One of the factors we don’t know about in the deal for the Medical Mart and Convention Center is what the lease will say or thereafter how often the lease will be ignored to the benefit of the developer.

Cuyahoga County has bestowed to private interests, in a memorandum of understanding, some $903 million for construction and operation of a Medical Mart and Convention Center.  The public, however, doesn’t yet know what it is buying.  The politicians have shown over and over that they don’t care.

With Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan’s close association with the Kennedy family and its connection to MMPI (Merchandise Mart Properties Inc.) of Chicago, headed by Chris Kennedy, son of late Sen. Robert Kennedy, don’t expect much critical oversight.

Want some hints of what we may be buying?

Hagan, to me, is the key.

Hagan - a principal mover in Gateway - remained suspiciously quiet as some very strange and exotic spending spiraled out of control in that highly subsidized deal.

For example, although it was never in the lease or original plans, Gateway built a 57,000-square foot building at the ballpark and turned the building over to Dick Jacobs for his private use.  When I asked Gateway director and Hagan chum Tom Chema why, he said the building was constructed to hide an unsightly ramp.  You couldn’t have used shrubbery, Tom?

The building cost $7 million, including $900,000 in furnishing.  Since Gateway will never pay any property taxes, the structure is rent free and tax free.  The furnishings, to spare no cost, included an 18-foot long, 5-foot wide “boat shaped” ash veneer conference table with inlaid strips of wood to appear baseball-like and an inlaid metal portrait of the buffoonish Chief Wahoo.  Nothing too good for political friends.

Furnishing for the arena offices cost $1,443,800.  That didn’t include personal office suites for each Gund - George & Gordon - or six conference rooms and an executive kitchen, to say nothing of three free loges.

Hagan remained quiet.

The Gunds, unbeknownst to officials, built within the arena a $600,000 living quarters – essentially free accommodations, a private nest, for when they were in town.

Hagan never uttered a word.

Gateway built a $5,155,893 restaurant at Jacobs Field and a $2,370,134 restaurant, operated by former board member Denise Fugo of Sammy’s, in Gund Arena.  The baseball restaurant, the Terrace Club, became the largest restaurant in downtown Cleveland with 900 seats.  On game days, fans can’t even eat at the restaurant unless they become paid club members.  The membership fee in 1994 was $800 a year.  The Terrace Club, even in off-season, serves private parties, thus taking business from tax-paying venues, restaurants and caterers.

Hagan kept his usual yapping mouth closed.

So will Hagan allow buddy Kennedy, using your Cuyahoga County tax money, to build into the Medical Mart or Convention Center such luxury restaurants or other retail businesses, with profits going to MMPI?  Don’t dare bet against it.

Hell, they have almost $1 billion in tax money with which to play.

Will Kennedy & Company be able to build fancy apartments for themselves, as the Gunds did, as part of the Medical Mart?  How much free office space will they build into the structures for their use or others?

These are not minor points.

When Jacobs got new offices free, I figured out what it might mean in dollars to the wealthy developer.  Here’s what I wrote...

“For Jacobs, at 57,500 square feet at $38 a square foot annual rent would be $2,185,000.  For its 25-year lease it would be a $54 million gift.”

That’s tax free, rent free and property taxes free. Free, free, free!

Hagan didn’t scream “Not fair!”

Instead, he and former Mayor Michael White flew a private corporate jet to Columbus to lobby and win in perpetuity a tax exemption for the sports franchise venues.

Nor was there any outcry from Hagan when Jacobs insisted on marble tables for loges at $2,500 each, though the supplier in Lucca, Italy, told officials that the marble was not suitable for coffee tables, and, of course, they immediately began to break apart.

Hagan remained speechless.

Does anyone now expect supervision from Tim Hagan?

A description of Hagan’s attitude toward the public by Jeff Buster at RealNEO reveals what to expect...

“… Mr. Hagan, in an irritated and irritating tone, went off how this is ‘representative government’, and that the voters had elected the Commissioners to make these 400 million dollar 40-year bond deals for us without input.” (Actually $40 million for 20 years, equaling $800 million.)

“Fine.  Thank you very much for your self-appointed watchdog of the people.  Every four years the people appoint, eh, elect people in a democracy to represent their views.  If you would like to be involved in being more than that, then run for political office.  But when you come in and say you represent people and you are, you’re self-appointed.  I respectfully tell you that you’re one of the individuals in this room as a public citizen.  I’ll listen to you... (but I’m) not exercised about it.”

“Cigarettes and booze (both to be taxed for Gateway) contribute to the infant mortality rate, contribute to the fact that black males don’t live as long as white males.  Lou Stokes knows that.”