Connecting Lake Erie to the Global Economy

Yesterday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer released a thoughtful op-ed discussing the merits of Cleveland connecting its port with Montreal. The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority has struggled for years to develop a comprehensive vision. Developing a strategic partnership with Montreal is a step in the right direction for opening up our ports to the global economy.


Montreal link with Cleveland port is worth a look: editorial
By: Plain Dealer Editorial Board


They're back. But this time the Cleveland- Cuyahoga County Port Authority is developing a strategy for container traffic within the Great Lakes that could actually hold water -- and make Cleveland a leading innovator for a new form of lakes shipping.

Former ports CEO Adam Wasserman first flagged the idea of expanding the Cleveland port to handle containers that also ship by truck and rail. But Wasserman never moved beyond pie-in-the-sky schemes.

Since taking over after Wasserman's ouster, current port President Will Friedman has been busily establishing the contacts and key planning elements needed to create the first international container service on the Great Lakes. Among them:

• The definition of a route between Montreal and Cleveland. Great Lakes Feeder Lines, a joint American-Canadian company, would provide a vessel to shuttle containers back and forth.

• A demonstration that Cleveland's current docks could handle container cargo without added taxpayer investments. Last month, one of Great Lakes Feeder Lines' vessels was in town to demonstrate how containers could be loaded and unloaded here. Cleveland has the necessary longshoremen, a terminal operator with the needed equipment and the road and rail connections to move goods throughout Northeast Ohio.

• A realistic sense of scale. Cleveland is not going to compete with the Port of New York and New Jersey, which handles more than 5 million containers a year. Friedman figures the feeder line would handle 16,000 containers a year, linking with ocean-going vessels plying trans-Atlantic routes. "We're trying to provide a niche service for Northeast Ohio," he said.

Initial response from Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies in the region has been good, according to David Gutheil, who was hired last month as vice president of maritime and logistics for the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

For taxpayers, the good news is that, unlike Wasserman's approach to international shipping, Friedman's envisions no public subsidy. But it's not all likely to be smooth sailing. 

Transit time and cost must be competitive enough to give ocean shippers a reason to change to a new mode of transportation.  And let's not forget Mother Nature. The St. Laurence Seaway and the Great Lakes freeze between mid-December and mid-February 

Still, the idea of a contained container service between Montreal and Cleveland merits further study. As cargo tonnage on the Great Lakes drops, it is crucial that the port embrace innovative ways of selling its services. And container traffic could help buoy it up.

Community Policing

By Andrew Adrian-Karlin
Contributing Writer

Cleveland has a crime problem. We have triple the national average of violent crime per hundred thousand people and double the national average of property crime per hundred thousand. We need to do something about it. If we want Cleveland to be a livable city people cannot be afraid to leave their house at night and walk down the street, to go to a park in the evening or park their car overnight.

There are a hundred different things that contribute to this problem and solutions to each that will help. Rehabilitation along with imprisonment, an improved economy and more jobs available, better schools and a better funded and more effective police force to name a few. The problem is that most, if not all of these take time to implement. There is something that we as a public can help solve this that costs us nothing and can be done immediately, community policing.

When most people hear about community policing they think of the neighborhood watch and nosy neighbors with nothing better to do with their time. Community policing is just making sure that there are open lines of communication between the police and the community. It is as simple as knowing a couple of officers that patrol your area so that you feel comfortable talking to them if you ever need to. It is about understanding what officers do on a day-to-day basis and learning from them what we can do to take back our streets from those who would commit crimes. It is about changing the oppositional attitude between ordinary citizens and the police that so often colors our interactions.

When I looked into what can be done to bridge the gap between the community and the police I expected to find that the department was lacking in options for the community, but they aren’t. Everything from inspecting your home for security and neighborhood watch programs to auxiliary policing and a citizen’s academy, they have a large number of programs to reach out to the community. While it would be nice if they had more foot patrols so citizens could see them and interact with them on a regular basis, that is something limited by funding and the number of available officers.

Everything I see says that the Cleveland Police Department has done what it can to provide the community with resources to help fight crime around us. However, if you are anything like me, you haven’t ever really thought about getting your building a security inspection, or taking the citizen’s academy, or just sitting outside in the evening instead of inside to make sure that someone is watching the street. So, if community policing can help our communities and the police are prepared for us to stand up and help them, then let’s do it. Here is what I am asking all of my readers today. Do one thing this week to promote community safety, take a class, sit outside in the evening, organize or participate in a neighborhood watch, or maybe just call the police when you see something suspicious. If it works out, maybe do something else towards this next week and while you are at it, post what you did below.