Posts Tagged murders
Will County Reform be Spelled R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N?
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Media, Politicians on November 8, 2009
November 8, 2009… Could the pathetic condition of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party give us a Republican for the first County executive? Is The Plain Dealer already pushing a Republican, the out-of-county son of Cleveland Indians’ owner Larry Dolan for the top spot?
Ohio Rep. Matthew Dolan, it has been reported, who will have move into Cuyahoga County from Geauga County to run would enjoy at least a $1 million campaign fund to bring new leadership to us corrupt Cuyahoga County people. Read the News Herald story on Dolan’s power grab: http://newsherald.com/articles/2009/11/07/news/nh1664674.txt
He sounds just the right ticket for Cleveland’s corporate elite who will not leave the city even more to its decay – except for downtown, of course.
The Pee Dee, playing out its role in trying to Republicanize Democratic Cuyahoga County, ran photos of 10 Democratic present and former officeholders plus a labor leader, asking in a headline: “What do these Democrats HAVE IN COMMON?” Easy question to answer: They’re not Republicans.
It continues the Pee Dee’s war on Democrats. I don’t believe for purposes of better government but “different” government. After all, much of this corruption took place with Pee Dee complicity. The paper has been supportive or compliant with so much of what the city and county have done in the last – what – 50 years, or more.
Here’s how these bandwagons get started:
Brent Larkin in the Pee Dee Sunday writes: “Look for State Rep. Matthew Dolan, a moderate Republican from Geauga County, to quit his House seat, move to Chagrin Falls (me: does Chagrin Falls suggest Cuyahoga County to you?) and become the Republican nominee for county administrator. Dolan is a first-rate public official who could raise upward of $1 million, but that GOP label remains a huge liability in a countywide election.”
Dolan is a conservative Republican. The “moderate” label comes from a likely self-serving vote to back Gov. Ted Strickland’s move to rescind tax breaks to help meet the state’s financial problems. Dolan’s vote, I’d say, was made with the knowledge that he likely would run in Cuyahoga County with its large Democratic vote.
Please, give a little thought to obvious political maneuvering.
He’s a “moderate Republican,” writes Larkin. No, he’s not. He is a member of the billionaire Dolan family and the son of Larry Dolan.
How is he “moderate?”
Larkin and the Pee Dee have been speculating on who can change County government now that the paper has helped succeed in pushing Issue 6. The issue passed last week. So far, I’ve seen only male names proposed for the top job. Aren’t there any women in Cuyahoga County?
Larkin skipped the fact that Matthew Dolan is a member of the BILLIONAIRE family and at least part owner of our miserable baseball team.
The Pee Dee was crowing all over the paper on Sunday about its Issue 6 victory.
The Pee Dee ran a full-page ad proclaiming that it still matters. It even played atop the ad the famous quote from Thomas Jefferson about newspapers – that it would be better to have newspapers without government than the opposite. Of course, Jefferson spoke when newspapers took sides and you knew it. Even represented downtrodden people sometimes.
The Pee Dee plays fast and loose with its intentions and self-interests, heavy propaganda for the power elite in town. That’s not exactly what Jefferson had in mind when he spoke.
In addition, Publisher Terry Egger was allocating another self-serving dish with a rare column headlined, “Paper thrives on rush of news.”
“What an amazing, historic week for this community and this newspaper,” Egger opens his piece.
“In my 25-plus years as a newspaper executive, I cannot recall a single week that produced as many events of great local interest on so many fronts,” he tells us.
Actually, it was one of the saddest weeks one could imagine for a city.
Not a week for crowing with the death count from the house on Imperial Avenue. Egger does mention “the horror of worst serial killing in Cleveland history,” but in the same sentence with the “upheaval in the Browns’ front office.” Not bookend tragedies by my measurement. But it is revealing of the thought process of the Pee Dee publisher.
“Newspaper sales have been especially strong in the last couple of weeks, and Tuesday and Wednesday shattered records for the number of people viewing our work on Cleveland.com,” writes Egger.
Well, a gruesome story will do that, Terry. Hardly a credit to the newspaper. People slow down their cars to watch a car accident, too.
The essence of the ease with which the murders of 11 women happened over a period of time despite warnings of crimes screams out for an explanation of why this took place. What ingredients of neglect allowed a community to allow this with little notice? And even when noticed, why such little focus by those whose attention it demanded?
The murders on Imperial Avenue could be chalked up to the nature of the serial killer by some. The killer operates in such a fashion that it escapes notice, sometimes for a long time.
However, there’s a strong hint that Cleveland’s long record of not paying attention to its real problems made it easy for this tragedy to go on.
Egger’s bragging and the full-page Pee Dee ad trying to take advantage of the community’s dysfunction for its commercial purposes strikes me as a bit gross, especially this week.
MIA Mayor Jackson Fails to Give Community Confidence
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Media, People, Politicians on November 6, 2009
November 6, 2009… As if the Cleveland police don’t have enough on their hands. Now they have another missing person: Mayor Frank Jackson.
Where is Frank Jackson?
I’ve covered a lot of mayors going back to Ralph Locher. I don’t know one of them that would not have had a strong public presence in a situation as the one where 11 women have been murdered. And where so much evidence points to an embarrassing lack of policy, execution and service from the city and its bureaucracy.
I don’t know any of the Mayors for more than 40 years who would not be very visible, trying to guide the city, calm the city and give it some assurance of action. I don’t know any of them who wouldn’t be consoling the residents, trying to reassure them in every way, every day that the Mayor has concerned for them, for what has happened and for a just resolution.
This Mayor is absent without leave. He can’t hide behind, “What is, is.”
It won’t fly. Not this time.
The city’s police department has been seen as embarrassingly inept or worse, seriously unconcerned. This is his police department. They represent him.
The absence of the mayor is unforgivable.
It is symbolic of the criticism of Mayor Jackson that should have made it necessary and expected that he would have a viable rival in the just concluded election. He didn’t. He was allowed to waltz into another term. Why? Because it is clear that the corporate leadership wanted it that way.
That says something about the plight of the city. As much, unfortunately, as Imperial Avenue.
That the news media are not pressing Jackson reveals another aspect of Cleveland’s problem.
The headline on the front page of the New York Times today says, “After Gruesome Find, Anger at Cleveland Police.” It is a three-column front-page story on a day when news is dominated by a dozen or more killed at a U. S. Army Post.
The Times story continues for four more columns of 16 inches depth with three photos. That’s a big story for the New York Times.
Mayor Jackson’s name does not appear once!
It’s distasteful to even say, but does the Mayor even really care?
Jackson in a statement as part of an update on Nov. 4 on the city’s web site said, “There is still a lot of work that needs to be done and a lot of unanswered questions that need to be addressed. Until the family of victims get the closure they seek and ultimately the justice they deserve, this case will continue to be our focus. My thought, prayers and deepest condolences go out to the Carmichael family, friends and relatives.”
A day later in another press release (all of them less than a full page) Mayor Jackson said, “As we continue to make progress with the identification, I want to assure the families of the missing that until they all get the closure they seek and ultimately the justice they deserve, this case will continue to be our focus. On behalf of the City of Cleveland, I offer my deepest condolences to the family, friends and relatives of the victims.”
That’s all there is.
That seems like canned PR that just doesn’t match the needs of the community at this time.
Just as pathetic in my mind was the gathering of ministers and the advice that the community should pray. Pray? Hell, the community out to be damned angry and expressing it.
There’s no leadership at the top. And there’s no leadership at the bottom.
What happens when that occurs? Usually, unpleasant action fills that vacuum.
But I think Cleveland is too dead even for that.