From The Metro Desk Of Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers

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CLEVELAND, Ohio- Democratic Cleveland Mayoral Candidate Ken Lanic (pictured) will host an appreciation dinner at 5 pm this evening at Embassy Suites in Independence on Rockside Woods Blvd. for those community activists and others that support his candidacy and that helped him collect petition signatures to get on the ballot. For more information contact the Lanci for Cleveland Mayor Campaign east side coordinatorat 216-501-7368.

"We filed petitions last week, the campaign is gaining momentum, and the event this evening is to show appreciation for campaign supporters, including people that helped collect petition signatures" said Vernon Bryant, Lanci's east side campaign coordinator.

The millionaire businessman who grew up in a housing project on Cleveland's majority Black east side filed petitions to run for mayor last week with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

County board of elections officials said that the petitions are being verified for potential verification and that candidates for Cleveland mayor need 3,000 signatures to make the ballot this year. Cleveland City Council candidates need 200 verified signatures and the petitions filing deadline for mayor and city council is June 27.

Lanci, who ran unsuccessfully for Cuyahoga County executive in 2010, then as an Independent, hopes to unseat two term mayor Frank Jackson,  a Democrat who is seeking reelection this year.

The nonpartisan runoffs elections for Cleveland mayor and Cleveland City Council are September 10 with a general election on November 5.

From The Metro Desk Of Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473

CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Imperial Women, other community activists groups, Black elected officials and family members of victims of deadly force by Cleveland police and whose love ones have been raped and murdered this year in Cleveland will not meet with Ohio 11th Congressional District  Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (pictured), her district executive director John Hairston, and district office affiliate Linda Matthews on Monday, June 17 as planned and the meeting will be rescheduled.

According to her office staff, the congresswoman had a death in the family and had to cancel. She is in Cleveland today to bury a first cousin, who was like a brother to her, sources say.

Topics of discussion relative to the upcoming meeting include The Violence Against Women Act, the 137 bullets shooting deaths late last year by Cleveland police of Malissa Williams, 30, and Timothy Russell, 43, and other deadly shootings by Cleveland police such as those of Daniel Ficker, 27,  and Kenneth Smith, 20, both unarmed too.

Abduction rape and murder of women and children, foreclosures, jobs, education and the legal system will also be addressed with activists seeking, among other support, a bill by Fudge that would give women and children that are abducted access to a free  elementary or secondary education and subsequent college tuition if they desire and qualify, if the abduction occurs during any formative years of education, kindergarten through college. If women abducted are murdered, the proposed bill would be applicable to their surviving children, activists respectfully request.

Activists will also speak on whether a consent decree or federal  takeover of the Cleveland Police Department might be applicable to seek due to potential unconstitutional and discriminatory infractions against the Black community and others, and because of findings earlier this year by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine of systemic problems throughout the police department continuum following a comprehensive investigation by his office around the November 29 137 bullets deadly shooting.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who is Black, told reporters last week, including Channel 5 News in Cleveland, that he disputes DeWine's findings and that all of the problems, including the 137 bullets shooting, are linked to police rank and file malfeasance, and his police supervisors,  and that his top brass, including police chief Michael McGrath, have done nothing wrong. Activists want a discussion on it and said that such dialogue is necessary, given the manner in which police have harassed the Black community and others..

The community activists want a federal law where foreclosed homes are appraised for resale based upon property tax values rather than county sheriffs to stop what they believe is rampant foreclosure fraud as to the deflation of home values by the county sheriffs that by state law appraise foreclosed properties  for rich mortgage companies and banks to by the homes back, after they steal them, for pennies on the dollar. And that want the federal law that gives states the authority to decide how many years of welfare poor women and children get up to a maximum of 5 years to be amended to mandate the maximum by states across the United States.

In addition to the Imperial Women grassroots groups that will be represented during the upcoming forum include the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Fairfax Business Association, the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Organize Ohio, Black on Black Crime, the Oppressed People's Nation, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, the Family Connection Center, Ohio Family Rights,  the National Organization for Parental Equality, the Women's Federation.

From The Metro Desk Of Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473

CLEVELAND, Ohio- As Ariel Castro was arraigned this week in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas on a not guilty plea on 329 counts, including multiple counts of rape and kidnapping of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight at his home on Cleveland's west side, Ward 2 Councilman Zack Reed (pictured), one of nine Black east side Cleveland City Council persons, presented a $2500 check from Walmart to the city for pepper spray for his constituents. Among others, he was flanked by Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson, also an east side councilman.

Cleveland is divided along racial lines with Blacks dominating the east side of the Cuyahoga River and Whites primarily residing on the west side. But abduction, kidnapping,  rape, and murder of women have become universal for a  largely Black major American city fighting high unemployment, increased foreclosures, rapidly increasing crime rates, and struggling public schools.

Reed, whose ward includes the poverty stricken Mt Pleasant and Kinsman neighborhoods and  is among 18 members of Cleveland City Council, which is half White and half Black, has been speaking out in recent months on violence against women. He held a community forum earlier this year in his ward on the city's east side after Jazmine Trotter, 20, and Christine Malone, 45, both Black and both victims of rape and murder, were found in separate vacant lots less than a mile from each other near East 93rd St. and Bessemer Ave.

Just two weeks ago police found the murdered body of 21-year-old Ashley Leszynski in an open field near East 93rd St and Anderson Ave., and less than a mile from where Trotter and Malone were found.

While a suspect is in custody on Trotter's rape and murder, assailants of Malone and Leszinzki are still on the loose with no major leads, police said.

Local area community activists, including the Imperial Women, want a missing persons center and more resources from the city and county coffers to help deal with what they say is an epidemic of violence against women, including rape and murder, which disproportionately impact poor Black women, data show.

Community activists say that they appreciate Reed's advocacy relative to the attention he brings to highlighting violence against women and the need for more resources to help eradicate it.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief,  Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (pictured), a Warrensville Hts. Democrat who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, will receive the President's Award from the Cleveland Chapter NAACP at its 54th Annual Freedom Fund Dinner on Friday, June 14 at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland. (For tickets call 216-231-6260)

Other award recipients are political guru Arnold Pinkney, Shayla King, and Delon White.

The theme for the event is "Turning The Pages of History," and the keynote speaker is Dr. William Pickard, an entrepreneur and former executive director of the local branch.

Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith (pictured), a top executive at Turner Construction Co. and an associate minister at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland,  said that the gathering will highlight "the new direction the branch is taking while acknowledging the organization's rich immeasurable contribution to our community."

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief,  Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online New Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-04

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Racial unrest continues to mount in Cleveland's Black community with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson firing a police sergeant, demoting two other supervisors, and suspending a handful of other mid-level police managers on Monday following the gangsta-style deadly 137 bullets shooting late last year of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell by a group of  13 Cleveland police officers, 12 White and one Hispanic.

And some Cleveland City Council members, mainly Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell and Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson, both outspoken and Black, are in an all out war with community activists around the controversy

Community activists say that Conwell and Johnson are protecting Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath, whom activists have called to resign, and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, also targeted for resignation by the activists, and who will not push for a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment on criminal charges of the 13 police officers that did the shooting, none of whom have faced discipline and all of whom are still on the job.

Both councilmen endorsed the temperamental McGinty, a former common pleas judge, for election for county prosecutor last year.

During a heated community forum last Thursday at the Glenville YMCA on safety with Chief McGrath and sponsored by Conwell, who chairs city council's safety committee, Johnson became irate and snatched the mike from Community Activist Don Bryant, who leads the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network.

Bryant wanted to ask a question around the shooting, an issue that he has become passionate about, and Johnson had decided that enough questions had been asked on the subject by activists, and sought to quell Bryant's free speech, activity that has seemingly backfired.

Bryant is an aggressive but smart activist, and he protested at City Hall in April during a rally by activists over the deadly shooting  with a sign calling for McGinty to recuse himself from investigating it since he took campaign money and an endorsement from the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association.

A seasoned community organizer who is White and 57 years old , and supported by a coalition of activist groups across racial lines such as Black on Black Crime, the Oppressed People's Nation, the Imperial Women and Peace in the Hood, Bryant filed a police report against Johnson saying that Johnson committed misdemeanor assault when he allegedly hit his wrist after snatching the mike.

On Friday Johnson, in turn, took on the matter on a local radio show on WERE AM and accused Bryant, in an on air dispute by the two, of being a "White man coming into the Black community."

Johnson was also angry after community activists hounded him and Conwell at Thursday's  forum for pushing a city ordinance that Conwell introduced and was passed by city council two weeks ago that puts 42 more traffic cameras at street intersections throughout Cleveland, an abundance of them in poor communities on the city's largely Black east side.

Whether anything will materialize of Bryant's police report against Johnson, who is not without support either, remains to be seen, and is unlikely, given the mayor's control over the prosecutorial process through his handpicked law director. But one thing is clear, community activists are not backing down around the celebrated shooting.

"Councilman Johnson must have forgotten that community activists fought for him when he got in trouble as a state senator and now he is turning his back on us to support police that have done wrong," said Community Activist Amy Hurd, who is among a coalition of activists and community affiliates still upset over the celebrated shooting.