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).

Cleveland’s brain drain just sprung a major leak. Sadhu Johnston, founder and executive director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, is leaving Cleveland for Chicago. Johnston accepted a position as Mayor Richard Daley’s special assistant for sustainability, joining that city’s effort to be the greenest city in America. Beginning in October, Johnston will work with the heads of Chicago's city departments such as the Office of Environment (and its 100 staff persons) to develop and manage all of the city’s green building and sustainability initiatives.

Johnston leaves a tremendous legacy of working for social and environmental change in the Cleveland area. Born in Canada, raised in India and the Northwest and a graduate of Oberlin College, Johnston first convinced David Orr, director of the Environmental Studies program at Oberlin, and the Gund Foundation that he was the man to create an advocacy group for green building in the Northeast Ohio area. Johnston, 28, worked tirelessly to create the green building zeitgeist, bringing in acclaimed speakers such as Sarah Susanka, Janine Benyus, Tim Beatley, and William McDonough, and worked to inspire developers and contractors to embrace institutional change and build healthier, high-performance buildings.

Among his legacies is co-authoring a Green Building Addendum to the city of Cleveland’s building code; hiring an advisor to advocate for greening the Cleveland schools; greening the county courthouse, juvenile detention center and numerous private projects such as the YMCA in Geauga County. He helped manage the green town homes project in the Cleveland EcoVillage, and lead the process to redevelop the Cleveland Environmental Center (CEC) from the abandoned shell of the old Cleveland Trust bank building to Cleveland’s first green commercial rehab project.

In fact, it was the last two projects that garnered the attention of Daley, who visited Cleveland in July to tour the EcoVillage and the CEC and was reportedly overwhelmed by the progress Cleveland has made in adopting green building practices.

The brain drain will be compounded by the fact that Johnston’s life partner, Manda Gillespie, will leave her position as project manager at EcoCity Cleveland and move to Chicago as well. Gillespie was a tireless champion and devoted immense energy into developing the Cleveland EcoVillage. She managed many of the aspects of the W.58th Street/EcoVillage town homes, including raising the funds for the design and the green aspects of the project. Gillespie continued to develop the EcoVillage by leading the public process in redesigning the Zone Recreation Center. Gillespie’s immediate plans are to pursue an MFA in creative writing and perhaps assist with the nascent Chicago EcoVillage project.

Replacements for Johnston and Gillespie have not been announced. Which begs the question, who will fill the void? Will the Green Building Coalition find a leader who can bring his or her own identity and ideas to the table and continue to push the agenda ahead?

Beyond the attributes one read about in numerous newspaper and magazine articles about this super eco-couple, the energy they brought to helping others seek and fulfill their goals and aspirations (EDIC, The Ohio City Bike Co-Op, Ohio City Near West, this writer, and many others) as well as their abundant creative energy will be sorely missed. Lesson to be learned? We can cuss out Chicago all we want for stealing our best and brightest, but the energy would be better spent creating our own city Office of the Environment and making Cleveland the greenest city in America.

Here’s one thing a Cleveland Department of Environment could focus on: The city is gunning for 1500 new homes a year, right, but without a plan to develop dense multifamily units, developers who are interested in the city don’t see the value to building multi-family units, according to a source at the city. What will continue to happen is the developers will snatch up the best properties for suburban style single-family homes (see "Suburban Renewal" an article in the 8/31 issue of the Plain Dealer that touts the invasion of McMansions into the city)—which seems counterintuitive to the development goal of maximizing value through more density.

The city is involved in some redevelopment of multi-family units such as the Parklane building, a former hotel which HUD converted to senior housing and recently abandoned in University Circle. The city is putting out an RFP for developers and Case is rumored to be interested in it for graduate housing. The city would be interested in tapping into redevelopment funds such as the Core City Fund, a new federal loan program where the city controls the RFP and can request more "sustainable" features such as transit orientation and higher density, according to our source.

The swing votes came through Sunday when the full U.S. House of Representatives passed the budget for a federal pot of money known as Transportation Enhancement funds. The $600 million appropriation supports the building of urban bike paths, sidewalks, trails that support recreation and safe routes for pedestrians, and was on the chopping block thanks to Ernest Istook
(R-OK) and his cronies in the house appropriations subcommittee. The House applied a smack down to the subcommittee to the tune of 327 to 90 (the highway lobby will have to find its slush fund elsewhere).

Up in front were Congressmen Petri (R-WI)and Olver (R-MA). Also testifying in support were representatives Boehlert (R-NY), Lewis (R-KY), LaHood (R-IL), Radanovich (R-CA, Rahall (D-WV), Blumenauer (D-OR), Doggett (D-TX), Johnson (D-TX), Lee (D-CA) and Oberstar (D-MN). Representatives Lipinski (D-IL), LaTourette (R-OH), Foley (R-FL), Farr (D-CA) and Pence (R-IN).

According to Martha Roskowski at America Bikes, lots of elements came together to make this a success. A good issue, strong bi-partisan support in Congress, savvy strategists, a broad coalition of interests, good media coverage, smart work by advocates & industry leaders in the field, a bit of good luck and phenomenal grassroots response.

Money on the table motivates—that’s the feeling behind the group of bike advocates jockeying for the $10,000 WMJI mea culpa as a result of Malone and Co. joking about motorists running bicyclists off the road. The cash wasn’t earmarked for any particular purpose, although EcoCity Cleveland is the fiscal agent, so the money has been deposited in its account. A group of local bike advocates are trying to decide the best way that the money can serve the community. The list with a claim to the money is actually quite short: Lois Cowan at Century Cycles and EcoCity Cleveland. But local bike advocate Dominic Liberatore wants a piece of the action to form a new bike advocacy group. Liberatore, who announced his intentions to run for Shaker Heights city council, has had a number of meetings with elected officials to lobby for non-motorized transit projects, and thinks he's the man to lead grassroots bike advocacy.

Brendan McNamara, one of the de facto leaders of Cleveland's Critical Mass rides (a monthly "celebration" where dozens of bicyclists take to the streets), is in the process of trying to reform The Cleveland Area Bicycle Association (CABA) with "a focus on influencing local governments to accommodate the want and needs of the cycling community at large." A power shift seems to be in play within the bike advocacy movement, as Jim Guilford announced he’s publishing the last issue of Crankmail in December. In the next few months, CABA will be preparing to take over the duties of the newsletter and is considering offering a ‘share the road’ bike/car sensitivity training program with the Cleveland Metroparks. For more information or to join CABA, email.

In a sure sign of the times, Peri* the falcon is the latest victim of corporate downsizing. Peri's a peregrine falcon and star in her own reality TV series broadcast on the Web. Over the last few years, she gave us a glimpse of life as a single mother with twins living on a penthouse pad atop the Terminal Tower. But her brush with fame is over. It seems that APK net, the local web company has been bought out by a national outfit, Expedia, and they don't give a peck about falconcam (*an alias).