Cleveland’s two-year lawsuit against a Shaker Square-area landlord was set to go to trial Feb. 25. But days before that, a cyberattack halted the wheels of justice across Cleveland Municipal Court.
A magistrate postponed the trial. It was one more bump in the city’s case against Shaker Heights Apartments Owner LLC, the owner of the set of apartment buildings along Shaker Boulevard.
In a February trial brief, the city’s lawyers previewed their arguments. Among other maintenance issues, they wrote that the buildings’ heating systems were in such bad shape that management gave out space heaters to tenants — a fire hazard.
City Hall wants Cleveland Housing Court to declare the buildings a public nuisance and turn them over to a receiver. The receiver would be able to renovate the buildings and potentially sell them.
The trial brief for the landlord said that the company “has been assaulted with a constant barrage of inspections by the City,” but that it had taken steps to fix the violations. The brief described the treatment as “politically-motivated City harassment.”
Both sides have assembled long lists of potential witnesses. The city’s witness list includes building inspectors, a fire captain, a police officer and several current and former tenants. The defense is also prepared to call a few building inspectors to testify, along with a roster of maintenance workers.
A new trial date has yet to be set. A pretrial hearing is set for May 8.
Parking it at the West Side Market
The West Side Market is receiving a splashy $28 million investment with the help of Cleveland Development Advisors. With that infusion of money, the market’s new nonprofit operator can start a $53 million phase of renovations to the 113-year-old Ohio City building.
While the market may be rolling in dough, the bread hasn’t fully risen in the parking lot.
The Cleveland Public Market Corp. is projecting $498,000 in parking revenue this year. The market’s master plan sets a loftier goal of $800,000 per year.
Under the new parking setup launched last year, the lot gates are gone, and now a thicket of signs invites visitors to pay for spaces on their phones via a QR code.
At a Cleveland City Council hearing this week, Ward 2 Council Member Kevin Bishop asked market leadership about the new setup.
“How are you going to make that parking situation feasible to folks that are not accustomed to using the QR code?” asked Bishop, the chair of the municipal services and properties committee.
Market Executive Director Rosemary Mudry replied that customers can pay for parking at a physical kiosk, too. (It’s between the lot and the market’s east arcade.)
Mudry said the market has taken a “cautious” approach to enforcing the parking fees, giving customers time to adjust. The first 90 minutes of parking are free during market hours. The master plan called for only 60 free minutes.
There are only so many ways that the market can bring in new money, Mudry said: fundraising, vendor rent and parking.
“Something is going to have to give, and so we’ve made it clear that we’re going to have to continue to look at parking and ways to increase it,” she said of the revenue raised at the lot.
In other words, the West Side Market is leaving money on the table. Or, rather, on the asphalt.
New venture for the G-man turned newsman
Former Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald is back in the news. His own.
FitzGerald has launched Heart of Ohio News, an operation that consists of a website, a fleet of Facebook pages and video newscasts read by FitzGerald himself.
“We created this publication to help address the serious lack of local news and information in Ohio,” he said in a video introducing the effort. (We welcome the competition.)
FitzGerald is a former FBI agent and the 2014 Democratic candidate for Ohio governor. He told Weekly Chatter that he is working on the project with a team of about six people. At the center of his model are more than 200 Facebook groups for cities and townships from Toledo to Medina to Cleveland.
He said he’s tapping into “pretty sophisticated” proprietary software to distribute his content across those platforms, though he didn’t elaborate further than that.
It’s not FitzGerald’s first venture into local news. He invested in a set of local print publications a decade ago. Several years ago, he helped create a website called Cleveland Neighborhood News, which he then sold, he said.
During the 2021 Cleveland mayoral race, Cleveland Neighborhood News published articles needling Justin Bibb — for instance, by dinging Bibb over his downtown apartment. FitzGerald, who served as a pollster for Bibb opponent Kevin Kelley, said the website’s editorial turn happened after his direct involvement with the outlet ended.
Asked whether there would be a political angle to Heart of Ohio News, FitzGerald invoked America’s tradition of newspapers with political views. Even Joseph Pulitzer, the namesake of one of journalism’s highest awards, ran for Congress, he pointed out.
“If Heart of Ohio News ends up having a point of view on something, that’s our right under the First Amendment,” FitzGerald said, “and I’m sure there will be things that we have a point of view on.”
Bibb digs at Republicans in D.C.
Cleveland’s mayor tried out some zingers at the annual meeting of the African American Mayors Association in Washington, D.C., this week.
Bibb lamented the challenge of crafting bids for federal money to match President Donald Trump’s priorities. He called the president’s second term in office “crazy and frustrating and really just sad.”
Nevertheless, mayors should keep trying to win dollars for their cities, he said.
“Unlike our brothers and sisters in the legislative branch of government, we ain’t got the luxury just to resist and not get shit done,” he said.
The mayor was speaking on a panel about infrastructure with the mayors of Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans. The panel’s sponsor was HNTB, an engineering firm that maintains an office in Cleveland just across East 9th Street from City Hall.
Bibb talked up his lakefront development intentions and the $3.5 billion Cuyahoga Riverfront project being undertaken by Bedrock with the help of city tax incentives.
The mayor’s approach to talking about Trump has hardened since the president took office. Just before Inauguration Day, Bibb said he was open to working with the president on common ground. But at the panel, which took place on Good Friday, Bibb emphasized contrast.
“I know who I worship, and it ain’t Donald Trump,” he said.
