Posts Tagged front page
Game Being Played by Larry Dolan and Gateway
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, People, Politicians on May 20, 2010
May 20, 2010… It was a pleasure to see The Plain Dealer’s front page today. The PD for the first time in my memory asked a question that needed to be asked: “If Progressive Field needs improvements, who will pay the bill?” It was played prominently on Page One.
If there is any other board that needs PD probing besides the Port Authority it is the Gateway Economic Development Corp., the entity Cuyahoga County set up to own and operate the baseball field and the basketball arena (Progressive Field and the Quicken Arena).
It too has operated in vacuum, unwatched and unattended.
The answers to question about the so-called improvement at the baseball field are evasive both from the Cleveland Indians and from Gateway. True to standard.
Here’s what Indians PR spokesperson Bob DiBiasio said about the big but undisclosed plans, “We’re not there yet. It’s not a question that needs to be asked yet.”
Doesn’t need to be answered? That is strict PR bullshit from someone who never gets challenged by the news media. A happy face he has but not a trustful one for me. If you believe him on this one I have some special mortgage bonds to sell you.
“The Indians have not made any requests for alterations or payments,” was the answer from Gateway’s top operating official Todd Greathouse. Equally evasive. But not unexpected.
Don’t you think that the owner – Gateway – might want to inquire and have that information, especially when it has been in Crain’s Cleveland Business, online in my posts and now in the PD? And it could cost you millions of dollars? Oh why get testy.
It’s the disgusting proof – long tradition – that the owner are not in control of their facilities. The tenants are.
The question is WHO WILL PAY – THE TEAM OR THE PUBLIC?
Let me tell you. You will pay.
The PD – and I hope this ends the marriage the paper has had with Gateway – has been wed to Gateway and its desires from the beginning.
But the writing was on the wall.
Here’s what I wrote in the City News in April 2005:
“Gateway Economic Development Corp. Chairman Bill Reidy let it drop quietly, almost nonchalantly, during a non-eventful quarterly meeting a week ago.
“Reidy said that ‘the city and county would have to step in’ and put up money for Gateway’s capital fund when major repairs are necessary at Jacobs Field and Gund Arena (the original names for the two facilities
“What?” I wrote. Did I hear that right?
“Haven’t taxpayers paid enough for Gateway? Now Reidy wants the taxpayers to dig into their pockets for possibly hundreds of thousands of dollar in capital expenses that Gateway should have been putting aside itself,” I continued.
“Gateway, however, can’t put money aside because it has never charged the teams enough to maintain Jacobs Field and Gund Arena,” I went on.
“What’s so upsetting about this is that at that same meeting new representatives from the city – Chris Ronayne, Mayor Jane Campbell’s chief of staff – and Dennis Madden –Cuyahoga County Administrator – said nothing about this raid on their respective treasuries.” Somebody wake up our officials.
Let me tell you what I expect is happening.
Larry Dolan – and I expect Dan Gilbert won’t be far behind – has set in motion “improvements” at Progressive that will cost in the millions of dollars.
It will take some time.
But there will be money around. The sin tax extension of 10 years has a stipulation that the revenue up to $116 million will go to help pay for Browns Stadium for the City of Cleveland. However, once that total is reached the money – some $68 million had been the estimate – will go to the County. The tax has raised $94.3 million. So it’s not far from the $116 and is coming in at some $13 million a year.
The new money is not to go to Gateway. It is supposed to go to the County general fund. Where it is needed, I might add.
Watch County officials for the rest of this year. They must not be allowed to make any revisions that would send this money to Gateway.
At the time of the Reidy statement, I quoted a County official and wrote:
“’This is our money,’ said a County official. He went on to say, the County has paid an extra $100 million on other bonds and has to continue to paying. Now, it should derive the benefit from the 10 extra years of the sin tax, he said.”
So that’s the game – using more public dollars to boost the revenue of the teams.
My other suspicion, Dolan will use the improvement to help the revenue for the team and make it more valuable for sale purposes. Forbes in assessing the value of MLB teams puts the Indians at $391 million team value. Dolan bought the team for $323 from Dick Jacobs.
Do you think we ought to put a Dolan in as the County Chief executive to help rule whether the Cleveland Indians should get a helping of that $68 million coming due.” Matt Dolan has moved into Cuyahoga County to run for chief executive. Who would he represent in such a deal – his family or county taxpayers?
I think I know the answer.
My question is whether the Plain Dealer will deal with this money grab honestly. I hope so. But the PD’s record on this score is about as good as guys named Hagan, Dimora and Russo.
Here is the PD story:
Here was my take on the improvement deal: click here.
Public Square Low On Cleveland Need List
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Politicians on December 20, 2009
December 20, 2009… Steve Litt is back on the front page today promoting another supposed uplift for Cleveland’s despondent condition: this time another redo of Public Square.
He writes: “City planners have dreamed for decades of doing something to resolve the conflict between vehicles and people in the square and to restore the sense of the town commons implied in the 1796 street plan that gave downtown its form.”
I wish he’d name the city planners doing this dreaming.
I hate to break it to Steve but Cleveland even by 1815 was a village and hit a population of 500 only by 1824. Maybe these people, who likely knew most of each other, (and even lived in the city) could amble about a public square and find out the latest news and gossip. A true community public square. What Sunday fun!
But now we have the Plain Dealer, television news and something called an internet. They give us the gossip, insipid as it may be.
Really this another downtown plan by the same downtown interests as always. Their real interest is keeping certain people off the public square: Homeless people. Young black. Panhandlers. You know those people who interfere with the business of downtown interests.
It’s being pushed by two front groups of the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) – Parkworks and the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.
The money – always available for these Establishment projects – comes from The Alliance and the John P. Murphy Foundation. Both occupy space at Tower City whose front door is Public Square. The Murphy Foundation has a fair market value of $40 million.
One proposal suggests a 76 feet mound of dirt. Now isn’t that clever planning. That must have taken imagination.
This is another Greater Cleveland Partnership project for the rest of us to finance. The Greater Cleveland Partnership, if you don’t know, is the representative of the top corporate people in Cleveland. It doesn’t represent the interests of ordinary people. GCP gets something as the Murphy Foundation interested and we’re off to the races.
All the usual suspects have usual trite things to say. City Planning director Bob Brown finds the ideas “fascinating.” Joe Cimperman Public Square is “pretty thrilled.” Chris Roynane is “excited.”
Is there anyone here who thinks for him or herself? Does everyone have to eat the pie served by GCP and its boosters?
In the mid 1980s we spent some $12 million to spruce up Public Square and I’m sure more than that (though I can’t find a figure) in 1975 when the wife of PD publisher and Editor Tom Vail, Iris Vail, headed up a beautification of Public Square.
Unfortunately, Litt, who has the PD morgue files, doesn’t tell us just how much we’ve already spent in “bettering” Public Square.
With all the problems that Cleveland has why is the PD pushing once again – at the behest of downtown interests, not the least the Tower City gang whose front door is Public Square – for another redo of Public Square.
Can’t they pay attention to the real problems of real Cleveland people? And then they grouse about “leadership” as they march in lock step to every task presented by the downtown business people.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
The grandiose talk of turning Public Square into a Chicago Millennium Park is so farfetched as to be laughable. Litt should be ashamed of himself for putting this as even a thought. Chicago’s park cost $475 million, some $270 million from the city’s revenues.
Have you noticed that the city is supposed to be so hard-up that it has to charge $8 a month to collect people’s garbage?
I’ve walked across Public Square many times. I’ve been to demonstrations on Public Square. It can serve its purpose as it is. Let’s not get carried away with all this feel good stuff that’s being sold by the same old people.
“The project shows that a critical mass of leaders in Cleveland now believes that landscape design is essential to the success of the city and not a matter of added shrubs when a major building project or highway is finished,” Litt writes.
Please.