The Cleveland Clinic's firing of 26-year nurse Adrienne Zurub - for self-publishing a book, Notes From the Mothership - does not tell the entire story of less-than-stellar public relations moves by the region's largest employer. Efforts to establish the Cleveland Clinic as a brand, complete with logo change and a book- publishing division, have created all manner of questions and concerns.

First came the Cleveland Clinic's own publishing venture, the Cleveland Clinic Press, launched under Lawrence D. Chilnick, hired as editorial director in April 2005. Chilnick - whose latest book (not for the Clinic Press) The First Year: Heart Disease was recently covered by The Plain Dealer - is one of the leading book-publishing experts in the country. His self-published The Pill Book sold 14 million copies (publishers consider most books a success if they sell 25,000) and led to a career as a publisher, editor, author and faculty member of New York University's School of Publishing.

Chilnick was given a mandate to develop popular-market books, most ghost-written for Clinic experts and meant to become the national standard for various health issues. Everything from arthritis to heart disease would be covered, though always where the Clinic's knowledge would be seen as state of the art, plus the occasional personal memoir (ranging from living with an Alzheimer's patient to raising a hopelessly mentally ill child). The initial plan was to release 25 books in 2008.

What happened next is open to debate. What is certain is that Chilnick was never a Clinic team player. He was hired to create a successful publishing company, and was critical of people who did not perform as promised, ignoring the usual friendships and office politics to his detriment. He also asked questions such as why, in December 2005, was the Clinic making the costly move of changing its logo from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation to the Cleveland Clinic? This was a time when the region's economy was in crisis and many smaller employers were eliminating or reducing health-care benefits in order to avoid laying off staff. There were questions about whether the Clinic, focused on expanding to wealthy suburbs, wealthy retirees in Florida and wealthy oil sheiks in the Middle East, served the community surrounding its main campus.

Tensions continued to build at the Clinic Press and Chilnick was fired in what he sees as a political move by less skilled but more ambitious staff members. Writers working for the press at the time were told that the change had nothing to do with the books in progress or the books planned. However, there were rumors that the book- publishing division would be absorbed into the general publications department.

Whatever was taking place no longer matters. The Plain Dealer reported on Zurub, the nurse who was fired for self-publishing. It did not mention that no later than April of this year, the entire staff of the Cleveland Clinic Press will be on the streets seeking new jobs. Those at the top were not offered positions in other departments.

As for Chilnick's questions unrelated to book publishing, they remain both valid and unanswered. The logo change, for example: Every time a logo is changed, everything that bears the previous logo has to be replaced - every piece of letterhead, memo pad, medical or insurance form, sign, etc. Dropping "Foundation" from Cleveland Clinic and changing the design cost an estimated $6 million. Yet the Clinic continues to claim it is a nonprofit wherever it is located, even though its suburban facilities, such as in Beachwood, do not seem to meet the legal standard.

And if the Clinic spends money on image that could go to subsidizing indigent and working-poor medical care, and closes its book division, it is no wonder that it fired a nurse for writing and publishing a book critical of some of the Clinic practices and persons. She probably should have gone to The Plain Dealer, though that might have created a problem for the paper's publisher, who is on the Clinic's board of directors. (Yes, The Plain Dealer carried the story of the firing on the first page. But it did not quote or discuss any of the passages that were supposedly too offensive to allow an experienced nurse to remain on staff.)

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. - Michael O'Flaherty

JUDGE NOT

If your jagged nails need filing, it's the season for emery-board-wielding judicial candidates and their representatives to accost voters at community meetings and special events. With their ability to press their viewpoints limited, along with their budgets, these candidates work hard to build their name recognition. But for voters, there's a dilemma: Just because you recognize a name (preferably Irish) and have a pocketful of the candidate's emery boards doesn't mean that person is qualified to sit in judgment on peoples' lives.

But there is help. The Web site [url=http://www.Judge4Yourself.com] Judge4Yourself.com [/url], launched in 2001, has been updated with ratings on the candidates in the March 4 primary. The site lists each candidate's rating from each of the five bar associations active in Cuyahoga County and assigns each candidate a combined numerical rating. It also indicates what newspaper endorsements a candidate has received, and posts a standardized form on which each indicates his or her education, experience and community activities. - Anastasia Pantsios

THINGS WILL BE GREAT WHEN YOU'RE DOWNTOWN

Although not yet noticed by most Cleveland residents, downtown is restructuring itself for what may be second growth. Some large office space tenants have left one building or another, moving a block or two away rather than to a suburban location (e.g. John Wiley & Sons publishing's shifting its dictionary division from the City Club Building to the Halle Building).

But for the most part there is the quiet growth of small businesses which nationally comprise the largest employment potential. The City Club Building, for example, lost two businesses while gaining 23 new ones whose owners are looking past the construction of the Euclid Corridor to a restored downtown. And entrepreneurs such as Jack Hamilton, owner of Artist Review Today Gallery and Artist Review Today magazine, have done so well in unlikely locations (the Galleria, in Hamilton's case) they're expanding: Hamilton's opening a lobby gallery in the City Club Building soon.

For comparison, look to Pittsburgh's changes when the steel mills were closed and the Phoenix renaissance after speculators and a bad economy left that thriving city's office and retail space 75-percent empty. - Ted Schwarz

COAL ORIENTED

Greenhouse gases are bad, sure, but come on: Coal is still a pretty cheap date.

Cleveland City Council showed that rational detachment Monday night, by voting 17-2 not to rescind a contract between Cleveland Public Power and AMP-Ohio, officially becoming the largest city so far to sign onto the construction of a new $3.4 billion coal-fired power plant down in Meigs County ("Dirty Dancing," Feb. 20). That means every year for the next half-century, Cleveland will get at least 80 megawatts (hoevering around one-third) of its energy needs directly from the source. Supposedly this will allow CPP to further diversify its portfolio of alternative sources; that's what Commissioner Ivan Henderson told council's Utilities Committee members last week.

"We can do both," he told them, "but we can't do it all in renewables because it's too pricey."

Mayor Frank Jackson, somehow an advocate of "going green" and of CPP's buying a 10-percent stake in the nonprofit AMP-Ohio's coal-choker, urged Council to ratify the contract to let CPP continue its expansion plans and offer slightly cheaper rates than competitor First Energy.

Council genuflected and awaited further instructions from Jackson. Only Councilmen Mike Polensek and Brian Cummins voted against the deal.

Utilities Committee Vice Chairman Zach Reed says he had reservations about being tied to a known polluter, especially when coal was sure to soon be regulated more strictly, leading to higher costs. He said he would have voted to rescind the contract if he thought it would have mattered. Last week, the city of Oberlin did just that.

"I think 50 years is a long time, so yeah, I think we rushed into something we don't know enough about," he says. "But what was [a no vote] going to do? Honestly, what we had was a no vote to make you look good in the eyes of the environmentalists and a yes vote so you can look good in the eyes of the administration."

So now, Reed adds, "All they're going to do now is take the fact that Cleveland voted for this and start going around the state saying, "Hey, you want to get in on this? Cleveland did.'"

Yeah, we'll do anything for a buck. - Dan Harkins

chatter@freetimes.com

ZURUB Who says speech is free?