Gund Grant to City Schools - Such An Irony

Think of the irony of it. The Gund Foundation is giving the Cleveland schools $2.5 million of dollars, according to a Page one story this week in the Plain Dealer. Isn�t it ironic - or at amusing - or a dime on a dollar - that the Gund family took MANY millions FROM the city�s schools.

The Gunds were big property tax evaders.

Yes, it is a good move for the Gund Foundation to give $2.5 million with a promise of more. We should applaud for it. But let�s not get teary eyed.

It is so much as how the world works.

The rich get richer and they bequeath tax-free pennies from those they took.

The Gunds - George and Gordon - of course, once owned the Cleveland Cavaliers. Our sales (sin) taxes built the arena for them. They took us for plenty of dough.

They also benefited from an arena free of property taxes � millions of dollars each year. Most of it, ironically, from the schools. Cleveland schools that is. A peak at how millions are lost:Click here.

The Gunds bought the Cavs from Ted Stepien before the 1983-83 season for some $20 million. The brothers sold the team for $375 million in 2005. Nice profit. After, of course, we provided them with a new arena. And parking. And a couple of free loges. Nice deal if you can get it. And if you have the dough you can.

Ironically, David Abbott in the early 1990s was Cuyahoga County chief administrator. Gateway was launched in May 1990. Abbott, who left in 1993, was a Tim Hagan man. Tim, of course, promoted Gateway. He was chief lobbyist, along with Mike White, in obtaining a full tax exemption for the arena building. It will never pay property taxes.

Abbott today has his picture on the PD front page as Gund Foundation executive director ($300,000 a year). He has certainly become a favorite person of the Pee Dee, where (maybe another irony) he once was a reporter.

And not to be paranoid or anything, Abbott also was an original board member of the Gateway Economic Development Corp. Gateway was very, very good to the Gunds. Gateway board members sort of ignored big overruns on the Gund arena. No good deed goes unrewarded in this game.

Abbott is a past director of University Circle, Inc. UCI is pressing hard for the Opportunity Corridor $375-million road to UC. Of course, the Gund Foundation gave the road project pushers $100,000 to start.

Money goes round and round. Some sometimes trickles down to where it is needed.

Finally, A Sensible Voice on New County Governing

Finally, someone talks some sense about the duties of new Cuyahoga County Commissioners under the County reform � candidate Clark Broida. The task of the county government is services, not economic development, he says.

How about that, someone interested in the real tasks of government.

Here�s what Broida said to Henry Gomez of the Plain Dealer:

�Almost everyone says economic development. It drives me nuts. I just don�t think it�s the County�s overall role to create jobs � it�s to provide services. Our job is to provide an environment where the people have a better opportunity to achieve.�

Problem is that you have some greedy people looking out for their and their friends� interests with the County taxes in mind.

Here�s Gomez�s piece: Click here

Broida is right on the money as I see it. Government should be about doing its tasks and private business should provide for itself.

However, the Cuyahoga County transition team says otherwise. The transition team talks about cutting county expenditures 15 percent. That would �save� some $50 million to be used, the team urges, for economic development. That�s every year! That�s a honey pot that the sharpies could not resist.

What that really means is that county taxpayers will be lining the pockets of developers and others with $50 million each year. This invites the same old people � the Ratners, the Jacobses, the Ferchills, the Gilberts � to have their way by corrupting our politics with their desires.

It�s time that the vaunted private sector stopped sucking on the teat of government.

Especially when one of the people making decisions for this �economic development� fund is Joe Roman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, front for greedy Cleveland corporate interests.

Here�s the article on the $50 million slush fund desired by the transition team: Click here.

This is a robbery you can stop before it takes place.

Dodgers Move & Ratner Arrival - Which Worse Brooklyn?

The departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers was a blow to the people of Brooklyn, N.Y. but the arrival of a Ratner might be more devastating to Brooklyn citizens.

Here�s why:

Judge Grants New York State Right to Steal Homes By

Eminent Domain for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards Boondoggle

Outstanding Legal Issues Still Plague Atlantic Yards

Brooklyn, New York� A Brooklyn Supreme Court judge today, in an 80-page ruling, granted the Empire State Development Corporation's petition to take title ownership of the private properties�homes and businesses�in the footprint of developer Bruce Ratner's $5 billion Atlantic Yards boondoggle. The project consists of a proposed $1 billion money-losing arena and purportedly 15 skyscrapers though there are no renderings or models of anything other than the arena.

The property owners and tenants fighting for their rights will be considering all of their legal options in light of today's ruling.

"Several overarching legal and financial issues still plague Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, meaning today's extreme measure by New York State to seize ownership of private property is premature," said Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn legal director Candace Carponter. "There are two pending cases, one just completed briefing, and the other is awaiting a judicial ruling. Either would stop Atlantic Yards dead in its tracks and could impact today's ruling."

"Today is a very sad day to be a Brooklynite. Our state government, long mired in corruption and scandal, has bent over backwards to give Bruce Ratner whatever he wants, including my home, and the homes of other citizens. I am angry with our so-called political leaders who proudly stand by their abuse of power," said Daniel Goldstein a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and a homeowner targeted by New York's abuse of eminent domain for Ratner's benefit. "When the most powerful forces in state government collude with the real estate industry, injustices will happen, and today is a result of that."

"But should we win or lose the fight against Atlantic Yards, there is a bright spot. We are on the road to overturning New York's atrocious and abusive eminent domain laws. Senator Bill Perkins� proposed legislation will bring much-needed reform to these laws that afford no meaningful protections to communities attacked by greedy developers and their political cronies.

The abuse of eminent domain must not happen again; Senator Perkins' bill to redefine 'blight' and reform eminent domain must be passed.

I call on my fellow citizens and elected officials across the city and state who believe that government abuse of power must be reined in, that government theft of property on the slimmest of pretexts has got to stop, to actively support Senator Perkins' bill.

And when it passes, it will be one of the legacies of the stance I and so many others have taken against the Atlantic Yards abuses, and the stand other citizens have taken in West Harlem, Willets Point, Downtown Brooklyn, East Harlem, Port Chester, Syracuse and so many other cities and neighborhoods across the State of New York."

The judge's decision to transfer ownership of the properties to Bruce Ratner comes after more than six years of a long legal battle with owners and tenants opposing what most experts agree is an abuse of eminent domain in a state that has the worst eminent domain laws in the country.

A PRESS DISTRIBUTION BY DEVELOP DON'T DESTROY BROOKLYN

Crazy Jim Bunning Cuts Off Workers, Docs, Seniors

All you need is one crazy Republican to shut down the government these days. And they do it.

Sen. Jim Bunning is doing the job, denying the unemployed compensation in a Republican induced deep recession. And now he has caused payments to doctors for Medicare payments to be cut drastically.

Happy Days are Gone Again, sing the Republicans.

Isn�t this just what we needed to put us into a Depression.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/01/bunning-objects-to-extend_n_481144.html

Zanotti on Gambling Trips, Alternative Paper Says

County reform Issue 6 leader Marty Zanotti took gambling trips with convicted County corrupter J. Kevin Kelly, according to the Independent.

The story was broken by James Renner of the Independent.

Here's how the article begins:

Independent Exclusive: Zanotti Gambled with J. Kevin Kelley

By James Renner

Contrary to his public denials, The Independent has learned that Issue 6 architect, former Mayor of Parma Heights, and county-transition executive committee member Martin Zanotti took trips north to gamble with county corruption figure J. Kevin Kelley and several other local politicians.

Zanotti watched from the sidelines at a public meeting for the government transition process held at CSU February 17. After several audience members lobbed softball questions at the group of Democrats in control of the meeting, I stepped to the mic and addressed Zanotti directly. I asked him to go on record to confirm or deny that he accompanied J. Kevin Kelley on gambling junkets to the Detroit/Windsor area. Zanotti's response? "Come over here and ask me that."

So I did.

But the audience never heard his response, which was, "Zero."

I guess that depends on your definition of "junket".

Reached by phone early this morning, Joe Tal, Parma Heights service director and brother-in-law of Zanotti, said that he was on at least two trips to casinos with Zanotti and J. Kevin Kelley. The feds insist J. Kevin Kelley's limos, trips and chips were paid for by people seeking favors from Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo and commissioner Jimmy Dimora.

You can link to the entire piece here: Read all about it here.

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.