CLEVELAND, Ohio-Steve Loomis (pictured), the outspoken president of Cleveland's Police Patrolmen's Association who regularly quarreled with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and at one time gave the mayor a 'D plus' for leadership skills, was ousted this weekend in a close election.

After a successful front line campaign with other union leaders against Issue 2, a state measure on the Nov. ballot that voters rejected that would have dismantled collective bargaining in Ohio for public sector unions, Loomis lost reelection Sat. to the union presidency by 10 votes to Jeffrey Follmer, a 21-year veteran on the force.

COLUMBUS, Ohio-In the wake of two third-degree felony convictions and the jailing earlier this year of an Akron, Oh. Black single mother for lying on school applications to send her children to a neighboring predominantly White suburban school district with the hope of getting them a better education away from the housing projects where the family lives, Republican Gov. John Kasich used his executive clemency authority on Wed and reduced the charges to misdemeanors.

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Pinkey Carr, a lead attorney in the Anthony Sowell Capital Murder trial who won for the State of Ohio on 82 of 83 counts against the since convicted serial killer, edged Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lynn McLauglin Murray, who was appointed to the bench in Jan by outgoing Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, to win a seat on that court in a close election Tuesday evening. And Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes, won too, trouncing nearest opponent Ed Wade and sending a clear message to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's Largest newspaper, since it unsuccessfully opted to take on Cleveland's old Black political guard and the Stokes name, obviously to no avail.

CLEVELAND, Ohio-U.S. Rep Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH), Cleveland Jobs With Justice Coordinator Debbie Kline, and a host of Democrats and unions from across the state of Ohio are asking voters to vote "No, No, No in November."

Cleveland NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller has resigned after serving six years in the post, and amid controversy from a Black contractors group that says that Miller and Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes have done in struggling Black contractors by not speaking up about a dearth of minority contractors on the lucrative Medical Mart Project, though the major-metropolitan City of Cleveland is majority Black and roughly 67 percent minority.

Miller played his departure as a new opportunity to lead Cleveland's struggling Marcus Garvey Charter School of some 175 students, but others say he resigned under pressure and because of ongoing conflict with Forbes, including a scathing letter last week from Norman Edwards, executive director of The Black Contractors Group, a letter sent to Forbes and Miller that was copied to community leaders, Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.