Posts Tagged taxpayer subsidy
Whole Lot We Don’t Know about MMPI and Its Deal with Cuyahoga County
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, Politicians on April 18th, 2010
April 18, 2010… Here are some questions I would appreciate answered from the Cuyahoga County Commissioners and/or their attorney Jeffery Applebaum. I don’t believe any of the questions would interfere with the sticky problem of negotiating the best prices for the project. That’s the excuse being used to keep the public in the dark, it appears.
Presumably, proper plans and a proper lease would answer these questions.
Here are my questions. Somehow I ended up with 13 categories of questions. I hope I didn’t jinx the project:
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers pay for the site and construction of the medical mart to be used as a private business of MMPI of Chicago? (Actually, we already know. The answer is yes.)
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers consider the MMPI Medical Mart a property tax exempt building? In other words, will it ever pay any property taxes? (I think we already know this answer, too. It’s yes.)
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers finance the furniture, furnishings, telephones, computers and all the other office equipment needed for the MMPI Medical Mart? (Don’t know but quite likely it will happen.)
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers finance any new restaurants in the Medical Mart or Convention Center – restaurants that will serve not just conventioneers but the general public?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers pay for the restaurant furniture and bar equipment, etc.? Chairs and tables? Knives and forks?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers pay for the full array of kitchen equipment, stoves, refrigerators, pans, pizza ovens and other incidental kitchen equipment?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers allow these restaurants to compete with other downtown restaurants? By this I mean could these restaurants not only serve conventioneers but the general public on a daily basis though they will be tax-subsidized and property tax free?
- Will there be any housing – apartment – allowed in the Medical Mart building for MMPI executives jetting out of Chicago and into Cleveland at sundry times?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers provide and fund any executive food service facilities in the Medical Mart for MMPI?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers provide free parking for MMPI employees or any other executives hired to operate this project?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers be responsible for upkeep and/or funding capital improvements?
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers share in any of the profits of this venture? Yes, I jest.
- Will Cuyahoga County taxpayers pay for the salaries of any MMPI Chicago executives once the project is completed? If so, how many, at what cost and what percentage of their time will be spent in Cleveland?
You can email the answers to Laura Johnston and Henry Gomez of
The Plain Dealer since they seem to believe you people are keeping secrets from us all. Now why would they think that?
Overlooking the Obvious with Brent Larkin
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media on February 21st, 2010
February 21, 2010… How pathetic can you get? Brent Larkin, Sunday, uses quotes from four City Council members to tell us that Cleveland is in serious, serious trouble.
And as a center piece of the argument he uses the city’s $350 million mistake on the lake – Browns Stadium – to highlight somehow Cleveland’s problems.
As Mike Polensek points out it has no roof. Does he think with a roof it would be filled with activity? The city now has the right to use the stadium it pays for NINE times a year. Do you see it being used? No way.
Cleveland – with Brent Larkin, who actually wanted to be PD sports editor – and The Plain Dealer, paid close attention to sports in the last two decades. To the neglect of so much. Even now the sports pages are the largest section of the paper. And typically with fewer ads than other sections.
Dumbing down the dumb is tradition at the newspaper. It excels at it.
Anything the sports moguls wanted they got and get. Didn’t mean anything that some of what they got came from the Cleveland schools. Didn’t mean anything that other needs were pushed aside.
What was important to our leaders for decades was that the entertainment via sports, rock and roll and other venues got what they wanted. They got the money. We paid the price.
We still pay.
Brent has been the go-to guy in politics and civic life at the PD. He favored every one of these moves. Without reservation. With no discrimination as to value. Expressing no reservations with how it was done. No restraint on cost. Just do it!
Now he shouldn’t complain about results, or get others to do it for him.
Cleveland is what it is not because of the form of government – a city mayor and city legislative body.
These people don’t make the big decisions. They simply ratify what the business, corporate and foundation communities want.
Rarely does the public get involved. Usually the people are simply frozen out. But sometimes a tax is just too much for them. As with County Commissioner Vince Campanella’s desire to build a domed stadium with a property tax. That was the 1980s agenda. It got clobbered near two to one by voters. That ruined Campanella, a Republican, and his desire to be governor. But the game wasn’t over for the corporate leadership. Oh, no.
The usual suckers – voters – weren’t buying a property tax. That didn’t stop the Cleveland business establishment. Find another tax they’ll swallow. It took years – with Cleveland Tomorrow shifting its sights from the Cleveland economy to building sports facilities – to bring forth Gateway. Whoop-de-do.
A sales tax on booze and cigarettes. Hell, the little people pay that. Better than a property tax in the end.
We saved our sports teams. We lost our city.
Was that a great deal or what? Suburbanites get to drive into Cleveland, park at a tax subsidized garage, walk into a tax subsidized sports stadium or arena. But don’t get to drink the water.
Changing the form of government is meaningless unless you change the character of our civic and corporate culture.
And no one is even talking about doing that.