Critic Bashes Roldo, Supports Dick Jacobs

I’ve been whacked again by my critic known as Banshee. Banshee finds my censure of Dick Jacobs off base. Again.

“All your grousing about ill gotten wealth? Nobody’s listening,” wrote Banshee recently on the forum http://www.lakewoodbuzz.com.

Apparently, however, somebody’s reading.

Banshee, I’ll have to say, was also a bit complimentary to me.

Of my response a couple of weeks ago, Banshee wrote, “All I can say is outstanding response.” But, Banshee says, “You are still all wet about Dick Jacobs and his contributions (to) the city of Cleveland…” Banshee believes a winning baseball team trumps all.

However, we really have to be more discriminating about the people we hold up as honorable citizens.

I know Dick Jacobs and he’s not an honorable man.

I’m going to give it one more try, Banshee.

Dick Jacobs is a scoundrel. He’ll be one ‘til he dies...

I think it’s pretty well known that Jacobs had a special relationship with George Forbes, former Council President of Cleveland City Council. It was to Jacobs’s benefit and the city’s loss.

Forbes controlled the spigot that poured money into Jacobs’s pocket for his developments – Chagrin Highlands, the Galleria, Key Center, the Marriott Hotel and even the parking facility under the city’s mall in front of the Marriott Hotel.

So here’s a little story that has never appeared in the Pee Dee or anywhere else, other than a small newsletter (Point of View) that I published.

The headline was: “Jacobs’s $1-million pact to ex-city commissioner – Forbes link looms.” The $1-million dollar contracts involved Jacobs’s Key Center, which was subsidized via Forbes’s power at city hall with a $10-million, 20-year, no interest loan and 100 percent tax abatement for 20 years, worth an added $120-million.

Now that’s favorable treatment.

One would think that Jacobs was indebted to Forbes.

Maybe what I wrote back in 1989 reveals the debt to Forbes was paid. The article outlines contracts of more than $1 million given to Charles “Chuck” Ramsey by Jacobs.

I wrote at the time, Ramsey, a city employee, had been “considered by those who knew him as a delinquent at best as a city official.”

I wrote: “Called at one time or another as an ‘embarrassment to himself (by his boss), and the administration (Voinovich),” labeled as showing ‘poor judgment,’ accused of lying to his boss and misleading his boss, Ramsey now finds himself a hot business property.”

“Curiously,” I went on, “despite his impoverished public record, Ramsey finds himself holding an honor from the city’s top developer, those supposedly illustriously brilliant businessmen – the brothers Richard and David Jacobs.”

I had to wonder why Jacobs would choose Ramsey for lucrative contracts for his Key Center project.

Ramsey at times described himself as a relative of George Forbes and was thought to have the protection of the powerful Council President. He certainly lived a charmed life as a city employee.

The various contracts, including asbestos removal, went from Jacobs to Ramsey despite the poor work record at city hall.

Ramsey’s record included a suspension in 1983 for misleading his boss, Vince Lombardi, community development director under Voinovich. Ramsey was commissioner of rehabilitation at the time.

In 1985 Ramsey again was suspended for seven days for submitting “false weekly reports.” Back in 1981 the Department of Housing and Urban Development gave Ramsey poor marks for his poor management. He continued to hold his job.

Ramsey again was reprimanded by Lombardi, “for falsely giving credit to contracts for being State of Ohio authorized to work on weatherization projects when they were not qualified, again misleading those for whom he worked.”

As I wrote then and repeat now, “Even the least suspicious among us might have to scratch our heads when the Jacobses – out of all minority contractors to select from – pick such a poor and inexperienced candidate as Ramsey for a $1-million plus job…”

Is this the kind of guy you want to spend your efforts defending, Banshee?

The way a man does business tells you something about his character. I don’t like the way Dick Jacobs operates. I think it stinks. Maybe you can take the smell. I can’t.

Ramsey was given another $100,000 contract as a minority contractor by Cleveland State University after Forbes made a stinging attack on the university, labeling it racist. This also was for asbestos removal. Just the kind of guy you want handling asbestos removal, which demands care and responsibility to insure public health and safety.

Forbes also secretly put Jacobs into the Chagrin Highlands deal. This was revealed in a lawsuit by Mayor White against Jacobs. Here’s the testimony of Harry Figgie, the original developer, in a deposition: “I testified the other day that my meetings with Mr. Forbes were preliminary and he asked us if we would work with a Cleveland developer and asked us if he would talk to (Jacobs). That is the meeting I remember and coming from one (Forbes) of the two most powerful men in Cleveland, I took that as a directive to talk to the Jacobses and we did.” Forbes muscled his friend Jacobs into this extremely lucrative deal. In secret.

Ramsey operated as a private contractor even as he held his city hall job. Lombardi, when I questioned him, did not know Ramsey was a private contractor though city regulations required such information to be provided the city.

Banshee, you can draw whatever reasonable conclusions you might from this information.

Here’s the conclusion I drew in August of 1989, an election year: “The cozy relationship between Forbes and the Jacobses makes for an unhealthy situation for a mayoral candidate…” That was pretty mild. Jacobs was a major financial contributor to Forbes’s losing campaign against White in 1989.

Forbes spent a good deal of time stuffing public money into Dick Jacobs’s pocket in the 1980s. Jacobs in turn stuffed some money into the pockets of a Forbes ally, if not relative.

Jacobs isn’t known for being charitable. He rewards those who enrich him.

In checking, for example, Cleveland Indians Charities, I’ve never seen a direct donation from Dick Jacobs in the time he owned the team.

I do see that ballplayers (possibly as part of their contracts) contribute, sometimes very generously. For example, in the last year available, 2006, Casey Blake contributed $25,000 to the Indians charity, as did Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez, who also gave $25,000 in 2005.

But not a penny listed from Jacobs.

Travis Fryman in 2001 gave $50,000. C. C. Sabathia gave $50,000 in both 2004 and 2005 and $25,000 in 2003. Bob Wickman gave $50,000 in 2003 and 2004. Ellis Burks gave $100,000 in 2003.

Yet, in all those years one name hasn’t appeared with a personal contribution: Dick Jacobs. What a skinflint.

That’s not to say that Jacobs never gives gifts. He sent 14 steaks to then Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton in 1999, currying favor. Clifton sent the steaks to a hunger center. Jacobs also treated Forbes and Plain Dealer editorial boss Brent Larkin to jaunt to an All-Star game on his private jet, rewarding those who can do him favors.

Jacobs protects his profit centers. Jacobs told a lawyer, “I believe in the quantum theory of profit to the nth degree.”

That’s just what I’d expect from Dick Jacobs, a scoundrel of historic proportions in Cleveland’s rich history of charlatans.

Jacobs and Forbes have been destructive of democratic government in this city.

Your move, Banshee.

Pee Dee Localized a Bobby Fischer Story

Bobby Fischer, the world champion chess player, died recently. He may never have played chess in Cleveland but that didn’t stop the Pee Dee from reporting that he did. On E. 6th street, no less.

A bitter memo by currently testy Mike Roberts, pr man and Cleveland Magazine columnist, tells the story. He was the Pee Dee city editor at the time.

The memo started, “ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW… the one that counts the most: Recently a veteran reporter on this newspaper wrote a story in which he spelled the name of a single individual wrong six different ways. Another time we had the reporter who had Bobby Fischer, the chess champion, playing a match on E. 6th Street during the recent Sesqui celebration. This was great, the only thing was that Fischer was in Denver at the time and the man who was playing here was Milan Vukevich. We, however, reported Milan Vukevich as Bobby Fischer.”

The memo, which I’ve quoted before, is, to me, a priceless critique of journalism from the trench.

Roberts went on: “On almost a daily basis, several our people, some of whom are assigned to important beats, turn in copy which has obviously not been read. The stories are filled with misspelled words, awkward sentences and inadequate information. Few reporters read their own copy, fewer yet hunt for proofs, yet most demand their efforts be treated in a professional manner.

“Another reporter on this staff has been told numerous times not to simply rewrite press releases. Day in and day out this person continues to regurgitate the releases. Another reporter has to be telephoned, either at home or in a bar, several times a week so that the desk may clarify his copy. Reporters are sometimes an hour or an hour and a half late for work. Sometimes reporters leave a half-hour earlier if they can get away with it.”

(And my favorite part) “They seem to regard the city room as an imposition upon their lives.

“Some of these people do not bother to read the newspaper, not just this paper but any newspaper. There is barely a handful of people who take pride in their work. Many are too lazy to make the extra telephone call, too unconcerned to research the material, and in general do not show enough interest to do more than a minimal job.

“There are those who scrap the simple things and comfort themselves with the thought that when the big opportunity comes they will rise to the occasion and perform with distinction. On these occasions, such as (a recent major) fire, we general get confusion instead of distinction. Some of the reporting that has come from these occasions includes that famous, ‘no one seems to know’ line which has appeared in three major stories that this paper has covered in the past year. The sad thing about all this is that the attitude is so prevalent that one cannot talk of improving the newspaper. We are to a point where individuals have little or no interest in improving themselves, let alone the paper…”

David Simon, creator of HBO’s The Wire, last week had a piece in the Washington Post. Two paragraphs seem to tell us just what’s wrong with today’s newspapers.

“In place of comprehensive, complex and idiosyncratic coverage, readers of even the most serious newspapers were offered celebrity and scandal, humor and light provocation – the very currency of the Internet itself,” he wrote.

“Is there still high-end journalism? Of course,” he writes, but adds that “high-end journalism doesn’t take the form of consistent and sophisticated coverage of issues, but of special projects and five-part series on selected topics – a distraction designed not to convince readers that a newspaper aggressively bring the world to them each day, but to convince a prize committee that someone, somewhere, deserves a plaque.”

Doesn’t that describe the job the Pee Dee did last week with its series on foreclosures – even to the five parts? I suggest you read Bill Callahan’s Diary for some insight into where the series missed the mark. My read is that the newspaper simply didn’t have the capacity or expertise to really examine such a complex issue. So we get a confusing mishmash for five days. Phillip Morris, moreover, was exactly the wrong person to assign the human aspect of the problem. Morris, as noted by reader reaction, totally lacks the empathy for such a task.

Eckart Too Conflicted as Political Commentator

WKYC’s political editor Tom Beres twice in introducing panelist Dennis Eckart had to preface with a reference to Eckart’s relationship to the subject under discussion. Eckart has too many political, legal and business conflicts to be a regular commentator for such a weekly show.

Opening a discussion on Cuyahoga County’s sales of the E. 9th & Euclid properties, Beres, on his Sunday AM Between the Lines program, noted that Eckart represented Dick Jacobs in the $22 million sale of the property to the County and for the discussion on colleges that Eckart was a Kent State University board member.

I believe it’s impossible to present Eckart, even with the disclaimers, as someone not representing a possible conflicting interest. He has been a Democratic Congressman, president of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, a principal in North Shore Associates, representing real estate clients, and a promoter of the gaming industry under the guise of promoting “responsible gaming.”

He’s a walking conflict of interest for such a show.

It does Beres’s credibility no good to have as a regular panelist someone who might better be the subject of discussion than someone to give us unbiased comment.

Beres is probably the best TV reporter of local political events in Cleveland, largely because WKYC, Ch. 3, gives Beres more freedom to report on the everyday happenings in political Cleveland. Beres treats that opportunity with skill and responsibility.

However, his Sunday morning show leans too heavily upon people such as Eckart, essentially a corporate lobbyist, and others with political biases as Mary Ann Sharkey, a public relations person and former Pee Dee editor, and Bill Patmon, a former Cleveland councilman who keeps his hand in political doings.

Beres and WKYC should be able to find guests who have less self-serving interests than those who typically are called upon to address crucial civic and political issues.

One of Cleveland’s problems is that the news media go back time and time again to the same voices and personalities, giving new voices no opportunity to develop. There must be academics who can speak to today’s issues. I know there are a number of young City Council members whose voices should be heard.

Time to stop going to the slick and smooth “insiders” to tell us what is happening in our community. Let’s hear some new voices.

Beres keeps himself well-informed and works hard, too hard to be shoehorned into a time slot that doesn’t allow his reporting to be displayed.

Beres suffers from limited time. It seems he has some 15 to 20 minutes to cover a week’s news in our city. In attempting to cover the many issues that need attention, Beres hurries his questioning and that limits the quality of discussion.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATroadrunner.com
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