DO THE JOB STATISTICS MISS ENTREPRENEURS? George's permalinks still aren't permalinking, so you'll have to go to the top of BFD and scroll down a few entries to "Callahan by the numbers" to see Anita Campbell's comment about my last post and my reply to it.

It would be nice to get a comment or two here... but heck, I'll take what I can get.

CLEVELAND METRO AREA "GAINED" 6,000 JOBS IN MARCH: The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their metropolitan area employment numbers for March this morning, as promised. The Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria MSA shows 1,100,500 nonfarm jobs for March compared to 1,094,200 in February and 1,090,300 in January. Good news, right? Except that the March number is 20,000 jobs lower than the figures for October, November, and December, as well as last May and June.



These numbers are not seasonally adjusted, and Cleveland seems to have an annual first-quarter slump, so it may be too early to see anything important here. Over the last full year (March 2003 to March 2004) the BLS shows a metro job gain of 8,600 -- about .8%. If this continues, we may see local employment through the Summer and Fall that's slightly higher than 2003 and 2002, but still 20-25,000 jobs below the 2001 level. Look at the Summer peaks in this longer-term line:



So is this a "recovery"? I guess it depends on whether you're one of the lucky 8,000, or the unlucky 20,000.

THERMA-GONE?

I really, really hope I'm wrong about this. From all reports, Carol Latham has been a spectacular entrepreneur, a model employer and good citizen of her neighborhood. Maybe she really believes that her company can continue to prosper on Detroit Avenue as a small division of its new multinational owner. Maybe she's right.

But...

Here we have a $15 million-a-year patent-driven family-owned startup, with less than a hundred employees, being bought by a multinational with 4,500 employees spread around dozens of facilities in ten countries, with annual sales between $700 and $800 million. The new owner, Laird Group, has already bought two other thermal-product companies in the last seven months to add to its Laird Technologies division, which makes a wide range of components for circuit board manufacturers -- Thermagon's main market. The biggest, fastest-growing piece of that market is in Asia. In the last four years Laird has closed plants and laid off workers in the U.S. and Britain, while making major investments in production capacity in China, Korea and Japan.

So how long will Latham get to run Laird's "thermal materials business worldwide" and produce Thermagon's products -- mostly for export to China and other faraway circuit-board centers -- from that rehabbed building at West 47th and Detroit, with her "special culture" of neighborhood workers? And what happens when she retires?

Thermagon, our spunky inner-city tech startup with a heart of gold, has been one of Cleveland's favorite business stories for years. But it turns out we've only been reading the first chapter. Now it's Chapter 2, the entrepreneur has cashed out, the spunky startup is suddenly part of a big global machine, and the characters and plot become a lot more complicated.

Will this still be a Cleveland story? Will it end happily for Thermagon's West Side workers and neighbors? Will the Laird Group keep the dream alive on Detroit?

I sure hope so. But so far, this neighborhood hasn't seen a lot of happy endings.

NEW CITY COUNCIL WEBSITE: Some time in the very recent past Cleveland City Council put up a new version of its website, and it's a big improvement... still pretty basic, but much user-friendlier than the old one. My favorite new features: the ward finder and the searchable City Charter and Ordinances.

Also, for those obsessing about the "regionalism issue", they've posted the full text of Council President Frank Jackson's City Club speech last Friday.

MARYBETH TALKS SENSE, AS USUAL:

What a lot of people seem to forget is that not every voter forms an opinion about the Cleveland schools from what is reported in the media. Many Clevelander's opinions are developed by what they observe in the community...

If the schools want to get community support, then they need to reach out to the community.

...If every school sent delegates to the neighborhood block clubs and business associations, and became proactive in opening communications, rather than waiting for volunteers to come to the school, it would be so much easier for the voting public to get to know all the good things that are going on in the individual buildings.

In politics, as in education, as in life, relationships are everything. If teachers in Cleveland public schools were the neighborhood leaders they could be, both the schools and the neighborhoods might work a lot better.

Go get em, MB.

OHIO GAINED 8,000 JOBS IN MARCH... leaving the state 17,000 jobs down compared to a year ago.

The U.S. Labor Department released state-by-state March employment statistics yesterday. Here's "Table 5. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by state and selected industry division, seasonally adjusted". Ohio's numbers: 5,381,400 jobs in March compared to 5,373,500 in February, 5,378,600 in January, and 5,398,100 in March 2003.



You gotta look pretty hard to see a recovery in that picture.

For the longer view of Ohio's recent experience, here's a chart generated by the incredible Economagic site. The pink area is the official national recession, which started in March 2001 and "ended" the following November.



The metro area numbers are supposed to be released Wednesday. For the story on greater Cleveland, stay tuned.

THE PORT OF OHIO: Why worry about regionalism? department:

I took an hour off and went to the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority board meeting yesterday. The idea was to learn more about the Ontario ferry project, which I did and will report about later. But I also learned that the Port's economic development bond financing has taken some interesting turns.

The board approved two financing packages yesterday. One was for a manufacturer in Eastlake, which, you may recall, is in Lake County. The other was for a shopping center project in Parma Heights, in which there's another partner -- the Port of Toledo.

It seems that the Ports of Cleveland and Toledo have an understanding that they can call each other in to help sweeten deals. This was Toledo's second investment in Cuyahoga County. Cleveland hasn't put up any bucks for Lucas County yet... but a couple of years ago, both Ports went in together with the State to help finance a food processing plant in Chillicothe.

And you think we have no public officials with regional vision!

This was all explained to the board yesterday by Cleveland Port Director Gary Failor, who just coincidentally used to have the same job in Toledo, where he developed the whole port-bonds-for-other-development-projects thing. Interestingly, some board members seemed to have no idea this has been going on.

MORON MEDIA: Channel 5 gets to the important stuff...

Byrd-Bennett said she will give up her upcoming raise and bonus, some of which she has given to charity in the past, NewsChannel5 reported.

She added, however, that if questions persist about her salary instead of the $100 million budget deficit, she will take action.

"If it is the pleasure of this board and this mayor, I have absolutely no problem in returning my entire salary because my contract is up at the end of December. That way, you will have the opportunity to find a leader for your school district," she said.

Be sure to check out the accompanying poll.

So in less than one news cycle, we've gone from "How to deal with the deficit" to "Should BBB work for free and then leave?"

Aaaaaarghhh!

MORE PUBLIC EDUCATION, PLEASE: Cleveland schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett went to the last two School Board meetings with presentations about large budget cuts to eliminate a projected $100 million deficit for the year starting July 1. At last night's meeting she laid out her layoff scenario, which includes over 600 teachers and about 300 other employees. Here's the Plain Dealer coverage of that meeting.

In preparation for this announcement, the district put letters in all their teachers' mailboxes yesterday. It was no surprise, since talk of layoffs has been circulating for months.

So presumably the district has had time to put Byrd-Bennett's two School Board presentations into html format and post them on its expensive website, where teachers, parents, and other citizens alarmed or perplexed by the news coverage could see what she actually said.

Here's the "News and Information" page of the CMSD site. Note that two press releases were posted yesterday. Note that one of them is headlined "CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett to Address Budget Reduction Process". But the link leads only to an announcement of a media briefing prior to the Board meeting, at which "No specific numbers will be discussed".

Okay, it's early. Maybe it will all be posted later today. We'll see.

But if Byrd-Bennett wants the community to "understand" the district's financial emergency and step up to the big tax hike she wants in the Fall, she'd better start taking steps to help us understand. Step One would be to put aside the made-for-TV histrionics ("Byrd-Bennett fights back tears") in favor of more open, timely sharing of real information, financial and otherwise. You know -- transparency. No more secret Board committees, no more carefully orchestrated press releases. Just put it all out there, unfiltered, free of extraneous packaging, and easy to find. And then be prepared to respond to public questions with real, timely answers.

Here's an example question to start with: If the average classroom teacher makes $45,000-50,000 a year, how can laying off 618 teachers save $61.5 million, as the PD story says?

Here's another: How many kids actually received diplomas from the Cleveland schools last year?

And here's a third: May I please see the District's most recent audited financials and the current year's line item budget?

This kind of information should be available to any Cleveland citizen, with a minimum of hoop-jumping. On the web -- once a capable site is up and running -- this can be accomplished at practically no cost. Right now would be a really good time to start.

I don't mean to be adversarial here. I believe the CMSD needs a tax increase -- should have tried for it last Fall, in fact -- and I intend to vote for any reasonable version of one. I believe that laying off teachers is a bad move. I believe that Byrd-Bennett has been a good CEO, on the whole, and deserves much benefit of the doubt.

But that doesn't exempt her, or the Board, or the teachers -- or the Mayor -- from the simple equation repeated so often in classrooms and halls: Give respect to get respect.

The minimal form of respect owed by a public agency to the public is open, easy, complete access to its information. The Cleveland Municipal School District is still a public agency... an agency that badly needs the voters' respect this Fall. Do the math.

CLEVELAND PUBLIC POWER MAKES HISTORY... But no press release, please. In February, for the first time in living memory, electric bills for at least some residential Public Power customers were higher than bills for the same service from CEI/First Energy.


According to the PUCO's monthly Utility Rate Survey, CEI's monthly charge for 750 kwh in January, February and March was $82.64. CPP's bills for the same usage were $80.28 in January, $83.98 in February and $80.87 in March. The February CPP bill was 2% higher than CEI's.

The February spike in CPP's energy charge was a small anomaly -- the "typical" CPP customer still had a tiny savings over the "typical" CEI customer (about 1%) during the whole first quarter. And the gap during the five summer months may be greater (it was 5% to 9% in 2003). But February's mini-historical event illuminates the shameful fact that Cleveland Public Power -- which still likes to posture as the affordable, competitive alternative to high-cost CEI -- has stopped being part of the solution for city consumers, and is now part of the problem.

The meaningful point of comparison for both Cleveland utilities is the average 750-kwh bill paid by customers of Ohio's other major private electric companies. i.e. those not owned by First Energy. In March, that average was $62.60 -- 29% less than Cleveland Public Power.

COMPUTER VOTING IN CLEVELAND? From the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition via What's Up:

Voter Verified Paper Trail for Electronic Voting -- Town Hall Meeting
Friday, April 23, 2004
Laborers Local 310 AFL-CIO Hall, 3250 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland

Demonstrations of machines with verified paper trail capability from 4-6 p.m.

Discussion from 6-8 p.m. with State Senator Teresa Fedor; State Reps. Peter Ujvagi, Mike Skindell, Claudette Woodard, Shirley Smith, Annie Keys; U.S. Congress Rep. Marcy Kaptur; Bev Harris, author of Black Box Voting

Make sure your vote counts. Don't let the computer eat your ballot. No matter what your political party, your vote must count.

Sponsored by the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition.

Bev Harris' website is Black Box Voting. It offers a free PDF download of her book of the same name.

CUT BEACHWOOD CITY COUNCIL: The Free Times editorial called "Cut City Council" is unsigned, but it sure sounds like Editor-In-Chief David Eden, so at first I thought it was about Beachwood. After all, Beachwood Dave's hometown of 12,000 people has not only a full-time Mayor who makes more than $80,000 a year, but seven part-time Council members... not to mention its own Police Chief, Fire Chief, Building Commissioner, Finance Director, Law Director, Service Director, Community Services Director, etc., etc.. As the editorial says, this does seem a bit "top heavy" for a community with half as many residents as the average Cleveland ward. And I know Beachwood Dave is a hometown community activist, having run for that very remunerative mayor's job a few years ago. (I guess that's how he knows so much about mayor stuff, like he keeps reminding us.)

But then I realized that the editorial is talking about my home town, where the average ward's 23,000 people (who would be Cuyahoga County's 12th biggest city if they seceded) get exactly one elected person to represent them and deal with their daily mountain of neighborhood problems and complaints.

So, okay, Beachwood Dave or whoever wrote this nonsense, listen up: I've been active in neighborhood work in Cleveland for twenty-two years, through three mayors, four Council presidents and about a million downtown/suburban schemes du jour for "bringing back the city". The only real improvement in Cleveland's civic structure during that twenty-two years has been the strengthening of the local Council Members' role in day-to-day neighborhood governance -- the result of better staffing, reliable "ward allocations" of CDBG and other funds, working partnerships with community development groups and planning staffs, and (frankly) smarter Council Members.

Some Councilmen do it better than others, of course, which is why we have elections. But generally the system works far better at the neighborhood level than it did twenty years ago -- which makes it just about unique in modern Cleveland experience.

It works because the territories and populations of the wards -- like those of most suburban municipalities -- are human scale. Council Members who put in the normal fourteen-hour days can return their calls, get to community meetings, pay attention to local project and budget issues, communicate with the safety and service departments, and still show up to legislate. They have a fighting chance to know constituents personally. And when they come up for election, they -- and their opponents -- can still campaign effectively without huge campaign budgets.

Access for ordinary citizens. A capacity for local problem-solving. Face-to-face politics. Yes, it's all a terrible waste of money.

The citizens of Beachwood need to put a stop to it. And Dave Eden is just the Beachwood citizen to get the ball rolling.

Maybe that will keep him too busy to screw up my city.

SCHOOL BUDGET, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL: Max Hayes teacher MB Matthews makes it real.

SHAMELESS PROMOTION DEPARTMENT: I work for Cleveland Digital Vision, a coalition of groups organized to strengthen community technology and tech literacy efforts in Cleveland neigborhoods. We often work with Computers Assisting People, which fixes up and donates hundreds of used computer systems to local nonprofits every year.

On May 12, our two organizations are holding Plug In Cleveland 1.0, a big party to raise money, honor some of the city's unsung Digital Divide heroes, and have a really good time. It's at the Midtown Innovation Center, home of Orbital Research, CleveMed, NeoBio and similar cutting-edge techies. We expect a great crowd, including George Nemeth, Craig and Sue James, Stan Miller of Neighborhood Centers, Chris Warren of Shorebank, Cindy Andrews of IBM, Tom Furnas of ideastream, Tony Houston of the Empowerment Zone, Jim Cookinham, Dan Hanson... well, you get the idea. Not to mention lots of the people who are out in the neighborhoods working for digital literacy and opportunity every day.

It costs $25. You should come. Learn more here. Get your ticket here.

CLEVELAND SCHOOLS SHORTFALL IS $100 MILLION: Channel 5 had "exclusive tape" last night of Barbara Byrd-Bennett choking back tears as she told a School Board meeting about a letter from the Governor announcing more state funding cuts. The Plain Dealer has a less theatrical account of the situation this morning.

For actual information about the School District's finances, see this article in the January Catalyst for Cleveland Schools, which provided some line-by-line background to Byrd-Bennett's November "State of the Schools" speech. And while you're there, read Charlise Lyle's companion editorial, which began:

If the business and political leaders of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County had their priorities straight, Cleveland voters would soon be casting ballots on a much needed school operating levy. Instead, when they go to the polls March 2, they likely will vote only in the primary elections.

And Cleveland's school children likely will pay the price next school year through deep cuts in school staffs, textbooks and transportation.

Civic leaders have known for some time that Cleveland schools are due for an increase in the operating levy; it's been seven years since one appeared on the ballot. They also know that the schools desperately need the money.

This year, the district is operating on a no-growth budget even though costs have risen. And recently, schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett made clear that still more budget cuts are on the way. Yet our civic leaders have spent all their time trying to ramp up for ballot requests to finance other projects that, ultimately, failed to win the public's support.

Uh-huh.

The proposed cuts described in today's PD article are just the beginning. Reportedly the district, which must approve the 2004-2005 budget by June 15, will lay off up to 1,400 workers including hundreds of classroom teachers. Then we'll have a levy on the November ballot, which has been floated as 10 to 15 mills (but would have to be more to reverse all these layoffs and program cuts). 15 mills is close to $30 a month for the owner of a $75,000 home.

Who's in charge of this slow-motion train wreck? Byrd-Bennett is cast as the protagonist, but she's ultimately just a $300,000-a-year hired hand. The School Board has to pass the budget and authorize the levy, but they're an obscure, unelected sounding board for the CEO. The only elected official responsible to the voters for the affairs of the School District is... Mayor Jane Campbell, who appointed them all.

Yup... we're about to see how Mayoral Control works when the shit hits the fan. Would an independent, elected School Board have allowed the rest of our "civic leadership" to put off the levy this long? Will this unknown, unelected Board have any credibility with the public when it counts -- either in explaining major program cuts or asking for a big tax hike? Or will this all come down to the shredded coattails of the Mayor, whose career would be ended by a loss, but not necessarily ensured by a win?

All this and the Presidential election, too. It's gonna be quite a Summer.

AND SPEAKING OF THE CLEVELAND SCHOOLS... Here's a little peek at someone doing it right, from MB Matthews.

ABOUT THOSE 308,000 JOBS: Don Iannone echoes the general elation about the national job growth figure for March.

Here's a less enthusiastic perspective from MaxSpeak:

If you like the payroll "establishment" survey, we have fewer jobs now than when the recession ended in 2001, an execrable record.

If you like the household survey, reputed to reflect the creative upsurge of self-employment and entrepreneurial initiative, job growth for the past two months is negative, and the employment level now is lower than in the fourth quarter of 2003.

So tell me again how the tax cuts have worked? What events would signal that they had not worked?

Some more detailed analysis along the same lines here.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics won't have state and metro-area breakdowns of these figures until mid-month. I'll be watching this site with great anticipation.

P.S. Just took a closer look here and realized that "mid-month" is off by a fair amount. The BLS release date for state-by-state job numbers is April 23; for metro-area numbers it's not till April 28.

OUTSOURCING: One of my two favorite bloggers on national economic issues is Brad DeLong, former Assistant Treasury Secretary for Economic Policy in the Clinton Administration who's now teaching at Berkeley. (The other is Max Sawicky of the Economic Policy Institute, who argues with him on a regular basis.)

This morning DeLong put up two long posts about the "outsourcing issue". The first is a draft of an article he's writing with his Berkeley colleague Stephen S. Cohen. The second is a long quote from a piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal by David Wessel.

You should read them.