Cleveland Environmental Center. Daley was duly impressed, and asked about special tax incentives for green building (New York has them, Cleveland doesn’t—yet). A week later, a planner from the city of Chicago called looking for Cleveland’s green building code addendum written by local green building guru, Jim LaRue...

Bruce blog has been following the fight over the proposed expansion of the Bradley Road landfill. The company that owns the landfill, ACER Environmental, Inc. wants to expand its operation, which sits right on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. Environmental activists, such as Elaine Marsh of Ohio Greenways, are hoping the "unprecedented" support from both the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County to block the permit will hold some sway over the Ohio EPA (which has 100 days to make up its mind). If OEPA gives ACER the green light—which history has shown happens a lot in these cases—Marsh says advocacy group Friends of the Cuyahoga River will appeal and try to get a seat at the table of the review committee.

With cell phone use on the rise, riding RTA is already a lot like "poetry in motion." But public transit may get even more verbose if a proposed collaboration between The Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland and RTA materializes. The project will display the work of a dozen local poets on buses and trains. A similar collaboration between the two groups in the early 1980s was a success, and RTA has indicated they will support and partially fund the project again. The League is pursuing additional funding needed to administer the program, according to those familiar with the project. The groups are pushing for the project to happen by the winter holidays.

Looks like the saga over the Detroit-Superior Bridge is finally ending. First ODOT finds an obscure rule about truck clearance under the bridge that almost kills the plan to design a promenade and bike lanes on the bridge’s outer two lanes. Advocates scramble and compromise one outer lane to keep the project alive. Then, the Flats-Oxbow Association, which represents the trucking industry, officially comes out against the plan. After months of hand-holding and assurances by none other than the county engineer, advocates thought they were smelling sour grapes. But, in a packed room before the county commissioners, impassioned arguments were made, including that of Lillian Kuri, Director of Cleveland Public Art, one of the groups overseeing the project: "We are trying to make this a safer place, safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. We looked at federal guidelines and it is our opinion that this plan will make conditions on the bridge better." The commissioners unanimously agreed.

Did you catch News Channel 5’s report on the Cuyahoga County Health Department biking around Parma and Brooklyn Center dropping mosquito killing briquettes into the sewer systems? Did you happen to catch the brand name of the briquette on the box? It’s AltoSid XR. Bruce blog did a search on the Material Safety Data Sheets and found that the ingredient in AltoSid XR is calcium sulfate. Acute human health hazards are listed as "Not known" on the data sheet. Spill release procedures, however, warn that you don’t allow spill to enter waterways inhabited by aquatic organisms. The general information line for AltoSid manufacturer, Zoecon Industries, Inc. in Dallas, TX is 214-243-2321.