Archive for category Politicians
Cleveland Mayor Jackson Flubs National Interview Opportunity on NPR
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on June 10, 2010
June 10, 2010… Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson did a somewhat strange interview with National Public Radio host Scott Simon, no stranger to Cleveland.
Jackson had an opportunity to sell the city in a piece entitled “How Cleveland Could Rise Again.” However, his sights seemed to be set on the rebuke he received recently by City Council on a non-bid deal that didn’t pass the muster.
Simon, as a reporter out of Chicago during the late 1970s, made a number of trips here to cover the hectic administration of Mayor Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich attracted so many out-of-town reporters that he likely filled more hotel rooms than the city’s sports teams. But that’s another story.
Suffice to say that Simon is a lover of cities and often of Cleveland in particular.
Simon, long the host of Weekend Edition Saturday on NPR, asked Jackson “…what kind of short urgent speech he gives to convince businesses to come to Cleveland.” Sounded like a good softball opener for the mayor.
Jackson replied, “That’s a salesman and a politician. I don’t do those kinds of things. I need to get into some details. I’ll try to coral them, you know, and monopolize some time. But it’s basically things are in flux. Things are in constant transition, and the old way of doing things will dig us deeper in a hole. We have to do things differently.”
The subject matter pretty much centered on the Mayor’s thrust to attract new businesses here. At the center was his flawed attempt to get Council to agree to a no-bid, long-term contract for new technology lighting fixtures with a Chinese company called Sunpu-Opto. The company was to open shop here as part of the agreement.
The deal, as I’ve said before, stinks. It still stinks.
In the interview, disjointed by Jackson’s responses, the mayor said of the Sunpu-Opto deal that “… we didn’t have a template as to how to proceed. And so it was a little loose and sloppy in some areas.”
But he still doesn’t seem to get it – that this deal isn’t fixable. He still seems to think that Sunpu-Opto should get the contract, maybe in a different make-up.
And he seems to blame those who called him on the deal, which he himself describes as poorly done. Not encouraging.
Mayor Jackson says, “But the greatest advocates of change are the greatest defenders of the status quo. As we say on the street. Everybody talk a good game but nobody going to bust a grape.”
You can’t blame those who find serious fault in something even you cite as defective. And label that an inability to desire change. It doesn’t make sense.
He goes on to say “… the greatest advocates of change… are also the greatest defenders of the status quo.”
He wants it the way he wants it. Not the way it is.
No, Mr. Mayor. Those who are opposing this deal aren’t demanding the status quo. They’re demanding that you prove the city can benefit from what you want to do. You haven’t been able to do that.
But you stubbornly stick to the same sloppy deal maybe with a new twist or two. It won’t work. Or should I say, it shouldn’t work.
The interview is available here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127257166
MMPI… It Never, Ever is Enough, Is It?
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on June 5, 2010
June 5, 2010… The $800 million plus insured by the quarter-percent extra sales tax by Cuyahoga County Commissioners wasn’t sugary enough for MMPI and the Chicago Kennedys. So the Ohio State Legislature added more sweeteners to the deal.
The County is collecting some $40 million a year on the tax passed by Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora’s vote without public input. The tax lasts 20 years (if you believe that). The revenue goes to MMPI, a private developer and operator.
The County has given very little information on how the nearly $100 million already collected is being spent. The Plain Dealer – bastion of County reform – has neglected to tell the public exactly how the money is being spent.
The private nature of the business means MMPI should pay property taxes because it will be MMPI’s private business to operate the facilities.
The MMPI private operation will pay no property taxes and to make sure it’s as tasty as possible, MMPI will have to pay NO SALES TAXES on the building materials used to do the job. Ironic, since the extra sales tax goes to MMPI.
Now how’s that for having your cake and being able to eat it too.
You may have missed the news about this give-away in The Plain Dealer. I likely would have too but Crain’s Cleveland Business in its daily news alert highlighted the article. The PD had a one-paragraph mention of the gifts to MMPI. This news was in the run-over page and 20 paragraphs into the Metro story on Casinos.
Here’s the Crain’s alert from Friday:
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20100604/FREE/100609890
Here’s the Plain Dealer one paragraph about this major gift in Saturday’s paper:
“A 100 percent property tax break for Cuyahoga County’s medical mart and convention center. The provision also includes a sales tax exemption for building and construction materials and services for the project.”
That’s it. No estimate of how many millions of dollars this will cost the County, mostly actually the Cleveland school system. Cleveland schools get more than 50 percent of the property tax revenue since the facility is located in Cleveland.
Hear any outcry from Mayor Frank Jackson?
We just can’t keep our legislators from pouring sugared dollars into the pockets of billionaires. One of the Kennedy family members in this case. Christopher Kennedy, a Hagan pal, is a principal in the deal.
We can give special thanks to Hagan. The same Hagan took a private jet ride down to Columbus in the early 1990s to lobby successfully for a full tax exemption for Gateway. The tax exemption actually extends to other sports facilities throughout the state of Ohio.
Give. Give. Give. Timmy’s motto.
So all three Cleveland sports facilities – Progressive Field, Quicken Arena and Browns Stadium – are assessed no property taxes on the physical structures. They pay property taxes only on the land and in the Browns situation the city actually pays the land property taxes not the Cleveland Browns owners, the Lerner family. The taxes the city pays actually is higher than the rent the city charges Randy Lerner for near exclusive use of the stadium.
Isn’t it a bit ironic that the public pays an extra sales tax while MMPI, the recipient of the hundreds of millions of dollars of sales taxes for 20 years, gets an exemption on the sales tax for its building and construction materials.
Is there no justice at all? Are we to be suckers forever?
It’s called Corporate Justice. Courtesy of our elected politicians.
The business guys and their toadies in government never miss a chance to reward the rich and take from the rest of us.
I guess the Plain Dealer didn’t think it was important enough to give the tax breaks a more prominent play. Who’d a thought?