Hagan The Back-stabber at it Again

Two Cuyahoga County Commissioners, Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora, want to pull the trigger on another multi-million dollar tax to build what Sam Miller & the Ratners want.

Much of the tens of millions of dollars raised would be used to sandwich the Miller/Ratner Tower City, including the old Higbee’s building (for a medical mart) on the east and Ratner-owned land (Ratner-owned land) to the west.

The sales tax increase – the most regressive variety - will raise some $42 million a year. The increase will be a quarter percent to raise the full county sales tax to 7.75 percent.

It will only be the beginning of heavier financing.

The County has four major projects to fund – a medical mart, a convention center, a juvenile court and a massive headquarter building on a prime downtown corner.

Hagan has been through this before, as has the “expert” he hired at $125,000 – Republican Jim Petro, former County Commissioner – to lead the convention center drive.

Hagan and Petro “served” during Gateway and showed absolutely no concern for the taxpaying public.

Expect a deluxe redo with the convention center.

The Gateway project in 1990 was supposed to be funded entirely from a sin tax, which produced about the estimated total of $250 million in tax revenue. (Hagan later moved to extend it 10 years for the Browns without a vote. However, a public vote during the Browns hysteria extended the tax for 10 more years. We still pay that tax. We also pay the sales tax on the sin tax!)

There were numerous failed promises, including that the project would pay full property taxes. Hagan, after the tax vote, flew in a corporate jet to Columbus and lobbied successfully for a property tax exemption. Now any sports facility built in the state automatically receives that exemption.

Thank you, Tim, say the multi-millionaire ball team owners.

However, the $250 million sin tax was soon found too meager to pay for the stadium and arena. You will hear this again with these new multi-million dollar projects. Thank you again, Tim.

Hagan, Petro (and Mary Boyle) in the 1990s voted two bond issues, one for $75 million and another for $45 million to make up for the shortages.

We – County taxpayers - are still paying bondholders each January for those borrowings. They have cost taxpayers, mostly from the County general fund, $7 to $8 million annually.

More than $100 million – some from the city (see below) – has been paid since. We will continue to pay until at least 2023, longer if required by shortfalls.

Hagan’s arrogance has no bounds.

At one meeting, the commissioners took 30 seconds to vote for a multi-million bond issue for Gateway.

During another discussion of county bonds for Gateway, Hagan, as soon as it came time for the public to speak, showed his utter disdain for the taxpayer.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” he told the audience. He then invited a band of construction workers there to support spending millions tax dollars to join him in the next room for coffee. He left the public to talk to other commissioners.

Hagan haughtily backstabs other politicians.

Cong. Louis Stokes opposed the tax so Hagan labeled Stokes a “front” for tobacco interests. His reasoning: cigarette taxes hurt sales, therefore, anyone opposing him and the tax favored smoking.

Sharp reasoning, no?

Hagan also accused Stokes of “rewarding people that are doing a terrible disservice to the poor and minorities…by glamorizing the use of booze…” Further, that Stokes contributed “to the infant mortality rate.”

Such blatant nonsense as trying to portrait Stokes as anti-black qualifies as a “Willie Horton” smear by Hagan.

Hagan – who has never seen a regressive tax he didn’t embrace – said, along with his sidekick Mayor Michael White, that he wanted public debate on those 1990 issues. Debate is important, he claimed.

I’m sure he’ll do the same this time, claiming the two phony meetings he has set up to inform the public about the need for the sales tax increase as the “public debate.”

His idea of debate, however, is one sided.

Here is what he said on the issues the past: “This is a public debate… What are the choices? You know what’s happened to communities, as I’ve said time and again, when you don’t make choices in the tough decisions and make sacrifices and call upon you constituencies to address it in a proper way.”

He means higher regressive taxes to fund big publicly subsidized projects.

We do know what happened to Cleveland since 1990, don’t we. Straight downhill.

At that same meeting I had a back and forth with White. I question the exemption of property taxes for Gateway. Why did Cleveland have to bear the full burden of the relieved taxes? Here’s the exchange and Hagan’s reaction at a press conference by the duo.

White: Your assumptions are incorrect.

Roldo: What assumptions?

White: There is not money coming from the schools. It’s clear to me that you’ve been taken in by the misrepresentations of the school board. (About 60 percent of property taxes DO come from the schools.)

Roldo: Where would the property tax come from?

White: I don’t want to argue with you about it.

Roldo: Well, you are arguing with me, and you’re trying to make me a liar. And I don’t particularly care for that.

White: Well, I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not going to debate you…

Roldo: Well, don’t debate me but you haven’t answered either.

White: I tried to answer you three times. You can’t conduct yourself in the right way…

Roldo: This is a public debate. I don’t have to have manners. I’m asking questions and reporting to the community. I’m not here for public relations reasons.

So much for debate or even truthful answers to questions. Hagan then admonished me for being rude to the mayor. “You are entitled to your views, sir, we are entitled to some civility” he harrumphed.

I told Hagan, “The problem is you keep talking you want a debate but you don’t want a debate when it comes right down to it. You want public relations and you want these (TV) cameras to pick up the public relations. And you’ve been lying to the people, you continue to lie, you continue to go back for (more) money. And now you’re in a fix because you have lied before.”

We can expect the same obfuscation about today’s issues.

The Pee Dee, of course, already favors the tax increase. Its bogus editorial Sunday is a counterfeit call for honesty that the newspaper never intends to monitor honestly.

It will examine no history of Hagan’s hypocrisy. Nor his awful record on taxes. Or his history of knifing other politicians, as he did with Stokes. There will be no real examination of the people who profit from these deals – from the Ratners to the legal counsels for the bonds, or the contractors to the construction workers. There is more time but I don’t have much confidence in the Pee Dee.

There definitely will not be a move toward progressive luxury taxes instead of a regressive sales tax. God forbid any taxation on those who have instead of have-nots.

Hagan has fostered a career talking about helping the poor. His career has been marred, however, by carrying water for the wealthy. We see that in the County’s purchase of Dick Jacobs’ buildings at E. 9th and Euclid and in Hagan’s determination to knock down the historic Breuer building.

During his mayoral run he spouted his typical rhetoric that we should, “Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty…clothe the naked. I think we forgot these things.” Yes, Tim, as you should know.

Hagan lied deceitfully about Gateway funding now says again we are at a “defining moment.” Dimora more honestly says he would not depend upon a public vote for a tax increase.

Timmy and Jimmy will tell the lies and the newspaper and TV will broadcast them ad nauseam. You can take that to the bank.

Transparency needed by Jackson, schools

A lot less noise emanates from the Cleveland school board since Cleveland’s mayor has selected members. That has not necessarily translated into a superior, or maybe even a better, management of the school system.

That is why Mayor Frank Jackson should rename John Moss to the board.

Moss, as someone outspoken though thoughtful, gives the board some semblance of trustworthiness. Forthrightness is a quality Jackson should be most interested in having if he and a mayor-selected school board are to have some public repute.

Otherwise, there might be less noise but not more oversight.

Balance Sheet Should Show both In and Out

You expect blather and rationalizations from Ted Diadiun. His job as “reader representative” is to protect the Pee Dee from criticism.

However, to hear the Pee Dee’s new editor, Susan Goldberg, spout such nonsense is discouraging.

“I think it’s important that a newspaper reflect not just the bad things that happen in a community but celebrate the good times as well. And that’s what we tried to do.”

That’s discouraging.

The pair was talking about the abominable page one excess about the Cavaliers and the team’s run for the championship.

It’s dispiriting because one expected more of Goldberg.

As I said previously a little civic cheerleading is understandable and acceptable.

Yet Page 1 cheer vomiting continued to the bitter end.

I took particular exception to the Pee Dee front-page headline, “What’s LeBron Worth to Us?” It has a 15-inch tall LeBron all dressed in white. Says something. I’m not sure what. It’s “Business LeBron,” as the Pee Dee puffs for a giant sneaker company.

The theme bragged about how much money came into the community via LeBron & Company.

What LeBron might be costing, rather than paying us, isn’t mentioned in Robert Schoenberger’s propaganda piece.

Possibly the most important aspect of income isn’t even mentioned.

How much in admission taxes does the City of Cleveland gain from these playoff games?

That figure at least would have some meaning to Cleveland finances. It would go right into the general fund. It could be used to pay overtime for police guarding the arena and its fans.

The 8 percent admission tax on every expensive ticket could be real dough for the hard-up city. Two percent of that goes to help pay for the Browns stadium, according to the County Auditor’s department.

The other 6 percent, however, doesn’t travel the normal route to the city. Instead, 62.5 percent of it from the Cavs games goes to the County to pay for those bonds voted by Tim Hagan and his cronies noted above.

As of January 2007, $12.7 million in city admission taxes from the Cavs have gone to pay trustees on bonds let by Cuyahoga County for the Gateway project.

The city and its taxpayers are screwed again.

The PD story does not attempt to assess the cost side of the balance sheet. Only the income side is considered. Not good accounting practice.

There is another side to a balance sheet, Pee Dee. It calculates expenses. To pay police protection, bond payments, parking garages and other costs of the games, in addition to free property taxes.

Further, unless revenue from the playoffs comes from out of town sources it’s money spent by Cleveland area people. Likely simply diverted from other expenditures they would make locally elsewhere. Not a significant gain, in other words.

Indeed, the playoff income amounts are so small considering the entire economy, it is a joke even to talk of economic impact.

To Pee Dee reporters: Please, insist upon at least some sense of honesty in the work you do.

I didn’t find this in the Pee Dee but in the New York Times. The article by Richard Sandomir talks about how major league teams are shifting press box sites to revenue producing spots.

Here’s what he says about Cleveland:

“At Quicken Loans Arena, for example, the Cleveland Cavaliers added 16 courtside seats (at $1,600 each) that flank the scorer’s table” removing reporters to distant points.

How nice. At $1,600 a shot and 41 home games those 16 seats would produce as much as $1,049,600 for owner and multi-millionaire Dan Gilbert, who also owner of Quicken Loans. Of course, that total does not count playoff game income.

I also read a poignant piece by columnist William Rhoden in the Times about Bingo Smith. Rhoden was concerned about the old time Cavs favorite. Smith, who has had heart attacks, strokes and failed businesses, Rhoden tells us, “lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a low to moderate income senior citizen development in Cleveland.”

The column ends with Bingo saying he has good friends in Cleveland, and “I’m okay.”

That is all Rhoden wanted to know, he writes...

Correction: Last week I noted that sub par job growth in Ohio had trailed for 135 weeks in a row. It should have been 135 months.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATadelphia.net
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