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).

With the blackout focusing undue attention on Cleveland, the time may be ripe to change the world’s perception about our old addiction to energy. At least that’s part of the thinking behind the city exploring what it would take to build a wind turbine off of Lake Erie to supply the juice to a back-up generator. In the aftermath of the blackout and the critical loss of water, Cleveland planning department has mobilized around an effort to figure out how to take its four water pumping stations off the grid (power to operate the water treatment facility may be sold separately!). Since the water department has large bonding authority, this could be the way to finance long-desired renewable power in Northeast Ohio.

The first step is monitoring the wind capacity off the lake, which nonprofit Green Energy Ohio (GEO) already has secured the permission to do. GEO has estimated it needs $100,000 to put up a tower to measure the wind, but the group has not made a request for funds to do so—yet. GEO or the city’s next step would be to study the amount of generating power it needs to operate the pumps, and compare the cost per kilowatt to determine if it should build a new coal-fired generator or maybe the clean wind-turbine generator. Last week, The Free Times reported that the city water department pays Cleveland Public Power and Ohio Edison $16.6 million annually for electricity, that’s roughly $1900 an hour for all operations (filtration and pumping).

It remains to be seen whether GEO or some other group is in a position to strike while the iron’s hot by delivering a report on the costs and benefits of wind turbines, and make Cleveland the first site in the nation for off-shore wind power (we can even trump the Kennedy’s!). Rumor has it that GEO, which will release its ‘wind mapping’ study this fall charting potential wind farm spots across the country, has identified a class five wind area on Lake Erie, about 3 miles off the shore of Cleveland. So, anyone out there want to take a guess how many class-five wind turbines it would take to pump Cleveland’s water?

So, now that an arts levy is off the ballot, it’s safe to wonder why none of our elected officials thought it could stand on its own, apart from the convention center. Bruce blog suggests a new strategy the next time the arts levy comes up—bill it as the arts incubator levy. That’s right, folks, our hard earned cash will go directly toward launching fledgling arts organizations.

The support from our arts leaders is already in place for a Cleveland arts incubator, a space that provides guidance, operational support, offices and computers for groups like, well, Hotel Bruce. A few months back, Bruce blog had a conversation with Tom Schorgl of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture—the anointed leader of the arts levy movement—about an arts incubator. Schorgl floated the idea that if voters ponied up the $14 million annually in sales tax, that he would like some of that money to go toward creating an arts incubator. Bruce blog thinks at least half of a future arts levy should go toward an incubator and the other half toward sustaining the existing arts organizations in town. What do you think?

The city of Cleveland recently denied the request of Ed Hauser, the so called 'mayor of Whiskey Island,' for a conservation easement on the twenty acres on Whiskey Island that have been set aside for a park. Instead, it's looking more and more like the city, through its lakefront management plan, is making the green space available for the Port Authority to move its operations there...is that a good use of taxpayer money?

August marked another low note environmentally speaking for the Bush administration, which settled a lawsuit brought by the timber industry and the state of Alaska against the Roadless Rule. In return for dismissing the case, the administration agreed to strip roadless protections from the Tongass National Forest and begin the process for exemption of the Chugach National Forest, opening these ancient rainforests to road building and logging, according to the Buckeye Forest Council August newsletter. Meanwhile, closer to home, the Division of Mineral Resources Management is considering a permit to allow Ohio Valley Coal Company to mine land adjacent and below Dysart Woods, one of Ohio’s last old-growth forests. Buckeye Forest Council is starting a fund to protect Dysart Woods. Send donations to Dysart Woods Legal Defense Fund c/o Buckeye Forest Council, PO Box 99; Athens, OH 45701.

Bruce blog wants to personally thank RTA for the Heights Circulator, which is dramatically cutting down on commute times from Cleveland Heights. It may not have very high ridership yet (start promoting it to CWRU students, maybe give out a few free passes, huh?), but it’s getting rave reviews from those riders who have spoken to Bruce blog. And Bb would be remiss without saying it now understands why Cedar-Lee is not part of the route: The current route sends the wide bearing circulator through the narrow streets of Little Italy, creating a time crunch when hooking up with the Red Line.