By Roldo Bartimole
The importance of being able to influence public opinion – especially among the young – can’t be overstated. After all, reputation depends on what the public thinks of you.
The Smart Guys have it all figured out. It’s not hard. It’s habit. They’ve been doing it for years. The rest of us live and think in the short term.
The Cleveland Indians Charities gave $250,000 to the fund-depressed Cleveland schools. The money saved the softball and baseball programs from cuts due to scarce school finances. The move won good feelings for the ball team. (The charity usually gives $100,000 a year anyway.)
The gift giving got the Smart Guys priceless exposure from the Plain Dealer, including front-page coverage in the opening game write-up.
The Smart Guys smartly invited two Cleveland school kids to throw out the first balls to highlight their gift and won more accolades.
“They were on the field to thank the Cleveland Indians Charities for a $250,000 donation to the Cleveland School District, a gift that saved the high school baseball and softball seasons this year after budget cuts threatened to eliminate them,” the PD article read.
What can be more uplifting that doing something for deprived kids, especially those in the buffeted Cleveland school system when it’s down?
For the Smart Guys it is pure hypocrisy.
Here’s why. Jacobs Field, where the team plays, is tax exempt.
That means that the Cleveland Indians owner Larry Dolan does not have to pay property taxes. Exempted means NEVER has to pay those taxes.
If Dolan did have to pay, where would most of those taxes go? Surprise, surprise - to the Cleveland school system.
What the Smart Guys gave with the right hand they took many times more with the left. It’s traditional. The schoolchildren of Cleveland who can least afford this revenue theft got taken.
The Cleveland school district LOST $2,908,311 in 1999, $2,591,90l in 2000 and $2,878,641 it 2001, all in taxes exempted on Jacobs Field alone.
The property taxes exempted for Jacobs Field presently account for $4.57 million a year, according to county records. Of that, about 60 percent would belong to the Cleveland schools or about $2.7 million in lost revenue for 2004.
The schools have lost more than $15 million on Jacobs Field since 1999. Therefore, whether the Smart Guys give $100,000 or $250,000 in gifts, the poor kids of Cleveland, the Cleveland teachers and the Cleveland taxpayers, all were taken.
So if there were truth in reporting – which there ain’t – the public would get a very different picture than that of the “charitable” Smart Guys.
This picture is never painted with those sharp distinctions by the news media. A balanced portrayal is never revealed. No one helps set public opinion by mentioning this truer depiction of reality. This, the Plain Dealer conveniently ignores. It would damage the paper’s boosterism.
Is it any wonder that the public rates the trustworthiness of the news media down with politicians and used car dealers?
These are rewards to the wealthy not accidental occurrences.
They were given by pliable politicians who double crossed ordinary citizens. This was done after they promised not to give any tax abatements.
The “credit” for massive tax exemptions for the Smart Guys goes to former Mayor Michael White and County Commissioner Tim Hagan. They flew to Columbus in a Smart Guys private corporate jet in 1990 to plead successfully with state legislators for the tax gifts that keep giving.
Indeed, the Indians owners deserve a lot less credit even for the $250,000 gift, as its charity tax return reveals. There are no recorded personal gifts by the Dolan family to the charity. Not a cent.
What you do discover, however, are gifts from players. They can afford it but at least some gave. Jim Thome in his last season contributed $110,000. Ellis Burks in 2002 and 2003 gave $205,000. Bob Wickman in two years donated $101,425. Others with significant gifts include C.C. Sabathia, $50,500 in two years; Charles Nagy, $25,000; and Omar Vizquel, $33,000 in two years.
We should not forget the Cleveland Browns and its billionaire owners, Randy Lerner and his family. Will they finance football for the Cleveland schools this year?
Here’s a laugh.
“The primary purpose of the Cleveland Browns Foundation is to help meet the needs of disadvantaged youth and inner-city youth in the north east Ohio area from childhood through teenage years,” said the foundation’s “prime exempt purpose.”
One has to wonder then why the Browns Foundation in the last two reported years gave the largest – by far – donation of $100,000 each year to the Hero Fund for families of firefighter and police who died during the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.
They are not the disadvantaged children of the City of Cleveland no matter how sad their situations are.
The $100,000 gifts to the Hero Fund so exceeds the next highest amount given by the foundation as to call attention to how the charity operates. The next highest beneficiary at $10,000 is The Little Heroes, which helps children who endure cancer. There are a smattering of $5,000 contributions and many for less.
What, however, should not escape notice but does, is how much the Browns save in taxes because of the White-Hagan charity.
The Randy (son of Al) billionaire Lerner family – but enriched further by the onerous Bankruptcy Law passed by Congress last week - saves millions of dollars each year, most of which would go to Cleveland schools.
Cleveland built the Lerner’s a $350-million stadium, charges them only $250,000 a year rent (actually nothing because the city picks up the skyrocketing stadium insurance which now exceeds the rent) with no increase allowed.
In addition, the tax exemption relieves the Lerners of the annoying need to pay annually $7.57 million in property taxes for the Browns Stadium. The Cleveland schools lose about $4.5 million of the $7 million each year.
So it goes with our charitable Smart Guys. Smart Guys take. Smart Guys give little back. Yet, Smart Guys want to be admired as altruistic folk.
The total tax exemptions for Jacobs Field, Gund Arena, the Gateway garage and Browns Stadium exceed $600 million. NO TAXES AT ALL including any new voted taxes, are paid – none, never – on that property. (The Cleveland Cavaliers charity reports as part of another charity making its records unavailable.)
Is there any wonder that our society continues to breakdown? Is it any wonder why people do not want to pay more taxes for schools when they sense that the burden is shifted from the Smart Guys to the ordinary taxpayer by bought off politicians?
from Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldo@adelphia.net
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