The K&D bid – $500 over the minimum sought by the County – always had the taint of a bid to cover the embarrassment of Hagan and Dimora bailing out Jacobs, a favored downtown developer.  The properties had been left empty and abandoned for more than a decade by Jacobs.  K&D, proposing other developments in the area, would naturally be seeking favor with the Commissioners, a fount of public subsidies and favors.  Thus the bid that appears a counterfeit.

We have a real problem in this overwhelmingly Democratic-controlled County. There is no competition among local politicians to serve as a countervailing force to the well-ensconced Hagan and Dimora.

So they do as they please and laugh at us.

The County thus does favors for too many interests with little or no public examination.

Certainly, the local press, led by The Plain Dealer, offers very meager scrutiny of county government’s operations.

Both Democratic incumbent Commissioners – Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones (who offers some public responsibility) – on the March 4th primary ballot are running unopposed for re-election.  In fact, only two of nine County Democratic office-holders have opposition, Treasurer Jim Rokakis because some people don’t like his independence and put a name in opposition, and Recorder Patrick O’Malley, opposed by Nelson Cintron, a former ally upset by O’Malley’s role in the recent Cleveland City Council recall vote.

Crain’s Cleveland Business quotes Hagan saying of the K&D $15 million request, it “needs to make a compelling argument” for him to agree to the loan.  Oh, gee, you think?

The K&D bid, as phony as it always seemed to me, kicked the commissioners’ decision beyond the primary date, saving Hagan and Dimora, who both favored the offer, embarrassment.  Now, a prolonged discussion of the loan could get the County past the general election and possibly into next year without resolution.

Maybe by then the sleepy citizenry – helped by the drowsy Pee Dee – will forget all about the financial fiasco created by Hagan and Dimora to bail out Jacobs with taxpayer money.

What is it going to take to wake up the public?  I guess if the foreclosure and bank financial crunch gets as bad as some believe it will, we will be the first County to default or go bankrupt.

As citizens, we will have deserved it for our lethargic approach to citizenship.

Cuyahoga County Disaster Number Two
 

Is Squire-Sanders attorney Fred Nance negotiation with Merchandise Mart Properties (MMP) or for Merchandise Mart?  I can’t tell.

MMP wants total control of the city’s proposed new convention center along with a medical mart.

Here’s Nance in the Pee Dee...

“They (MMP) want to do everything from soup to nuts - build it, lease it out, manage the development.”

Nothing said about paying for it, however.

They keep calling it a “public-private partnership.” Unfortunately, I know what that means, the “public” pays and the “private” takes.  It’s not public-private partnership.  It’s a shell game and we all should know in whose pocket the peanut ends.

What the public needs to know is where MMP’s money is and who will carry the losses, surely to come.  So far, we see no MMP investment and we know exactly where the burden will lie – with the public sector.

This is another Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan special, taking the public right down Sucker’s Lane.

Exaggeration Easily Taken
 

Memo to Plain Dealer reporter Steve Litt...  You may have overlooked the fact that a couple living on Wade Park Avenue had the kitchen modernized in 2001 for $14,500.  Please add that investment to the $4.3 billion count that resulted from – as you wrote in a Sunday piece Feb. 10th – RTA’s Euclid Avenue Corridor project.

I have to admire Litt for trying to lift the spirits of Clevelanders every so often with claims of vast development based on questionable accounting.

The last time he claimed such progress was from Gateway.

Litt usually doesn’t mention the public costs of these projects.

In his front-page Sunday piece, Litt went far afield to come up with his $4.3 billion of investment, much of which would have taken place without the Euclid Corridor project.

I find it a bit amusing that the RTA project, which should have most to do with public transit, especially in a city plagued by poverty, now is hailed mostly as a development tool.

Indeed, once we see the completion of the $200 million public transit project we very well could see a transit plan which inconveniences more of the transit-dependent customers than it helps.

Most of the investment – such as hospital and non-profit expansion in and around University Circle – would have taken place whether or not there was a new Euclid Avenue transit system.  Indeed, the transit system – via buses – will be much like the present system – a bus along the main street.

A letter-to-the-editor by Bernard Scheidler said it as well as I could. In part, Scheidler wrote...

“I believe it is erroneous to say that $1.3 billion in Cleveland Clinic projects were a result of the Euclid Avenue protect.  The same goes for the $183 million Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center and the $258 million Cleveland Museum of Art projects.  How can the Plain Dealer say that the $36.4 million John Hay High School came about as a result of the Euclid Avenue project?”

Litt waits until near the end of his long, two full-page piece to quote a public official with a view that casts doubt on the Litt thesis.

In the second to last paragraph (the last is used to cast doubt on the previous paragraph) Litt finally allows a short breath of caution, quoting County Treasurer Jim Rokakis.  Rokakis notes that this “rebirth” would, as Litt summarizes, “have only limited impact on the city as a whole.”  Rokakis also notes that much of the development is tax-exempt.

Indeed, Litt almost totally ignores the very substantial public subsidies and tax abatements given even to the profit-making aspects of the developments.

Also ignored is the fact that Tower City, the terminus or launch of the Euclid Corridor’s trajectory, has been sinking with the loss of retail outlets.

A question that remains in my mind is whether Cleveland can afford all the institutional venues – art museum, Severance Hall, et al – plus the hospital outlets and the sports facilities, all of which pay no property taxes.  The jobs, particularly at the hospitals, do help significantly but the financial weight upon city services and lack of revenue make the value problematic.

With all the talk about regionalism, one thought presents itself.