Cleveland's Real Corrupters

The Cleveland Corporate Corrupters had a big meeting this week. They’re already deciding how to spend tens of millions of dollars we don’t have.

It’s an act of piracy seldom defined by the mass media. The media simply play it as “that’s the way things are done” apparently.

No other voices need be raised. The PD, our major source of information, doesn’t have the imagination to even prompt dissent or an alternative view. It’s not in the mass media’s DNA.

One of the greatest needs in Cleveland is a new Public Square, according to these masters of the county’s universe. These people set our civic agenda for their selfish private needs. Never expect less.

The headline in the Plain Dealer says, “Business leaders see $100 million in new income.” So let’s grab it guys,” should have been the subtitle.

These plutocrats already have it spent. On things THEY decide WE need.

These same people – corporate leaders – have been setting the agenda in Cleveland forever. I’m familiar with what they have done since the mid 1960s. It’s always been shameful. And selfish. And largely mistaken. Just look at where we are.

It started with an urban renewal program that helped destroy much of the east side of Cleveland, forced a black migration, then white flight and promises never realized. They sent tens of thousands of people out of their homes without providing adequate replacement housing.

That’s why a federal urban affairs official told me, “Cleveland’s our Vietnam. We’d like to get out but we don’t know how.”

Our corporate and legal leaders – changed in name only over the years – have continued to set the agenda as THEY see it. Typically, they want welfare for themselves. The hell with the rest of you.

Some 500 of these vultures met under the auspices of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a corporate front group that leads politicians around by their noses under the auspices of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, our chamber of commerce.

The latest theft derives from what they say will be an extra $100 million a year. THEY know how it should be used. The money, they say, will come from cutting Cuyahoga County’s budget by $50 million and adding another $50 million from casino revenue. Lick your fingers, guys.

The article appears in this week's Plain Dealer here: (Read more)

This is undiluted propaganda. The Plain Dealer doesn’t ask anyone to give a contrasting view of how such money - if it ever is realized, should be spent. Can’t expect the Pee Dee to report honestly of the duplicity of these business front organizations. They are one and the same on such issues.

What do they want? These takers.

Another renovation of Public Square. They never seem to get in right. So let’s do it again.

Put more retail and housing on the lakefront, they say. Great idea? Except you’re just shifting the business from one downtown spot to another. At public cost. And even as we are greatly subsidizing the same kind of development in the Flats.

Corporate leaders, according to this report, are “thinking boldly.” Who’s to prove that? Not the Plain Dealer. Thinking greedily would be more accurate. We won’t get that kind of truth from our morning paper.

There are many needs in our city and county. Needs that go unmet. Ordinary people’s needs.

Nothing is said, for example, about one of our great needs – public transit.

The Regional Transit Authority (RTA) keeps cutting services and thus losing business. Never hear the big shots cry about this. They have Mercedes. BM Ws?.

Two hundred million dollars is okay for the bus service up Euclid Avenue from Public Square to University Circle. This fits the corporate desire to bolster downtown and the Circle area. One wonders whether there is any validity to this. Isn’t it just another bus line? But more productive? More meaningful to those who use it?

But bus service for people who depend upon RTA to get to work, to the hospital, to doctors, to shop. Well, we have to cut that. Don’t have the money. Don’t have the resources. Can’t pay for it.

Little voices don’t get heard.

I’ve been pressed by people who say the RTA has eliminated the bus service on the No. 25 Madison Ave. line in Cleveland.

RTA, they say, reversed itself and nixed the elimination of the route into Lakewood. They see RTA bending to Lakewood Mayor Edward Fitzgerald. He’s running for County executive and that, of course, could affect RTA in the future. Suspicious but with a hint of truth.

“How are these poor people going to get to the West Side Market and Lutheran Hospital without the No. 25 bus?” they ask. They also complain that RTA didn’t hold a public hearing on the Cleveland change.

RTA says that one of its rail stations is right across from the West Side Market. However, you’d have to be on a rail line to get there. Minor point.

The point here, however, is that corporate leaders appear privileged to decide. It’s as if there is no alternative way to decide. The community agenda is set by these high muckety mucks. Others don’t have a seat at the table.

So sit back and what you need will be decided by Joe Roman and the boys. Joe made $451,241 in pay and bennies in 2008. Nice work if you can get it. And he does.

Isn’t this the leadership that has put us in the dire straits that we find ourselves? Can’t we ever get rid of it?

C'mon Dennis, Don't Be Another George Voinovich

Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich is being singled out to change his vote on President Barack Obama’s health reform measure. President Obama himself pitched to Kucinich, telling him a form of single-payer option – Kucinich’s desire – is in the reform bill.

Kucinich was a no vote on the measure that passed the House. He has been pressing for an ideal single-payer measure.

Kucinich has the reputation of being a politician with strong beliefs. He has also been a rather selfish politician who thinks of his standing when making his decisions.

His intransigence not only endangers health reform – weakened as it is – but damages the Obama administration and possibly Democrats in general for the coming election.

The delayed health reform battle has set back President Obama’s ability to deal with the jobs and other issues. Republicans have denied Obama a single vote in the U. S. Senate in an attempt to fatally damage his presidency.

Rep. Bernie Sanders told the Huffington Post that he had talked to Kucinich, albeit “a while back,” about his provision that gives states the ability to provide a single-payer option using federal funds to do so.

The article said that President Obama directly addressed Kucinich’s concern about lack of a single-payer aspect, telling him a form was in the bill and that the Congressman “wrote it down.”

Dennis and a few other Democrats – mostly more conservative ones - are holding up health insurance for some 40 million people and many others facing a jobless future without health insurance.

Democrats want to pass a revised health bill under circumstances that allow the U. S. Senate, which has already passed a bill (as has the House) to dodge a Republican filibuster. A revised Senate bill from the House would require only 50 Senate votes. Democrats believe they can produce 50 votes.

C’mon Dennis, let’s not be your usual selfish self and think about the general good.

The full Huffington article can be accessed here: Read more

Better To Take City Funds To Gilbert's Casino

I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Cheap. Just send along a big check. We’ll tell you how helpful it was some time in the future.

Mayor Frank Jackson and City Council are ready to give $1.1 million to Nehst Studios to help finance three movies the company expects to make in just over a year, according to a piece by Jay Miller of Crain’s Cleveland Business. It’s a loan that will allow Nehst to arrange $11 million in financing.

(PLEASE, CITY OFFICIALS, SAVE THIS $1.1 MILLION AND SEND SOMEONE OVER TO THE CASINO WHEN IT’S BUILT. BET IT ON SOMETHING. MAKES BETTER BUSINESS SENSE.)

I wonder who at City Hall has the expertise to invest more than a million bucks on some Hollywood (made in Cleveland) movies. Oh, hell, details, details.

The film, Miller writes, will also benefit from $7 million in Ohio tax credits.

Hey, let’s find some more goodies for these guys. I’m sure that Cuyahoga County will chip in with some Arts and Culture money.

Miller doesn’t cite a source of the city funds. They were voted out of the Council’s economic development committee. I suspect it comes from UDAG repayments. These are subsidies given, usually at no interest and for up to 20 years before they are repaid, by the city via federal funds. When repaid they go back to the city.

Since most of these funds were used for downtown projects – such as Tower City and the Key Center and Marriott Hotel for our friends the Ratners and Dick Jacobs – the funds should be used for Cleveland’s neighborhoods.

But they’ll be going to this New York film company, which now also has offices in the Cleveland Convention Center. Rent free, of course. With option to renew. Hilarious.

Here’s a bit about the film company: Read more

And all you Clevelanders lining up for parts in these Cleveland-produced movies bring cash: Read more

Desperate people do dumb things.

County Keeps Taking Extra Millions From Taxpayers

The quarter percent sales tax for the medical mart has now cost County taxpayers $87 million. MMPI, Tim Hagan and his Kennedy friends thank you all. Keep it coming, says Tim.

This is to fulfill the agenda of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. The corrupters of our civic life mentioned in my post below. The takers in our community life.

Since January 2008 through February 2010 County taxpayers have paid via the County Commissioners voted sales tax increase $87,131,339.38 for the med mart & convention center project.

That’s $87 million in slightly over two years. How it rolls in!

That is $87 million that could not be spent on food, gasoline, restaurants, toys, theater tickets or even cigarettes. In other words, this is $87 million worth of anti-stimulus money for Cuyahoga County businesses. It’s all take, no give.

That wasn’t the end of our contributions, however.

We have also contributed $63 million for the Browns. Is it in any way worth it? That’s more income really for Randy Lerner and family. Stimulus for the billionaires. And, of course, for the putrid football team.

We’ve been paying sales “sin” taxes on alcohol and cigarette products for the Browns Stadium (used maybe 9 or 10 times a year) since August 2005. It simply picked up from Gateway’s taxes. But you did vote for it.

The total take is $63,088,767.28. Thank you suckers, says Randy.

Just for the fun of it, here’s how the tax breaks down:

Cigarette smokers gave: $14.3 million.

Alcohol drinkers gave: $22.8 million.

Beer drinkers gave: $20.6 million.

Wine & Mixed beverage drinkers gave: $5.1 million.

That is $63 million that can’t be spent on food, gasoline, restaurants, toys, theater tickets or even cigarettes. To say nothing of rent and your mortgage. Another anti-stimulus poke to the wallet and a loss for Cuyahoga County businesses.

It comes in small bites but it’s somebody’s big free dinner.

The arts & culture tax has netted $58 million of your tax dollars since February 2007. The exact take was $58,061,190.71.

The taxes come primarily from cigarette smokers.

The total extra taxes – all highly regressive – total well more than $200 million taken in highly regressive taxes, the kind wealth people love to impose on ordinary, hard-working people.

You know most of it is only the beginning. Because the taxes remain for years and years to come. I doubt that anyone will legally challenge these taxes by a vote.


Subsidies Cause More Problems Than Cure

The Plain Dealer reported this week about the troubled downtown commercial properties. Empty and emptying buildings. It's a shame.///

"Turmoil in commercial real estate," says the article by Michelle Jarboe here: Read more

Yet the Plain Dealer - with business and political leaders - has been pushing for more and more subsidies to build new. That's just one of the major reasons there are so many empty buildings. We are helping to create excess.

You can't build new when you can't even keep the old relevant.

At the same time retail and commercial properties go into foreclosure Cleveland political leaders are using hefty subsidies to produce more retail and commercial. Why?

You can't have everything you want. Isn't that what we teach children?

Why then isn't that good advice for developers.

As business declines downtown the answer we seem to get is to open new property for development. As buildings are emptying, we are providing very heavy - in the multi-tens of millions of dollars - to the Wolstein project on the East Bank of the Flats.

The Port Authority wants to open land on the lakefront to the same kind of development. Now there's a push to get rid of Burke Lakefront Airport and open it for development.

Cleveland, in a dirty deal, opened more than 500 valuable acres in Chagrin Highlands two decades ago. Now, Eaton Corporation will move out of downtown to Chagrin Highlands. So will University Hospitals with a new hospital facility. And other business have been attracted to the open spaces at the Highlands, city owned land that never should have been opened to greedy speculators. But then Mayor George Voinovich, tied to the project via his old Calfee-Halter law firm, and then Council President George Forbes, tied to Dick Jacobs, worked a deal that has hurt the city and will continue to damage downtown.

You can't have it all. We seem to be urged by major institutions to grab more, however.

The Port, of course, has gotten itself into trouble with its attempt to serve more as an economic development body than a port. Its desire to open up land on Lake Erie is self-defeating. Developers, led by John Carney of the Port board, push this direction.

The Plain Dealer has been doing a good job of being critical of the Port Board and how it does business. However, the PD has been a chief cheerleader in the past. It helped push the Port into being a financial conduit, starting with its financing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Again, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Corporate and civic leaders (aren't they same?) and the Plain Dealer have pushed and applauded the politicians into thinking they are developers. More and more various levels of governments are acting as economic development entities. As if they know what they're doing. They don't. They do what developers tell them.

For years and years the politicians have been using public funds to subsidize almost any project that came to them for handouts. I don't believe they know what they are doing. They obviously don't care since it helps them, sometimes with campaign dough, sometimes with kudos and pressure from the totally undiscriminating news media, and sometimes, I'm convinced, via the greased hands of corruption.

How do we stop it?

Citizens have to more and more tell public officials upfront that they dislike all this welfare to business.

Tax abatement and tax exemption have produced some development. However, it's rather clear it also has damaged other business.

At the same time the public services that cities, counties and state should provide its citizens declines. Cleveland can't even pave its roads. Not enough money. That has to change.

Here are some links with evidence of what I'm talking about:

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