Mt. Pleasant NOW selects Nicholas Perry as new director

Community Report

Agency looking to lead neighborhood's renaissance

New director takes helm, says re-boot already underway

Todd Michney’s wonderful book, Surrogate Suburbs: Black Upward Mobility and Neighborhood Change in Cleveland, 1900-1980 [2017], describes a once-idyllic mid-2oth century Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. Today, Mt. Pleasant has fallen so far its name seems an oxymoron, a cruel joke for those residents without knowledge of the time when the area was solidly middle class, its atmosphere so benevolent that white people were slower to flee than most of their cross town cousins.

Last night, the community’s eponymously named community development corporation [CDC], Mt. Pleasant NOW, held a reception to introduce its new executive director, Nicholas “Nick” Perry, and herald a sorely needed new day.

Nicholas Perry

Perry, 46, stepped down as board president six weeks ago to become director. In one of his first acts, he said he has extended the hours of its community center, located at 13815 Kinsman near the once-vibrant Kinsman Ave-Union Rd-East 140 St. intersection. It now remains open weekday evenings for the use of community groups and others until 8:30pm.

Perry also said the agency has redefined its role as a brick-and-mortar CDC and plans to roll out an array of social services over the next 18 months. Citing what he said was his favorite Bible verse, Matthew 5:16, Perry concluded his brief remarks by saying “The Light is on in Mt. Pleasant.”

As part of the program, Mt. Pleasant NOW’s board presented several awards for achievement. Its Humanitarian Award went to Ella Thomas, executive director of Thea Bowman Center, one of the community’s nonprofit anchors.

The business-oriented award went to Akil Affrica, who is putting finishing touches on a new business, the Mt. Pleasant Café that is scheduled to open shortly. Mr. Affrica owns several other eateries, including Zanzibar on Shaker Square.

The Community Involvement Award went to M. Anita Gardner, a housing advocate and executive director of the Concerned Citizens Community Council.

The final award, for public service, went to Ward 4 city councilman, Ken Johnson. In rambling and somewhat unctuous remarks, Johnson, 71, noted that he had been born nearby at the corner East 144 St. and Glendale Ave. He has been on council since 1980 and was re-elected last week.

One interesting tidbit to emerge from the event was how the Mt. Pleasant community has been parceled out among four wards — 1, 2, 4 and 6 — and is served by three CDCs. Three of the council seats have turned over in the past several months, Wards 1 and 2 by election and Ward 6 by appointment. It seems apparent that collaboration and communication if not consolidation will be important if restorative efforts are to have any lasting effect.

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Challenges Ahead for New NAACP | More on Double Dipping

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yesterday was a festive occasion for the Cleveland NAACP as a reported 300 people attended a worship-and-praise service disguised as an installation of the Branch’s new officers and Executive Committee. The event was held at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church, where the newly installed branch president, Rev. Hilton Smith, and first vice president, Rev. E. T. Caviness, are associate and senior pastors, respectively.

The program was notable for several reasons, including its ecumenical outreach that saw participation from representatives of Methodist, Jewish, and Episcopal organizations, as well as several notables including US Chief Judge Solomon Oliver and former television anchor Eleanor Hayes.

The feel-good event included remarks from Smith outlining an ambitious agenda focused on education and mentoring, economic development, fair housing, mental health issues, and increased membership.

Underscoring just how difficult it will be to achieve these lofty goals was this statement from Smith, as reported in this online account:

"Our youth know nothing about the NAACP. We have to educate them, and re-educate them. We have some young professionals who are Uncle Toms, and we made them that way. They have to be taught the history." — Rev. Hilton Smith, Cleveland NAACP president

Whatever Rev. Smith meant by this remark, and whom he may have had in mind will have to await explanation on a different day. But the remark has already raised many eyebrows.

An accurate telling of the NAACP’s century-old body of work might reflect the organization’s moving in the eyes of many from progressive to radical to a period where, in the 1960s, amidst some the grandest days of civil rights, NAACP leaders were denounced as “Uncle Toms” by more aggressive civil rights organizations.

Smith’s statement does underscore the continuing debate in large parts of the black community over issues racial identity and racial solidarity. A lot of African Americans sense in the hostility of many whites towards President Obama because his election is a reminder that the United States is numerically every day becoming less and less of a white country. By the same token, many black people — including apparently, Rev. Smith — still side with the recently discharged sports commentator, Rob Parker, who we discussed here last week.

Parker was perhaps reading from the same textbook as Rev. Smith, questioning whether the highly-touted Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was “black enough” because, among things, he has a white fiancée and is even rumored to be a Republican.

This leads me to make a couple of suggestions for the Branch [btw, I am a dues-paying member]. First, let’s refrain from personal characterizations, demonizing, and ad hominem attacks on those with whom we may disagree.  Let’s talk instead about issues, finding common ground among ourselves and with others, and solving problems.

Second, if the local Branch truly wants to reach out to young adults — especially those who acknowledge having at least one if not two feet in the black community [by virtue of birth, marriage, cultural orientation, upbringing, etc.] and who deny that having white neighbors, advanced education, or senior positions in white bastions of power and privilege, makes them by definition any less rooted in the black community — let’s have some properly moderated public discussions that air these very issues.

The open and ecumenical approach symbolized by the selection of the eleven [!] speakers at yesterday’s program needs to be replicated in deed by any NAACP spokespersons who want to argue in favor of equity and fairness.

Black History Month would be a perfect time to start!

More on Double Dipping

We wrote last week about the disdain for his constituents shown by Cleveland Councilman Ken Johnson in his request to be reappointed by his colleagues just days after resigning from his seat so that he could collect both his salary and an enhanced pension, and how equal disdain shown by those colleagues for their institution and their constituents in overwhelmingly approving this legal but myopic maneuver.

We would not be so down on Councilman Johnson if he had followed the approach of Roy Jech in Parma. Jech resigned his council seat on December 31 for the same reason as Johnson: unless he retired in 2012 his future pension benefits would lessen upon subsequent retirement. But Jech, rather than seek reappointment, will wait and ask voters for reelection.

We think that shows a proper respect for those whose support made the pension possible in the first place.

Irreplaceable Ken Johnson? Not at that price!

I was speaking with a friend today who — apropos of an acquaintance who, reluctant to challenge a workplace bully chose instead to reward to reward his nastiness — was musing over the consequences of yielding to bad behavior. We seemed to agree that the culture of an environment suffers when bad behavior goes unpunished.

We had barely finished our chat when the news arrived that Cleveland City Council members had agreed in caucus to re-appoint Ken Johnson to the $74,000-a-year Ward 4 council seat he had resigned just last week. The move, regarded as unprecedented for a city councilman, makes Johnson a double-dipper: he will resuming collecting his councilman’s wage even as he begins to draw down his retirement benefits from his three-plus decades of “public service”.

[Some wags, mindful of Johnson’s less-than-stellar attendance record at council committees, might see this as triple-dipping, on the theory that Johnson was already semi-retired.]

Johnson had resigned because of a change in state law that would have reduced his pension benefits had he chosen to retire anytime after December 31.

Ken "I'm Mr. Irreplaceable" Johnson

While I think double dipping is a practice best restricted to very special circumstances if not banned outright, it is state law and Johnson has taken advantage of it. Given his me-first request, there was little doubt a majority of his fellow council members would support it, no doubt empathizing with his situation.

Johnson is now having his cake and eating it too, in full view of those who pay for the ingredients, bake it, serve it, and clean up afterwards. Most of them struggle to afford even the crumbs of such munificence.

The part that bothers me most is that some of these elected officials seem to think they are indispensable. The reality is that Cleveland would function just as well if Johnson were in his own rocking chair instead of the public one from which he purports to render leadership on behalf of its constituents. Faced with a choice between finding a worthy successor and feathering his nest, he looked in the mirror and cried, “Me!”

What's next, declaring himself Mr. Ward 4 Emeritus?

Respect for the councilman and his colleagues took a sharp hit when Council sanctioned this bit of selfishness. Let’s hope he doesn’t compound this insult and injury by standing for reelection.