FINALLY, TRANSPARENCY - OPEN GREED, OPENLY PROCLAIMED

Submitted by Roldo on Thu, 04/16/2009 - 10:23.

The desperation of our grasping corporatists has to amaze anyone who has watched the fiasco that goes for civic and public decision-making.

 
Isn’t there some irony in the owners of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Indians – for whom Tim Hagan has bestowed hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds via Gateway – come back and bite him on his exposed ass.
 
How about the Plain Dealer, which on Sunday editorialized “Medical mart development agreement is acceptable” and today editorialized, “Don’t rush into a complex deal.”
 
“Broadly, this agreement tries to balance the interests of a private developer and county taxpayers who, for the next 20 years, would foot almost all of the bills to design, build and operate the showrooms and a meeting center marketed primarily to the health care industry but ultimately owned by the public,” editorialized the PD on Sunday.
 
“Is it a sure thing? Of course not. There are no sure things. But it’s a project worth pursuing – with eyes wide open and requisite skepticism,” the paper’s editorial concluded on Sunday.
 
Today, say the editorialists, “What’s the rush?”
 
And, “More time to study and discuss is needed to bring some trust to this important public project.” Now it’s not balanced apparently.
 
How embarrassing.
 
Does anybody around here understand what they are doing?
 
Is it only mass greed that propels all decision-making here?
 
Certainly, ravenous self-interests guide Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and Indians’ owner Paul Dolan. Neither has shown any great concern about Cleveland. They each essentially enjoy a free stadium and arena. Neither pays a penny in property taxes for their structures.
 
They pleasure themselves in welfare benefits befitting kings.
 
Hagan, who has tried to power this deal for his family friends, has to revert to his old fiction that only if you run for County Commissioner are you qualified to opine on anything. Pathetic thinking.
 
Lurking behind the Gilbert ploy obviously are Forest City’s principals Sam Miller and the Ratners. So gluttonous are our home-grown developers that they would bring down the town, even if it meant destroying what they have built here.
This pursuit of the Med Mart and Convention center in their backyard has been a bad joke from the beginning.
 
I blame our civic leaders, a hapless, cowardly bunch, and the Pee Dee – as I like to call it in these instances – for its continued lack of responsibility in assessing what’s going on, its failure to take on the greed that has been sucking Cleveland dry.
 
Let’s just dump the medical mart and convention center idea. Why bother. Why fake the need.
 
Let’s just build a pyramid. Let’s spend $2 billion on it. Let’s have Forest City be the construction manager. Let’s let MMPI be the owner. Let’s not tax it. Let’s pay for it all.
 
Let’s just payoff these people – the Ratners, Miller, Gilbert, Dolan, Jacobs – and have over with it. Give us some peace and quiet.
 
Wouldn’t that be easier? More honest?
 
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