Read Perspective from Roldo Bartimole

It’s all too reminiscent. The stink, I mean.

County Commissioner Tim Hagan moans that the promoters of the Medical Mart – who owe their position here to Hagan – aren’t putting their money on the table.

Who woulda thought?

Why did Hagan put some $40 million a year in tax money on the table BEFORE the developer made a single penny of financial commitment? How typical.

The developer is Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc., (MMPI) of Chicago. Christopher Kennedy (yeah, of that Kennedy family), is MMPI president. Hagan loves to rub shoulders with the Kennedys. (Refer to... Should Hagan Recuse Himself, August 8, '07; and Suckered Before, Aug. 1, '07.)

“Their offer to us was unacceptable. They have to say, ‘We’re going to sign a contact and spend X amount,” Hagan moaned to the Pee Dee.

A little late, isn’t it Tim?

Hagan is repeating the disaster of how he handled the Gunds on the arena deal at Gateway.

Hagan (and friends) put hundreds of millions of dollars on the line before obtaining a lease from the Gund brothers – Gordon and George.

So George and Gordon did what all these greedy bastards always do. They took Hagan and the taxpayers to the cleaners. They held out until they got everything they wanted and more from Hagan and his buddy of the time, Mayor Michael White.

What could Hagan do, he already put the County in deep debt with taxes for Gateway. He had to give them what they wanted to move from Streetsboro to Cleveland.

We, the taxpayers, paid and paid and are still paying. The same will be true of the vaunted Medical Mart and a new convention center.

The arena is still costing the County tens of millions of dollars as the growing demands of the Gunds had to be met. The result... the arena went from a proposed $75 million arena to a very costly $154 million tab. The Gunds soon after sold the franchise and pocketed their unearned profits. (A reprint below tells some of the goodies given the Gunds).

Hagan the Stupid now has set in motion the same type losing deal with the Medical Mart developers.

The pliant (complicit) Pee Dee allowed Hagan to moan on Page One, Saturday, and make the pretense that he’s angry and upset with the Medical Mart promoters. This won’t change the fact that Hagan again stuck it to the public. The Pee Dee isn’t asking the tough questions of Hagan and his sidekick, Jimmy Dimora, for again putting the County’s treasury at risk again.

Neither is the community or its politicians. Hagan is running for re-election unopposed by Democrats or Republicans.

And people here ask for leadership? What a joke.

What’s the answer now? Give the marauders from Chicago everything they want or call the deal off and take the tax off the public.

When will anyone around here see the true Tim Hagan? A phony, talentless politician playing way above his level of competence.

Even worse scenario now, if County voters - tired of Tax’n Tim's self-imposition of a sales tax hike for the Medical Mart - turn down the health and welfare levy on the ballot in November.

That would be another disaster to add to Hagan’s always growing list.

Don’t Cry for Dick Jacobs, Banshee1

Banshee1, a reader in LakewoodBuzz.com's Community Forum chooses to slam me for being nasty to real estate tycoon Dick Jacobs.

Here’s some of Banshee1's criticisms...

“Where did you scrape up this wretched writer with so much hate and vitriol. The jealousy of Jacobs’ success and fortune just oozes off your webpage.

“Dick Jacobs was personally responsible for restoring championship caliber major league baseball to a franchise that was ready to move out of town after forty years of neglect. He helped heal the wounds after the Browns bolted out of town…

“God bless Dick Jacobs and what he has done for the great city of Cleveland. Send Roldo back to the old folk’s home where he might get an audience for his baseless rants.”

Wow! That’s pretty good slamming. Or ranting.

The story of Dick Jacobs, however, isn’t that simple.

What this greedy guy gave doesn’t compare with what he took.

The whining writer might notice, too, that both team owners – Gunds and Jacobs – sold the teams not long after we gave them fancy digs, pocketing amazing profits. Goodbye Cleveland. Goodbye suckers.

More important, we’ve allowed ourselves to become confused about who we are. We’re not a football team, or a basketball team, or a baseball team. We are a Community made up of Citizens. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be cheerleaders and dupes for trivial pursuits. Enjoy the games but don’t allow them to supersede civic responsibilities.

So I’d like Banshee1 to read a bit more from an old guy who has kept tabs on all-take, no-give Dick and his doings for many years. This article ran in my newsletter Point of View, September 4, 1993, but it’s worth having on the record along with an addendum. So thanks, Banshee1, for the opportunity. Here it is, abbreviated...

What a comfortable little club we have making decisions for us here in Cleveland – The Cleveland Corporates and their attendants – an array of city and county politicians.

Gateway paid Tony Garofoli hundreds of thousands of dollars, in part to “negotiate” a lease with the Cleveland Baseball and Cleveland Basketball teams.

He must have twisted the hell out of the arms of Dick Jacobs and the Gund Brothers. Arm sling sales are up.

In addition to getting all the goodies – stadium, arena, concessions, parking, free loges, no taxes, free garages and whatever – Gateway has lavished huge administration facilities with fancy furnishings for Cleveland’s two wealthiest welfare families.

The Gunds – Gordon and George – will have personal office suites in the $118 million, 21,000-seat Arena and as tenants and operators of the new arena to open next year will have provided to them 50 other offices, including offices for guest teams, in a space of some 30,000 square feet.

Dick Jacobs will have 57,000 square feet of brand new office space in a separate building on site provided by Gateway, though its lease says specifically that Jacobs, as lessee, will be housed “within the baseball facility.”

The Jacobs’ building cost Gateway $7 million, including an expected $900,000 in furnishings. (More later.)

If you took what Jacobs asks tenants for space at his Society Center (now Key), a few blocks from Gateway downtown, $38 a square foot (without furnishings), you’d understand what a gift the office space afforded Jacobs and the Gunds really is.

For Jacobs, at 57,500 square feet at $38 a square foot annual rent would be $2,185,000. For its 25 year lease that would mean a $54 million gift.

For the supposedly charitable Gunds, the gifts from Cuyahoga County taxpayers would be, for 30,000 square feet at $38 a square foot, an annual gift of $1,140,000 and for the 30 year lease a $34,200,000.

And you’ll remember that Mike White and Tim Hagan went to the state legislature to get property tax relief for the Gunds and Jacobs so that the two wealthiest families in Cleveland will not even have to pay property taxes for the free office space.

Gateway will spend $1,443,800 to outfit the offices for the Gunds and their team with proper furnishings.

In addition to their personal office suites each, the Gunds will be provided with a board room for the corporation, six conference rooms and an executive kitchen.

Nothing too good for our elite ruling families.

The main Conference Center furniture will cost $20,000 additional and another $15,000 has been provided for miscellaneous owner equipment.

Specifications for the furniture to be provided by Debra Brys Interiors aren’t available yet but the specifications for Jacobs’s administration building at Gateway indicate how lavish Gateway has been with the taxpayers’ money.

While the Gunds and the Jacobs enjoy their free loges and their free office suites they will also be able to enjoy their favorite meals since Gateway has provided them each with executive dining rooms.

And this happened, let me remind you all, under the watchful eyes of our best progressive politicians – Mike “Mayor Businessman” White, Council President Jay “Citizen Action” Westbrook, Tim “I’m Just Here to Help the Poor” Hagan and Mary “Hardnosed for the Taxpayer” Boyle.

The Gunds were also given three free loges – one a double loge. With loges running annually from $85,000 to $150,000 that could mean as much as $450,000 a year or over the length of the lease another gift of $13 million if prices don’t increase in 30 years. (The Gunds made one loge into a hotel room at $600,000, which they paid only after it was publicized here.)

Gateway must provide 1,700 parking spaces, a commitment that has been insured by the city’s $40 million bond issue to construct two garages for Gateway.

As a hint as to what the Gunds can expect in their arena one can look to the specifications requested by the Jacobs for their free administration building.

It includes a custom made 18-foot long, five foot wide, boat shaped ash veneer conference table that would cost, according to a custom wood produce maker, as much as $10,000. The Gunds would have to have six conference tables.

Jacobs ordered the conference table to have inlaid strips of wood that would appear as baseball stitching and an inlaid metal logo of the team, the buffoonish Chief Wahoo.

Jacobs also ordered via Gateway 13 leather Arpeggio lounge chairs that list, according to a sales consultant for $1,456 each but might, in this week economy, actually sell for about half.

Another 400 or so chairs, most partly upholstered, will be given to Jacobs.

In addition to business offices, the building will provide for a Heavy Hitters Club Room, including an executive dining room for marketing season tickets to corporate prospects.

Also provided are 11 credenza cabinets, five cocktail tables, seven dining room tables, none bar stools, 28 dining room tables, four sofas, and other tables and chairs, plus a lectern with another custom—made Chief Wahoo logo on the face.

I asked Chema if he had reported all these free gifts to Jacobs to the IRS but he thought that rather ridiculous and answered, “Absolutely not.”

The Gunds likely will have as generous equal treatment as Jacobs. It’s said that the Gund negotiator, Richard Watson of Spieth, Bell, McCurdy and Newell, was the toughest of negotiators.

Specifications are rather detailed and specific. Even the requirements known are rather specific, down to contract agreements to, before presenting the offices to the Gunds, “clean light fixtures, polish metal surfaces and faces of glass and mirrors.” One Gund suite will be painted with Honey White Sherwin-Williams semi-gloss and the other with a Sherman-Williams to be selected by the architect.

Oh, by the way, “vacuum carpet and similar soft surface products.” (Really, this is in the document).

The taxpayers and voters, they’ve been anesthetized.

AN ADDENDUM

Jacobs bought the team in 1986, for some $45 million, sold it for $320 million after taking another $60 million when he sent the team public, and then back to private.