THREE YEARS LATER – 35,000 JOBS LOST

GATEWAY PROMISED 28,000 JOBS;

THREE YEARS LATER – 35,000 JOBS LOST

by Roldo Bartimole

  In 1990 when Cleveland politicians and top business & legal leaders were preparing to sell the first sales “sin” tax for our sports team owners, they promised 28,000 “good paying jobs for the jobless” and an annual extra $15 million a year “for schools for our children.”

  How did that work out?

  It didn’t happen. Indeed, from 1990 to 1993 Cuyahoga County lost 35,000 jobs.

  The jobless rate hit 7.5 percent.

  And what did the political leaders do for Cleveland schools?

  Forgot all promises.

  Indeed, Mayor Mike White and Commissioner Tim Hagan went to Columbus and got a tax exemption for Gateway’s sports facilities – and ALL others in Ohio in the future.

  THESE GUYS OUT LIED DONALD TRUMP.

  They made the Gateway Economic Development Corp. a money spigot that gave Dick Jacobs, the Gund brothers, Larry Dolan, Dan Gilbert and now the Haslams pickpockets status with free access to public money.

  I’ve outlined some of the ways they enriched themselves in two previous pieces.

  Now again, here is how bad it became and how loose the Gateway board was with the owners.

  It seemed clear that anything the team bosses wanted they got.

  Dick Jacobs, owner then of the Cleveland Indians, wanted marble tables (cost $2,500 each) in all the loges at the baseball stadium.

  What Dick wanted Dick got.

  But it was soon discovered the marble tables were a problem. As the marble provider from Italy had warned.

  Dick wanted them anyway. Cost: $330,000.

  Not only that. He wanted the broken marble tables, replaced, again with marble from Italy.

  Freda, the Italy provider told Gateway by fax, “As you remember and as it is documented by our faxes to you, we tried to suggest the use of stronger, more portable material.”

  “We already advised that, for its specific physical characteristic, this marble presents some problems. To evaluate the risks, we offered as alternative martial Vordo Olympia, and we faxed you data of both materials. The entirety of the problem stems from the characteristic of the stone combined with the use and, mainly, with the real conditions to which the stone is subject during the use that we don’t know.”

  I wrote in March of 1997:

  “But at Jacobs’ insistence the model tables of the loge were duplicated by Gateway, despite the cost and the warning.

  As usual, Jacobs got his way.”

  Gateway paid half of $260,000 to replace the broken marble tables back then.

                                     *   *   *

  Now the Browns’ owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam say they want to abandon the lakefront Cleveland stadium. It was construct new for the Browns in the late 1990s.

  They say they want to construct a $2.4 billion domed stadium in Brook Park, a Cleveland suburb.

  And abandon the stadium built for them.

  Ohio Republican state politicians have voted $600 million toward that price tag. And the Haslams would like a similar amount from Cuyahoga County.

  That’s pricy price tagging.

  Are we to take their word that the other half of the $2.4 billion figure will be paid by them? And who does the accounting?

  These sports owners seem to employ the thought that what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, too.

  Haslam wants a governing creation that models Gateway. In other words, a scheme that will pay its stadium bill needs in the future.

  But there is no talk of sharing the profits with the governing entities that pay the bills.

  For example, back in the early days of Gateway, I gave some thought to how Gateway kept paying the costs but didn’t partake of the profits.

  For example, the public sector (Gateway) didn’t share in Cavs TV revenue, some $6.5 million a year or $196 over 30 years. Scoreboard revenue $I million (actually became much larger) a year or $30 million over the 30 lease; restaurants $800,000 a year or $24 million over the lease lifetime; concessions $7.5 million annually or $225 million over 30 year lease; and ticket sales of $13,666,667 or $409 million total 30 years.

  The take adds up.

  And then there are ancillary benefits as Cavs owner Dan Gilbert certainly will enjoy.

  As Steve Litt, former PD reporter, noted in an article in Ideastream that Gilbert, developing along the Cuyahoga River downtown benefits from a tax incremental financing (TIF) from the city.

  As Litt put it in a revealing article:

  Gilbert’s project, meanwhile, is positioned to benefit from $1 billion in tax increment financing, (TIF), approved by City Council last year.
Thanks Mayor Justin Bibb. Thanks City Council. I sure wonder how you can look out 30 years in confidence and make these freebie subsidies.

  All you Cleveland homeowners trying to pay property taxes should understand that downtown, since the late 1970s, has been a property tax abatement/exemption sponge.

  And they are making up the difference in higher and higher property taxes.

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME!! OR MONEY GAME!!