art credit: yahoo.com
Last night, I attended a meeting at the new Hilton
Hotel; the meeting was for Clevelanders who live or work in the downtown neighborhoods
and who will be affected by the RNC convention next month. My guess is that
there were over 300 Clevelanders in attendance. Among the members of the panel
were
·
Joe Calabrese, CEO and General Manager
of RTA
·
Valarie McCall from Mayor Jackson’s
office
·
Joe Marinucci, CEO of Downtown Cleveland
Alliance
·
Two Secret Service Agents, Rowe and
Lea, assigned to this event
·
Ed Tomba, Deputy Chief of Cleveland Police
Useful information included:
· identifying the event zone, which
includes just about all of the downtown area;
· limited street access for vehicle
traffic (more per the link below)
· recommendations for traveling in and
out of the downtown area during convention week (if at all possible, use the
RTA Rapid Transit);
· RTA will be operating double the number
of free trolleys (presumably the E-Line, B-Line, and C-Lines) during convention
week;
· business operating hours will be extended
to 4 a.m. – so be prepared for more partying as many bars and restaurants will
be staying open till the wee hours;
· Cleveland PD plans a significantly increased
police presence, on the streets, on horseback, on bicycles, in and out of
uniform, and augmented by LEOs from across the country and also with Secret
Service agents;
· the malls at the Convention Center
will be dedicated to media use
LAW ENFORCEMENT:
The takeaway most important to me was that Deputy Chief Ed Tomba stated flat out
that if someone breaks the law, whether assault, property damage, etc., law
enforcement officers are under instruction to make arrests and remove the individuals.
Nobody wants to see the violence and police impotence that we saw on TV and on
blog videos recently from San Jose.
For updates and information specific to Cleveland
residents, start at the website here: https://www.2016cle.com/community-updates.
The panel promises more updates (some of the sections are already outdated). If
you live or work in the downtown event zone or near it, you might want to
bookmark the website, especially for updated transportation and safety issues.
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