Posts Tagged Fred Nance
County Santa (Tim Hagan) Very Good to MMPI in 2009
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Politicians on December 24, 2009
December 24, 2009… Santa Claus came often and generously to MMPI this year. It’s not a one-night trip in this case. Eight times – from May to December – he (played by Tim Hagan) dropped $333,333.33 checks into the Chicago firm bank account.
No need to send receipts. It’s a standing fee negotiated by that sharp negotiator Fred Nance of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. He’s a sweetheart.
The $333,333.33 monthly checks add up to $2,666,666.64 for eight months in 2009.
What do we see that’s changed for our money? Any building by MMPI? No. Any digging by MMPI? No. Any acquiring of land for digging and building by MMPI? No.
But thanks for the $333,333.33 monthly allowances, says MMPI.
Actually, they don’t say thanks. They just send a brief money-due notice.
In addition to the monthly fee checks, another $1,240,799 was paid to MMPI for other tasks by the company or its contractors.
We can be happy though that, as the Plain Dealer reported this morning, negotiations for land at St. Clair and Ontario to acquire property where a medical mart can be built are not dead.
At the last public report, MMPI official Mark Falanga nixed attempts to purchase these properties as too expensive. Instead he wanted to build, apparently with no purchase cost, Mall C, city property. Then build his medical mart overlooking Lake Erie. On land reserved since the early 1900s for public purposes.
Using Mall C for a private business would have been crass, if not illegal.
We Cuyahoga County taxpayers have further enriched the Medical Mart/Convention Center fund, via the quarter percent increase in the sales tax, by another $3,084,125.90 in November. You will remember that the County Commissioners voted to increase the tax without any input or vote of citizens.
That puts the tab for taxpayers and the pool of money awaiting MMPI at $77,539,111.60. With a likely $3 million plus in December, the fund will be slightly more than $80 million for the first two years of the extra sales tax.
Just think, only 38 more years to go for this downtown trinket.
What $80 million in receipts in these two tough economic years tells me, however, is that the tax will bring in much more than $800 million over its lifetime. As the economy picks up and inflation adds to the price of what we buy, the sales tax will bring in more and more money to be used for the project.
(Meanwhile, the taxes for the Browns Stadium with November collections hit $59,583,958.34. Holiday greetings to Randy Lerner, too.)
Happy holidays to all you taxpayers – from me and MMPI and Randy.
MMPI Gets More, County Spends Another $600K on Medical Mart Deal
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Politicians on November 19, 2009
November 19, 2009… Cuyahoga County has paid MMPI another $1,240,799 in addition to the monthly fees of $333,333.33 according to figures from the County Auditor’s department.
The monthly fees have cost County taxpayers some $2.3 million to MMPI. As I noted earlier, MMPI collects this each month as a fee and gives no details of spending for the monthly check. The added $1.2 million went for other tasks performed for or by MMPI.
In addition, the County itself has spent $611,801 of the sales tax monies collected since January 2008. The total collected as of the end of October was $74,454,985.70.
The breakdown of the County’s expenditures is $61,517 in salary, $9,839 in benefits and $540,365 in contracts associated with the Medical Mart and Convention Center project. I am seeking a breakdown of the $540,000 payments.
The three payments made to MMPI, the Chicago firm contracted with to build and operate the Med Mart and Convention Center by County Commissioners Tim Hagan, Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones, were in the amounts of $125,185, $385,129 and $730,485, according to the County Auditor.
MMPI this week sent its representatives to Cleveland City Council after it “trashed” – in the words of the city administration – Public Auditorium and decided the original deal was off. Public Auditorium and the city’s convention center were to be part of the new project. The city and county had agreed to a $20 million payment for both.
With the Public Auditorium out of the picture, the city wanted clarification.
MMPI also dropped negotiations with property owners at St. Clair and Ontario, nearby the present and proposed convention facilities. Representatives of the property owners claim that MMPI never seriously negotiated. The property was to be used specifically for the Medical Mart.
MMPI now apparently wants to put its Medical Mart on Mall C. This is city property and long has been held sacrosanct as part of the Group Plan. Only public buildings and the Malls make up this area of downtown.
None of the Group Plan, originated in the early 1900s as Cleveland grew, would ever have been open to a private business.
Council President Marty Sweeney rushed Tuesday’s meeting with MMPI representatives. Sweeney said at the outset of the meeting that they had a deadline so that MMPI representatives could leave City Hall in time to catch a flight at about 5 p. m. back to Chicago.
One guesses that the MMPI contingent at the meeting want to make sure the meeting at City Hall wouldn’t go long, so they set an early afternoon flight back to Chicago. Mark Falanga of MMPI, however, said he would agree to a request for four more meetings with the city. One would hope that air flights wouldn’t determine how brief the meetings would be. Maybe even the public might get an opportunity to make its views known on a project that appears ready to go off track.
The “trashing” of Public Auditorium, after the agreement seemed set, has angered city officials, including Mayor Frank Jackson. It could make the use of the hall impossible as the safety of the building is now in question.
The public ought to be even more angered by the attempt by MMPI to intrude on public land overlooking the lake.
Talk of the exclusive use of this land for public buildings goes back to the late 1890s.
“According to “Daniel Burnham’s biographer, Thomas Hines, ‘The first urban reformer to exploit Burnham’s talents was Cleveland’s controversial mayor, Tom L. Johnson,’” Eric Johannesen writes in his book, Cleveland Architecture – 1876-1976. Johnson was considered a leader of the Progressive Movement in cities. Johannesen wrote, “In this (progressive) atmosphere arose the ‘City Beautiful’ movement, of which the Cleveland Group Plan was a preeminent example.
It would be more than a shame to place a trade show building amidst these government buildings.
Talk about a Mistake on the Lake. This would certainly be it.
UPDATE… More on the breakdown of the $540,000 figure mentioned above. The breakdown is as follows: Fred Nance of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, $175,000 for negotiating with MMPI for the County; Bricker & Eckler, another law firm for legal work, $60,000; Osborne Engineering, $152,342; and Conventional Wisdom Corp., of Orlando, Fla., $142,247 for providing the County with construction requirement of the project. Other incidental payments bring the payments to $540,000 in contracts by the County on the Med Mart/Convention Center project thus far.