Thursday, June 7, 2007

Thursday Grab Bag

I had a chance to meet the young man with cerebral palsy who is being evicted by the University of Akron. Really nice guy. I hope he and the Zip leadership can find some middle ground on his health aid needs. It seems like initial reports made the U of A out to be tyrants but I’m finding that they’ve really gone the extra mile to make sure they’re not setting themselves up to provide a level of support for one student that they wouldn’t be able to duplicate for other special needs students.

I had a chance to chat with Marco Sommerville, President of Akron City Council yesterday. He told me that he thought Mayor Plusquellic took a few too many body shots during “News Night Akron” a few weeks ago. (For those of you not familiar with the program, NNA is a reporters’ roundtable discussion on Friday nights at 9 p.m. on PBS 45/49.) Back on May 11th, the panel discussed the failure of the income tax levy and whether the 2-1 vote margin was a shot at the Mayor as much as it was a defeat of the issue. Some of the panelists felt the parking lot debate fueled some of the “no” votes and some of those folks most certainly were casting anti-Don votes. I’m not sure that any of the panelists took too many rabbit punches as Plusquellic, but Marco and I had a good chat nonetheless.

There are hot rumors about a new tenant for Jillian’s downtown that involve pro athletes. That’s all I can say right now, but I’m looking to nail it all down.

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