Posts Tagged GCP
Knee Deep in Civic Corruption… Anyone Noticed?
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on June 13th, 2010
June 13, 2010… So why have we wasted all the time and energy with a supposed “reformed” Cuyahoga County Government when Joe Roman and the Greater Cleveland Partnership can decide for us.
Why bother with any democracy? Who needs it.
The Plain Dealer – it its usual uncritical manner – reported last week that Joe Roman, according to the paper, “said community leaders discussed extending the sales tax increase more than a year ago as a possible way to fill gaps in medical mart funding.”
They want more bucks for downtown, of course. Another couple of hundred million dollars.
Why do we need a County chief executive? Why do we need a County Commission of 11 elected officials?
We have Joe Roman – the $451,241 a year GCP boss – to tell us what we need. How we should tax and what for.
“Roman,” said the Plain Dealer, “said the business community supports a transformation of the malls, Public Square and other areas in the central business district. He also recommends addressing the improvements before construction of the medical mart begins in October.”
Let the rest of the city rot.
Well by all means everybody, let’s get busy.
The arrogance of the Cleveland corporate community is amazing. There is no countervailing power to even hint at some balance.
I thought there might be a little more punch to the Plain Dealer editorial posture once Brent Larkin left and Betsy Sullivan took over. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
I guess the PD only deals with certain kinds of corruption. Certainly it doesn’t bother ever with civic corruption. Not even a whisper. It’s rampant in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County but it never riles the PD top honchos. Never seems to cross their minds.
Go get those pikers – Jimmy, Frankie and Gerry.
Mayor Frank Jackson – now Mayor Go Along – has appointed a committee (what a novel idea) to, I guess, try to improve on the 100 year old historic Daniel Burnham Cleveland Group Plan as part of the Joe Roman & the Corporates’ latest desires. Is there no one to scream, “NO. PLEASE, NO.”
Cleveland Planning Chairman Tony Coyne has been named to head up this committee.
Is this a joke? It must be. Tony Coyne hasn’t done one spirited or even near courageous thing in the 20 years he’s been on the City Plan Commission. He’s a dud. I guess then he’s perfect for the job then. Poor Mr. Burnham. Hacks to hack away at his work 100 years later.
They all also keep talking about the $425 million Medical Mart & Convention Center.
However, we know that the 20 year tax will bring in at least $40 million a year and that doesn’t equal $425 million. It equals at least $800 million – without possible overrun costs.
Let’s be honest a little honest about the cost. Interest is a cost as much as principal when you construct. And somehow it has to be paid. All with taxes.
Now, if you’re going to put, as they seem to suggest, big fancy stuff atop the underground convention center on the historic Malls it will mean you’ll need extra strength for the convention center ceilings. I just speculate that.
I suggest this will be the way MMPI will get out of the supposed deal it has with the county to absorb overruns. How can you hold them to the deal if you change the deal? Drastically.
To add insult to injury, Joe Roman and the Corporates – also eager for the $350 million Opportunity Corridor to University Circle – will be pushing Terry Hamilton Brown for the County chief executive spot. She’s their front for the short, expensive road to the Clinic. Opportunity Corridor has been pushed by the usual funding sources – the Gund and Cleveland Foundations. They gave $100,000 each.
But once again we see the powers that be – foundations and their corporate interests – wanting all public resources going to their agenda. Downtown and University Circle. The rest of the city, ah well, it can struggle on.
And our major source of information. Well, the Pd publisher Terry Egger sits on the Clinic Board and co-chair of the Opportunity Corridor. All aboard? Of course.
It’s business as usual. The road leads only one way. Down, folks.
Does Cleveland Really Need a New $350 Million Road? And Who Says So
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on April 9th, 2010
April 9, 2010… Tell me – of all the serious, debilitating problems of Cleveland – why has a $350 million – less than three-mile road – become a major MUST for our community?
For the usual reasons.
The private people in charge of our public agenda want it.
With other roads, streets and bridges crumbling all over the place – with public transportation shriveling and dying – a short road traversing to University Circle and our medical giants has become No. 1 on our list of priority needs.
I don’t think so.
But Mayor Frank Jackson and the subservient City Council 19 appear not to notice. The usual ostrich position is assumed.
It reminds me of the time I arrived in Cleveland – 1965. That’s when the effects of the city’s urban renewal program began to show devastating impact on the city. A weight, by the way, that deserves an urban study that will show what happened to Cleveland, when and why. Don’t expect any university to make such a study. They would have to critically take on the Establishment. It won’t happen. Only private citizens could do it.
The same institutional forces and the people leading the push for this road made the disastrous decisions that help cripple Cleveland with urban renewal plans. Plans that helped certain interests and devastated others, particularly blacks. They felt the impact of urban renewal, or as it was often called then, Negro removal.
Our leaders and The Plain Dealer have given the road the fanciful name of “Opportunity Corridor.”
Let me quote from a study done in the late 1960s, probably available at the library. It was called “The Cleveland Papers” by the Illuminating Company, an apt but tongue in cheek reference to the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. It was done by an ad hoc group of Citizens.
Here is how it starts:
“The notion of a local oligarchy may seem quaintly parochial or – worse – paranoid. Yet we contend that Cleveland, one of America’s great industrial cities, is dominated by a coherent, readily identifiable business oligarchy. Its power is not based in hereditary class prerogatives, but in direct control of the region’s industrial and financial corporations. It is a self-conscious oligarchy, capable of strategizing and of exercising collective authority in the pursuit of common interests. Just as its industries dominate the city’s physical aspect, the oligarchy itself dominates every phase of the city’s political and cultural life. And it is this oligarchy which is above all to blame for the city’s destruction.”
Pretty strong stuff.
If you read the entire report – examining particularly the roles of the foundations and the medical empire – you will get an education of how the power today functions in just the same way. The purpose: public decision making to enable a similar oligarchy to control events and decisions.
Anyone who wants to know how Cleveland got as it is should read this booklet. Indeed, make a copy of it. If you are a teacher of civics, history or politics, assign it to your students.
Gov. Ted Strickland, one guesses to bolster Senate candidate Lee Fisher, recently announced some $4 million to help fund some design work on the road. It goes from I-490 at E. 55th Street to East 105th street.
Why do we need this road? Do we need more land for industry? Hell no. There’s land wasting away all over the place. Do we need more land for commercial? Hell no. Commercial real estate is devastated. Do we need more land for retail? Hell no. Retail is languishing, dying all over the place.
Is University Circle isolated? Unreachable by transportation? Hell no. Didn’t we just finish a $200 million plus transit system right up Euclid Avenue from downtown to University Circle and the medical empire? Yes we did. Even as RTA dumped routes transit-dependent people really need. Yes, we notice who is important. And who is not.
So why do we need a $350 million, less than three mile road? Because the same leadership that said we had to do urban renewal throughout the city back in the 1950s said so. We know that the Cleveland and Gund foundations gave $100,000 each to push for this road.
They were mistaken then. They are mistaken now.
Tell that to Terry Egger, publisher of the Plain Dealer and co-chair of the committee for the “opportunity” Side Street to University Circle. Tell that to Chris Roynane, head of University Circle Inc., and a candidate for the new Cuyahoga County Council.
Tell that to Joe Roman and the Greater Cleveland Partnership.
We are allowing the same oligarchy of corporate/foundation leadership to send us further into the hole. They have divined that we need a $350 million Side Street. And if you think the price is set, wait until we get the full bill.
Learn something from history. You won’t find it in the Plain Dealer. Check out the Cleveland Papers for a taste of reality. And think for yourself.