Posts Tagged Larkin
‘Collaboration’… The Aim, Not Result
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media on February 2, 2010
February 2, 2010… Let me get this straight. The Cleveland Foundation is now the target of The Plain Dealer? You got to be kidding me.
The Sunday assault on the Cleveland Foundation decision to not give the Fund for Our Economic Future much new money suggests to me that the PD’s leadership doesn’t quite know what it is doing. In a front-page article and some blunderbuss from Brent Larkin, the PD slammed an institution that it has never had a bad word for in the past.
Ease into it, why don’t ya.
The “past” is the past at the PD these days and sometimes now that’s very good. Not always, however. Sometimes it gets overplayed. The paper is jumping on things. And jumping pretty hard.
The PD leadership – Terry Egger and Susan Goldberg – don’t know the community. And apparently they’re not eager to. They seemed to take a leap on this one, suggesting they are listening to voices and have taken sides. So, let her rip. Even if it may not be clear.
News, schmooze, we’ll tell you what to believe.
The new aggressiveness of the PD overall is welcomed. But some selectivity is in order. At times it seems the paper is just looking for a fight. Grrrr.
Now, if there has been a more critical voice about the Cleveland Foundation through the years, I guess I have to own up to it.
But I get the feeling that some new guys who think so highly of themselves – Brad Whitehead and the gang – have it in mind to be our new True Leaders – Entrepreneurs, Inc. They know what’s best. Fell in love with technology.
They maybe don’t think that helping Cleveland or Cuyahoga County counts for much anymore. Maybe they believe the core here really is dead. And not worth the opportunity to even lend a small helping hand.
I’m a bit surprised at the stridency of Dave Abbott of the Gund Foundation. He’s also chairman of the Fund. First, I always thought Abbott was a Cleveland city proper supporter. Abbott, in my experience, could never get much excited where it counted. He was a Tim Hagan man as Cuyahoga County administrator before he went truly corporate. As an original board member of Gateway there was nary a bad word about that abysmal operation. He was quiet as a mouse as the debt mounted.
Now, he’s roaring. “Silly and absurd” are knifing words. That’s how he described reaction to a column written for the PD supporting “collaboration” – the theme word of the Fund. It ran as an op/ed in the PD.
Ronn Richard, boss of the Cleveland Foundation, apparently is touchy that his institution has given millions of dollars to the Fund but has one vote – same as entities that gave $100,000. That’s what he offers to give each year now. But he did know the rules when he entered the deal.
The PD’s bomb hardly fit the “collaborative” theme everyone seems to think keen.
The publicity may have widened the gap between Richard of the Cleveland Foundation and Abbott of the smaller Gund Foundation. Usually, the two foundations are as collaborative in funding as two entities could get.
Maybe having the dirty linen hanging out is good but obviously it can be disruptive. A commodity overstocked here.
Back to your corners, guys.
Is Larkin Still Setting Plain Dealer Editorial Stance?
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, People, Politicians on September 29, 2009
September 29, 2009… Did anyone else notice the difference in tone, style and content between two Plain Dealer columnists on Sunday speaking about the dilemma of the Ohio state budget?
I did.
Larkin zeroed in on Gov. Ted Strickland for the financial mess – $1 billion shortfall – in Columbus using strikingly different language than long-time State House watcher Tom Suddes.
Larkin rapped Strickland with such wording as “breathtaking ineptitude” and depending on legal advice from the firm of “Barnum & Bailey” and describing Strickland’s attempt to balance the budget with slots as “pathetic performance,” something I might join with him.
Descriptive language but hardly even-handed. Particularly when you consider Larkin was the PD editorial boss during the truly pathetic Taft years.
Larkin even had the nerve to contrast Strickland with former Gov. Bob Taft, citing a job producing effort. I guess Larkin hasn’t noticed that jobs pour out not into Ohio in gusher style under Taft. Here’s Larkin’s take:
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/09/gov_strickland_is_sinking_fast.html
Suddes rapped Strickland, too, after the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling that the slots issue had to go to the voters.
However, Suddes noted that the court ruling didn’t “only” put Strickland, as he put it, “behind the eight ball.” Here’s Suddes’s take:
“But people of both parties need to start behaving like adults. Both Strickland and his foes seem to be thinking only of their political prospects. They need to be thinking instead – and jointly – about the prospects of 11 million Ohioans. Because even without the court’s decision, the national economic and the human-service demands it fuels made Ohio’s budget as rickety as a 2-year old taxi,” wrote Suddes.
That’s putting it into the correct perspective.
In other words, a plague on both your houses, says Suddes. Larkin, meanwhile, strikes only at Strickland.
Both Larkin, recently retired, and Suddes, an instructor at Ohio University and a member of the PD editorial board, are no longer at the paper. Suddes was a statehouse reporter for the PD.
Larkin, former boss of the PD editorial page, got much better play than Suddes. Larkin’s unbalanced attack – Headlined: “Flailing Strickland is sinking fast” – took up much of the PD’s Forum front page including a 13 by 8 inch cartoon of the governor.
Even more contrasting to the Larkin column, former governor, now U. S. Senator George Voinovich, yesterday met with the PD editorial staff and urged Republican to help Strickland solve the very serious money problem facing the state AND its people.
Voinovich rightly urged Ohio Senate President Bill Harris, as the PD’s Mark Naymik put it, to “begin working with Strickland on the state’s budget revenue shortfall.” Naymik’s story got poor display in this a.m. Metro pages. It can be found here: http://www.cleveland.com/naymik/index.ssf/2009/09/us_sen_george_voinovich_urges.html
Larkin should have read his own newspaper to find out that Harris and the Republicans can certainly share in the fiscal problem Ohio faces.
In a piece last November, Harris, a former banker-small businessman, sent what the PD called “an empathic message” to Strickland: “Don’t even think about messing with previous Republican-passed tax cuts.” Republicans control the State Senate.
Voinovich, to his credit, suggested that Strickland, with Harris and the Republicans, rescind the final year of a five-year 21 percent income tax cut forced by the Republicans in 2005 as one possible solution to the budget shortfall.
Democrats fear doing anything that even has the odor of a tax increase because they expect Republicans will yell and scream about tax increases.
That’s a correct assumption unless it is a bi-partisan tax cut.
The alternative is that Ohioans, particularly those without jobs or with special needs, will suffer – that is, suffer even more.
Larkin’s one-sided viewing of this important issue is detrimental to its solution. It also is putting the Plain Dealer – because of his former position – editorially in a box.
The question is: Who is the editorial boss now? Is it still Larkin or is it his successor, Betsy Sullivan.
It’s time that decision was made.