out of context

Sunpu-Opto in Cleveland is on the back burner for now, tabled and unlikely to return without a substantial change. Mayor Frank Jackson, likely seeking to avoid poisoning his future agenda if Sunpu went bad, and facing a hostile council barely willing to pass the related legislation (10 to 9), tabled the deal indefinitely and said he will explore other options. Many council members expressed relief and I agree with them. This was moving too fast with too little information.

I hope this isn’t the end of Cleveland’s efforts to bring Chinese business to the shores of Lake Erie. Cleveland needs a reboot in its thinking, but making a bad deal for the sake of making a deal isn’t the way to go after this. The thing is, will we ever really know if this was a bad or good deal? Sunpu didn’t even show up to the meeting where council debated the issue, nor has it sent anyone to Cleveland (to my knowledge) despite signing an MOU, and much of the Chinese-language material remained untranslated. Mayor Jackson, if you ever need someone to do some due diligence for you, look me up. Really. I’m happy to help.