By Roldo Bartimole

Crying is getting too hard here in Cleveland. So we can laugh at this one.

The Pee Dee last week headlined an editorial:

“The Flats shakedown.”

Now, you might have thought, wow, the Pee Dee will speak truth. Ohio’s largest will inform people about the sweet deal that’s going down at extreme public expense.

At last, some truth from the Pee Dee.

Well, no time to start believing in the tooth fairy.

The Flats editorial was not about the big shakedown. It was about the little shakedown.

It was about holdout property owners asking developer Scott Wolstein more than he’d care to give for their properties. The Pee Dee will be screaming for faster eminent domain. Bring on the lawyers.

“Get this.” reads the editorial, “Some of the slumlords (that’s a word rarely used in a town full of them) who’ve helped run the East Bank of the Flats into the ground now say that they are insulted by the offers for their properties from developer Scott Wolstein.” (Emphasis PD).

What about the BIG shakedown? Wolstein wants public funding of some $78.7 million on what he says is a $225 million Flats East project. Give me the money; give me the law to run out competitors, he tells officials with the Pee Dee backing.

The Pee Dee has labeled Wolstein’s dream this way:

“It’s called the Flats East Bank neighborhood (everything that now gets full tax abatement is a 'neighborhood') and developer Scott Wolstein hopes it becomes Cleveland’s new Italy.”

Whoa. Get me Rome on the phone. They’ve got competition. Wolstein and Cleveland.

The PD also stated, “To make it happen Wolstein has railed behind him just about every imaginable government office and agency he will need.”

That’s not hard. Cleveland is give-away heaven in that department.

Wolstein has the Cleveland school board, which cries for money then gives it away, saying it will be just fine for Wolstein to divert its property taxes for retail construction. The funds, instead of going to the schools (about 60 percent), will go to subsidize Wolstein’s project.

The project envisions 331 residential units. They will be fully tax abated at 100 percent for 15 years. It will have another 255,274 square feet of entertainment and retail space. Some taxes for that portion will be diverted for project costs.

Mayor Frank Jackson has already authorized $3 million of city taxes from the Core City bond money to the Wolstein project.

There will be no Pee Dee editorial warning of anger about tax diversion, as the newspaper levels at the holdout owners of property on the Flats east bank.

Let the business people fight it out for themselves. They deserve each other, I say.

Indeed, you can read the pressure mounting for government action to take the property from its owners and give it to Wolstein.

The editorial admonishes the politicians. “That’s why it’s very disturbing that some officials – including Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and County Commissioners Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones – were wishy-washy last week when asked about the holdouts. They must remember that they are already committed to this project, (PD emphasis) not to some cockamamie effort to recreate the old bar scene.” (Notice helpful Tim Hagan wasn’t mentioned. Hagan, Mr. Tax Give-Away Hall of Famer, has said this about the Wolstein project: “This has been a dream of the Wolstein Family for a very long time. I’m sure Scott is mindful of continuing the legacy of his father.”) Such dreams. Made his money building K-Marts.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he paid for his own dreams, Tim?

“This is not the time for leaders to go wobbly. It is time for good-faith bargaining – and for moving ahead with a new vision for the Flats,” the editorial concluded.

Check that backbone, politician.

The Pee Dee did have a cautionary paragraph in the editorial saying that “We don’t presume� (but they usually do) to suggest that there’s no room for further bargaining in the offers tendered by the Cleveland-Cuyahoga Port Authority, Wolstein’s public-sector partner. But negotiate seriously and privately.”

I thought, foolish me, the Pee Dee was adamantly opposed to private dealings by public bodies. Guess only when it is convenient for certain people and interests.

No this is STILL the time, in Cleveland and at the Pee Dee, where fat cats mooch off the public and laugh all the way to the bank.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATadelphia.net (:divend:)