Do we repeat the mistakes?

by Roldo Bartimole

  How generous are both local politicians and the Cleveland news media going to be on luxury spending for the new domed stadium?

  Lessons can be learned from the outrageous spending for Dick Jacobs, then of the Cleveland Indians, and the Gund family, owners of the then Cleveland Cavaliers.

  AND BOY DID THEY BENEFIT.

  JACOBS SOLD THE INDIANS FOR $323 MILLION IN 2000. HE HAD BOUGHT FOR $40 MILLION IN 1986.

  THE GUNDS BOUGHT THE CAVALIERS FOR $20 IN 1983 AND SOLD IN 2005 FOR $375 MILLION.

  THANK YOU, CLEVELAND TAXPAYERS.

  THANKS MAYOR WHITE. THANKS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS HAGAN, BOYLE AND PETRO.

  THANKS FOR SELLING US OUT!

  THEY PILED ON SUBSIDY AFTER SUBSIDY FOR THE TEAM OWNERS.

  THEY GAVE THEM SOMETHING TO SELL.

  HOW LONG WILL HASLAM WAIT BEFORE CASHING IN?

  I last outlined how county residents paid for fancy restaurants in both the stadium and arena. And more.

  Taxpayers shelled out $7.5 million for restaurants at Gateway. That wasn’t for hot dog stands but fancy downtown restaurants, free and paying no property taxes. Like other downtown restaurants had to pay.

  Now I’ll take you on another ride taxpayers got from our politicians and pliable news reporting.

  ALL FREE AND ALL PROPERTY TAX FREE. WILL THE HASLAMS ASK, AND WILL OUR COUNTY COUNCIL MEMBERS BEND?

READ THE PAST SO NOT TO REPEAT THE ERRORS. THE PD WOULD NEVER TELL.

Here from 1993:

Doing Gateway Up Right

by Roldo Bartimole

Free Times July 21, 1993

  How would you like 57,500 square feet of brand-new office space free?

  Oh, we’ll toss in furniture, some of it custom-made, too, at no extra cost. Interested?

  Sorry, the deal’s been done. The Gateway Economic Development Corp., the non­profit, tax-subsidized entity building a stadium and arena and parking facilities downtown for the Cleveland baseball and basketball teams, has also built a four-story administration building for Dick Jacobs -and the Cleveland baseball team.

  It’s not coming cheap. The building will cost some $7 million, including more than $900,000 in furnish­ings.

  Downtown real estate developer Dick Jacobs, of course, knows the value of the Gateway gift. Indeed, Jacobs. owner or the new Society Center a few blocks away, asks tenants to  pay $38 a square a foot In his building.

  If Gateway did the same, instead of charging rent, the space given Jacobs in the administration building would be worth $2,185,000 a year. With no increase over the 25-year lease that would he more than $54 million in free rent.

  The lease agreement called specifically for the lessee, Jacobs, to be housed “within the baseball facility, as designated in the final plans.” To be fair, the team does pay some rent – -though not much for the use of $161 million ballpark (total project cost $362 million).  Rent will be 75 cents per ticket but only after 1.85 million atten­dance; $1 after 2.25 million; and $1.25 after 2.5 million.

  So, if the team attracts 2 million cus­tomers, it pays Gateway $112,500. Last year, the Cleveland team paid rent of $684,662 with an unexplained rebate of $223,247, for a net rent of $461,415. In the new Gateway stadium, the team would have to draw 2,579,000 fans to equal the rent the team paid to Art Modell in 1992.  The Browns paid a net rent of $1,185,359 last year.

  Gateway Executive Director Tom Chema says that the team’s administration building, also free of property taxes, was constructed “for aesthetic reasons,” to hide a ramp that would have been visible to the public from Ontario Street. Apparently, Tom never thought of a few hundred dollars’ worth of shrubbery. Instead, he had a $7 million building built to hide one ramp.

  Chema, a master of excuse-making, reasons that the administration building, though a four-story structure, really isn’t a separate structure but part of the stadium because its site was excavated at the same time, he said , and it  has a  common foun­dation.

  Try to explain why Gateway, a non-profit organization, will have a cus­tom-made, 18-foot-long, 5-foot-wide boat shaped conference table made for Jacobs. The table, as most of the furniture, will have an ash veneer. Baseball bats are made of ash. Specifications, for this special table call for inlaid wood shaped like the stitching on a baseball.

  Gateway also called for two team logos of the racist Chief Wahoo to be on the table. The logos “will be etched in metal and inlaid wood.” A spokesman for a firm that makes cus­tom wood products said that the custom table could cost $6,000 to $7,000, and when informed of the inlaid work, he said it could go to $10,000 for the conference table.

  When arrogance, ego and free public money run amuck, nothing is too good for those with the power to act. Gateway obviously spared no cost for the team’s executives and their visi­tors comfort. The bid specifications from Gateway call for 13 Arpeggio lounge leather chairs. The list price would run about $1,456 each, according to an office furniture sales consultant we contacted, but in this weak economy the price could be cut in half. Even at half price the total cost would be nearly $10,000 for the chairs.

  Specifications call for another 400 chairs, nearly all with upholstered seats and backs; Even half the list price the cost would be more than $100,000.

  The building will have four floors of 12,500 square feet each, all for the team, and a basement of 15,000 square feet, to be shared equally by the team and Gateway, according to a Gateway spokeswoman.

  It will include a team museum at a cost of $35,000, where old paraphernalia of the team will be exhibited. There will also be a room set aside called the Heavy Hitters Club Room, which includes an executive dining room for marketing season tickets to corporate prospects, a spokeswoman for Gateway says. There will be an atrium reception area on the first floor with skylights costing $22,000.

  Gateway will provide the team owner with 11 credenza cabinets, five cocktail tables, seven dining room tables, nine bar stools, 28 dining-room tables, four sofas, other tables and chairs and a lectern with a custom-made Chief Wahoo logo on the face of it. I asked Chema whether he had report­ed these gifts to multimillionaire Jacobs to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). “Absolutely not,” said Chema.

  Does it seem odd to anyone that the IRS gives Gateway a tax-free status, the taxpayers flood Gateway with various tax gifts and then the non-profit turns around and constructs not only a stadium but an office building – and then furnishes the offices with top-of-the-line furnishings, free to its tenant?

  It’s a question that should be asked of every City Council member, Mayor Mike White, Council President Jay Westbrook, and County Commissioners Tim Hagan, Mary Boyle, and Jim Petro because they are the ones who set the stage for this extravagant transfer of public money to private interests.