The site selection committee appointed by Greater Cleveland Partnership will soon recommend a location for the new MedMart. Hmm ... Greater Cleveland Partnership's offices are in the Higbee building ... GCP's new CEO, Henry Meyer, moved a bunch of his KeyCorp employees across the street from their old offices into the Higbee building, just before he was appointed ... Sam Miller owns the building, connected to Tower City. I wonder which site they'll recommend? - James Renner

TROUBLE IN RUBBER CITY

It didn't take long for someone to pen a tell-all book regarding the death of Jeff Zack and the trial, conviction, appeal and release of Cynthia George, a former Miss Ohio contestant and Akron socialite. Thank goodness that someone was M. William Phelps, a respected national journalist whose previous true-crime stories have sold over 300,000 copies. Phelps' position as an outsider to this local crime gives the book an unbiased feel that was lacking in recent Plain Dealer accounts. Finally, the full story is presented. And it's a doozy.

While it weighs in at an intimidating 478 pages, If Looks Could Kill is a quick read. The chapters are short, decisive and packed with details about Cindy's affair with Zack and her relationship with John Zaffino, the man who remains imprisoned for Zack's brazen daylight murder. (Zack was shot while sitting at a BJ's Wholesale fuel station on a Saturday afternoon, by a man who escaped on a ninja-style motorcycle.) It also gives a glimpse into Cindy's marriage to Ed George, the well-connected restaurateur and owner of The Tangier, bringing the reader along into their 8,100-square-foot mansion, still decorated for Christmas in the middle of June, as Akron detectives methodically build their case.

Most surprising is the access Phelps gained to those who knew Zack well. He comes off as a petty criminal, opportunist and womanizer, but also a husband and a father to both his son and the secret daughter he had with Cindy.

Akron is treated well. The city is a character itself, and Phelps builds his mystery on the foundations of a town that has fallen from its grace as the rubber capital and is slowly picking itself up again. Likewise, Phelps has nothing but respect for the Akron detectives who investigated the case that threatened to go cold. His account of how they tracked down the killer's motorcycle reads like a Thomas Harris novel.

Phelps artfully weaves in suspicions about Ed George as well. George made calls to an Akron deputy police chief in the weeks leading up to Zack's murder, complaining that Zack was harassing his wife and inviting the deputy chief to lunch to discuss his options. The morning after the murder, according to the book, George teased his wife with the newspaper account of the crime. And when Zaffino's ex-girlfriend was interviewed, she told police that Zaffino warned her to stay out of the Tangier because he was afraid of what George might do to those who were close to him.

"In the end, what made the most significant impact on me was that money can indeed buy freedom," says Phelps. "Look at Cindy George. She's out and about now walking the streets; she can never be tried again for this crime." - JR

A SMALL MEASURE OF JUSTICE

Last summer, Ed Kramer took a gamble. The director of Housing Advocates Inc., a fair housing group, filed a complaint with local and federal authorities against one of the biggest subprime mortgage lenders in the region. Kramer argued that Argent had colluded with individual mortgage brokers to dupe black customers into signing predatory loans.

Recently, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission found that Argent had such a lax screening and monitoring process for its loose network of independent brokers that unscrupulous activity almost always went unchecked. The OCRC suggests that Argent's business model encouraged brokers to act recklessly, by providing loan terms that allowed borrowers to take cash out of the deal and make interest-only payments.

Argent then sold off these loans to investment banks on Wall Street, among them Wells Fargo. The ensuing lines of credit were used to reward brokers, employees and others with hefty commissions - payments that often came out of the loans made to borrowers. One such case, cited by Kramer in his complaint, was that of Elizabeth Redrick, a black homeowner with an Argent loan. In Redrick's case, the mortgage broker inflated income values so that Redrick would qualify for a higher loan. Kramer says Argent never asked for documents to corroborate this information.

Argent started making loans in Cuyahoga County back in 2003. Of the tens of thousands of loans Argent helped originate since then, 665 have gone into foreclosure. Almost 463 - or 70 percent - of these foreclosures are in census tracts that are more than 50 percent black. (At the time, Argent Mortgage was a subprime lender under ACC Capital Holdings, a California company which also owned Ameriquest. Both Argent and Ameriquest, which have since been sold to Citigroup, were strictly subprime mortgage lenders, an industry outside the purview of the usual federal banking authorities. Argent's modus operandi was to facilitate high-interest loans that were then sold to investors on Wall Street.)

The case must now be mediated through OCRC. Argent had until March 24 to appeal (calls to Argent were not immediately returned). Kramer of Housing Advocates hopes to settle the matter and net millions of dollars toward combating the county's foreclosure crisis. Kramer would like Argent to give $750,000 to help Fannie Mae refinance predatory loans, and another $6 million to help local governments and nonprofits deal with the aftermath of predatory lending, namely with the demolition or renovation of abandoned homes and the sale of foreclosed properties.

Under Ohio's consumer protection laws, if Argent doesn't come to the table, the attorney general could sue as well. - Charu Gupta

THE DIRT ON DIKE 14

Dike 14, the man-made, arrow-shaped peninsula that juts into Lake Erie, is one step closer to becoming prime public lakefront access.

The 88-acre walled enclosure was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1979 as a landfill for contaminated dredgings from the Cuyahoga River. It reached capacity in 1999 and was closed. Since then, Dike 14 has become an ad hoc urban sanctuary for wildlife and vegetation. City planners and environmentalists alike have marveled at its potential. Many have been waiting for environmental assessments that would give the green light for public use.

And now there's good news: The environmental risk studies were completed in November, and most of Dike 14 is fit for human interaction. Not only is exposure to Dike 14 for humans and animals safe, but about 83 acres will require no cleanup. (The remaining five acres, however, need to be cordoned off until remediation efforts are completed. PCB and lead levels there are above EPA standards.)

More than likely, Dike 14 will keep most of its natural state, according to Janine Rybka, district administrator for the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District. Other organizations working to turn Dike 14 over to public use and education include the Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Botanical Gardens and Ohio Department of Natural Resources. (The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority currently holds the lease.)

What remains to be decided is what kind of features - trails, bike paths, ice cream stands, toilets, etc. - will be added. While those details are hammered out, Rybka and others also need to figure out who will be in charge of maintaining the dike walls and the preserve itself.

On May 3, Earth Day Coalition and other groups will give tours of Dike 14. Included will be introductions to educational projects already underway, including the Discovery Pack project, says Earth Day's Chris Trepal. Discovery Packs are scientific kits that introduce students and families to plants, mammals, weather and other features of Dike 14. - CG

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

The Open Society Institute (OSI), part of the Soros Foundations Network, doesn't believe all is well in Ohio's courts. The organization has awarded a grant to Janet Moore, a lawyer with the Ohio Justice & Policy Center (OJPC) in Cincinnati, to look into public-defender systems across the state.

"Ohio's ineffective and inefficient public-defender system contributes to a class disparity in incarceration rates," OSI's grant award press release says. "Moore will work to reform Ohio's current system for providing counsel to low-income residents."

Moore's job is to look at all 88 counties in the state to identify changes that are needed. She's in the company of community organizers, advocates, journalists, lawyers, scholars and others sharing more than $1 million in OSI grants.

"The new fellows include a community organizer who fights to protect the rights of non-citizen detainees after seeing her own family torn apart by federal immigration policies; a lawyer who compares his own treatment in the criminal justice system with that of his clients on death row to spark debate about capital punishment; and a man and woman on the opposite sides of a wrongful rape conviction who now work together to raise awareness about the problems with eyewitness testimony," says the OSI press release.

OSI describes itself as "a private operating and grant-making foundation [that] works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens." It can be found in more than 60 countries beyond the United States. - Margo Pierce

chatter@freetimes.com

YOU ROCK

Student Protestors: Is apathy finally becoming uncool? Five years after invading Iraq, student anti-war activists are becoming more organized as they grow their ranks. Shaker Heights high schoolers have formed a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society - a next-gen offshoot of the '60s radical group. Last Thursday, 140 young protestors marched through Tower City and around the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, denouncing the war in which American deaths have just reached 4,000. Far out.

YOU SUCK

Cuyahoga County Backscratchers: Everywhere you look, local politicians are doling out favors to big-money contributors. Tri-C trustees plan to award a $20 million no-bid contract to an HVAC business run by a Tri-C board member who kicked back $55,000 in donations to the college last year. Meanwhile, county commissioners are throwing millions into a new juvie justice center that really only benefits uber-contributor Sam Miller, who bought up the toxic site for pennies and sold it back to taxpayers for $2.75 million. Who needs Nate Gray when you have leaders like these?