by Roldo Bartimole

It couldn’t be more discouraging.

The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Convention Facilities Authority reveals all the hallmarks of another Cleveland venture that the really tells the public, “Don’t bother us.”

Don’t bother us, of course, until it’s time to pay for what the Facilities Authority tells us we need.

Former State Sen. Patrick Sweeney, a member, sounded an alarm at a recent meeting chaired by Bill Reidy, the everyman of this season’s corporate civic desires.

“I want this on the road,” Sweeney who wants the public let in on the dealings. “Let people see what we’re doing,” he said.

He hit a stonewall.

“Do you think Reidy listened at all to my suggestion?” Sweeney asked after the meeting. NO!

Reidy is the stonewall, retired partner of Pricewaterhouse Coopers? and reticent chairman of the Gateway Economic Development Corp. which runs Jacobs Field and Gund Arena.

No one doubts Reidy’s competence. What he lacks big time, however, is any sense of public opinion. In fact, Reidy does not like the fact that the authority has to meet in public now. You can hear it in his voice. You can see it in his mannerisms. You can read it in his terse answers even to his committee members.

Reidy is so close to the vest that his cards hit against his back.

“I think we need concrete things,” was Reidy’s response to Sweeney’s plea.

“I think we need debate,” said Sweeney. John Ryan of the AFL-CIO also said he’d rather go to the people early. “I’d be interested in what they have to say.”

There’s to be no debate.

Of course, members have already met with hotel executives and meeting planners and public officials, but the public can wait. The hiring has begun too. The Authority hired Tim Offtermatt of A. G. Edwards as a financial consultant at $200 an hour ($35,000 maximum); hired Dingus & Daga as accountants; and Craig Miller of Ulmer & Berne at $210 an hour as attorney. Only the latter had to compete for the business.

The authority already knows what it is going to do. It doesn’t quite know how, however. That’s because the “how” entails hitting up taxpayers for money.

How do you convince taxpayers that they need what they don’t need and they need to pay for it?

It sounds too much like Gateway again. Taxes are hardly mentioned. They’ll be will looking to private contributions, historic tax credits and naming rights. Oh, yeah.

I have an idea what the Authority will be selling is a “civic center,” not a convention center that really serves visitors. Cleveland, of course, is filled with services that attend to visitors. A “civic center,” whatever disguise it takes, will accommodate residents. Not really but it will be a sales argument used to get the taxpayer to dip into his and her pockets again.

The Authority should be studying whether the city needs a new or a significantly extended Convention Center. Nothing was said, nor likely to be said, about that issue. It will be full steam ahead.

The sites – two already selected last year by the failed effort for a new convention center – are Sam Miller and Forest City’s Tower City and the area where the present center exists. They’ll be chosen by the end of the year, it was said. A final report will be due April 30, meaning that the public will be brought into phony public hearings next year.

We’re going to hear a lot more about this in the coming weeks. Yet, the Authority already has assessed that the need is there. How to pay for another big project is a serious problem in a town beset by problems. from Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldo@adelphia.net

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