ED MORRISON LEAVES WEATHERHEAD: JUMPED OR PUSHED? Center for Regional Economic Issues director Ed Morrison, who actually managed to get nonacademic, non-elite Clevelanders to come to the Case campus for substantive discussions of economic development, got his reward from the University today. He's out of a job.

University spokespeople say he quit. Ed says he was fired. And he says why, in Crain's:

“I got fired for doing open source economic development,” Mr. Morrison is quoted as saying. “I pissed off Joe Roman (the executive director of the Greater Cleveland Partnership) and the Greater Cleveland Partnership. Their agenda was threatened and Joe got me out of his hair.”

Gosh, don't you want to hear more about this? Stay tuned...

P.S. Wow, they're not wasting any time. The REI website is already stripped. Here's what it said yesterday, courtesy of Google cache:

REI is working with its partners to change the direction of economic development. For too long, economic development has focused on making incentives to companies, instead of investments in people... building large projects, instead of strong communities... speculating on convention centers and casinos, instead of supporting innovation... encouraging sprawl, instead of restoring neighborhoods... recruiting companies, instead of investing in pre-school children.

You can understand Roman's concern, yes?