Plain Dealer From the Bottom of the Deck

When a newspaper article starts out in the following manner, you have to wonder whether it has become a public relations firm and given up on reporting:

“It’s called the Flats East Bank Neighborhood, and the developer Scott Wolstein hopes it becomes Cleveland’s new Little Italy.”

Atop that above the flak-like promo is a 9 by 6 inch photo of a grinning Mayor Jane Campbell leaning to whisper into the ear of a jovially smiling Scott Wolstein. Next to them is a sign, “Enjoy life!”

You bet they are. The mayor got the best of free campaign advertising and Wolstein, the developer, got a new neighborhood from the Plain Dealer.

“I don’t like to talk about it as a ‘project.’ This is the creation of a new neighborhood,” Wolstein is thus quoted by Christopher Montgomery, PD business reporter recently in from Dayton.

This, all of a sudden, is a “neighborhood,” which jumps ahead of all other Cleveland neighborhoods as IMPORTANT. Move over Glenville, move over West Park, move over Hough, and move over Old Brooklyn. Move all those old neighborhoods to the back of the line.

The Flats east bank is our new neighborhood.

Here we have the Plain Dealer falling all over itself to sell somebody’s development.

You might excuse Montgomery. He’s new in town. Yeah, but then he’s a big boy.

Yet the Plain Dealer has editors and they ought to know better than to allow ga ga publicity to be spread across page one on an iffy project that demands huge public subsidies.

Why should I be surprised though? Hasn’t the Plain Dealer been doing that as long as I’ve been in Cleveland? Yes, it has.

This one, however, went too far.

The reporter tells us, “To make it happen, Wolstein has rallied behind him just about every imaginable government office and agency he will need. Many of them, including Mayor Jane Campbell, were in attendance on Monday (for the announcement).”

“Today is a real turning point,” Campbell said. "We’re going to make this happen.”

No wonder the reporter got carried away.

All of a sudden, we have 14 acres, 331 residential units, 255,274 square feet of entertainment and retail space and 1,733 planned parking spaces, the newspaper tells us. And don’t forget small parks and public boardwalks.

And glory be, the developer says he’ll finance 65 percent of his $225 million project.

That means, however, that somebody else gets to pay the other 35 percent of his “neighborhood.” That’s $78.75 million. Guess who that bill goes to? Yes, you Cleveland and Cuyahoga residents will pay. You also have to bet that that’s a low figure.

You’ll pay plenty more, too. For one, all the 331 rental and sales units will be tax abated for 100 percent for 15 years.

The story tells us that bonds (that’s you) will be funded “by some combination of tax-incremental finance, which reinvests new project tax from development and revenues from the 1,733 parking spaces planned for the site.”

How easy that is to write; how difficult that is to explain. It does mean, however, that not only will the housing get tax abatement, diverting all that money for 15 years primarily from the schools but the rest of the project’s taxes will be diverted, too. It will go to pay for the bonds.

We’re also told that Barbara Byrd Bennett, Cleveland school CEO, is aboard, willing to take half a loaf (and less when tax incremental financing is concerned) for the schools. Wolstein describes Byrd Bennett as “very pragmatic.”

Deb Janik, vice president of regional development for the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, is quoted saying, “We’d like to do this right, not rushed.”

Pardon me, Deb, you already passed that part.

The city is so desperate that apparently its newspaper publisher and editors believe another playground in downtown Cleveland for people who need to begin to pay their own way is just the thing that’s going to make us a major league city.

Montgomery’s article followed another piece of a couple of days before that almost brought tears to one’s eyes.

The Wolsteins – known and enriched by building K-Marts, a true American classic – are now on a family mission as the headline page one “Wolstein family mission: Rebuild Flats the right way.” The subhead goes: “Son and his late father shared dream for new east bank.”

Are tears welling yet?

Please, these are crass developers, not civic saviors. Their wealth came from building outside the city and gutting it.

“This has been a dream of the Wolstein family for a very long time,” County Commissioner Tim Hagan is quoted. “I’m sure Scott is mindful of continuing the legacy of his father.”

Tim, Tim. You never could shut your mouth in the presence of a reporter with a notepad. What legacy? Building K-Marts and making millions of dollars?

You mean all of a sudden the late Bert Wolstein’s ghost spurs on his family to save Cleveland by building some condominiums on the bank of the Cuyahoga? Please, save me the humanitarian bullshit.

I did read in the Plain Dealer that the Wolstein operations owed the County some $1 million in back taxes. Didn’t see a quote from Hagan, however. Nor any front page headline. It was tucked in a gossip column.

In Cleveland, they are trying to get the hustlers and panhandlers off the street. Don’t want the public to be bothered. In the Plain Dealer, they’re trying to give the streets to the Wolsteins, along with the entire infrastructure paid for by the taxpayers.
from Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole Roldo@adelphia.net

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