Posts Tagged Litt
Getting Stuff Off My Chest
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on May 28, 2010
May 28, 2010… It’s Friday and time to get some things “off my chest.” I have three items that I need to yell about. So here goes:
REP. FUDGE – YOU MADE THE WRONG DECISION
I guess my Congresswoman – Rep. Marcia Fudge – believes nothing she does will ever put any stress on her holding the 11th District job.
Maybe she thinks no one will notice that she sided with the big telecommunication companies and against her constituents. The big communications companies would like to control the internet and how much it costs to access it.
Fudge, along with 74 other Democratic Congress members, allied themselves with AT&T, Verizon ad Comcast by signing a letter that will undercut the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “ability to make a fast, affordable and open internet available to everyone in America,” as a watchdog labels of the letter.
Fudge – who represents a district with many low income people – took the side that will deprive rural and low income communities from adequate internet access.
Shame on the Congresswoman.
Tell her she’s on the wrong side: 216-522-4900.
* * * * *
CHINA ON MY MIND
Clevelanders and Ohioans should be angry about labor practices that discriminate against workers. Let’s start with China since we have a mayor that wants to marry Cleveland to a Chinese manufacturer.
I don’t know about you but I’ve been opposed to slavery for a long time.
Apparently, the Chinese government isn’t.
The New York Times had several articles that point to how the government there tramples all over its citizens. And that includes its state companies.
I guess developers here would like to have the same privileges the government has in China to spur development. People in the way? Just push them away.
They say new rules are being set to correct these problems. But before they take effect the Times reports the inhumane process. Some people are pressing back but not quickly enough:
“Today in Laogucheng, a dingy warren of apartments and shops slated for redevelopment on Beijing’s far west side, the fruits of that effort are on vivid display: a powerful developer is racing to demolish the neighborhood before the rules are passed, says the Times. What’s occurring around the country, says one holdout to the demolition, are “sudden and violent demolitions.”
Read the entire front page story from Thursday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27china.html?th&emc=th
POOR WORK CONDITIONS PROMPT SUICIDES
The Times on its business page Thursday has a startling article about a firm, which supplies a number of American companies (Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard). It has such harsh work standards that a number of young workers have committed suicide. The company is Foxconn.
“There were bows and an apology from Terry Gou, one of the richest men in Asia and chairman of Foxconn Technology, reports the Times. The company employs some 400,000 people. Workers get some $32 for 40 hours work, the article says. Workers are housed 10 to a room.
Apologies are totally inadequate.
“Foxconn’s production line system is designed so well that no worker will rest even for one second during work; they make sure you’re always busy for every section,” says a spokesperson for China Labor Watch.
That’s great. Who needs a one second break?
Just what we need in Cleveland, right? I guess there are a few more questions Council can ask the Jackson administration about its no-bid deal to bring a Chinese LEDs company’s U. S. headquarters here.
No thanks.
The full Times piece on the China suicide company can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/technology/27suicide.html?th&emc=th
* * * * * *
PD NEEDS MORE PROOF THAN A TELEPHONE CALL
The Plain Dealer led the newspaper today (Friday) with a front-page headlines advertising a sparkling new Casino in downtown Cleveland. I know the PD wants to push positive stuff for the city. But it can’t be created by articles in the paper.
Shockingly, the basis of the article comes from a telephone call. That’s putting a lot of trust in talking to someone you can’t even see.
We’re not even shown the typically phony sketches for the advertised “sleek, contemporary building with large areas of glass at two main entrances along Huron Road and a row of restaurants and shops between them, facing the street and sidewalk.”
We’re to expected believe the developers. No thanks. The story is by Steve Litt, the Plain Dealer’s architect critic. Steve, you can do better than this.
We are given a lot of promises, including “the majority of the infrastructure will be borne by us,” meaning Dan Gilbert, who won the rights to build a Cleveland casino. I hope Steve saves that quote when the time comes for these “entrepreneurs” to do private enterprise. Without public money, that is. Laughable.
There’s a whole lot of flackery being peddled here.
Public Square Low On Cleveland Need List
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Politicians on December 20, 2009
December 20, 2009… Steve Litt is back on the front page today promoting another supposed uplift for Cleveland’s despondent condition: this time another redo of Public Square.
He writes: “City planners have dreamed for decades of doing something to resolve the conflict between vehicles and people in the square and to restore the sense of the town commons implied in the 1796 street plan that gave downtown its form.”
I wish he’d name the city planners doing this dreaming.
I hate to break it to Steve but Cleveland even by 1815 was a village and hit a population of 500 only by 1824. Maybe these people, who likely knew most of each other, (and even lived in the city) could amble about a public square and find out the latest news and gossip. A true community public square. What Sunday fun!
But now we have the Plain Dealer, television news and something called an internet. They give us the gossip, insipid as it may be.
Really this another downtown plan by the same downtown interests as always. Their real interest is keeping certain people off the public square: Homeless people. Young black. Panhandlers. You know those people who interfere with the business of downtown interests.
It’s being pushed by two front groups of the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) – Parkworks and the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.
The money – always available for these Establishment projects – comes from The Alliance and the John P. Murphy Foundation. Both occupy space at Tower City whose front door is Public Square. The Murphy Foundation has a fair market value of $40 million.
One proposal suggests a 76 feet mound of dirt. Now isn’t that clever planning. That must have taken imagination.
This is another Greater Cleveland Partnership project for the rest of us to finance. The Greater Cleveland Partnership, if you don’t know, is the representative of the top corporate people in Cleveland. It doesn’t represent the interests of ordinary people. GCP gets something as the Murphy Foundation interested and we’re off to the races.
All the usual suspects have usual trite things to say. City Planning director Bob Brown finds the ideas “fascinating.” Joe Cimperman Public Square is “pretty thrilled.” Chris Roynane is “excited.”
Is there anyone here who thinks for him or herself? Does everyone have to eat the pie served by GCP and its boosters?
In the mid 1980s we spent some $12 million to spruce up Public Square and I’m sure more than that (though I can’t find a figure) in 1975 when the wife of PD publisher and Editor Tom Vail, Iris Vail, headed up a beautification of Public Square.
Unfortunately, Litt, who has the PD morgue files, doesn’t tell us just how much we’ve already spent in “bettering” Public Square.
With all the problems that Cleveland has why is the PD pushing once again – at the behest of downtown interests, not the least the Tower City gang whose front door is Public Square – for another redo of Public Square.
Can’t they pay attention to the real problems of real Cleveland people? And then they grouse about “leadership” as they march in lock step to every task presented by the downtown business people.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
The grandiose talk of turning Public Square into a Chicago Millennium Park is so farfetched as to be laughable. Litt should be ashamed of himself for putting this as even a thought. Chicago’s park cost $475 million, some $270 million from the city’s revenues.
Have you noticed that the city is supposed to be so hard-up that it has to charge $8 a month to collect people’s garbage?
I’ve walked across Public Square many times. I’ve been to demonstrations on Public Square. It can serve its purpose as it is. Let’s not get carried away with all this feel good stuff that’s being sold by the same old people.
“The project shows that a critical mass of leaders in Cleveland now believes that landscape design is essential to the success of the city and not a matter of added shrubs when a major building project or highway is finished,” Litt writes.
Please.