ABANDONING NEIGHBORHOOD RETAIL STRIPS: One of the many undiscussed issues surrounding the Steelyard Commons project is the shift it signals in City Hall's neighborhood commercial development policy. In hitching its policy to a megabox "power center" featuring a Wal-Mart SuperCenter, the Campbell Administration is abandoning a twenty-year strategic commitment to neighborhood retail strips -- nodes of small and mid-sized stores serving households within a mile or two.

This Steelyard Commons marketing site, caught Tuesday by Jeff Hess, makes the whole thing pretty clear. SYC is a "regional power center serving an untapped trade area with no competition... This development will create a new regional trade area in a previously underserved and impenetrable market."

What's this "untapped trade area with no competition"... this "impenetrable market"? For the answer, take a look at this city neighborhood map with a three-mile circle drawn around SYC, represented, naturally, by a frownie-face.



You can see that this circle includes all or most of nine neighborhoods (not counting downtown and the Industrial Valley). Each of these neighborhoods (Old Brooklyn, Brooklyn Centre, Stockyards, Detroit-Shoreway, Ohio City, Clark-Fulton, Central, North Broadway and South Broadway) has its own community development corporation, or shares a CDC with the area next door. Each of these CDCs has a longstanding commercial development program focussed on preserving and expanding local shopping opportunities in one or more retail nodes. In most of these programs, neighborhood food markets -- i.e. small to mid-sized supermarkets -- play an essential role as local amenities and anchors for other local shopping.

The little colored squares on the map are those food markets. Blue squares are Dave's Supermarkets, green squares are Tops Markets, brown squares are independents. The orange square in Ohio City is the West Side Market. I haven't included discount groceries like Aldi's, but Brooklyn Centre, Detroit-Shoreway and Broadway have those, as well. The square with the "x" in Clark-Fulton is the recently closed Tops on Clark Avenue -- which would be the subject of a neighborhood crusade right now, if it wasn't for the Wal-Mart SuperCenter looming just over the hill. Where you see a colored square, there is almost certainly a larger "local retail" node that's been nursed, marketed and invested in -- by the local CDC, by the City, by the foundations through Neighborhood Progress -- for ten, fifteen or even twenty years.

The business plan of Steelyard Commons is to pull lots of the local customers away from neighborhood retail nodes, effectively wiping them out. That's not scare talk... it's a simple statement of obvious fact. SYC's big anchor is Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart wouldn't play unless it could sell food. The principal market area for a SuperCenter is generally described as two miles around for food, and five miles around for other goods (that's why so many small cities are seeing one built at each end of town). Who are the "untapped, impenetrable" customers for Wal-Mart in that magic circle? They're the people now shopping at Dave's, the Bi-Rite on Fulton, Gillombardo's Tops on Broadway -- the local shoppers who make those local retail strips sustainable.

By supporting -- pushing, celebrating -- this SYC/Wal-Mart business plan, the Campbell Administration is abandoning the City's twenty-year commitment to food-anchored neighborhood shopping districts in these and (eventually) other neighborhoods. The Mayor will hotly deny this, of course, but there's really no other rational interpretation that fits the facts.

The circle on the map is a retail blast zone, and City Hall is escorting Wal-Mart to the launch button.

Why is this not a fighting issue for even one of Campbell's opponents? There you have the great mystery of this election year.

IT'S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD-CLASS: Remember the "world-class steel heritage museum" that was going to be part of Steelyard Commons? Turns out it's going to have a whopping six hundred square feet of display space. It's not clear whether that includes the bathrooms. Jeff Hess has appropriate comments.

VIRTUE IS ITS OWN AWARD: Congratulations to Brewed Fresh Daily for winning the Free Times "Best Cleveland Blog" Freebie Award. (No link, the FT website's down for maintenance.)

The squib says Cleveland Diary was a "runner-up" for the award. That would be a distant runner-up, running way back in a crowded pack. But it's nice to hear anyway. Thanks, FT.

TUESDAY BRAIN BLOGGING: Click on the brain in the jar.

NEW COMMENT POLICY: As of two minutes ago, it is this site's policy to delete any comments that are both a) anonymous, and b) irrelevant to the post they're attached to. Comments which fall in only one of these categories will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

GRAY AND WHITE, PART 2: Anonymous commenter "Mike" says:

it was common knowledge in the law enforcement community that white was forced to step down from office and pledge to never run for public office again in order to escape an indictment from the feds. where have you guys been?

I wouldn't take this seriously from an anonymous source, except that it squares with what I was told by a knowledgeable person that I know very well. "Mike" could just have been feeding that person's words (quoted at the end of the post) back to me, of course. One thing's for sure: If Mayor White cut a deal with the Federal prosecutor, it sure isn't "common knowledge" in the community of ordinary, oblivious citizens who read the newspaper.

Which might be because it isn't true, of course.

Does any of this matter any more? Yes. Mike White remains a major influence in Cleveland politics. People from his close staff and Cabinet occupy positions of public and community trust. Just months ago (i.e. until Frank Jackson announced) there was media speculation about the possibility of White running for mayor again. What happened at City Hall barely four years ago is not old news... especially if it hasn't been in the news at all.

(It is possibly relevant that in 2001 and 2002 the U.S. Attorney for Northern Ohio was not Republican Greg White -- Bush's 2000 Northeast Ohio campaign co-chair, appointed to the job in 2003 -- but Emily Sweeney, appointed by Bill Clinton.)

MY TINFOIL HAT DEPARTMENT: I heard my first grassroots conspiracy theory about the Nate Gray stories on Friday. A friend who works at an East Side community agency told me her colleague's consensus is that the PD held back the story until last week because they were waiting for a mayoral candidate they liked better than Campbell... but seeing none, they've decided to support Campbell, so they released the anti-White stuff to make her look good by comparison.

I don't think this is a very satisfying theory (Why would Clifton have humiliated himself for two weeks? Where does Scene fit in?), but it's okay as a game-opener. Here's one I like better, which should be popular among my fellow Democrats:

U.S. Attorney Greg White and PD publisher Alex Machaskee are both partisan Republicans and former Northeast Ohio Bush campaign leaders. Seeing that Coingate and its many outgrowths are wreaking havoc on their friends, they cook up the release of the Gray documents as a diversionary Democratic scandal. But they need extreme deniability. So a defense lawyer is somehow enlisted to show the documents to the PD... the PD lets it be known that it has something momentous but fears prosecution, creating a major brouhaha... Scene is given a peek, giving the PD "no choice" but to publish... prosecutor White waxes indignant and calls for an investigation. Voila! Coingate is no longer the scandal du jour in Cleveland.

Like that one? I made it up myself. That is, I think I did...

PASTY, WHITE OLD GEEKS AND OTHER ODDITIES: PD City Hall reporter Olivera Perkins has been working on this story for at least a month. Isn't that unbelievable?

The last actual event mentioned in the story (the "recent house party") took place almost three weeks ago, on July 6. The "recent" meeting of bloggers at Metro Joe's was a week before that (I was there). If Perkins did any follow-up interviews from those two events -- other than the obligatory phone call with the AFL-CIO's John Ryan -- it sure doesn't show in the story.

The two-week lapse between Perkins' note-taking and actual writing may explain why, in more than twenty column inches of atmosphere and "color", she was unable to quote two consecutive sentences from anyone but Ryan. (He got three really short ones.) And also why she failed to present a coherent account, in or out of quotes, of even one of the reasons people gave her for opposing the Steelyards Wal-Mart.

Like, for example, why people like me insist that Steelyard Commons is in line for a hefty public subsidy, contrary to what City Hall and her paper have been saying. Perkins writes:

There was talk about stalling the project because the Steelyard developer is getting federal tax credits through a program for development in low-income areas. Those credits, the bloggers reasoned, amount to a public subsidy, allowing them to push for a public hearing.

The bloggers reasoned? Is there some imaginable way that $32 million in financing, subsidized with Federal tax credits arranged through the Port of Cleveland, would not "amount to a public subsidy"? More to the point, is there some imaginable good reason why a reporter, hearing citizens describe an alleged government subsidy of a supposedly unsubsidized project, would fail to call up the Port to ask: a) whether the citizens are correct; and b) if so, what Port officials have to say about it?

But if Perkins made that call, she's not telling. She's content to note that we bloggers were "excited". (I guess she could tell from the way we rubbed our pasty white hands together.) So who cares if we were right?

I have to admit, I really expected better from Perkins. Live and learn.

P.S. Twelve more days have passed, and the PD still has not written about the Secret Wal-Mart Subsidy... either the $32 million in New Markets Tax Credit financing itself, or the fact that it contradicts repeated claims that SYC is an unsubsidized project, or the bizarre attempt by Port officials to evade public scrutiny through the "private" Northeast Ohio Development Fund. Sorry, but I don't think the "excited bloggers" passage above changes anything. Still counting.

NOW HERE'S A NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING TOOL!

My block as a Google Hybrid Map. (Thank you, Zonk at Slashdot.)

JAIL... OR HELL FOREVER? Okay, now we find out whether the PD's lawyers were right to be so worried about somebody going to jail.

From the AP:

A federal prosecutor asked a judge Thursday to determine how three documents under seal were released to newspapers reporting on a public corruption investigation involving the city's former mayor.

U.S. Attorney Gregory A. White filed the motion the same day The Plain Dealer reported that former Mayor Michael R. White was a target of a federal investigation that began three years ago and that led to the indictment of one of White's friends. The weekly newspaper Scene published a similar report Wednesday.

The prosecutor asked U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin to hold a hearing to determine who disclosed the documents. There was no immediate word on whether Gwin would hold a hearing.

Doug Clifton, The Plain Dealer's editor, said he had not seen the motion and declined further comment. Pete Kotz, Scene's editor, said he intends to protect the identity of the person who gave him the documents.

"If you rat a guy you're going to go to hell forever," Kotz said. "I'm not going to rat anybody."

... The Plain Dealer reported that a lawyer it didn't identify allowed the newspaper to review the memo.

... In the motion, the prosecutor said an intentional violation of the court order sealing the documents could constitute, at minimum, contempt of court.

Several of my friends in the NEO blogging network have attacked Clifton mercilessly for withholding this (and maybe another) story from print for fear of legal repercussions. Now that the story's been out for two days, nobody has posted much about it (just this from Jeff, and this from Right Angle Blog).

What do you think, folks? Should someone should go to jail... or to hell? Will there be a Bloggers Legal Defense Fund for Kotz, Tobin and Clifton?

Just asking.

Update: democracyguy responds.

GRAY AND WHITE: So Nate Gray's other shoe has finally dropped on Mike White. Apparently Pete Kotz's one-day scoop in Scene really was one of (or part of) Doug Clifton's suppressed PD stories, because there it was on the PD's front page this morning.

Yes, it turns out it was material under court seal in a Federal case. And yes, it was the Nate Gray case. You read it here first.

But most people read it in Scene first, so the scalp (along with the chance to print a picture of Mike White in a target on your front page) goes to Kotz and Scene. Now we'll find out if the PD has anything else.

In reading both the Scene and PD stories (and if you haven't, you should), here are some critical things to keep in mind:

1) As mayor, Mike White was a total micro-manager. I mean total. When my wife worked as a nurse for the City Health Department in 1995, setting up neighborhood immunization clinics, every single flyer she produced (not just the template) had to be cleared by the Mayor's Office. Nobody made a move in White's City Hall that White didn't know about.

2) Nate Gray's reputation as a fixer was common knowledge in and around City Hall. I personally heard it joked about in casual conversation with a Cabinet member in 1998... and believe me, I was way outside anybody's inner circle.

3) The Scene story says the FBI found the first big cash deposits into Gray's bank account early in White's first term.

4) White and his wife, a former Lakewood City Council member with a very good job running a big East Side social service agency, both abruptly decided in 2001 to give up the urban rat race for a life of alpaca ranching in Newcomerstown. "Abruptly" may only be the way it appears to us, of course; they might have been planning the change for years. But 2001 also seems to be when the FBI interviews and phone intercepts got hot and heavy.

Several months ago, a usually well-informed person told me that getting out of town and out of politics was part of a deal the former mayor made with the Federal prosecutor. Nothing in yesterday and today's stories contradicts this assertion.

BEFORE THE DOG EATS IT...

Homework from tonight's Cleveland Weblogger Meetup is to list the blogs we always check out in any two-day period. Here's my current list, in no particular order:

BFD
Eschaton
MaxSpeak
Hullabaloo
Cuyahoga County Planning Commission
democracy guy
MaryBeth Matthews
havecoffeewillwrite
Hypothetically Speaking
Lawrence Lessig
Muniwireless
Red Wheelbarrow
NEO Babble

There's a longer list of "Blogs I probably check out in any two-day period, but not absolutely always." Yes, of course you're on it.

BETTER QUESTIONS: George at Brewed Fresh Daily seldom meets a podcast he doesn't like, but he found one posted at Robert Triozzi's mayoral campaign blog.

George asks:

Can we have someone ask better questions? If someone going to interview mayoral candidates, can we please ask something beside “How do you rank Cleveland in safety and what are you hearing from the people”?

George, are we the someone we are waiting for? I certainly have questions I'd like to pose to all the candidates and post their answers. I bet you do, too. And I bet that we, along with our friends, could create an environment in which the campaigns would feel obliged to respond to those questions.

Think we could organize an ongoing no-holds-barred candidates' debate in blogspace?

MAYORAL MIGRATION: It's been a tough election year for Cleveland realtors. Tom Coyne decided that his heart is still back in Brook Park. Ray Pierce packed up all that visionary leadership and headed for North Carolina, where they understand him. Jim Rokakis and Dan Moore both decided to stick with their suburban addresses. Talk about a brain drain! For a while there, it looked like we might have a mayoral election without selling a single house.

But luckily, David Lynch has decided this is his year to save Cleveland. So as of December, he's from Collinwood. As the Republican lawyer and onetime Euclid mayor told the Sun News:

"I moved there at the end of December of last year," Lynch said of his Grovewood Avenue home. "I didn't know if I was going to run for sure when I moved there, but I've since decided that I will."

And aren't we lucky that he did! In his seven months living among us, Lynch has learned that "there is a dire need to improve Cleveland Public Schools, reduce the crime rate and revise tax structures to make it easier to do business in Cleveland." And there's more, courtesy of Right Angle Blog:

[H]e would like to see a regional program established wherein the various communities in Cuyahoga would share in the tax revenues brought in by businesses so that one city isn't competing against another for jobs. Lynch also appropriated Voinovich's line for city government of "Harder and smarter" by recognizing that citizens are basically customers and government must be more responsive.

The lit piece Lynch had available said he was for casinos, but he acknowledged they aren't the panacea. He's also for lakeshore development and a new convention center. He is against red light cameras...

... [H]e'd like to bring the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies to Cleveland, and he'd also like to see Cleveland make a bid for the Summer Olympics.

...Lynch did shy away from talking about the upcoming school levy... It also sounded as if he was going to be signing off/agreeing to Dan T. Moore's Cleveland Action Plan.

Wow, that's exciting stuff. This is clearly a man of deep insight and bold, original thinking, unafraid to take on conventional wisdom and buck the elites. Definitely cut out to be a city-saver. They sure raise'em tough in... Euclid? or Cleveland Heights? Wherever he's from.

Not all our suburban "city leaders" are this superfluous. Rokakis moved to Rocky River when he ascended from City Hall to the County Building, but he's still a serious Cleveland politician with one of the city's biggest voting bases. Rev. Marvin McMickle, a Shaker resident who used to be "mentioned" for Cleveland mayor all the time, spends his days pastoring a church at 89th and Cedar. Dan Moore's "Action Cleveland" program is a mess -- in some respects an elitist, condescending mess -- but he's a smart guy who's built and operated real businesses in a Cleveland neighborhood for twenty years, so you have to take his views about the city seriously.

But David Lynch, parachuting in from Euclid to save us? Is this the best the party of Perk and Voinovich can come up with?

Well, at least we sold Lynch a house. But I hope he kept his realtor's card. Something tells me he'll be looking for it in November, when it's time to follow the crop to another town.

TUESDAY BRAIN BLOGGING: Anyone we know?

TIME FOR A POWER STRUGGLE IN CLEVELAND

I haven't written about Cleveland electric rates since last Fall. But I think the time has come.

Three or four of you might remember (well, I'm about to remind you, okay?) this post from last November, in which I rejoiced that my Cleveland Public Power bill had actually shrunk a little. That was the good news; the bad news was that the relief was a) probably temporary and b) wouldn't really change CPP's status as one of Ohio's most expensive electric utilities, right up there with its "competitor" First Energy.

Unfortunately, I was right on both counts. I just went through my last twelve monthly CPP bills, along with the PUCO's "Utility Rate Surveys" for the same months. Here's what electricity cost a household that used 750 kilowatt-hours per month, during the year that ended with May 2005:


As I've pointed out before, all these utilities are selling the same product to the same kinds of customers for the same end uses. Other than CPP, they're all large investor-owned corporations, all with unions, all operating under the same laws and PUCO regulation. There are dozens of smaller utilities across the state, mostly run by cities and villages like CPP, but all selling power much cheaper.

The extra electricity cost of living in Cleveland rather than Columbus or Cincinnati is as high as $20-25 a month for households with normal usage. If this was a cable bill increase you would hear our screams in Chillicothe. If it was a school levy... well, we'll soon see. If the extra cost to businesses was a tax, the Greater Cleveland Partnership would be up in arms. (The PUCO Rate Survey says that the electric cost differential in June between Cleveland and Canton, for a commercial customer using 300,000 kwh, was about $18,000 a month!)

So why do Cleveland voters tolerate this? Why is CPP, once the "third rail of Cleveland politics", now conducting its publicly owned business in a virtual cone of silence, as far as candidates for Mayor and City Council are concerned?

The Mayor and City Council are the CEO and Board of Cleveland Public Power. So here's the question I want to hear answered by any City candidate who wants my vote this year: If you're elected or re-elected, what's your plan to lower my CPP bills by at least 20% during your next four years in office?

ROLDO ON THE PD'S LANGUISHING STORIES: In his new column at Cool Cleveland, Roldo Bartimole explains how Clifton's tale of two lost stories got into Editor and Publisher, and adds some thoughts about the Nate Gray scenario.

REDFERN RESPONDS: I just noticed that Ohio House Democratic Leader Chris Redfern posted a comment two days ago on my last Third Frontier entry. Here's his comment in its entirety:

Now, now. Let's get that brain stem functioning again... Here's the position I and my colleagues hold on this whole Third Frontier Issue.

We believe that this issue is poorly constructed and gives Ohioans living outside of the 3 C's little reason to vote for it. That being presumed, how on earth does the Governor think he gets this thing passed. All the warm fuzzy feelings one may get about the implementation of this issue don't matter if it doesn't pass in November.

Here's what we suggested and will continue to push: Decouple the Third Frontier from the roads and bridges money and let the two issues stand on their own merits. Barring that, than the Third Frontier Board and the advisory board membership must be changed to reflect the diversity (geographically) of this state. Additionally, all projects funded with public dollars that include construction workers and skilled labor must be paid the prevailing wage. The Third Frontier Issue must not be affected in such a way by the legislature that would hinder the ability of scientists and innovators (ie stem cell research bans), minority Ohioans must have the opportunity to compete fairly for Third Frontier monies. And finally, the campaign itself must not be run by politicians looking to line their own pockets through campaign contributions and hefty contracts.

If Bob Taft wants Democratic votes, he should agree with our concerns.

It's pretty simple, even for someone who needs a functioning brain stem.

Chris Redfern
House Democratic Leader

I appreciate Rep. Redfern's taking the time to respond and his good humor about the "brain stem" theme. I understand his concerns about the GOP 3F proposal (stem cell, prevailing wage, minority access, not mucking up the highway bond question, even geography) as far as they go.

But I'm sorry he didn't speak to the actual issue that was raised here: If we think the Taft/Trakas Third Frontier is a dubious proposition, where are the serious, creative Democratic proposals to promote new business growth, better jobs and equitable participation in Ohio's new economy -- or the old economy, for that matter? Are casinos and Wal-Marts the best we can come up with?

Rep. Redfern (and other Statehouse Democrats), can we talk about this, here at Cleveland Diary or anywhere else you want? It may not be simple, but I don't think it's too much for any of our brain stems to handle.

DISPATCHES FROM THE SWAMP: Hypothetically Speaking keeps churning out lots of informative stuff from the Columbus/Statehouse scandal front. Here are two items he posted yesterday on the Ohio GOP's cascading legal problems -- on Tim Hagan's 2002 campaign kickback suit against Taft and company, which actually seems to be heading for a courtroom, somewhere; and on the Governor's attempts to avoid surrendering documents and possibly being deposed about the BWC/Coingate mess.

People Have the Power also posted a scandal roundup.

For those like SusanG at Daily Kos, who fears that "the rat's nest of Ohio politics [is] being left uninvestigated for fear of jail time" because the Plain Dealer's suppressed stories must be connected to Coingate, there's good news: All the litigation described above is taking place in state and county courts, where Ohio's very strong reporter shield laws apply. Here's Ohio Revised Code Section 2739.12:

No person engaged in the work of, or connected with, or employed by any newspaper or any press association for the purpose of gathering, procuring, compiling, editing, disseminating, or publishing news shall be required to disclose the source of any information procured or obtained by such person in the course of his employment, in any legal proceeding, trial, or investigation before any court, grand jury, petit jury, or any officer thereof, before the presiding officer of any tribunal, or his agent, or before any commission, department, division, or bureau of this state, or before any county or municipal body, officer or committee thereof.

There's a similar section for broadcast reporters. Doesn't leave much room for doubt, does it? If the PD's secret documents concern the operation of a state agency like the BWC, there's very little danger of a reporter or editor getting jail time for protecting their source.

So assuming Doug Clifton is quoting the PD's lawyers accurately, those documents are about something else -- something in Federal jurisdiction. Like, possibly, the Nate Gray investigation.

Update: "Chief justice disqualifies entire Cuyahoga County court". Yes, you read that right. It's the Hagan vs. Taft case mentioned above. Read it and rub your eyes in wonder. (via De Magno Opere)

THE OTHER STORY DOUG CLIFTON ISN'T TELLING: THE SECRET WAL-MART SUBSIDY

It's now been 178 days since the Plain Dealer last mentioned the $32 million in Federal tax credit financing planned for the Steelyard Commons project. It's been 54 days since the paper editorialized that Steelyard developer Mitch Schneider "asked for no subsidies".

It's been 33 days since the Sun News revealed that the secret subsidy plan is still alive and well.

It's been 24 days since this weblog quoted a Port official saying that the Port-created entity which controls the public subsidy, the Northeast Ohio Development Fund, is "not subject to public records or open records or sunshine laws."

But the PD, that fierce defender of open records and sunshine, remains eerily silent. No stories, no indignant editorials. Nothing.

Do you think it's because Judith Miller is in jail?

TUESDAY BRAIN BLOGGING



"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find a duck and a hose at this hour?"

(Confused? Help is here.)

THINGS THEY SEND YOU TO JAIL FOR: So now the whole world has noticed that the Plain Dealer is bravely sitting on two stories "of profound importance" (or so editor Doug Clifton says) because

they are based on illegally leaked documents -- and the paper fears the consequences faced now by jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Lawyers for the Newhouse Newspapers-owned PD have concluded that the newspaper would almost certainly be found culpable if the leaks were investigated by authorities.

Brewed Fresh Daily and Democracy Guy are challenging the PD and the reporters involved to hand the stories over to be blogged. Their challenge underscores the general blogger reaction that Clifton is, in his own words, being a chicken shit.

I have a different question. It appears from the Editor & Publisher quote above, and from the way Clifton talked in the New York Times story, that the PD's lawyers believe the paper would be breaking the law just by printing the material they've somehow acquired. So this isn't just a matter of protecting a source who could get in job or legal trouble. Clifton is complaining that the jailing of Judith Miller has made the PD reluctant to break the law itself, for fear of being prosecuted.

What kind of material might this be? There are two obvious possibilities: documents classified for national security reasons, and documents protected by court order (like grand jury testimony or somebody's sealed records.) The latter seems more likely, especially since Clifton is quoted using the phrase "under seal" in the Times article.

So here's what Clifton seems to be saying: The press should be able to break the law by publishing classified documents or violating court-ordered confidentiality as we see fit, without fearing prosecution. Judith Miller sitting in a jail cell makes us nervous about this. So we're holding back on publishing two stories that are really, really important because we'd have to break the law and "the newspaper" (publisher Alex Machaskee?) isn't willing to risk jail for that.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound to me like it's about either "freedom of the press" or "protecting whistleblowers". It's about wanting to commit civil disobedience without consequences. It's about wanting to be above the law.

Despite all the indignant editorializing about Miller in the last few days, it doesn't seem that her case is really about protecting news sources (let alone "whistleblowers") either. There's endless speculation about what the prosecutors are really after (see this page at TPM Cafe for a sample). But it seems likely that they think Miller took part in at least one conversation before Robert Novak published his Plame column, in which Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent was communicated (maybe by Miller to another party), and someone sought someone else's cooperation in publicizing it. If correct, this would have put Miller in the presence of two criminal acts, possibly as a participant -- the revelation of a covert agent's identity, and the solicitation of the crime of making it public. Should she be able to hide her knowledge of this incident behind "press freedom"? Do reporters have the freedom to commit or protect felonies?

Suppose a reporter gets a call from a "source" who tells her a terrorist bomb is going to go off on a train in two hours and he'll tell her the location -- so she can witness it -- if she agrees to keep quiet until it happens, and protect her source's identity. Suppose she doesn't agree to the deal, but also doesn't call the police immediately and tell them about the call. Fifty people are killed. Does the First Amendment make her immune from prosecution?

Think it over. And think about whether you want the PD to feel free to publish your sealed court records or secret grand jury testimony, without fear of legal consequences, because Doug Clifton thinks they should.

A chilling effect might occasionally be a good thing.

P.S. See Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post this morning.

WRONG WAY JACKSON? I hate people who explain jokes as much as the next guy, but if you just read Geoff's latest guest post and didn't click the link where he referred to "Council President Douglas Corrigan", you may be feeling that you missed something important. So click the link to get the joke.

But be sure to read the whole thing, not just the title, because the joke's a little edgier when you know that Wrong Way Corrigan actually got to his intended destination.

Also let me observe, for the record, that a Draper campaign armed with $250,000 could chew into a lot more than Frank Jackson's base. Jim Draper started out with a law enforcement background and police and fire union support. He's now got business credibility, and lately he's in the media being the candidate who has doubts about the school levy. Skin color aside, that's a profile for Wards 16, 20 and 21. What he lacks -- name recognition -- is exactly what money can buy.

CLEVELAND'S DIGITAL DISCONNECT: The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is considering a request to approve the merger of SBC and AT&T. Dayton Legal Aid, which often intervenes in these cases on behalf of community groups, has asked me to submit testimony about digital inclusion issues. So I've spent the last couple of days staring at polling data on Cleveland residents' Internet use.

The data, provided to Digital Vision by Scarborough Research, is from interviews with more than 300 Cleveland residents, 18 and older, conducted in 2004-2005. While it's not a perfect random sample of the city's adult population, Scarborough says the sample is "stable", i.e. the margin of error is reasonable. Here are some of the highlights:

Barely half of the city residents interviewed use the Internet at all, from anywhere -- home, work, library, etc. Only 41% say they've gone on line from home in the previous month. (55% live in households that have computers.) The percentage of Internet users is slightly lower for African-American respondents than for whites, and significantly lower for respondents "of Hispanic origin".

Of respondents who haven't gone to college, only 34% are Internet users. (Three out of five Cleveland adults fit this description.)

Among respondents with household incomes below $25,000 (that's half of all Cleveland households) only 30% are Internet users.

While the data doesn't say it directly, I infer that the percentage of Cleveland households in the sample with active Internet connections may be as low as 40%. One out of five respondents say they have DSL or cable modems at home.

All in all, Scarborough's data reveals a Cleveland that's still, mostly, not on the Net.

The Scarborough sample is somewhat short on people from the lowest education and income cohorts, compared to their presence in Cleveland's census numbers. So, if anything, the real picture is probably a little bleaker than the numbers above suggest.

Something for us all to think about while sitting in the coffeehouse with our laptops, following George's Wi-Fi tour.

TUESDAY BRAIN BLOGGING: The Brain Drain.

(Found here.)

MICHAEL NELSON AND WAL-MART: I mentioned this in passing in the previous post, but let me lay it out for you.

Michael Nelson, the president of the local chapter of 100 Black Men who just declared his candidacy for mayor, was last seen in the media holding a rally at the Steelyard Commons site to lament the City's momentary "loss" of Wal-Mart. Here's the PD article from March 31 (library card required):

Late protest: The mentoring organization 100 Black Men added another outraged voice over Wal-Mart’s decision not to build a store in Cleveland.

The group held a small demonstration Wednesday at the site of Steelyard Commons, a shopping center project that its developer hoped would include Wal-Mart.

The event was about shopping, but it smelled of politics.

Michael Nelson, president of 100 Black Men, complained — weeks after the fact — that the city failed to land a job-generating deal with the retailer.

The developer and Mayor Jane Campbell have said the company was frightened by legislation proposed by Cimperman to limit Wal-Mart’s ability to sell groceries. Cimperman has said he wanted to protect local grocers.

After the event, Nelson denied that he was siding with Campbell. But he did criticize Jackson, the council president, for not reining in Cimperman.

Now Nelson feels the call to run for mayor himself. Hmmmm, let's see: One more East Side candidate... takes votes in Jackson turf... helps Campbell... makes Wal-Mart's life easier. But I'm sure this is all coincidental.

The PD story about Nelson's candidacy says he serves as "director of development" for the national 100 Black Men of America. "Development", of course, mean fundraising. Wal-Mart has been a supporter of the 100 Black Men scholarship program in Los Angeles and elsewhere, but the chain isn't listed among the organization's national corporate supporters. Who knows, maybe Nelson's just laying a little groundwork.

But whatever his motives might be, Michael Nelson is now the second Wal-Mart Candidate on the Cleveland ballot, along with the current mayor. So... where are the other guys?

IS DESTINY CALLING YOU? Jeff Hess of havecoffeewillwrite, who's been burning up the local blogspace of late, has a bulletin from cutting-edge Syracuse this morning, via a New York Times Sunday Magazine article. The news is Destiny USA, which is

an outsize and extremely unusual mega-mall... [that] aspires to be not only the biggest man-made structure on the planet but also the most environmentally friendly.

Equal parts Disney World, Las Vegas, Bell Laboratories and Mall of America — with a splash of Walden Pond — the "retail city" will include the usual shops and restaurants as well as an extensive research facility for testing advanced technologies and a 200-acre recreational biosphere complete with springlike temperatures and an artificial river for kayaking.

Wow, we better get one of those! Can't let Syracuse get ahead of us... and we don't need no stinking artificial river. Maybe Michael Nelson, our newest mayoral candidate and Wal-Mart booster, will get on top of it. (Note: That last link requires a library card.)

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit in the Times article:

''On every level, this project astounds,'' Senator Hillary Clinton said in April, claiming that the mall could make the area a hub for clean technologies and deliver a shot of adrenaline to upstate New York's ailing economy. To help foot the bill for Congel's project, Clinton and other politicians successfully persuaded Congress to provide financial incentives for mega-scale green development projects. (Destiny, of course, will face little competition to reap those benefits.)

What is it about New Democrats and shopping malls?

IS THIS ANYTHING? (AND WILL IT FLOAT?)


Those wacky pollsters at the U.S. Census must looooove Cleveland. It used to be they'd put out one of their estimates, or projections, or annual updates, and hardly anyone would notice. It was, like, maybe the AP would stick something on the wire for local papers to run on page 14.

But now the Federal datameisters know there's one city that's waiting for their next press release with bated breath, panting to get its hands on their next ranking list, desperate to find out where it stands. Cleveland takes them seriously.

Last August the Plain Dealer read a press release about the 2003 American Community Survey and discovered poverty. There it was, in black and white -- we're the poorest big city! Never mind that the ACS contains some very questionable numbers in other categories. Never mind that all the ACS data comes with big lower-to-upper-bound ranges. Never mind that the basic "revelation" -- that Cleveland's income numbers put it at or near the urban bottom -- had stuck out like a sore thumb in the real Census report two years earlier (and in 1990 too, for that matter). The PD decided it now had some big news on its hands -- and so for the last year, we've all been talking about "Cleveland, the poorest city". (This year's ACS is due out in two months. Do you think the PD will call it progress if we go from 68th to 66th in household incomes?)

Now it seems that this year's Big Census Cleveland News Story is going to be "not just poorest, but smallest". The Census released its annual (2004) Population Estimates yesterday, and they showed Cleveland losing 22,000 people since 1999. Wowza! Clear the front page! Cleveland has its smallest population since 1900!

Since 22,000 lost residents is about 4,000 each year, compared to a ten-year loss average of 2,700 a year in the previous decade -- and we have a mayor running for re-election who promised to get the numbers moving in the opposite direction -- the high story interest might be legitimate... if the numbers were meaningful.

But a closer look at the Population Estimates raises serious doubts about that. As Letterman might say: "Is this anything, Paul? No, I think we'd have to say it's not anything" -- certainly not anything that deserves half the front page.

Here's a good place to start -- the Estimates for Cleveland for 1990, 1995 and 1999, still available in the archives:

1990 -- 505,450
1995 -- 501,228
1999 -- 501,662

And what was Cleveland's actual Census count in 1999, when the official 2000 Census was published? 478,403. That's 23,000 fewer people than the Census "estimated", using the same methodology they're still using. How far off do you have to be to be wrong?

But I'm not complaining about the data itself. I'm complaining about the way the PD used it.

See, from the placement, size and excitable attitude of yesterday's PD article, you'd naturally think that the Census had released the findings of a major new investigation. But that's not true at all. The Census doesn't go out and count heads again every year. No, the Population Estimate is called an Estimate for a very good reason: That's all it is. An informed guess. A ballpark idea. An approximation.

Here's the methodology page for the 2004 Estimate process. It's rough going, but give it a try. You'll notice that the Census didn't actually estimate (or survey, or count) city populations directly. Rather, they tried to figure out what might have happened to county populations based on birth and death records, tax returns, immigration data, etc. Then they tried to allocate the county totals among localities like Cleveland, primarily by way of housing units -- how many we started with, new building permits, demolitions, etc. Both stages of this process are fraught with difficulties, especially in a city like Cleveland with lots of hard-to-trace people and property.

You wouldn't expect a statistics-based updating process like this to get all that close to empirical reality. It's not a "junior Census" (unlike the ACS, which at least does significant polling to generate new data every year.) The Population Estimates are limited, interim planning tools that (no doubt) have legitimate uses in the hands of research professionals who understand their limitations.

But that doesn't seem to describe the editors of the Plain Dealer.

Incidentally, in addition to taking the Population Estimates waaay too seriously, the PD apparently doesn't understand that its big headline -- "Cleveland population lowest since 1900" -- has been true every year since at least 1990.

To sum up: Contrary to appearances, no, this is not anything. And to answer the other key Letterman question: No, I don't think it will float. Too many holes.