It took until the 34th paragraph in Sunday’s Plain Dealer expose of the deal for land where the new juvenile justice center is being constructed to get to Mayor Michael White and Sam Miller. The center is located away from all other court/jail facilities of the County at Quincy and E. 93rd where a broken-down brewery once stood.

The land was purchased by the County at a high price from Forest City in a deal that smells of a Dirty Deal.

The problem is that the Plain Dealer has Russo and Dimora dementia.

The thrust of the story should have been about the former mayor and Forest City’s Miller, a wheeler-dealer of vast proportions, and their dealings during White’s reign.

The PD didn’t get to White & Miller long into the article.
The story cried out for a detail review of their relationship. Indeed, there should have been photos of the two and sidebars on all the sweet deals that Miller has gotten from White, his favorite politician for more than a decade.

It’s easy to get yourself in a rut and the Plain Dealer is so taken by the FBI investigation of County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and County Auditor Frank Russo that they come up even when maybe they shouldn’t be the prime targets. I cannot say that their hands are clean but where’s the evidence that they are dirty in this deal.

Dimora - by the reading of the PD expose Sunday (long after the Free Times – now the Scene - had written the story of this dirty deal) - had just joined the Commission when the final decision by vote was made. And Russo was in his first term.

The deal had been constructed earlier than Dimora and Russo would have been instrumental in formulating the deal, it suggests to me.

“Neither Dimora nor Russo responded to interview requests,” said the story. No surprise there.

The Plain Dealer has soft handled Miller for years as he took more and more from the city and played games with friendly politicians for mutual profit.

Here’s another example of avoiding the obvious.