9 or 10 sign up for BJ buyouts

On April 10 former BJ political columnist and writing coach Abe Zaidan named Jewell Cardwell, Dave Scott, Jim Carney and Bill Lilley among those signing up for a possible buyout. 

Abe said management would accept five applicants.

The BJ management offer was for 6 union people and one exempt person to take the buyouts, which include a year’s pay as an inducement to leave Old Blue.

Another source – not Abe -- told us the names of 9 or 10 who applied for the 6 or 7 buyouts.

They are:

Kathy Antoniotti – Pets column, southern Summit/northern Stark reporter.

Carol Biliczky (Levandoski) - Higher education reporter, Sunday community news.

Jewell Cardwell – Slice of Life columnist.

Jim Carney – General assignment, military affairs reporter.

Bill Lilley - Former sports writer, now copy editor.

Ed Meyer – Courts and crime reporter who came to the BJ as a sports writer.

Dave Scott – Regional issues reporter and former deputy Business editor.

Joe Thomas – National editor, who was a part-time BJ sports statistician while a Kent State student (and, later, a KSU graduate).

Olga Reswow – Copy editor and sometimes Russian translator for BJ reporters dealing with those who spoke Russian better than English. Olga survived her car being rear-ended in 2011 by a drunk driver that for a while put her in a wheelchair. 

MAYBE Laura Ofobike, chief editorial writer.

Jim and Kathy and Ed won Cleveland Press Club awards for their reporting. 

This will leave Metro with only eight reporters and the newsroom with 60 survivors, give or take a few. That’s barely one-fourth the total when I retired in 1996.