Ivan Schwarz
Greater Cleveland Film Commission
Ivan Schwarz moved to Cleveland from a good career in the Hollywood film industry in Los Angeles, after scouting our fair city for the HBO mini-series
Band of Brothers. Now he says he won't leave for anything, and he's fully engaged in developing our local film industry as well as bringing full-fledged Hollywood productions to shoot in Cleveland, where they spend up to $1M
a day on local talent, technical assistants, hotels and entertainment.
Cool Cleveland's Thomas Mulready meets with Ivan in Cleveland's Chinatown to talk about his life-changing move to Cleveland and what has turned out to be his biggest issue: Ohio currently does not have a tax deduction to offer production companies who want to come here to spend money, so we're not competitive with other states. One production house says they are ready to spend $125M here if we give them tax breaks. Fortunately, legislation is working it's way through Ohio's House of Representative, and the proposed date for the next House Ways and Means Committee hearing on HB 196 is
Wed 4/30 in Columbus. Be there to lobby for the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.
http://www.ClevelandFilm.com
Write to your representatives below
and copy Cool Cleveland at Letters@CoolCleveland.com
Link to finding your Ohio House Representative:
http://www.house.state.oh.us/jsps/Representatives.jsp
Link to finding your Ohio Senator:
http://www.senate.state.oh.us/senators/SenateZipSearch.html
Link to emailing the Governor:
http://www.governor.ohio.gov/Assistance/ContacttheGovernor/tabid/448/Default.aspx
Emails for other key representatives:
Lt. Governor Lee Fisher
lt.governor@governor.ohio.gov
Speaker Jon Husted
Speaker of the House
district37@ohr.state.oh.us
Representative Bob Gibbs
Chair, Ohio House Ways and Means Committee
district97@ohr.state.oh.us
Senator Bill Harris
Ohio Senate President
SD19@mailr.sen.state.oh.us
Senator Ron Amstutz
Chair, Ohio Senate Ways and Means Committee
SD22@mailr.sen.state.oh.us
Bill Sponsors:
Representative Tom Patton
district18@ohr.state.oh.us
Senator Bob Spada
rspada@mailr.sen.state.oh.us
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