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LONGTIME ARTCRAFT BUILDING TENANTS GIVEN ONLY WEEKS TO LEAVE AFTER CLEVELAND POLICE HQ ANNOUNCEMENT

FOR SOME 15 YEARS, THE BULK

if not the majority of Wally Kaplan’s charcoal or pastel portraits have come to life in a small, 625-squarefoot studio she shares with two other painters in the ArtCraft Building on Superior Avenue.

Her neighbors have been there even longer: Across the hall, painter Baila Litton has worked out of her space for 30 years; up on the fourth floor, Jesse Rhinehart’s been painting for some 28.

Come December 16, Kaplan and the majority of ArtCraft’s artistic milieu will have to find another place to work.

The 102-year-old warehouse at 2570 Superior is set to transition ownership to the city of Cleveland as the new home for the police department come 2025. Two-year-old development conglomerate TurnDev will be aiding the handoff to the city from current owner GBX in 2023 for what a recent press release called an “adaptive re-use of a vacant historic building” via a “gut-rehab renovation.”

But there’s just one minor problem.

“It’s not vacant,” Kaplan said. “I’m here. There are a lot of people still here.”

ArtCraft veterans like Kaplan, who thrived off the building’s affordable rents and warehouse window vistas, claim that, due to unreliable communication between the owner, manager and tenants, they’re being rushed to disperse a commune they’ve claimed as home for decades.

“I didn’t know anything about it until last week,” Kaplan said in her studio on Monday, regarding the city’s selection. “Obviously they knew something — they had made this proposal. But we didn’t know anything about it.”

Like ArtCraft’s dozens of other tenants, including Cleveland Offset and Baron Image, Kaplan received a letter on September 30 from TurnDev manager Jon Pinney indicating that her leasing format would be ended due to the ArtCraft’s age. Kaplan said that tenants like her had a casual, handshake agreement with manager Hanna CRE for freak buyout scenarios — “At least six months notice,” she said.

“Given the deteriorated state of the premises,” Pinney wrote in the letter, “in order to facilitate restoration, the best course of action is to terminate month-to-month tenancy.”

He added: “This is an unexpected inconvenience to you and we are truly sorry.” (Pinney did not respond to a request for comment.)

Up on the fifth floor, where Jesse Rhinehart’s industrial still-lifes have been created and displayed since 1994, there’s a similar situation to Kaplan’s.

“I’ll never find a place this good again,” he said, noting that while he’d assumed for years a time would come when he’d be asked to leave, he’s not exactly clear how he’ll be able to clear out his 1,200-squarefoot space in the next ten days.

“The problem with all of them has been the lack of information,” he said from his workbench overlooking I-90. “They act very secretive and very quiet, and they don’t really give you much information until, ‘Well, it’s time to go!’”

Like most of ArtCraft’s artistsin-exodus, the plan for Kaplan is to reside in the Twist Drill Building at 4700 Lakeside, along with 70 other artist tenants, many of whom were former ArtCraft’s tenants until earlier this year.

But Kaplan sighed when talking about the new space, knowing she will be paying twice as much at Twist, with half the square footage.

“There’s no question this was a bargain here for us, for artists,” she said. “Nowhere compares rent-wise. Nowhere.”

Guitar Riot is one of the few tenants who reached a deal to stay in their spot past Dec. 16. Owner Brent Ferguson told Scene they’ll be moving to a standalone building in Ohio City in “late March.”

– Mark Oprea

Artist Wally Kaplan, of Beachwood, stands in her studio at the ArtCraft Building where she’s worked for the past 15 years.

MARK OPREA

In GCC Event, Experts Decry Cuyahoga County’s High Rate of Sentencing Juveniles as Adults

Concerned Clevelanders gathered at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church on Tuesday, December 7, to hear from experts and activists at an event organized by the Greater Cleveland Congregations on the controversial use of the bindovers, the process by which juveniles over the age of 14 have their cases transferred to adult court for prosecution and sentencing.

The issue is a crucial and critical topic locally: Cuyahoga County sentences more minors as adults than every other urban Ohio county combined — 97 in 2021, 94% of whom were Black.

“We stand as those who care and believe in the acorn theory,” said Rev. Dr. Jawanza Colvin. “That an acorn, and likewise a child, has everything in it to be everything it was meant to be. It just needs to be put in the right environment.”

Juvenile bindovers come in two types. In a mandatory bindover, the charges require this transfer. In a discretionary bindover, the juvenile court judge chooses to transfer the case. Both extract the juvenile from the rehabilitative focus of the juvenile justice system and expose them to the punitive adult system,

advocates say.

“Bindover[s] [were] used really rarely in the history of juvenile justice systems and [it] was always up to the judge,” said Leah Winsberg, staff attorney with the Children’s Law Center. “However, in the 1990s, we saw false rhetoric labeling children of color as super predators. While we know that super predator myth wasn’t true—it was debunked—and that crime wave that was predicted never arrived, we still have these laws on the books and they still predominantly harm children of color.”

Although bindovers have decreased statewide, Cuyahoga County’s cases remain high. In 2020, Cuyahoga accounted for more than 40% of all Ohio bindovers, more than Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery and Summit combined. Slightly more than 91% of these youth were Black, according to the Ohio Department of Youth Services. 2021 numbers were no better.

The potential harm for minors in adult facilities is well documented. In addition to missing educational opportunities, these minors are twice as likely to be physically assaulted, five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, and eight times more likely to commit suicide, according to Dr. Richard Redding and the Department of Justice. Because of this, many juveniles find themselves in solitary confinement.

“Beyond just the harm, or the impacts on the child, that bindover really harms our community and makes all of us less safe,” said Winsberg. “When we compare them to their peers who are kept in the juvenile system for the same or similar offenses, bindover youth are 34 times more likely to commit an additional felony offense.”

Community calls to action on bindovers are nothing new—and they’ve been successful before.

“We have eliminated and narrowed transfer laws, increased the age limit for bindover and obtained commitments from prosecutors to ban the use of bindover in their jurisdictions,” said assistant state public defender Katherine Sato.

But Sato says that more work needs to be done, especially in Cuyahoga County, where the public defender’s office represents only 2025% of juvenile defendants.

That office implemented a vertical defender model, which utilizes a team consisting of an attorney, a social worker and an investigator. However, this model is only used in cases represented by the public defender. If a judge decides to appoint private counsel or the juvenile’s case is a conflict of interest for the public defender’s office, the child does not have access to the vertical defender model.

“We have consistently advocated for an increase in appointments and would like to see a more uniform assignment rule that would ensure greater representation of juveniles by the Public Defender’s Office,” Chief Public Defender Cullen Sweeney told Scene.

The Tuesday night panel also discussed blended sentencing, the practice where a juvenile is sentenced to a juvenile facility as a minor with the potential to serve longer in an adult facility and, as bindover sentences cost taxpayers more than the alternative, urged county council to reconsider how it spends its budget.

“If the children are protected and able to rehabilitate when they make mistakes, and able to join society effectively and successfully, ready to be productive, that is our guarantee of future success,” said TaKasha Smith, executive policy director of the Juvenile Justice Coalition. “Your county council, your county executive’s office, have already proclaimed and committed to at least trying to end structural racism. So fund programs that will do that, fund behavioral health and mental health, fund the therapy that will actually bring those changes about.”

In reaction to GCC’s panel, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Alexandria Bauer told Scene, “We find it surprising that law enforcement, prosecutors, victims, victim advocates, and sitting juvenile judges were not brought to the table to discuss such a key public safety matter.”

Bauer also said the prosecutor’s office only considers age, offense and criminal history in deciding whether to file a discretionary bindover motion.

But for the GCC community and the experts who spoke, the harm done to children comes without benefit to the community.

“It’s not about being soft on crime,” said Winsberg, “It’s about being smart on crime.”

– Maria Elena Scott

Racial breakdown of Ohio bindovers in 2020. Data from the Ohio Department of Youth Services.

10% of MetroHealth Employees Deal With Food Insecurity and Trouble Paying for Housing, Study Says

MetroHealth made ambitious strides to identify and improve social determinants of health in patients in recent years, but a study found that some of its employees face the same challenges – including food insecurity and financial strain — as the poorest Northeast Ohioans that it serves.

The study, published in the Journal of Primary Care and Community Health, surveyed more than 1,900 full-time employees from June to October 2021 using the same intake screening given to patients.

Employees were asked about food insecurity, financial strain, transportation difficulty, inability to pay for housing or utilities, intimate partner violence, social isolation, infrequent physical activity, daily stress, and lack of internet access.

Among respondents, 10% reported an inability to pay for housing or utilities, 11% reported food insecurity and 12% reported financial strain. These numbers increased in certain departments, with 20% of those in administrative support and 32% of those in clinical support reporting financial strain.

In 2021, the same year employees were surveyed, ousted CEO Dr. Akram Boutros was paid $2.1 million in total, including $416,000 in supplemental bonuses the board contends were unauthorized and in violation of his contract.

As a report from the law firm of Tucker Ellis commissioned by the board notes, Boutros used benchmarks in social justice, including improving outcomes in underserved communities, in the self-evaluations that determined those supplemental bonuses.

For his former employees, in addition to financial challenges, 48% of respondents reported social isolation and 58% reported daily stress.

The study concluded that, “Health systems should routinely screen employees for social determinants and adjust salaries, benefits, and assistance programs to address their social needs.”

For its part, MetroHealth said in a statement that it “hired a social worker to help employees connect with community resources related to food assistance, financial literacy, transportation, and childcare” and that two of MetroHealth’s locations “share space with community-based organizations to facilitate social assistance.”

For the employees facing food insecurity, housing insecurity or financial hardship, MetroHealth says they “are referred to the MetroHealth Opportunity Center to enroll in financial coaching services.”

– Maria Elena Scott

Board Recommends Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul Be Removed From Bench by Ohio Supreme Court

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defendants, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul himself was last week urged to be punished for his own misbehavior.

On December 9th, about a year after a complaint was filed against him, the Board of Professional Conduct in a 63-page report recommended that the Ohio Supreme Court remove Gaul from the bench and suspend his law license for one year for violating a host of judicial rules of code and conduct.

The three-person panel detailed inappropriate commentary by Gaul in eight cases from 2014 to 2021.

Gaul, who has been on the court since 1991, made distasteful asides to the Black Lives Matter movement, called Black defendants “brother,” and referred to women involved in civil stalking order cases as”mistresses,” among other things, the report said.

In one case from 2017, Gaul addressed a defendant during his sentencing hearing after the judge found him guilty of two charges of owning weapons under disability.

Before entering a minutes-long soliloquy riffing on Grand Theft Auto’s effect on “latchkey kids” and “Rocket Man” Kim Jong Il’s “bringing the curtain down on us all,” Gaul told the defendant, “Lucky man. Lucky man. If I was standing at the window of a car with a gun on you, you wouldn’t have quick drawn me. I would have busted a cap in you.”

Some of the findings were far more serious: In one case from 2016, he allegedly coerced a guilty plea from a defendant who was later acquitted in a new trial.

Gaul’s language, the board said, goes against expected judicial practice. Besides noting Gaul violated a rule that “a judge shall be patient, dignified and courteous,” it also suggested his “impartiality might be reasonably questioned.”

This isn’t the first time Gaul has been reprimanded for his behavior. In 2010 he was given a stayed six-month suspension by the Ohio Supreme Court.

He didn’t much change after that.

Serial, in its third season focusing on Cuyahoga County’s criminal justice system, delved into Gaul’s rich history of color commentary and his apparent “political incorrectness.”

Host Sarah Koenig wondered, given universal agreement that Gaul acts and talks inappropriately, from concocting apparently unconstitutional probation conditions to berating defendants, why he hasn’t been held accountable.

That day might be coming. The Ohio Supreme Court is expected to decide on Gaul’s case in early 2023.

The Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association on Monday issued a statement supporting the report’s findings.

“We support the Board’s recommendation which calls for accountability for the misconduct and will await the final determination by the Supreme Court of Ohio which represents the final step in the disciplinary process,” it said.

Gaul’s violations, they explained, “can lead the public to question the evenhandedness of the administration of justice and the integrity of the judiciary.”

– Mark Oprea

Little Italy’s Development Chief Steps Down After Three Decades as Neighborhood Debates Future

After 27 years overseeing development in Cleveland’s Little Italy neighborhood, development that in recent years has included modern condos and townhomes and angry phone calls from people who would prefer the neighborhood not change, Ray Kristosik last month announced his resignation as president of the Little Italy Redevelopment Corporation. He will be moving on to become general manager of Baci Winery, in Madison, on January 1st.

In a statement posted on Little Italy’s Facebook page, Kristosik expressed gratitude to the city and the neighborhood for allowing him to act as a mediator between Little Italy’s Old World charm and its evolution.

The latter tended to lead to heated emails from old-time residents and comments at monthly neighborhood meetings ever since LIRC’s founding in 1994.

Kristosik’s job shift comes as the neighborhood aims to release a new feasibility plan to take up where Kristosik left off.

“Maybe we didn’t get everything correct for all, but I believe LIRC did a good job in effecting change,” Kristosik wrote in a letter November 30th, “bringing in new neighbors, stakeholders, and making our neighborhood the vibrant place it is to live.”

Little Italy 2000, LIRC’s predecessor, was created in 1994 to monitor the design review process, and to communicate with the Cleveland Landmarks Commission, as new construction permits began to pick up in the mid to late 1990s.

As Kristosik explained to the Plain Dealer that year, “We want to make sure that what they build is going to enhance the area.”

The enhancement turned out to be relative. As Case students and University Circle doctors relocated to Murray Hill and Mayfield, developers grew hip to the residential change. In 2003, the 20-unit Villa Carabelli townhomes project was built on Murray Hill, followed by 15 hypermodern lofts on Random Road in 2005.

As the NIMBYisms hit his inbox, or showed up to design review meetings, Kristosik hired a consultant to draft a master plan in June 2004, hoping to please the neighborhood’s two sides, architecturally speaking. Kristosik said the change was healthy.

“Some of the people yelling at the meetings have been yelling for 40 years,” he told the Plain Dealer in 2004. “If we don’t do this stuff, we fizzle.”

Angela Spitalieri Ianiro, director of the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation, who will hire a consultant team to help decide LIRC’s next chief, said she agrees with Kristosik’s eye for evolution, which includes Panzica’s low-rise building on Cornell.

“It’s a neighborhood with a lot of old blood and some new blood, and we try to do the best we can to make sure everyone’s happy,” Spitalieri said. “Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don’t, but we do try to make everybody in the neighborhood happy.”

Pamela Dorazio, the curator of IAMCLE, a Little Italy-themed museum that Kristosik helped bring to the space next to Presti’s Bakery on Mayfield in 2019, said Kristosik always kept the neighborhood’s century-old history in mind.

“He tried to find a compromise between the new developers who want to go completely to the nth degree with their developments and taking up a whole block,” she said. “So he’s really worked to try to keep it within the guidelines.”

Roughly 170 Little Italy residents, past and present, convened in the basement of the Holy Rosary Church in November to honor Kristosik and talk openly about future preservation.

Along with praising Kristosik for “the credit that he is due,” Council President Blaine Griffin, whose Ward 6 includes Little Italy, spoke about what’s to come after Kristosik officially departs.

In a speech, Griffin proposed a new community benefit agreement, which riffed heavily on tax abatement language. He also suggested pursuing LOOP legislation — a Longtime Owner Occupants Program — that, Griffin said, could “freeze taxes for longtime homeowners as new development comes in.”

After the speeches concluded, participants who recalled the old “STOP BULLDOZING LITTLE ITALY” sentiment said Griffin’s assessment is long overdue.

“Changing the tax abatement program?” Celeste DeSapri, whose family spent decades in Little Italy, said. “That should have happened a long time ago.”

“Oh absolutely — like five years ago!” her friend, Joyce Baratucci, said.

Kristosik, who spent most of the ceremonial block club meeting standing near the church kitchen, said it’s been difficult over the past three decades.

His parents still live in a single-family house off Fairview and Murray Hill, but he sees the necessity for evolution.

“Sure, there are those that are exhausted from the construction,” Kristosik said after the meeting. “But you live in a dense area, and not all density is bad. It’s not all bad — in fact, most of it is good.” – Mark Oprea

DIGIT WIDGET

$1,800

Fine issued to a Beachwood attorney by a federal magistrate for vaping during a civil trial.

60

Percent of Ohioans who support a $15 minimum wage.

2

Days apart that Grandpa (Paul Baum) and Grandma (Vera Baum) of Grandpa’s Cheese Barn fame died.