Excerpted from "What Happened Now?", a lively newsletter roundup and analysis of the top stories in Northeast Ohio from News 5's Joe Donatelli. It’s like getting the news from a friend who sees your Facebook comment shenanigans.
Every big storm in Northeast Ohio has three acts on social media
In the first act, we tell our followers that bad weather is coming, and while I’m sure most people quietly appreciate this information, a vocal contingent responds with, “So what? It’s normal Ohio weather. You’re hyping nothing. Wahhh!” OK, they don’t say “Wahhh!” in real life, but they do in my head. In the second act, when our meteorologists are streaming during severe weather, the tone changes to, “OMG it sounds like the end of the world where I live am I going to die save me Power of 5 meteorologist Trent Magill!” In the final act, when the threat has passed, it becomes, “We weren’t warned.”
OK, OK, it’s not everyone who’s like that, but those comments get some attention, and while it’s easy to get frustrated (look how much I am writing about this!), I’d rather just encourage anyone who is a character in that three-act play to download the News 5 app, because if you have the app, you’d have known this week that we expected a lot of rain, our meteorologists spent hours on streaming platforms keeping people safe, and the storms caused tens of thousands to lose power, falling trees, roofs to fly off buildings, flipped carports, flooding on roads and two confirmed tornadoes.
IF YOU TAKE NOTHING ELSE FROM THIS ENDLESS RANT: Do not rely solely on social media to get your news and weather. The companies that control the algorithms do not have your or my interests at heart. They don’t care about local news or safety. Get your news directly from the source.
The East Side Market has closed
While not as ambitious or storied as its West Side counterpart, it offered residents healthy food options. Now it’s gone, with doors locked for good overnight. The City of Cleveland shut it down, saying the entity that runs it had fallen way behind on property taxes. That organization is NEON (Northeast Ohio Neighborhood Health Services), a nonprofit that’s been in the headlines the last few years for all the wrong reasons.
Some things close, some things never close
The East Side Market is something the administration would have preferred to keep open, and it’s closed. The administration would like to close Burke Lakefront Airport, but it’s open. What a world. If the city does manage to close the airport, Michelle Jarboe is here to report that it will NOT be easy. Closing an airport could require an act of Congress, or possibly waiting out the FAA, or getting the FAA’s approval, or possibly sacrificing The Grand Basilisk to appease Amun, god of wind. None of which is easy. (Especially since the whereabouts of the feared Sword of Durendal remain unknown.) For its part, the National Air Show (in league with Amun?) is not letting go of Burke without a fight, and it hit back with the most powerful force imaginable – a strongly-worded letter released on Instagram.
Everything is up in the air at this point. Should the demolition of Burke move forward, there is a growing call for the city to think bigger about a lakefront that could be (but does not yet look like) the crown jewel of Downtown Cleveland. So help me, if this thing ends up being a golf course, that would be a travesty and also sorta the most Cleveland outcome possible. Which is why I hope everyone involved in this project is reading Steven Litt. When it comes to the discourse over the future of our lakefront, this is the good stuff.
Same scandal, different outcome
A couple of years ago, the HB6 bribery scandal trial landed former Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder in prison. Earlier this week, a state trial ended in a hung jury when jurors could not agree on a verdict for the FirstEnergy executives accused of involvement in this * GESTURES WARILY * mess. What happened to this case? It was a long trial – a lot. Signal reporter Jake Zuckerman has some theories.
Stories worth mentioning but not worth getting into a whole big thing about:
- An effort to recall Mayor Justin Bibb is underway. What did the mayor do? He did Mayor Bibb things, like needing a lot of security, traveling, spending a good deal of money, and being slow with public records requests. It’s stuff that’s been reported on before, but these activists have had enough.
- If it seems like there are more potholes this year, that’s because there are more potholes this year. I base that on being a human being who drives our roads, and the fact that Cleveland pothole repair requests are up 50 percent after our gnarly winter. At least they closed up that giant sinkhole Downtown! Wait, no, they did not.
- You can’t have it both ways in Ohio. That’s the really good point of this Toledo Blade editorial, which points out that Republicans running for office in Ohio who say everything is terrible in our state are essentially campaigning against their own record because this has been a one-party state forever. The rare self-owning political messaging.
- No Cleveland chef has won a coveted Beard Award since 2015. Our next best chance is Vinnie Cimino, whose food can be found at Cordelia and Rosy. It’s fancy food, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t care. My Italian-American is showing. His name is Vinnie! Let’s go!
- You OK, JD Vance? I ask because it’s not every sitting vice president who pushes back on the idea of aliens by saying, nah, it’s not aliens, they’re actually demons. But that’s what he did. (If these be demons, I shall organize a search party for the Sword of Durendal posthaste. We meet at Squire's Castle at dawn.)
- You know it’s bad news when it comes out after business hours. The CMSD sent a letter out last night saying that layoffs are coming. How deep? That’s unknown. But they’re coming.
- Artemis II has taken Northeast Ohio into space. No, not literally. That’s Artemis XII. We’re all going. To escape RITA. This particular Artemis is all about flying to the moon (but not landing) for the first time since 1972. NASA Glenn’s contribution to Artemis II was testing the capsule, which is the thing that keeps the astronauts alive, no big deal or anything.
- There’s a Tim Misny movie coming out. It was inevitable that this sentence would eventually be written.
- Cleveland magazine made a list of 26 things to love about Cleveland right now, and while my newsletter was somehow accidentally left off the list through what I’m sure was simply an innocent oversight, it’s still a nice list.
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