CLEVELAND, Ohio – The news usually moves rather quickly on cleveland.com, and today has certainly been no exception. Here are some of the stories from the past 12 hours you might have missed, including Beachwood Mayor Merle Gorden using city funds to wine and dine a councilman and his wife, new charges filed against a former Bedford Municipal Court judge and a challenge to Charlie Earl's candidacy for governor on the Libertarian ticket.
Beachwood Mayor Merle Gorden used the city's credit card to pay for dinner for Councilman Martin Horwitz and his wife during the grand opening of Cedar Creek Grille in November 2012, the councilman said.
Beachwood Mayor Merle Gorden used the city's credit card to pay for dinner for Councilman Martin Horwitz and his wife during the grand opening of Cedar Creek Grille in November 2012, the councilman said. Horwitz said he wrote a check to repay the city for the cost of his wife's meal, which totaled $22.
During a Council committee meeting Monday, Beachwood Law Director Margaret Cannon said city dollars are not used to pay for meals for city officials' spouses or significant others. Cannon's comments erupted a firestorm from cleveland.com readers, who were following live coverage of the meeting, including a person who said he or she was Horwitz's server at Cedar Creek Grille on the night of the restaurant's grand opening.
Horwitz said it was the first time he had attended such an event since he became a councilman in January 2012. He and his wife were having a private dinner after the official grand opening event when Gorden came up and insisted on using the city's credit card to pay the bill, an offer Horwitz said he declined. | Read Chanda Neely's story
Crimes statistics released Tuesday by the Cleveland Division of Police show 66 suspected rapes and 13 suspected homicides have been reported in the city since the first of the year.
Crimes statistics released Tuesday by the Cleveland Division of Police show 66 suspected rapes and 13 suspected homicides have been reported in the city since the first of the year.
The data -- recorded between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28 -- also reveals 1,892 cases of theft, 580 instances of motor vehicle theft and 425 robberies. Crime statistics for the same period in 2013 were not readily available, police said.
A police spokeswoman said it is too early in the year to assess whether there are up or down trends. Last year, Cleveland police logged a total of 538 rapes and 88 homicides. | Read Brandon Blackwell's story
Bedford Heights Municipal Judge Harry Jacob III, indicted last year on bribery and prostitution-related charges, is facing new accusations that he tampered with evidence and records in the case.
Bedford Municipal Judge Harry Jacob III, indicted last year on bribery and prostitution-related charges, is facing new accusations that he tampered with evidence and records in the case.
A county grand jury today issued additional indictments against Jacob related to the December indictments. They include two counts of tampering with evidence, one count of tampering with records, one count of possessing criminal tools and one misdemeanor count of failure to report a felony.
Attorney Kevin Spellacy, who is representing Jacob, declined to comment on the additional charges.
According to the indictments the tampering charges appear to date back as far as April of 2012 and appear to relate to Bedford Municipal Court records. In addition, some of the charges related to a period of time in November when investigators were gathering records as part of their investigation.
Investigators last year subpoenaed records from the court related cases that Jacob presided over, including some involving women who worked out of an alleged brothel on Northfield Road. |
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Workers at the Euclid Creek Tunnel project at East 140th Street in Bratenahl. The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District has given only minimal consideration to a potentially cheaper, greener approach to its âProject Clean Lakeâ â a multi-billion-dollar project designed to stop noxious overflows of the regionâs antiquated storm and sewer system.
Cleveland is better positioned than almost any other city in the country to explore using a federally mandated water cleanup program to transform large tracts of vacant land into verdant, park-like features that could improve the aesthetic of blighted neighborhoods, while addressing the region's longtime problem with overflowing sewers.
The previous decade's foreclosure crisis in Cleveland resulted in the abandonment of thousands of homes and industrial parcels – the kind of land that other U.S. cities hope to turn into so-called "green" solutions to their sewage problems while saving their ratepayers hundreds of millions – or perhaps billions – of dollars.
Yet, despite lobbying from land reuse and city planning experts, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District has given only minimal consideration to the potentially cheaper, greener approach to its "Project Clean Lake" – a multi-billion-dollar project designed to stop noxious overflows of the region's antiquated storm and sewer system.
Instead, the sewer district has committed to spending 97.5 percent of the project's budget on traditional "gray" infrastructure - seven massive underground tunnels will hold untreated sewage and water during rainstorms until it can be pumped to the surface for treatment.
This fourth installment of Northeast Ohio Media Group's ongoing report on the tunneling project – an approach that has cost the typical homeowner thousands of dollars to date – gives voice to critics who say the sewer district has brushed off their potentially cost-saving suggestions. | Read the story by Leila Atassi and Andrew J. Tobias
Libertarian Charlie Earl got good news Tuesday as a federal judge granted a temporary injunction against a law that might complicate his candidacy for governor.
A law professor will hear a challenge today against the Libertarian election ticket that ultimately will decide if the party's gubernatorial candidate appears on November's ballot.
A challenge filed against Charlie Earl, a former state legislator, and his running mate Sherry Clark, alleges that signatures collected on their candidacy petitions were improperly gathered. The challenge was filed with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted by Gregory Felsoci of Rocky River, who is a registered as a Libertarian.
Felsoci, in his challenge, contends some of the people who helped gather signatures did not disclose they were paid and that some circulators were not members of the Libertarian party. If the allegations are shown to be true, more than 900 of the nearly 1,500 signatures on the Libertarian tickets' candidacy petitions could be disqualified. If that happens, the Earl-Clark ticket would not have enough valid signatures on its nominating petitions to qualify for the ballot.
While the challenge deals with the Libertarian's ticket, it clearly is of interest to both the Republican and Democratic parties. | Read Robert Higgs' story