What have you done lately for Randy Lerner, Sam Miller, Albert Ratner, Tim Hagan, the Cleveland Orchestra or the Playhouse Square Foundation?
Plenty.
You may not know it but as a resident of Cuyahoga County you have been extremely generous to these richest of our rich.
The figures are in through December for a number of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County taxes.
You (collectively) gave the man who gives you that lousy football team called the Browns $47,515,450 so far for the stadium he uses for his exclusive profit-making. The take this year from the so-called sin tax, extended for 10 year after paying for Gateway, $13,810,178. Prior years: 2007 - $13,869,372; 2006 - $14,505,020; 2005 (September-December) $5,330,880.
Nice to give the billionaire Lerner family a helping hand.
Have you notice that the mountains of Plain Dealer and TV news coverage of the Browns and their depressing condition never once mentioned Lerner’s hand in our pockets? No details from the pious Terry Pluto or cheerleader Jim Donovan.
Smokers chipped in another $19,406,861 for the Arts & Culture tax, up over last year’s $17,083,350, which started this new cigarette tax in February. That’s $36,490,211 for the near two-year period.
Now I hope all the staving artists get their grant proposals into Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) before the money gets eaten up by the big arts organizations – the Orchestra and Playhouse Square.
Lastly but not least, the figures are in for the Tim Hagan Tax – typically known as the Med Mart & Convention Center sales tax. In its first year, $42,142,525 was collected.
The $42 million is the result of the one-quarter percent sale tax increase voted by two people – Hagan and Jimmy Dimora. No real public debate. Absolutely no public vote.
So thank you from Sam Miller & Al Ratner.
That is, of course, if the dysfunctional Cleveland and Cuyahoga leadership can ever get their act together to start building the new Convention Center for Sam, Al and Forest City Enterprises.
There’s a Jan. 15 deadline of some sort but knowing that the County Commissioners and Mayor Frank Jackson haven’t been able to pull this together for the last five or more years, we won’t hold our breath.
(As this was written the Plain Dealer reported that the County once again gave MMPI (Merchandise Mart Properties Inc.) – operators of the venture – more time for a decision. Delay is the name of the game.)
The total collected for the three taxes for 2008 - $75,359,564.
That’s $75 million out of Cuyahoga County taxpayers’ pockets.
Some of them could have used it, I suspect. Some of us badly needed those dollars.
Tell Timmy and Jimmy. They’d likely laugh. Tim would tell you to run for office, that’s the only public participation he recognizes, unless you are a big donor or labor leader.
Links:
[1] http://realneo.us/content/68-million-ready-handover-mmpi
[2] http://realneo.us/content/roldo-bartimole-0
[3] http://realneo.us/content/3-sales-taxes-hit-cuyahoga-taxpayers-1629-million-so-far