The Cleveland Scene this week offers some antidote to the noxious coverage of the Pee Dee on Cuyahoga County reform. Issue 6 ain’t the joy ride into the sunset that the paper would like us to believe.

Issue 6 may be a sunset on real reform.

The Scene’s cover really tells it all: A photo of a menacing hand gun pointed at you. The title: “Give Us Your County and No One Gets Hurt – The story behind the Issue 6 power grab.” Couldn’t say it better.

The article by Damian Guevara (I’m becoming a fan) gives us, if not more facts than the Pee Dee has produced, a better slant on the power issues so crucial to the essence of the new County government Issue 6 would bring to us. You can find it here.

Veteran reporter Anastasia Pantsios writes a piece that debunks the idea the Pee Dee has tried to sell that Issue 6 offers essentially the same kind of reform that Summit County adopted. The title tells it: “Issue 6’s Bait & Switch – Summit County: different process, different result.” Her piece can be found here:

CheckSmart, those “nice” payday lending folks who routinely charge customers a whooping, ungodly 391% apr (annual percentage rate), is now partnered with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an organization which hasn’t had a office in Cleveland or Ohio for at least four decades that I am aware of, and the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus (OLBC), that den of black elected officials whose mission is supposed to be looking out for the best interest of the minorities that elected them.

What’s the aim of this unholy triumvirate? To host — hold onto your hats people, this one is so obscene, so far beyond the Pale, that it defies all sense of probity and logic — “Free Seminars on Financial Education.”

Yeah, you read it right: These greedy bloodsuckers that make their living off of the penury of the working class are now putting on “seminars” that purports to teach folks how to manage their money, and they brought their unsavory tactics to Cleveland last week. And are these pricks ever clever: The held it at a college, to make it seem like real, legitimate education. Cute, real cute.

Here's a news story that you don't hear too often in Cleveland. Like a scene from The Sopranos, robbers armed with assault rifles busted into a Cleveland apartment on Monday evening during a game of high-stakes poker, forcing the players to take off their pants before running off with more than $11,000.

Police reports indicate that one of the seven players went outside to smoke when he was confronted by a man pointing a gun at his face. Two suspects then entered the apartment, took the players' money and wallets, and then forced them to remove their pants. Not quite finished with them yet, the suspects then doused the players in pepper spray.

The players made the mistake of listing the card game on a poker web site.

It has been announced that Cleveland area Congressman Dennis Kucinich will be awarded the 37th annual Thomas Merton Award for work in social justice. He will be presented with the award on Sunday, November 1st at The Merton Center's annual banquet at the Churchill Valley Country Club.

Kucinich has a long history of promoting justice throughout his lengthy career in politics, spanning from his stint as Cleveland's mayor through his career in Congress and runs for the presidency in 2004 and 2008. He has bills for national health care, calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and strongly opposes the North American Free Trade Act.

“Today, Atlantic City, in the eyes of one gambling executive, Tim Wilmott, is in a ‘death spiral,’” that’s the tone of a Sunday New York Times piece on the financial troubles of the city’s casinos.

“Rows of slot machines stand eerily empty,” says the story while hotel rooms are empty. Many casinos have experienced double digit revenue drops, the report said.

The article is far from a hatchet job. However, it does have a cautionary message to Cleveland and other Ohio cities where casinos would go if Issue 3 is passed.

Cleveland will be rolling the dice next Tuesday when voters go into the booths to cast a vote that would give a billionaire a monopoly board contract for a Cleveland casino.

“The economic slowdown has shown that the gambling industry is not quite as recession-proof as was so long believed,” it said of Atlantic City.

And you might like to remember as you go into that booth the promise of Atlantic City’s gambling sales people:

“Billed as a ‘great experiment’ in urban redevelopment, legalized gambling was pitched to voters as an effort to reverse Atlantic City’s long decline…”

Sound familiar?

The office of Governor Ted Strickland announced today that that Ohio energy research projects have received more than $17.3 in stimulus money. One of the recipients was right here in Cuyahoga County as Momentive Performance Materials of Strongsville was awarded $4.5 Million. Here is the full release from the Governors office:

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland today congratulated four Ohio projects that received more than $17.3 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for advanced energy research. These projects were among $151 million in federal funding awarded to 37 major research projects nationwide from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“We are grateful to Secretary Chu and the U.S. Department of Energy for providing these funds, which will allow us to enhance our state’s advanced energy capacity, and to the Ohio congressional delegation for supporting the Recovery Act and Ohio’s applications,” Strickland said. “Being among awardees such as MIT and Stanford University is a testament to Ohio’s competitive position in the advanced energy field.”

Case Western Reserve University announced today that their Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing will receive $3.7 Million in federal stimulus money. CWRU said on their website:

The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing (FPB) at Case Western Reserve University was recently awarded $3.7 million in six stimulus grants from various federal offices to fund innovative research and academic programs.

Funded projects include establishing a new center of excellence on end-of-life science; expanding the Self-Management Advancement through Research and Translation (SMART) Center with a program to involve more disabled persons in the subject side of research activities; developing new electronic tools to reduce health disparities; testing the effects of early therapeutic mobility among hospital patients; combating the nursing faculty shortage through a forgivable loan program for graduate students; and providing opportunities to disadvantaged students.

"The stimulus awards represent that the hard work of our dynamic faculty and staff is unique, relevant, and, most of all, needed," says May L. Wykle, the Marvin E. and Ruth Durr Denekas Professor and Dean of the nursing school.

Damian Guevara in the Scene last week had a take on the Issue 3 that has been neglected by most, including me, but touches on a damaging game among Cleveland developers. They vie among themselves for advantage no matter what the cost to community.

It has cost us plenty over the years.

Guevara points out that Forest City Enterprises would be a winner if the measure passes. And that its rival, Jeff Jacobs, wants to stop it, making him the winner.

The battle between the two families – Jacobs & Ratner – has been going on in Cleveland for years. Neither cares much about the damage they cause the city.

“The question for Greater Clevelanders,” writes, Guevara, a former Plain Dealer reporter, “Do you trust wealthy pro-casino interests – in this case, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert – to deliver on the latest promise of blue-collar and hospitality jobs, multi-million-dollar tax payments and yet another facelift of downtown Cleveland?”

I’d say no.

He calls the manipulation of the constitution inherent in a “yes” vote for Issue 3, a “deal-breaker” for many.

But the beneficiaries are clear, he notices.

The general election is fast approaching and everyone seems to have an opinion on Issue 3 which would bring in casinos to the Buckeye State if it were to pass next Tuesday. The Downtown Cleveland Alliance came in with a late endorsement today writing in a press release:

Downtown Cleveland: The Downtown Cleveland Alliance (DCA) formally announced its support for State Issue 3 today. The Alliance joins the Greater Cleveland Partnership in its backing of the constitutional amendment that would legalize casino gambling in Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus.

“Our number one mission is the continual progress of Downtown into a thriving, urban core for our entire region,” says John Carney, Chairman of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance Board. “Issue 3 has the potential to be a major benefit to our local economy, if it is done right. We feel strongly that Dan Gilbert’s downtown proposal will ensure the maximum benefit to Downtown and the surrounding region by building on the investments the private and public sectors have already made.”

On Monday morning the Audit Bureau of Circulations released the latest figures for the six months ending in September 2009, and they're not pretty. Circulation at many of the country's largest newspapers continued a downward slide. In Cleveland, The Plain Dealer experienced a 11.2 percent reduction in daily circulation and was down 4.9 percent for Sunday circulation.

Nationwide, of the 379 newspapers that file with the organization, the average daily circulation was down 10.6 percent at 30,395,652 and Sunday circulation for 562 reporting papers was down 7.4 percent at 40,012,253. This marks one of the most severe drops in overall circulation.

At the PD, daily circulation now stands at 217,180 daily and Sunday circulation is now at 390,636. According to Editor & Publisher, the PD is now No. 16 on the list of the country's top 25 newspapers according to daily circulation, just barely inching ahead of No. 17's Detroit Free Press.

It sounds like additional job cuts are more inevitable than ever.