by Roldo Bartimole

Regionalism has become the new trite banner carried by our idea-deprived elite. If you want regionalism, here’s the way to do it – and the only way that should be acceptable to common folk, which means the majority of us. Pass a truly progressive regional income tax; not a payroll tax, and not a property tax that will provide services for the entire community’s needs. Let’s have Community responsibility for Our Regional Community. Let’s have those who have to pay for needed services: the schools, the safety, the public infrastructure of the entire community, including, of course, revenue-deprived Cleveland, the neediest part of the region. When you formulate that kind of a responsible foundation, then the Plain Dealer, elite academics, and all our privileged elites can talk about doing the right thing.

The Republican Party and the Citizens League of Greater Cleveland have combined what appears to be a start toward regionalization. It’s as phony as George Bush’s reasons for the war in Iraq. They propose the election of 11 County Commissioners. Right off the bat, you’ve nearly quadrupled the County’s greatest problem – patronage. Each Commissioner will want his or her people hired. In addition, of course, you have allowed the Republicans – who don’t officially have a County Commissioner on the three-board County Commission – to get in on the feedbag. With three seats in Cuyahoga County, Democrats can simply fight among themselves for the three seats. With a County Commission by district, some Republicans are bound to win office. It’s amusing that the Republicans have teamed up with the Citizens League, which if it isn’t a subsidiary of the Republican Party, it should be. It’s an elite organization posing as a representative of the populace.

With today’s internet possibilities, I’d like the Citizens League, if it is so representative of citizens, to list its membership and the occupation of its members on its web site. If it has a real membership, the list would give it some credence. The occupation listing would prove whether it’s an elite membership or a true “citizens” organization.

Sam Miller – Our Most Destructive Of Elites A very short time after my last message about the Cleveland schools, their CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett and the role of foundations in manipulating the public, a half-page ad appeared in the Plain Dealer. The headline suggested that the news media coverage of Barbara Byrd Bennett hadn’t told the whole story. There was more to it than BBB’s fancy trips and high living on foundation, not public, money. “Like many of you,” the advertisement started, “I saw some of the News reports last weekend on Cleveland Schools CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett’s News conference on the use of foundation money,” it started. The writer noted he had read the entire text and “I think it is important for you to have that same opportunity,” and following that was the entire statement by BBB. In small print was the notation: “Paid for by the Sam and Maria Miller Foundation.” It was Sam Miller using his foundation’s money to defend BBB’s misuse of other foundation money. How predictable.

Sam Miller sticks his nose in every nook of this community’s business. He does it for his own business interests. Miller exerts just the kind of influence that has corrupted our politics from local to national. One would hope that Miller has not ingratiated himself so much with the County Commissioners that when they choose a site for their new offices Sam Miller’s stale influence will not win out. It is a worry because that’s what the Commission and Cleveland City Council did when the issue was a new Convention Center. Sam wanted it built adjacent to his Tower City property. He would have gotten it if the push for another unnecessary public facility were successful. Sam and his partners – the Ratner family - in Forest City Enterprises are generous as any examination of the campaign finance records of numerous politicians will tell. That generosity has paid off greatly in dividends by the decisions of the same politicians. However, they spread their dough to ingratiate themselves with not only public officials but also private interests, particularly charitable organizations that can also contribute to Sam and his partners’ well-being. These organizations and their representatives usually have a say in how public decisions are made. Sam’s “kindnesses” – past or hope for in the future - pay off. Sam’s foundation, which paid for the BBB ad, has a fair market value of $16.7 million, according to its latest IRS filing. Anyone can check this filing or any other via the internet by making contact with Guidestar, a web site. Sam has made contributions of some $800,000 in 2002, the latest filing shows. His recipients reveal how ubiquitous Sam can be in this community. He has ingratiated himself everywhere.

Have you noticed how many times the Plain Dealer has written about awards to Miller? Have you also noticed that the Plain Dealer has never done a serious job of examining him and his influence? The Cleveland Scene a few months ago made a good attempt to do that but the PD stays far away from examining those with power in our community. That’s why it’s such a fusty news outlet.

Cleveland State University gets a $53,500 donation, as Sam is on the board of trustees. Not that Sam’s donation directly buys something directly. However, access – just as to a political office – means something in the private arena, too.

Take CSU Urban Affairs Dean Mark Rosentraub, who says he came to Cleveland in part because of Miller and the Ratners. He’s become one of the chief spokespersons for all the mischievous schemes for public subsidization of downtown. Rosentraub, a Sam Miller rave reviewer, plays just the kind of role that allows him access to the Plain Dealer op-ed pages as an “objective” witness. He can then tell the community, not what’s truly beneficial to all, but what Sam and the boys want.

The list of donations by Miller’s foundation reveals how widespread his tentacles reach in the community. He has helped fund Access to the Arts, Town Hall of Cleveland, John Carroll University, United Black Fund, Notre Dame College, Baldwin Wallace, Cleveland Clinic, Black Shield Police Association, Cleveland Firefighters, Ohio Lawmen Softball team, Cops & Kids (Good to be on the side of police and firefighters and they can even help you get rid of a mayor), Kids Voting Ohio, Little Sisters of the Poor, St. Herman’s Home, The Temple, and Walsh Jesuit High School, among many others. Sam tries to keep everyone friendly at a very low cost, too.

A long time ago, I wrote about his wealth. He called to chew me out. I had not found it all, he said. The multi-million in dollars I had ascribed to him, he noted, made him look like a piker. He wasn’t a piker then and he’s far, far from that now.

Clifton Is A Sensitive Being

I’m sure Gary Trudeau is shaking in his boots. Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton apparently wants his comic pages to be on the level of Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie. Therefore, he has issued a warning to Trudeau.

In his blog available at Cleveland.com, Clifton issued a stern warning to the first Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. Censor yourself to fit the family newspaper content of the PD. “Kids,” according to Clifton, visit the comic page. (Actually, the photo on Page two of that morning’s newspaper of a wounded young Palestinian boy might be more upsetting to a youngster than Trudeau’s strip that had Clifton upset, to say nothing of the photos from Abu Ghraib in the PD and countless TV reports. “Kids” check the front pages and TV too.)

Clifton finds that Trudeau causes him too many editorial problems. Tut-Tut. Trudeau, Clifton wrote, is such a prima donna, editing him is prohibited by contract. One guesses Trudeau is familiar with weak-kneed editors. Two weeks ago, the concluding panel in that day’s strip ended with this punch line: “Son of a bitch.” Clifton didn’t like that. Clifton didn’t say that the “son of a bitch” was uttered by a character/soldier having his leg amputated. Might that make a difference in a reader’s sensitivity, if not Clifton’s? Clifton continued: “Such profanity is hardly a horror in this day and age but this IS a general circulation, family newspaper, and the comics still are heavily visited by kids.” Trudeau’s latest “problem” for Clifton – and other editors – is a strip that includes somehow a human head on a platter. It was drawn before the beheading of Nick Berg. Although the comic strip was done before knowledge of the Berg atrocity, writes Clifton, Trudeau’s syndicate failed to “alert papers of the unfortunate coincidence until the comics were already printed.” Any editor that didn’t know about it must be deaf, dumb and blind because it was all over web sites read by journalists. Our only recourse, writes Clifton “is an editor’s note.” He adds ominously, “For now.” Is an editor’s note so difficult or shocking? Being an editor is such a hardship one has to share its burdens and an editor’s blog allows so much sharing. Clifton then admonishes: “We have another option for the future. That would be to say farewell to Mr. Trudeau and his cast of characters.”

Are we supposed to feel sorry for Clifton and the tough decisions he has to make? An editorial “blog,” - a log on the web – is that it requires the editor to say something, and that, it appears, is a problem for Clifton. Forget about censoring Trudeau and try making your newspaper half as interesting and relevant. (:divend:)