Brewed Fresh Daily

Youngstown is moving ahead with its new Center of Excellence in Materials Science and Engineering.

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s approval of Youngstown State University’s doctorate in materials science and engineering aims to spur economic growth.

Fingerhut announced the approval during a visit Thursday to YSU. It is part of the university’s plans to be an emerging Center of Excellence in Materials Science and Engineering.

YSU science objective gets chancellor’s nod

and

YSU’s new doctoral program will boost research reputation

John Kasich thinks so:
Kasich would privatize state development efforts

Others aren’t so sure:
Florida privatized economic development efforts. It didn’t turn out so well.

The truth of the matter is that the privatization decision is a complex one. This fact is especially so in economic development, where it is not always clear what the government is trying to get with a private contract and what it actually receives.

Some look at privatization as a way to cut through the slow moving bureaucracy. At the same time, privatization raises the risks of nondisclosure, weak accountability and inside dealing.

If a government appears confused or, worse still, does not know what it is buying, privatizing these services is not the answer.

In other words, privatization has both a bright side and a dark side. Where you end up depends in large part on whether or not you know what you are doing.

It’s not all that simple.

If you are interested in exploring these complexities, read Jack Donohue’s book, the Privatization Decision.

I’d rather see Kascich and others explore new approaches to economic development, based on networks. Turning the Department of Development into a more lean, agile and flexible set of managed networks — to stimulate open innovation within regional economies — represents a promising strategy. The Democratic candidate for governor in Maine is exploring this approach.

The reason? The practice of collaborating across organizational and political boundaries is gaining momentum in the state. Here’s how Maine’s Labor Commissioner, Laura Fortman, introduced a workshop last week:




Maine Commissioner of Labor introduces Strategic Doing from Ed Morrison on Vimeo.

Here, the book to read is Stephen Goldsmith’s Governing by Network.

Achieving transparency in the finances of Cuyahoga County government will not be all that expensive. That’s the conclusion of looking at state government transparency efforts.

Here’s a sample of web sites:

Alabama
Colorado
Georgia
Nebraska
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Utah
Virginia

Here’s a report that reviews these initiatives.


California Government Transparency Report: Online Tools for Better Government


Today’s LA Times includes a story on a new trend emerging in policing in which predictive computer programs churn through huge crime databases.

Stopping crime before it starts

Check out Neotropolis and it’s main story on how Cleveland is now the site for one of the largest urban farms in the country. You can learn more from Mark Lefkowitz at Green City, Blue Lake: Ohio City Farm opens in shadow of West Side Market.

Also, check out how the Great Lakes Brewing Company is connecting to the opportunity.

Also, the Scene Magazine includes Anastasia Pantsios’ article on urban agriculture. Downtown on the Farm.

Here are some other links:

Urban Food Policy Expert Says Urban Gardens Can Promote Health, Community, Maybe Economic Development-But Don’t Expect Overnight Change
Slow Food Northern Ohio blog
PD Article in 2009: Cleveland’s for-profit urban gardens are growing
City Fresh: An initiative from Ohio State
OSU Extension in Cuyahoga County
Some history on Cleveland’s urban agriculture
Urban Agriculture News
U.S. Department of Agriculture: Urban Agriculture and Community Gardens

The Wall Street Journal blog posts a shout out to JumpStart.

Cleveland Rocks? JumpStart Wants To Make It So

It’s never been quite clear why Cleveland has not embraced the Rock Hall in it’s branding and leveraged it to promote a younger, edgier entrepreneurial image (as clearly Youngstown and Akron are doing). Maybe this article signals a starting point. One barometer of how lost the Rock Hall is to Cleveland is the airport, where the Rock Hall reveals itself in a small corner store, one short hallway of posters (Concourse B) and a small wall poster with a microphone stuck in front (Concourse D).

Of course, Thomas Mulready has seen the gap and is filling it with CoolCleveland and Neotropolis.

Nonprofit OneCommunity receives a grant to add nearly 1,000 miles of of fiber-optic cable to their high-speed broadband network, enlarging its range to 27 counties. What does this mean? The OneCommunity “middle-mile” fiber project will create a broadband superhighway for robust and affordable connectivity services through an open and provider-neutral network infrastructure. This means the [...]

The ordinance passes 12 votes to 7 — see Plain Dealer article:

Cleveland City Council finally passes legislation to seek bids for purchase of LED lights
By Mark Gillispie, The Plain Dealer, August 18, 2010.

It was the Jackson administration’s second try at convincing council to give one company the exclusive right to sell the city LED lighting for 10 years in exchange for building a manufacturing facility here and creating 350 jobs. See full article here.

I hope the best for the Administration and our City, but am very disappointed by the lack of due diligence Council placed on reviewing this legislation.  In both rounds of deliberations, the Administration touted their strategies without any third party expertise and Council leadership did little to dig into the matter.

The end result is a very restrictive bid process that limits competition and ignores trying to partner with the largest lighting company in the US, GE as well as the upstart Green Mill Global LLC and their partners from South Korea, Fawoo Tech North America.

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Other comments today that I made at cleveland.com

Although this is complicated and multifaceted it breaksdown to some basic issues:

1. The ordinance as passed is very similar to the original and primarily seeks to attract a sole-source provider for the City’s LED lighting needs with the promise of 350 jobs within 5 years  (30%, or 105 which will be required to be Clevelanders).
2. The technology and industry are developing very rapidly and firms are making overstated claims about products that are ultimately not living up to claims when actually tested.
3. Most if not all other municipalities in the USA are taking an approach of piloting products and building relationships with multiple firms.  Those cities internationally that are doing more procurement from single source companies are doing so with subsidies to those firms by their government, e.g. China.
4. Cleveland has the USA’s largest lighting company in our region and will not provided equitable terms within the ordinance for that company to be able to fairly compete with what we expect from the RFP.  The ordinance requires a job count and jobs created only in Cleveland.  Those of us who opposed the ordinance were barely given the opportunity to bring third party expertise into the deliberations.  When we did, the suggestions and amendments we had to include a count of payroll generated (as opposed to only a job count), or to include in the economic benefit analysis the jobs and payroll generation of jobs within Cuyahoga County, i.e., GE in East Cleveland, less than two miles from our City, were not given any consideration.

Ultimately the Mayor and his Administrations got what they want with a few important concessions/amendments added.  The Administration was always quick to point out that there are sufficient exit clauses and warranty requirements so we can get out of the deal we eventually broker.  That does not build much trust or faith that this strategy will work, but at this point I hope some good can come from this.

Brian Cummins
Cleveland City Council, Ward 14

The business community in Indianapolis is starting to focus on the economic costs of poor school performance.

Last week, Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and now president of the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education, made the following points to the business community:

An estimated 6,700 students dropped out of the class of 2008 in metro Indianapolis.

If just half of those students had completed school, their increased earnings potential would total $42 million annually.

That increase in income would add $55 million to the region’s economy.

It would provide $5 million in state and local tax revenue.

High cost of dropouts hurts all of us

To reinforce the message, the Indianapolis Star has been publishing articles that focus on the challenge of educating children and young people in Indianapolis. Read more.

If you’re curious, the dropout rate in Cleveland’s schools has gotten worse.

It now stands at 68%.

Despite all the talk about a new economy in Cleveland, there is not much chance of success until the business community shifts its focus from real estate development to the conditions of Cleveland’s school system.

A casino, a Med Mart, even a grand plan to complete Burnham’s plan for the city will all be swamped over time by the poor performance of the city school system.

[ August 24, 2010; 5:00 am; ] Tue 8/24 @ 5:30 - 7:30PM Hey, sustainable biz leaders: Network, collaborate and engage with like-minded green entrepreneurs at the next EcoTuesday Cleveland event, featuring Dr. Michael Schoop of Tri-C Metro. Dr. Schoop will elaborate on the exciting initiatives driving Tri-C ahead as a champion in sustainability. Hear about his asset-based, values-driven approach toward building a [...]