No bonus for the Port of Cleveland boss, for now
The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority board split on whether to give Port President and CEO William Friedman a bonus this year. With several board members missing from the Dec. 14 meeting, the six members in attendance deadlocked, leaving the matter unsettled. Friedman’s contract affords him the potential for up to a 3% bonus of his base salary. He sought the full amount, worth $10,404 this year. The board did back a 2% raise for Friedman, whose salary now climbs to $355,470.
Board Member David Wondolowski, who heads the Cleveland Building & Construction Trades Council, led opposition to the bonus.
Wondolowski and other labor-friendly board members have been critical of Friedman’s move to end a 2018 policy that said 100% of workers on certain Port of Cleveland projects had to be paid the prevailing wage, which is the average wage of similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in a given area. Friedman, arguing that the port was missing out on projects because of the requirement, won narrow backing of the change at a November board meeting.
Wondolowski told Signal Cleveland the bonus is a bad look for an organization that in 2022 asked voters to renew its tax levy.
“I don’t believe public-sector employees should receive bonuses for doing the job they were hired to do,” he said.
There’s nothing stopping the port board from revisiting the bonus issue in early 2024.
Suggested Reading
East Cleveland park plans
The Trust for Public Land recently showed off designs for a reimagined playground at East Cleveland’s Caledonia Elementary, the first Ohio school to get a lending hand from the national noprofit’s Community Schoolyard project.
I told you earlier this month the school’s asphalt playground is getting ripped out and transformed into a park for the school and the community. The Trust for Public Land unveiled details last Friday.
The transformation includes a large grass field for a variety of sports, a walking path accented by bird houses, interactive yard installations that include musical instruments, a garden and a stage, among other amenities.
Trust for Public Land officials said the project is on track to break ground this summer and be completed in the fall of 2024. They also say the design was built around community input and provides access to the adjacent naturescape, which includes a ravine.
You can see some of the detail in the rendering below.
Final note
Before I sign off for the year, I want to thank you for reading, following and participating in the column. It has been gratifying to see people embrace Weekly Chatter with tips, contributions and shares. The goal of the column remains filling in a missing piece of the media landscape – the whispers, news analysis and news nuggets that tell us what’s really going on in our community.
I (and the rest of the Signal Cleveland team) will be back with the next newsletter on Jan. 6.