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 and 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 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%.

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 this latest 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 for 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 portray Stokes as anti-black qualifies as a “Willie Horton” smear by Hagan.

Hagan – who has never seen a regressive tax he hasn’t embraced – 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 in 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 your constituencies to address it in a proper way.”

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

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

At that same meeting, I had a back and forth with White.  I questioned 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% 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 to do so, 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 taxing the 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 East 9th Street 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.