Posts Tagged regionalism
A Few Things to Get Off My Chest
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on April 21, 2010
April 21, 2010… Wait a minute now. I read where “public-private collaborators” have announced that University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic are telling vendors that they better locate in the Euclid Avenue Corridor.
I really don’t have an argument against trying to get more medical businesses to locate in the city. But the threats came over as a bit over the top.
And isn’t it a bit hypocritical of Steven Standley, chief administrator of University Hospitals, to tell vendors “You need to move into the city, or we will find somebody who will.” So he told The Plain Dealer. That’s a blunt threat.
It is an especially two-faced threat for a spokesperson from University Hospitals.
UH is building a brand new multi-million dollar hospital. It is not in Cleveland. Not on Euclid Avenue. So Standley isn’t taking his own advice.
Instead, University Hospitals is building a $230-million medical center in Beachwood, at the Chagrin Highlands development.
The 53-acre medical complex is being built on City of Cleveland land handed over to the late Dick Jacobs. It is virgin land that now is housing businesses – and a hospital – that should be in downtown Cleveland.
So much for that regionalism talk too.
We can thank the leadership of former Mayor George Voinovich and Council President George Forbes for this grand robbery of Cleveland. They did it in the dark too.
And UH has the nerve to threaten other businesses to locate in Cleveland “or else.”
By the way, The Plain Dealer – as in almost every single dirty deal as the Chagrin Highlands deal – fully supported it.
Now companies as Eaton Corp. flee downtown Cleveland for these virgin lands, made more enticing by Gov. Voinovich administration’s gift of more than $130 million in I-271 road improvements and a new exchange to serve the Beachwood location.
Do as I say, not as a do, I guess.
Here’s the Chagrin Highlands website:
http://www.chagrinhighlands.com/
EMBARRASSING MISTAKE
Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg quickly on Wednesday corrected an embarrassing mistake from the Tuesday paper’s Health section.
The story was headlined: “Women learn to fight back against attack.”
The drawing, unfortunately, that dominated the top of the page – 10 by 8 inches – showed two figures, one a woman, the other a man choking her. Clearly, the drawing showed the assailant as black and the victim as white. Looking, you just had to ask “Why? What’s the message?”
I don’t believe it was meant to be racist. But that’s the way it turned out. About as clueless a rendering as I’ve seen.
You have to wonder where the editors were at The Plain Dealer. Maybe this is a perfect example of the cost of staff cuts. They sure weren’t giving a glance at their newspaper.
Goldberg obviously noticed also. “To avoid similar situations, a senior editor will approve every illustration that appears on our pages, taking particular pains to look for unintended imagery that could easily be misconstrued. We apologize.”
Well, thank you.
Goldberg wrote on the front page of a similar section that the “illustration on the Health section front Tuesday offended scores of Northeast Ohioans, and rightly so.”
Better believe it.
No mention was made of how many complaints were made to the paper. Surely not as many as were shocked by it.
CITY’S DECLINE CHECKED, SAYS LARKIN – OH, REALLY
It had to be one of the most misleading headlines ever in the newspaper – “Gateway checked Cleveland’s decline.”
Wouldn’t you expect that from an old buddy of Dick Jacobs? You have to wonder just how many freebies Dick gave Brent Larkin, past Plain Dealer editorial page director. You will remember that he took Brent on his jet to an All-Star game in New York City. Why Larkin wasn’t sacked then simply attests to journalism’s illness. Having him still spout his stuff further attests its condition hasn’t changed much.
Here we are 20 years later and what’s the worry – oh, the Cleveland Indians may be leaving town. Again. What can we give them this time?
Well, I guess we spent a billion dollars or more for these 20 glorious years.
Yes, we did get some new night spots. Not that we wouldn’t have gotten ANY development anyway. But Larkin should walk the downtown streets and see where he thinks Cleveland has been saved. Maybe it’s only the spots he’s taken to that he sees.
Then he can walk some of Cleveland’s neighborhoods and tell us what’s been saved there.
A hundred-yard dash down East 4th Street doesn’t make a saved city.
And you might read today’s Plain Dealer front page. The Cleveland schools – left out of the 1990s by tax abatements and exemptions – expect to have 40 students per classroom.
Unless, of course, teachers give back from their less-than-ideal pay checks. Oh, yeah.
Don’t, however, ask for a Brent Larkin column asking the team owners – past and present – to put up a dime for all the Comeback City they have enjoyed.
John Carney Should Resign from Port Authority Board
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, People, Politicians on November 10, 2009
November 10, 2009… The reason we don’t know why the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority dumped its chief executive Adam Wasserman is because the real leader of the board – John Carney – believes it’s none of your business.
The Port Authority is one of those governmental bodies set up to avoid public input. It has an unelected board. The public, in fact, knows little if anything about its members. Probably cares less.
One aspect of the board has remained rather fixed over the years – the name Carney.
The political head of this powerful family, the late James M. Carney, twice unsuccessful candidate for mayor (once dropped out, once defeated), was chairman during the Port’s early years.
Presently, his nephew John Carney, son of the late judge John Carney, has been on the board for some years. He was chairman. To avoid the limelight or the spotlight, Carney resigned as board chairman. However, it seems he’s still in control. He is civically connected. Many boards. His wife, Tana, is a Cleveland Foundation board member. She was a judicial appointee, meaning political connections and power.
The Wasserman episode suggests that the Port Authority’s bosses don’t know where they are going. Unfortunately, Carney wants to open up land on Lake Erie for development. At great public cost. Development is his private business. He heads Landmark Management.
And, most unfortunately, he wants to open up a portion of the lakefront that requires costly movement of the Port elsewhere. A billion dollars or much more. And the move doesn’t seem to make sense. Certainly, it’s not been proven a good move.
It reminds me of the move back in the 1970s when another bigwig, James C. Davis, then head of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, the Growth Association and many other Cleveland institutions, wanted us to build a jetport in the lake. He had visions of another city being built in the lake. It, of course, would have been paid for by government bonds. Very costly. Squire-Sanders had a near monopoly on servicing government bonds. Yes, he finally admitted, his firm would profit. Would you doubt it?
The lakefront always attracts those with big development desires. Open land. Junk the old city.
I once wrote of the late Jim Carney, “Carney mixes business, politics and civic involvement for personal profit.” He was quite the powerful figure. He was a banker, lawyer, and real estate developer, owner of several downtown hotels. He had newspaper and television business connections in addition to being the Democratic Party boss. Carney was partners with Scripps-Howard interests. It got him favorable coverage from the Cleveland Press and Ch. 5, both Scripps holdings. Carney owned cable interests with the Scripps broadcast company.
It’s a bit ironic, given today’s Carney wishes, that back in 1972 a plan for development that included the lakefront was pushed by the Northern Ohio Community Development Corp. (NORCOM). It was a creature of Jim Carney and Bill Boyer, son of the head of Republic Steel at the time. Carney was vice-chairman of the Port Authority and head of the Growth Association (now Greater Cleveland Partnership) at the time. So he was well positioned.
These profit dreams die hard.
“We believe that the growth of this area will generate great economic benefits to Cleveland’s downtown and provide an exciting new focus on our lakefront,” a planning report said. The plan was written by Boyer, then a city planner. Never write plans you can’t use.
Always the promise of economic advantage. Never the assurance that those who pay for it might gain.
The 1970s push tells a sad story of Cleveland that its movers-and-shakers more than 35 years later are still trying to commercially develop the lakefront. Another generation. Another Carney.
It appears that the attempt once again fails.
We may never know why Wasserman got kicked out. Kicked by a $300,000 boot.
It’s somewhat encouraging that The Plain Dealer headlined this buyout on the front page today with a tinge of criticism. They didn’t like the move either.
The paper will have to go a lot farther. It should ask for Carney’s resignation. Best, he should resign. It should demand an answer to why the recently hired top candidate became useless so quickly. Two years on the job. Jeweled-booted out.
The Port – once owned by the city – shouldn’t function under an unelected body anymore. It had significant powers when it was established as a regional entity with nine board members. Six are named by the city and three by the county. It has been made more powerful over the years. Exceptional amounts of money flow through to private and public interests.
Neither the city nor the county seems to have been careful in naming board members. Members seem to go through the motions without much or any real responsibility. (It is a warning that some regionalism could be negative rather than positive.)
If the lakefront is to be made significant it should remain a public place, not another spot for unneeded development in a shrinking, maybe disappearing city. Why can’t people enjoy the lakefront rather than have it be for commercial use?