East Cleveland

Members of the community organizing group Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope, or NOAH, announced at a forum in East Cleveland that they’re working with Cuyahoga County Council to develop a framework to attract grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods. 

The focus on a countywide approach would allow East Cleveland and other disadvantaged neighborhoods that struggle to find city funds, to have the support to open grocery stores, said Cuyahoga County Board of Health’s Roger Sikes.

Here are your morning headlines for Monday, March 19:

A Northeast Ohio holiday tradition is being revived after 59 years, and it could bring thousands of cars to East Cleveland.

GE Lighting’s Nela Park will officially unveil its holiday-light display next Friday, just as it has since the 1920s. For the three Fridays after that, visitors will also be able to drive through  Nela Park for even more holiday displays – something that hasn’t been done since 1958.

General Electric will sell its lighting division, raising questions about the future of its historic headquarters in East Cleveland.

According to a statement from the company, GE is in early discussions with multiple buyers. For now, the employees at Nela Park will stay there. Some are employees of GE Lighting, others of Current, its energy management subsidiary, which is not being sold.

The Ohio Supreme Court says five Cleveland police supervisors may face trial in East Cleveland on misdemeanor dereliction of duty charges. For Ohio Public Radio, WCPN’s Nick Castele reports the supervisors were charged in connection with a 2012 cross-town chase that ended in 137 gunshots.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors accused the supervisors of failing to control the chase. It involved dozens of police cars and ended with the fatal shooting of an unarmed motorist and his passenger, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams.

A possible merger between Cleveland and East Cleveland has been further complicated by yesterday’s recall of East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton and Council President Thomas Wheeler.

Residents of financially troubled East Cleveland will go to the polls tomorrow to vote on whether or not to recall the city’s mayor and city council president.

This will be the second time this year Mayor Gary Norton faces a recall attempt. An effort to unseat him failed last spring because not enough signatures were collected to put the issue on the ballot.

Council President Thomas Wheeler has survived two recall efforts. Tuesday’s special election will cost the cash-scrapped city $30,000.

The mayor of East Cleveland faces hefty fines from a state board that oversees campaign finance reporting. The fines were levied for incomplete, late and missing fundraising reports.

Last month the Ohio Elections Commission fined Gary Norton $114,100. In 2015, the commission fined the mayor $20,000. The commission turned the fines over to the state attorney general’s office for collection.

  The trial starts today for an East Cleveland man accused in 2013 of three gruesome murders.

Three rotting corpses, wrapped in duct tape, were found in Michael Madison's garage in July, 2013. East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton said at the time that Madison -- a registered sex offender -- had made statements indicating he might have been influenced by serial killer Anthony Sowell.