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 news venues

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

WASHINGTON, D.C.-President Obama on Thursday announced his nomination of philanthropist Penny Pritzker for U.S. commerce secretary, and it just happen to be Pritzker's birthday on that day of May 2. The president also announced that he will perform the keynote address for commencement ceremonies at The Ohio University in Columbus on May 5.

Both announcements make it clear that Obama knows that women, through his nomination of Pritzker, and Ohio, a pivotal state, matter in presidential elections.

A fundraising strategist and heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune Pritzker, 54, has 25 years of managerial experience in industry, and is a real estate and financial expert. She is rich, smart, and a woman.

"Penny understands that just as great companies strengthen the community around them, strong communities and skilled workers also help communities strive," said Obama in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com. "Penny is one of our country's most distinguished business leaders."

The president called Pritzker a skilled and respected entrepreneur that he takes pride in nominating as a member of his cabinet.

Pritzker is a member of the prestigious Pritzker family and co-founder and chairman of Artemis Real Estates Partners and PSP Capital Partners. She made the 2011 list of Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans as the 26th richest person in the nation, with an estimated U.S. worth of 1.7 billion.

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

CLEVELAND,Ohio- In the midst of community fallout about his slowness in disciplining police responsible for gunning down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell with 137 bullets following a high speed car chase from downtown Cleveland on Nov. 29 that ended in neighboring East Cleveland, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (pictured) has drawn a formidable challenger for this year's mayoral race in Democratic millionaire businessman Ken Lanci (pictured). And race is inevitably at play too where the two term biracial Jackson, also a Democrat and former Cleveland City Council president who grew up with his two siblings in the poverty stricken Ward 5 where he still lives and still enjoys staunch support from The Old Black Political Guard, is technically Black, and Lanci is White.

The 63-year-old Lanci, who owns and runs Consolidated Graphics Group Inc., will announce at a press conference on Monday that he will take on Jackson, first for a non-partisan primary election on September 10, and thereafter in the general election if voters select him among the top two candidates. He lost a partisan primary race for Cuyahoga County executive in 2010, then as a Independent, a race that Democrat Ed FitzGerald went on to win after beating Terri Hamilton Brown in the Democratic primary.

A candidate for The Old Black Political Guard supported also by Jackson, Hamilton Brown got a late start in the county executive race and, like Lanci, she has never held public office.

But Lanci has his own money to wage a mayoral election fight against the still popular Jackson, 67, whose political war chest is no joke either.

The largely Black City of Cleveland, which has some 400,000 people and is roughly 58 percent Black, is divided along racial lines by the Cuyahoga River with Whites primarily residing on the west side of it, and Blacks dominating the east side. It is the second most segregated major American city in the nation next to Boston and was ripe for a now defunct desegregation court order in the late 1970s after the late Federal District Court Judge Frank Battisti found the Cleveland School District and the state guilty of running a dual school system in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, and to the unconstitutional detriment of Black children and their families. That court order, called the remedial orders,  and which included crosstown busing, was completely lifted by the federal court's granting of unitary status in 1998 and a state law that gives the city mayor control of Cleveland schools simultaneously took effect.

The 18- member Cleveland City council, which had 19 members until west side councilman Jay Westbrook retired in March, is now half and half by race and has no Hispanic council person as it once had, though the west side council persons are all White and a majority of the councilpersons on the east side are Black.

How racial demographics will impact the election, if at all, remains to be seen.

Jackson is also supported by Black clergy and the business and educational communities, and even some community activists. And he is a  brilliant political strategist, and is good at getting city council to vote his way on public policy matters. He is also an ally of Council President Martin Sweeney.

But some west side councilmen say he is aloof and a redistricting map voted in by city council late last month that drops council seats from 19  to 17 next year and after this year's city council elections has some Black council members who believe Jackson influenced it upset.

Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson and Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell were among the four council members that voted against the redistricting map. Johnson will take on Ward 10 Councilman Eugene Miller this year after the new map saw his and Conwell's wards merged into a new Ward 9 to get rid of one a council seat  relative to the two seat city council reduction for next year, a population reduction mandate required by a city charter amendment previously adopted by voters. The other ousted  seat went with Westbrook's March retirement that got rid of his Ward 16.

Others that have taken out petitions to run in Ward 10 are Community Activist Donna Walker Brown and Ward 10 Democratic Ward Leader Anthony Hairston.

The last time a White led Cleveland was former Mayor Jane Campbell. She lost a heated reelection bid in 2005 to Jackson, after falling out with The Old Black Political Guard and the powerful Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, the rank and file of Cleveland police.

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 news venues (www.clevelandurbannews.com) Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473

(Pictured is Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Some 150 people rallied in front of Cleveland City Hall before the city council meeting Monday night over the November car chase that led to the gunning down of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell by a group of White Cleveland police officers, and in response to other unjustified deadly Cleveland police shootings such as Daniel Ficker and Kenneth Smith, as well as the unsolved rape and murders in March of Jazmine Trotter and Christine Malone.

Some of the protesters then attended the 7 pm Cleveland City Council meeting. Other activists drove across town after the downtown rally to the city's east side to Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church where Senior Pastor The Rev. Larry Harris, Cleveland NAACP officials and Ohio ACLU Legal Director James Hardiman met with about 80  people, some community activists, and U.S. District Attorney Steve Dettelbach. (Editor's note: 19 Action News Reporter Tiffani Tucker covered the energized Cleveland City Hall rally).

CLICK THIS LINK HERE TO GO TO 19 ACTION NEWS.COM TO READ TUCKER'S ARTICLE AND TO WATCH THE ASSOCIATED NEWS VIDEO

Also on hand at the church forum attended by Cleveland Urban News.Com as the only media alowed inside were members of the FBI and a couple of FEDS brought in my the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate systemic problems and malfeasance in the Cleveland Police Department.

"Was it self defense or murder?" asked Community Activist and Black on Black Crime Founder Art McKoy at the City Hall rally he led earlier in the day relative to the Williams- Russell 137 bullets shooting that has rocked Cleveland and has caused racial unrest. And Bettie Simpson of Imperial Women asked at the rally if  "the violence, rape and murders of Black women in Cleveland will ever stop?"

After rallying for about an hour dozens of activists went inside for the city council meeting chanting "No Justice No Peace" to a drumbeat.

Activist Ray Clark of the grassroots group The Oppressed People's Nation confronted Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson in the hallway and asked when he would fire the 13 police officers that gunned down Williams and Russell.

Jackson, who is running for a third four year term this year, told Clark to "talk to county prosecutor Tim McGinty."

Community Activist Don Bryant, who leads The People's Forum and The Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, held a protest sign at the rally that read "McGinty recuse thyself," a slogan demanding a special prosecutor to push for a criminal indictment against police.

A former common pleas judge, the controversial McGinty, who enjoys support from Cleveland NAACP officials, several Black elected officials, and the Call and Post Newspaper no matter what he does to Blacks and others, was elected county prosecutor last year with campaign money and an endorsement from the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, and he has not pushed for a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment of police involved in the unprecedented shooting.

Al Porter, vice president of Black on Black Crime Inc, said that the police officers at issue, none of whom are Black, should have been disciplined by now, and prosecuted rather than still on the job. He told Jackson Monday night at City Hall that "if you don't fire them we will fire you in November," referencing the upcoming mayoral election, though to date the still popular Jackson, 67, has no serious opponent.

The mayor cautioned Porter saying firing police is not as easy as it might appear when criminal charges are possibly being considered and that "it all must be done in correct order," a comment activists dismissed as the mayor's alleged fear to stand up to the police officers that kill unarmed Blacks and others through alleged excessive force and because of a break down in the system.

Cleveland NAACP President The Rev. Hilton Smith did not attend the church gathering held later that evening with federal authorities at Mount Olive, though Executive Director Sheila Wright did and said that the NAACP "has a box of complaints" that she can bring to the FEDS for review.

One federal agent at the forum said to a community activist there that "it is obvious that the mayor is not in control."

Pastor Harris said that the sponsors of the forum could not decide whether to let the media in or not and that because they wanted people to be able to voice concerns freely, the media were shut out but would be invited to the next meeting.

Community Activist Amy Hurd, a member of the grassroots group The Carl Stokes Brigade who attended both the rally and church forum, said that police must be held accountable for the deadly shooting.

"As we all have to follow the rules, so does the police department," said Hurd.

Community Activist Brett Jackson, a member of Black on Black Crime and The Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, asked District Attorney  Dettelbach if Cleveland police will get away with killing Russell, 43, and Williams, 30.

Dettelbach said that his role at the meeting was to simply "hear concerns."

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 news venues

(Community activists will rally again at 6 pm on April 29, 2013 in front of Cleveland City Hall on the November police chase that resulted in the 137 bullets shooting deaths of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell, other deadly Cleveland police killings and the unsolved rape and murder of too many Black women in Cleveland. Rally information contact numbers are  216-253-4070 and 216-659-0473). Below talented 19 Action News Reporter Dan Deroos covers the April 24 rally at the Chateau in East Cleveland organized by Imperial Women as to the November deadly police chase, other deadly police shootings including Daniel Ficker, 27,  and Kenneth Smith, 20,  and the unsolved rape and murders of Black women such as Jazmine Trotter, 20, and Christine Malone, 45. Were the  killings of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30, and Timothy Russell, 43, (both pictured above) by a group of White Cleveland police officers following a police chase from downtown Cleveland to neighboring East Cleveland self defense or murder? Watch the video here. Some 300 people attended the April 24 rally sponsored also by activists groups such as Black on Black Crime and The Oppressed People's Nation. A similar rally will be held at 6 pm on April 29 at Cleveland City Hall. Other news channels that covered the April 24 rally at the Chateau in East Cleveland that drew elected officials such as East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton, East Cleveland Councilman Nate Martin and Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell, a wealth of activists, and victims families were Channels 3, 5 and 8 (Click on the link below to watch the news video by Dan Deroos of 19 Action News)