Emmy Award-winning Feagler & Friends is a lively, weekly half-hour television discussion of local and national issues impacting lives in Northeast Ohio. Hosted by award-winning journalist and former Plain Dealer columnist, Dick Feagler, Feagler & Friends explores the various issues behind today's news. With a changing ensemble of "friends" ranging from journalists to community and political leaders, Feagler & Friends takes on issues from many different perspectives. Always entertaining and never boring, Feagler & Friends is the program for people "in the know" in Northeast Ohio.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Topics: Economy, Environment, Politics, Other
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Newsmaker: Joe Calabrese, general manager, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. After more than a decade of planning and construction, RTA initiates service Friday on the HealthLine, formerly known as the Euclid Corridor Project. Specially-designed diesel-electric buses will make the trip from Public Square to East Cleveland in about 20 minutes with several stops along the way. Riders can expect a wait of no more than five minutes during peak hours.

Roundtable: Henry Gomez, reporter, The Plain Dealer; Stan Bullard, senior reporter, Crain’s Cleveland Business; Bob Dyer, columnist, Akron Beacon Journal.

Economic Engine? Planners hope the $200-million Health Line will be an engine that drives Cleveland’s future. If all goes as planned, a revitalized Euclid Avenue will be extensively redeveloped, attracting new businesses from all over the region. However, the same challenges facing the national economy also threaten to weigh down progress along Euclid Avenue.

Ward 7 Controversy: Even though interim Ward 7 councilwoman Stephanie Howse was the clear choice in a primary called to replace the late Fannie Lewis, she was not the choice of Lewis’s family and may not have been Lewis’s choice. Lewis’s daughter says her mother did not select a replacement before her death. But council members, including president Martin Sweeney, insist she picked Howse. Voters will make the final selection November 18th.

Novice Panhandler Strikes Out: Beacon Journal columnist Bob Dyer recently acquired a mendicant’s license from the city of Akron and hit the streets looking for a alms-givers. He’ll share his experience with the panel.

Politics in the Age of Joe the Plumber: Ohio’s own Joe the Plumber has been the center of attention, some of it unwelcome, in the presidential campaign this week. Both campaigns invoked his name in Ohio campaign appearances. Joe (aka Samuel Wurzelbacher) has had to fend off criticism that his name really isn’t Joe, he’s not really a plumber and he’s not in the $250-thousand tax bracket. Though he’s provided fodder for the campaign, his criticism of Barack Obama’s tax policy has had little impact. Obama has widened his poll lead over John McCain.

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