All politicians drop names in their speeches, thanking everyone they know in the room, stroking egos. Mayor Jane Campbell's State of the City address was full of schmoozy shout-outs. We took a look as some of the nearly three-dozen names she tossed around and why she wanted to charm them.
• Janet Buchwald, director of marketing and co-owner of Wide Area Rapid Notification. Her company is in talks with the city to donate a reverse 9-1-1 system that will let police call homes during neighborhood emergencies.
• Tom Bier, director of Cleveland State University's Housing Policy Research Program. Bier specializes in statistics about urban trends that Campbell has used as ammo to prove the city needs lakefront housing to attract people making more than $50,000 a year.
• Nate Coffman, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cleveland, which co-sponsors the annual CiTiRAMA show of new city homes. The mayor needs the HBA's cooperation to meet her goal of seeing 1,500 new homes built each year.
• Lev Gonick, Case's chief information officer and president of OneCleveland, a nonprofit that wants to use old fiber-optic lines to provide free wireless Internet access across the city.
• Rick Maron, developer, head of MRN Ltd., and David Goldberg, co-chairman of Ohio Savings Bank. They're behind the rebirth of East Fourth Street and the nearby stretch of Euclid Avenue, the latest signs of new life downtown.
• Rep. Ralph Regula, Republican congressman from Navarre, near Canton. Campbell mentioned him three times, which is pretty shrewd, since he's vice chair of The House Appropriations Committee and can get federal funds for Cleveland.
