Posts Tagged government reform
Perfect Solution Where New Cuyahoga County Officials Can Meet
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Media, Politicians on March 28, 2010
March 28, 2010… I have the perfect place for the new Cuyahoga County Council to meet. It shouldn’t cost a penny. County taxpayers already paid for construction. And even to furnish it!
It’s a building the County constructed in Jacobs Field.
It’s not far from the present County Administration building.
The building wasn’t even in the lease. It was a gift.
I was told at the time that there was an unsightly ramp. Such a problem. So we – thank you Michael White and Tim Hagan especially – built a 57,500 square foot administration building “to hide the ramp that would have been visible to the public from Ontario Street,” Gateway boss Tom Chema told me. I guess they didn’t think of some far less costly solution. Shrubbery perhaps?
The truth is that Dick Jacobs wanted an office building for his Cleveland Indians staff. And what Dick Jacobs wanted our County Commissioners and Chema gave him.
So why doesn’t the County ask the Dolan family to vacate one floor of the five-story office building we built for them? (Come to think of it, maybe Matt Dolan, candidate for County Executive, could expedite this process with Larry Dolan, team owner and his dad.)
Back in 1990 I reported on this give-away. Neither The Plain Dealer nor any of the hot shot TV news stations touched it. Is that unusual?
Here are some of the facts:
The building, not called for in original plans or lease, cost us $7 million. That included furnishings. Yes, we even furnished it for Jacobs. It cost $900,000. Telephones, desks, computers, etc. All free.
Jacobs, of course, certainly knew the value of such real estate.
Here’s what I wrote in the Free Times at the time:
“Downtown real estate developer Dick Jacobs, of course, knows the value of that Gateway gift. Indeed, Jacobs, owner of the new Society (now Key) Center a few blocks away, asks tenants to pay $38 a square foot in his building. (His Society Center was property tax free, as was – and is – the stadium and the free building. You see rich people are not expected to pay taxes as the rest of us are made to do.)
“If Gateway did the same, instead of charging no rent, the space given Jacobs in the administration building would be worth $2,185,000 a year. With no increase over the 25-year lease that would be more than $54 million in free rent.”
Since 1990, that would have meant more than $30 million to the County. Didn’t happen.
And there’s a perfect table for the new commissioners to meet around.
At Jacobs’ request the County provided an 18-foot by 5-foot boat shaped table for a conference room. That should fit for the 11-member Council. If not, I’m sure it could be expanded.
The table had an ash veneer, according to the plans. I don’t think some of the special treatment asked by Jacobs will interfere with government business. The table called for inlaid wood shaped to replicate the stitching of a baseball.
There might be one problem. The table also called for a metal etching of the racist symbol of Chief Wahoo to be inlaid at each end.
I checked at the time with some firms that make custom tables. One said that with the inlays the cost would be about $10,000 for the table.
Good enough for our certainly new tax-conscious commissioners, don’t you think?
I asked Chema at the time whether he reported this magnificent gift to the Internal Revenue Service. “Absolutely not,” Chema said.
So there’s plenty of room for the commission at no cost in a building we taxpayers built.
The inattentive Plain Dealer offered today (Sunday) three possible meeting places. The cost estimates for the three range from some $687,000 to $1.2 million. The PD story is here:
Time to save some public money. Time for a billionaire family to give back to the community. Time, indeed, for us to assert our public will.
C’mon Matt, you can help. Have a talk with dad.
Cleveland’s Real Corrupters
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on March 5, 2010
March 5, 2010… The Cleveland Corporate Corrupters had a big meeting yesterday. They’re already deciding how to spend tens of millions of dollars we don’t have.
It’s an act of piracy seldom defined by the mass media. The media simply play it as “that’s the way things are done” apparently.
No other voices need be raised. The Plain Dealer, our major source of information, doesn’t have the imagination to even prompt dissent or an alternative view. It’s not in the mass media’s DNA.
One of the greatest needs in Cleveland is a new Public Square, according to these masters of the county’s universe. These people set our civic agenda for their selfish private needs. Never expect less.
The headline in the Plain Dealer says, “Business leaders see $100 million in new income.” So let’s grab it guys,” should have been the subtitle.
These plutocrats already have it spent. On things THEY decide WE need.
These same people – corporate leaders – have been setting the agenda in Cleveland forever. I’m familiar with what they have done since the mid 1960s. It’s always been shameful. And selfish. And largely mistaken. Just look at where we are.
It started with an urban renewal program that helped destroy much of the east side of Cleveland, forced a black migration, then white flight and promises never realized. They sent tens of thousands of people out of their homes without providing adequate replacement housing.
That’s why a federal urban affairs official told me, “Cleveland’s our Vietnam. We’d like to get out but we don’t know how.”
Our corporate and legal leaders – changed in name only over the years – have continued to set the agenda as THEY see it. Typically, they want welfare for themselves. The hell with the rest of you.
Some 500 of these vultures met under the auspices of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a corporate front group that leads politicians around by their noses under the auspices of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, our chamber of commerce.
The latest theft derives from what they say will be an extra $100 million a year. THEY know how it should be used. The money, they say, will come from cutting Cuyahoga County’s budget by $50 million and adding another $50 million from casino revenue. Lick your fingers, guys.
The article appears in this morning’s Plain Dealer here:
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2010/03/business_leaders_see_potential.html
This is undiluted propaganda. The Plain Dealer doesn’t ask anyone to give a contrasting view of how such money – if it ever is realized, should be spent. Can’t expect the Pee Dee to report honestly of the duplicity of these business front organizations. They are one and the same on such issues.
What do they want? These takers.
Another renovation of Public Square. They never seem to get in right. So let’s do it again.
Put more retail and housing on the lakefront, they say. Great idea? Except you’re just shifting the business from one downtown spot to another. At public cost. And even as we are greatly subsidizing the same kind of development in the Flats.
Corporate leaders, according to this report, are “thinking boldly.” Who’s to prove that? Not the Plain Dealer. Thinking greedily would be more accurate. We won’t get that kind of truth from our morning paper.
There are many needs in our city and county. Needs that go unmet. Ordinary people’s needs.
Nothing is said, for example, about one of our great needs – public transit.
The Regional Transit Authority (RTA) keeps cutting services and thus losing business. Never hear the big shots cry about this. They have Mercedes. BMWs.
Two hundred million dollars is okay for the bus service up Euclid Avenue from Public Square to University Circle. This fits the corporate desire to bolster downtown and the Circle area. One wonders whether there is any validity to this. Isn’t it just another bus line? But more productive? More meaningful to those who use it?
But bus service for people who depend upon RTA to get to work, to the hospital, to doctors, to shop. Well, we have to cut that. Don’t have the money. Don’t have the resources. Can’t pay for it.
Little voices don’t get heard.
I’ve been pressed by people who say the RTA has eliminated the bus service on the No. 25 Madison Ave. line in Cleveland.
RTA, they say, reversed itself and nixed the elimination of the route into Lakewood. They see RTA bending to Lakewood Mayor Edward FitzGerald. He’s running for County executive and that, of course, could affect RTA in the future. Suspicious but with a hint of truth.
“How are these poor people going to get to the West Side Market and Lutheran Hospital without the No. 25 bus?” they ask. They also complain that RTA didn’t hold a public hearing on the Cleveland change.
RTA says that one of its rail stations is right across from the West Side Market. However, you’d have to be on a rail line to get there. Minor point.
The point here, however, is that corporate leaders appear privileged to decide. It’s as if there is no alternative way to decide. The community agenda is set by these high muckety mucks. Others don’t have a seat at the table.
So sit back and what you need will be decided by Joe Roman and the boys. Joe made $451,241 in pay and bennies in 2008. Nice work if you can get it. And he does.
Isn’t this the leadership that has put us in the dire straits that we find ourselves? Can’t we ever get rid of it?