Is there a Cleveland city council member who can show any moxie when it comes to pursuing a bit of economic justice in this town? Nah. Too much to expect.
Public servants don’t seem to want to provide that service. Seeing justice is out of their line of sight.
Maybe it’s too much trouble too. Maybe they just don’t see the necessity. That happens a lot. They aren’t a very zealous crowd it seems. I don’t sense much passion there. More like bureaucratic. Short on compassion. Where’s Fanny Lewis?
Anyway there seems to be a dearth of people who even think in those 60ish terms any more. It’s a shame. We have lost so much of our passion about what’s wrong. Our city and culture reveal it.
The reason I’m bringing this up isn’t new. I’ve mentioned it before. Likely I’ll mention it again. And again. Probably AGAIN.
Here’s the deal: Billionaire Randy Lerner has a sweetheart contract. It was given to him by former Mayor Michael White and his favorite lawyer, Fred Nance of Squire Sanders & Dempsey. Quite a duo.
We continually pay dearly to see that the Lerner family does well. Since August of 2005, we county taxpayers have contributed $63,867,150.83 to help the City of Cleveland pay to build Browns stadium By the way, it is used about 10 dates a year.
That $63 million represents taxes we paid on cigarettes and various forms of alcohol as of the end of March. We also pay, but it isn’t recorded, 7.75 percent regular sales tax on the $63 million. That represents another nearly $500,000. This, folks, is real money.
Lerner, owner of the Cleveland Browns, pays almost no rent for a stadium built entirely by the taxpayers of Cleveland. A stadium, by the way, that pays no property taxes on the structure. He got the bargain $250,000 a year rent, never to rise. And the city gave the extra bargain of picking up the insurance costs of the stadium, thus the Browns.
As I’ve mentioned before, the city pays the property taxes on the land, which was provided by the city free of charge.
The city pays much more for the land property taxes than Lerner pays – or will ever pay – to rent the whole thing. The city pays more than $400,000 annually. Where can you get a deal like that? No where. Unless you’re very, very rich.
Do you think Mayor Frank Jackson would have the sense to tell Lerner – time to renegotiate the terms of the lease? You got a sweetheart deal, Mr. Lerner. Now, it’s time to pay a just price for use of the facility. Our city needs it. Our school children need it.
Jackson, of course, should have done this a long time ago. But he won’t. Makes too much sense.
Especially since the Browns have a training center in Berea. That means that though the Browns play all their games at the city’s stadium at really bargain prices, the wealthy Browns players only pay partial income (payroll) taxes in Cleveland. Berea gets to share the tax revenue.
You would think that Jeff Johnson or Brian Cummins – two of the more progressive Council members – would say, “Hey, the city’s getting taken. Time to renegotiation with the Browns. Let’s bring Lerner in here.”
Or maybe, Dona Brady or Matt Zone or Kevin Conwell or one of the new Council members.
Is there anyone awake at 60l Lakeside? Guess not.
Easier, I guess, to add bucks onto residents water bill for garbage pickup.
Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.
He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.
2 Responses to “Roldo: Can Anyone Expect A Public Official To Notice?”
Leesa Priah
Mr Bartimole,
Would you please be so kind as to add RTA to the list of what elected officials and the PD seem to not notice. I have been a bus rider my entire life and have never seen things this bad. I have made calls, written letters, sent emails and have attended many public hearings. I’ve even crashed a few Citizens Advisory Board meetings which is a joke in itself. In more than one of those public meetings countless numbers of citzens have accused the CEO Joe Calabrese of getting fired from other transit companies. I haven’t read this anywhere and it doesn’t come up in my google search. But I wonder is there any truth to it. And if he has been fired from other transit companies, why have the politcal powers in this County allowed him to destroy our public transit system.
In December 2009 I wrote a letter and sent it to nearly every elected official for Cuyahoga County (I can send you a copy). My idea to get the elected officials involved in this issue was due to the fact that the RTA board members are not elected by the citizens they are appointed by elected officials and in my mind that makes those elected officials responsible for what is happening and for finding a solution. I know it won’t surprise you that I only received a few respones. Most were the standard “thanks we got your letter” response. The only one that actually contacted me was Senator Voinovich’s office which I appreciated but still got no assistance.
What has happened to the public transit system here is ridiculuos. Each service cut and fare hike makes life harder for those who can least afford it, poor people, in particular the working poor who use public transit not because they want to but because of their ecnomic situation have no other choice. The changes at RTA in recent years have shown a prefernce towards rush hour riders especially suburban or near suburban riders and a lack of respect for those who live in the inner city and have non traditional work schedules. It would be interesting to see what the statistics (the real numbers) are for ridership because the ones posted on the RTA website don’t make sense to me and leaves me with more questions. What is the ratio of rush hour to non rush hour riders and How does RTA count its ridership? It looks like ridership is being calculated by the number of trips taken and not by the number of people who ride daily. If thats the case that number is flawed.
I am a homewoner in the City of Cleveland who can’t sell her house, a Cuyahoga County employee who may not have a job soon and a rider of public transit who is now stuck in on weekends because my neighborhood bus doesn’t run on weekends. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
I am no journalist so I am asking for your assistance at shining some light on this issue along with the others that are destroying this region.
Thanks
Leesa Priah
Karen
It is disappointing to see the bus lines cut/consolidated. I was spoiled, the bus was just 4 houses away from me and ran every hour. I catch it mainly to get to and from work. Now I have to walk 10 minutes to get to the alternative stop. There was a lady that could barely walk that would catch the bus in the same place as me to go to work. I do not know what she is doing now in terms of transportation. I hope this did not cause a major devastation to her life. Another lady that I was catching the bus with will need to use taxi cab services to help get her to and from work. I am sure there are countless other stories out there on this not so good for the economy move.
I hope that there are future plans for improvement to the system and lines will be restored. I am confused currently about all of this. The extra walking is good for my body but not good for a lot of other folk. I hope the children will be safer going to and from school as well. Is there a plan for them? They return this week from spring break. I hope there is transportation set up for them by their schools!!!!!!!!
It would be nice if taxi cabs were stationed at the rapid stops like in Atlanta Georgia. It would be nice if there were attendants on the rapids or health line that you could pay for a bus ticket with cash on the spot like in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Seems like the officers are kind of not-so-useful without the type of customer service/customer friendly tool such as this alternative way to pay bus fare.
About a week ago there was a lady coming from work and she had on her uniform and she was at the tower city station and let 1 or 2 rapids pass her up because she did not want to have to sit at the other rapid stop based on the time her bus was to coming. The security guard told her she could not wait their at the tower city stop. This was late night. She did not want to argue or even ask to stay for fear of trouble from him.
A lot of times they can not even keep the schedules stocked up in the main information section. It would be a no-brainer to laminate the schedules and make like a flip chart so at the very least you will always be able to at least look at a schedule. With all this technology why is there no internet access where you can go online in the main info area to look up a route/trip? Are we trying to attract tourists or not? Are we trying to provide basic great customer service for our very own riders?
It took a week and a half for me to get a refund for bus tickets that the new machine shorted me on. I got 1 of 5 tickets out of the machine.That could be a major problem for some families in this tough economy if it happened to someone else.