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Upfront
UPFRONT UPFRONT
OLD BROOKLYN CHOOSES MIXEDUSE PROJECT FOR ST. LUKE’S, UNITED METHODIST BLOCK
WHEN TWO DOZEN OLD
Brooklynites gathered over Zoom last February to talk about the future of the block that houses the historic Pearl Road United Methodist Church and St. Luke’s, the conversation was filled with a lot of What Ifs.
The Old Brooklyn Community Development Corp., which has control over the half-acre site, had long hoped to revitalize the site which had once been bustling but had in recent years sat like an eyesore after St. Luke’s closure. Dozens of prospective buyers and developers had toured the site over the years, but nothing solidified.
One proposal from NRP, which would have razed St. Luke’s but which lacked financing, was scrapped in early 2022 and OBCDC set upon community listening sessions to find a new developer and project.
Last Tuesday, OBCDC settled on a new direction with Desmone, a developer and architectural firm based in Pittsburgh. Following the lessons learned from NRP’s failure — namely, failing to merge the two churches — Desmone proposed a fix for Old Brooklyn’s town center deficit: a 74-unit apartment mid-rise with a combined 19,200 square feet of community and retail/restaurant space.
The decision, made by OBCDC board members, followed a survey of 270 residents, conducted both online and in-person, and which asked what the priorities should be for the site — new housing, historic preservation, a mix?
“It’s the same as it was in the beginning,” Lucas Reeve, executive director of Old Brooklyn CDC, said at a community event last Thursday on the topic. “Choosing what creates vibrancy on the corner of Memphis and Pearl.”
Desmone and OBCDC will now work on finalizing a design plan by the middle of 2023, Reeve said.
Reeve and others, including Cleveland city councilman Kris Harsh, hosted a town hall ahead of a final decision.
“I know we’re all excited by that particular element that allows a denser and perhaps more impactful project to take hold on that corner,” Reeve said to the crowd. “But keep this in mind: Your feedback this evening is critical.”
Marlon Brown, a local barbershop owner and member of the 13-person board, said that an anchor might not be a panacea, but, as he told people at his table, it could shift the neighborhood in a more “walkable direction.”
Others agreed.
“You know, everybody from the neighborhood used to be down there,” Tom Hites, a retired human resources director and longtime resident, said. “At one time it was a vibrant area.”
“If you got that draw,” Brown said, “it makes the neighborhood that much more walkable.”
Some wondered about parking requirements, and what it would do to the area around the block.
“Let me ask you guys—What do you think is the most desired neighborhood in Cleveland?” Harsh said to the table. “Where do people go? Where do they hang out?”
“Tremont,” a few responded.
“Exactly,” Harsh said. “And there’s nowhere to park in Tremont.”
“Hey, if it’s a nice day, it’s a tenminute walk” to Pearl and Memphis, Brown said. “If there’s a lot to see between here and there, you know what? You won’t have to drive.”
– Mark Oprea
Councilman Kris Harsh, of Ward 13, sits at a listening session last Thursday in Old Brooklyn.
MARK OPREA
Op-Ed: Cuyahoga County’s Conviction Integrity Unit Must Do Better
In the last three decades, more than 3,200 wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated for crimes they did not commit through the work of innocence projects, public defenders, and private attorneys. Many prosecutor offices, including Cuyahoga County, joined the effort by starting Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs) to review flawed convictions.
These exonerations include DNA exclusions, concealment of evidence, false confessions, unreliable eyewitness testimony, and lying jailhouse snitches. CIU programs can be a game changer in confronting abuses committed by their own prosecutor’s office or the police departments they work with. But recent concerns have surfaced over the operation of the Cuyahoga County CIU and whether they are using best practices to confront a major crisis facing our criminal justice system.
On November 21st, all members of the unit’s Independent Review Panel (IRP) shockingly resigned after county prosecutor Michael O’Malley diluted the group’s established mission: reviewing inmate petitions, making recommendations, and providing unbiased input.
In their public resignation letter, the panel minced no words:“We feel strongly that our participation in
a process that exists in name only, serves as mere window dressing, with no real substantive impact, is not useful,”
Since 2018, fewer than 10 petitions were reviewed by the advisory group, which included lawyers, a judge, a law professor, and community leaders. This dramatic resignation mirrors on-going concerns for those who want their cases fully and fairly considered.
In response, O’Malley rejected the panel’s right to review cases before final decisions are made, arguing that sharing case information with the panel might mean it could get into the wrong hands. In a prepared statement he said, “We look forward to continuing the work in a way that it will not be abused to the detriment of victims of crime.”
But why should crime victims and the wrongfully convicted be at odds? They are both victims when the wrong person is prosecuted. For almost every exoneration, the prosecutor or police department should accept responsibility for the mistakes and re-investigate the crime, and if possible, pursue the actual perpetrator.
O’Malley knows it’s difficult to obtain a new trial. He knows that a judge must find the conviction was tainted by egregious conduct undermining the fairness of the conviction. Yet, his office often files meritless motions and appeals delaying the inevitable re-trial while the prisoner languishes in prison. Some innocent prisoners are so desperate to be released that they agree to plead guilty to made-up crimes just to get out of prison. He also opposed a 2019 bipartisan bill that provides needed compensation — paid by the state — to those who are victims of prosecutorial misconduct when exculpatory evidence was not disclosed at the original trial.
His opposition to the law is disturbing because Cuyahoga County has had the highest number of wrongful convictions in Ohio – for decades.
Isaiah Andrews spent 45 years of a life sentence in prison for allegedly murdering his wife, but always maintained his innocence. At 83 years old and in poor health, a judge granted him a new trial after the Ohio Innocence Project discovered hidden reports of the arrest of another suspect — likely the killer. On the day of trial, Isaiah was in a wheelchair, suffering from terminal cancer and being fed intravenously. O’Malley refused to dismiss the charge and instead attacked defense lawyers for not pushing Isaiah to plead out in exchange for time served, thereby barring any compensation for the lost years in prison. The trial was a farce, with no evidence of guilt, other than the fact that he was the husband. The jury returned a not guilty verdict in an hour.
Sadly, Isaiah’s taste of freedom was short lived: He died six months later. Two of the jurors spoke at his funeral, outraged over the decision of the prosecutor to put Isaiah through this horrible ordeal.
These postconviction cases require in-depth review – without bias. O’Malley should follow the recommendations of the panel he ignored and build a responsible and credible Conviction Integrity Unit with a commitment to promote final and lasting justice for those wronged by a system that failed them. – Terry Gilbert
In Cleveland, as Elsewhere, Suburbs and Exurbs are Driving Carbon Emissions
Two-thirds of Cuyahoga County residents are worried about climate change and nearly half believe it will affect them personally, according to a recent study conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
These residents should see how drastically carbon emissions differ by area.
Using data from CoolClimate, the New York Times this week mapped carbon emissions by neighborhood across the country. The maps show, unsurprisingly, that the suburbs and exurbs produce far more greenhouse gas emissions than dense cities.
Because residences, businesses and services in cities are geographically closer, residents tend to drive less in their daily lives. As such, dense cities generate less carbon emissions than sprawling suburbs, where residents log long commutes to work and anywhere else. City dwellings are also usually smaller than their suburban counterparts, which means they require less energy for heating and cooling. Outside of cities, this trend reverses.
Density and wealth are the two biggest determinants, which is why there’s such a dramatic difference between, as an example, 44040 (Gates Mills), which has the highest average household carbon footprint in the county at 85.6 tons, and 44115, which has an average household carbon footprint of 16.5 tons.
Travel, by either car or airplane, is a big contributor to emissions — as is shopping. Because both travel and shopping typically increase with income, richer people usually produce more greenhouse gasses.
But while measures like avoiding fast fashion and limiting meat consumption can help reduce emissions, they are drops in the bucket compared to the biggest thing Americans can focus on.
“Anyone who cares about climate policy really needs to pay a lot more attention to housing,” said RMI Urban Transformation program senior associate Zack Subin.
Amid a national housing shortage, affordability and availability are often easier to find in communities with higher emissions. Building population-dense, multifamily dwellings, especially with close access to public transit, is one way to effectively lower community emissions. – Maria Elena Scott
Police in Ohio have fatally shot 229 people since 2015, with 35 of those deaths occurring so far in 2022, according to a database from The Washington Post.
Of the shootings, 3 occurred in Cleveland.
Statewide, 55 of the fatal shootings involved a person experiencing a mental health crisis.
Six of the fatal shootings involved teenagers under the age of 18.
All but 11 of the victims were men, and at least 19 were unarmed.
A disproportionate number of the victims were Black. In a state where 12.36% of the population is Black, 38% of the victims were Black.
Fatal shootings have been on the rise statewide, with 61 of them occurring in the past two years.
Body cam footage was only available in 27 of the fatal shootings since 2015.
Police are rarely charged in fatal shootings, but the exact number isn’t known because the database doesn’t include this information.
According to the data, nationwide, police shot and killed 8,015 people since 2015, with 1,084 of them occurring so far this year. – Steve Neavling
Northeast Ohio Will Get a New Area Code as 440 Numbers Will Run Out by 2024
Northeast Ohio will soon have a new area code as 440, introduced in 1997, will run out of available numbers by 2024, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio announced this month in approving a new overlay for the region.
When implemented, the new code will be assigned to all new numbers in the areas currently using 440.
When does an area code become exhausted?
PUCO explains:
“An area code reaches exhaust when nearly all of the telephone prefixes (or NXX codes) within that area code are assigned. NXX codes are the first three digits of a phone number that follow the area code. There are 792 possible NXX prefixes in each area code, each consisting of 10,000 numbers. The federal body that administers telephone numbers initially assigns telephone companies whole NXX codes in blocks of 10,000 numbers.”
The new code hasn’t yet been decided, but it will join 234, an overlay for the Akron, Canton and Youngstown areas which began in 2000, as the most recent additions to Ohio numbers. 216, if you’re wondering, won’t run out of capacity until 2036, according to PUCO – both 330 and 440 were created to account for increased demand in the Cleveland area — which is good news since it’s the best three digits of the bunch.
– Vince Grzegorek
DIGIT WIDGET
$8.8 billion
Estimate of total wagers Ohioans will make in 2023 after sports betting goes live on Jan. 1, according to BetOhio.
55
Homeless Clevelanders who died in 2022 through Dec. 22, according to NEOCH.
9,000
Ohio children who became uninsured during the pandemic
400x
The amount Ohio CEOs make compared to their average worker.
