Posts Tagged Cleveland
Do Taxpayers of Cleveland & Cuyahoga Have to Always Carry the Cost of Institutions that Serve a Much Wider Area of Northeast Ohio?
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Politicians on May 6, 2010
May 6, 2010… I read in the New York Times Friday that plans are being formulated to redo Progressive Field. Who knew?
A Gateway official says, however, that there is no big redo coming. Further, at this point, both teams leasing sports facilities are responsible for capital improvements.
But don’t you know that it is coming: We need a new stadium! The Indians might leave town! What we’ve heard before we will hear again. It’s only a matter of time.
It does bring up the question of how Cleveland and Cuyahoga County can continue to afford to build and support major institutions that serve a larger geographic area. Not only sports but cultural.
It does seem past the time for thinking about how we preserve the many facilities, institutions and infrastructure assets of Cleveland. The city is rich in major sports and cultural institutions, relics of a wealthier era. How can they be preserved? Who will pay for them?
Most of the actual institutions servicing Northeastern Ohio residents physically are in Cleveland or Cuyahoga County. Does that mean only those residents enjoy those venues? Of course not.
Progressive Field, Quicken Arena, Browns Stadium, Playhouse Square’s stages (Allen, Ohio, State, Palace theaters), the Cleveland Art Museum, Severance Hall and the Cleveland Orchestra. Even the highly subsidized downtown assets of Cleveland. These are places that serve a wider area of northeast Ohio, not just Cleveland or Cuyahoga residents.
But the bill to pay for these important institutions seems to fall, at least the public portion, most heavily upon Cleveland and Cuyahoga taxpayers. Every day in almost every way. And, unfortunately, they are regressive sales taxes weighing heavily on lower and middle income people. None are progressive taxes. Thanks to people like Tim Hagan and Mike White, George Voinovich and George Forbes.
In the latest County Auditor reports we get an idea of the tax burden here:
- The Medical Mart/Convention Center – Cuyahoga taxpayers have contributed via the quarter percent sale tax hike – $94,379,438.38 since only January 2008. Cuyahoga residents will be paying this tax for 20 years.
- Browns Stadium – Cuyahoga taxpayers have contributed via various alcohol sales taxes – $64,609,806.86 since August 2005. The tax previously amounted to some $266 million to help pay for some of Gateway’s costs at the baseball and basketball facilities. The tax was levied for 15 years for Gateway and 10 more years for the football stadium, taking us to 2015. Hopefully, not to be renewed.
- The Arts & Culture tax – Cuyahoga taxpayers have been paying this tax on cigarettes – $60,724,894.40 – Cuyahoga has been paying this tax since February 2007. It’s a tax that I believe will be extended on and on.
That adds up to some $220 million in taxes (not counting the $266 million for Gateway) on Cuyahoga taxpayers with tens of millions more to be collected before these taxes run out.
These taxes will continue for many years.
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are both losing population. That means there are fewer people paying these taxes.
We see the effect it has had on RTA. The transit system depends also on the shrinking sales tax, one percent of the 7.75 sales tax, highest of any county in Ohio. Fewer people mean less purchasing thus less sales tax revenue. Population losses and higher percentages of poor people suggest further erosion of sales tax revenue.
The burden of these seemingly small taxes is heavy. They go from taxes on almost all alcoholic drinks, cigarettes, to parking and other revenue, such as the city’s parking revenue.
The latest tax increase county taxpayers are enduring is the added sales tax of one-quarter percent that raises some $40 million a year for a convention center and medical mart. These facilities serve far more than the people of Cleveland or Cuyahoga County. Why should the burden be limited to only Cuyahoga taxpayers?
In addition, almost all of these publicly subsidized institutions pay no property taxes, leaving the costs of fire, police, school, roads and many other services funded by property taxes. Home and commercial property owners pay more in higher property taxes. And tax abatements – which essentially go to higher income housing – to new and renewed housing also eats into revenue sources
But why does Cleveland have to pay the entire public cost of the Cleveland Browns playing field? Why do Cuyahoga County taxpayers have to pay essentially the entire cost of the playgrounds of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Indians?
Most of the residents can’t even afford to attend these high-priced events.
The local taxpayers can no longer afford the many publicly-dependent institutions that provide entertainment for a much wider – and much wealthier – audience than the people of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
This is a problem of the entire northeast Ohio area, its residents and its taxing structure. The financial burden then should be shared more widely.
We hear a lot of talk about regionalism. This could be a most rewarding form of regionalism.
Why do Cuyahoga County residents alone have to pay for the culture tax that provides funds for some of our major (orchestra, museum) cultural institutions and many smaller arts and culture institutions?
The time is coming – really it has passed – when all the institutions this once wealthy city enjoyed and afforded can be supported by a shrinking and far less wealthy population.
We’re running out of the resources to finance what we have. Too institutionally rich; too economically deprived.
Now is the time to let the people of Lake, Summit, Medina, Lorain, Geauga know that they need to share in the burden of the cost of Cleveland and the treasurer of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County that they enjoy. Of course, some of the same type institutions in outlying areas should share in the wider financing method, whatever that becomes.
It’s time to think about a more regional tax approach to service the wealth of institutions in our communities. It ought to start with capturing taxes on a progressive basis from the beginning.
It’s a matter of fairness. The tax burden must be widened to a larger pool. It should also go where the money is.
Kent State Shootings… Euclid Avenue Blocked – May 4, 1970
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Media, People, Politicians on May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010… Not everyone knows or remembers that Case-Western Reserve University was a center of anti-war and peace activities during the long Vietnam War. I remember because, although I wasn’t a student, I spent a good deal of time on campus.
On May 4, 1970, I remember being in my car when I heard news of the Kent State shootings on the radio. I don’t remember where I was going. I do remember changing my direction.
I drove my car to the CWRU campus.
It’s hard to believe that it was 40 years ago today. It’s difficult to believe that we as a nation are engaged again in far off war – this time two wars.
I remember joining students and others who of their own volition began to sit down in the street to block Euclid Avenue. Reaction to the news had begun to spread. It was their protest of the shooting. Four students had been killed in 13 seconds of rifle fire by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State. The shootings occurred at 12:24 p.m. As I remember it, the protesters sat and stood in the street as a blocking body across Euclid Avenue in front of Thwing Center. Vehicle travel, of course, came to a halt.
The demonstration happened spontaneously. There was no Twitter or Facebook at that time to rally people to action. It wasn’t required. People knew automatically what to do.
The protest reflected the passions of the times. The war was deeply unpopular. More so on American campuses. The war had gone on far too long. The Vietnam War eventually took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. There were more than 300,000 Americans wounded. Some 500,000 to 600,000 North Vietnamese were killed with some 15 million casualties in the North. Tens of thousands more were killed in the South.
Despite the intensity of the times, my memory of the day is sketchy.
I do remember one thing. It was one of the few times when I can pinpoint chest pains. I had been having these pains for some time and certainly the intensity of the day must have caused my pain. Although my symptoms were classic – pain down in the chest and down the arm – I was being treated at the time for an “overly acidic stomach.” I was 38 at the time.
I do remember Police Chief Patrick Gerity appeared soon after the protesters blocked off Euclid Avenue, a main city thoroughfare. Police in cars, on foot and mounted on horses assembled in force to face off against the protesters. It was obvious the police would not allow Euclid to remain blocked from traffic for long.
The bullhorn message from Gerity was that the street had to be cleared. He had the Mounted Police readied to enforce his demand.
I don’t remember how long the standoff lasted. It wasn’t very long. The protests did persist, however, as protesters continued to mingle in groups off the street. We moved from the street but still congregated on the sides of the street and by nearby buildings. It was a message to police that the street might be blocked again.
I do remember the protests continuing later into the afternoon. And I remember that, after the street had been cleared of demonstrators, the police continued to try to break-up any possibility of assembly. Mounted police riding off the street came up beyond the sidewalks into the campus breaking up groups of protesters. It’s surprising how intimidating a charging horse can be. People moved.
The history of the anti-war movement on Case’s campus, though rich in actors and acts, has never been very well documented to my knowledge. It could serve as a contrast to the quiet nature of the campus today as two wars hardly touch the consciences or consciousness of students.
Case-Western campus individuals and organizations, however, played an important role in anti-war activities locally and nationally.
Sid Peck, an associate professor of sociology at CWRU, was a national peace mobilization leader along with anti-war notables Dave Dellinger and Tom Hayden. Dr. Benjamin Spock, a professor of child development, spent 12 years here and gained national press attention for his anti-war activities. I wrote a page-one profile about Dr. Spock for the Wall Street Journal. Here are my remembrances of my 1967 interviews with Spock:
http://www.albionmonitor.com/9806a/copyright/spockprofile.html
Cleveland was also a hot spot in the 1960-70s, because Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had chosen Cleveland as one of its two target cities (Newark was the other) for organizing in the ’60s. Some Cleveland SDS people played a role in the Kent State protests that led up to the May 4th killings. The ferment of the civil rights movement here, along with the election of Carl Stokes as mayor, made the city prominent in the national news of the times.
You would think that this era of Cleveland was rich enough in people’s history that someone would produce a detailed written record of those times and events. It deserves that attention.
Here is a copy of a letter sent by Peck and others for the mobilization for demonstrations in Washington, D. C. “to bring an end to the most tragic war in our history:”
http://www.blogs.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1969/nov/20/november-mobilization/
You also can find some material on the war and Cleveland’s involvement in this Encyclopedia of Cleveland History article:
http://ech.cwru.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=VW
It took another five years for the Vietnam War to come to an end. It wasn’t until April 1975, that the final U. S. Marines guarding the U. S. Embassy in South Vietnam left in helicopters to end U. S. military involvement in Vietnam.
It seemed to me that the firing upon Kent students and killing by the Ohio National Guard, along with the killing of two students at the historically black Jackson State University in Mississippi on May 14, had a strong effect on students. It instilled upon anti-war students the fact that their country would kill them for protesting against the war. There were student protests on campuses throughout the nation following the Kent State killings. However, I have the memory that the Kent State deadly force by officials did dampen the anti-war passions of the young.
They learned that their government, not simply the enemy, could kill them.