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Ed Morrison · The end of an era?
July 28th, 2008
It’s a major sweep: 200 agents involved from as far away as Youngstown and Pittsburgh. The County’s on lock-down.
Whatever the outcome, it looks like the end of an era. It’s almost certainly the end of the Med Mart deal. Jacobs got out of his sour downtown investment (Ameritrust) in time. Forest City still gets tagged with Tower City.
Time, apparently, has run out on using the County as a piggy bank.
FBI searches county offices in Cleveland
Perhaps now the County can begin to focus on what really drives economic development: brainpower and innovation. Here’s an article from today’s Wall Street Journal that underscores the point with evidence from Kalamazoo.
Other companies besides Kaiser have unveiled plans to create jobs in Kalamazoo, with some saying the Promise played a role in their decision. Among them is MPI Research, a privately held preclinical drug-testing company in Mattawan, Mich., which in April announced plans to create 3,300 jobs in southwestern Michigan — including 400 in downtown Kalamazoo — over the next five years as it moves into laboratory and office space once housing Pfizer.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Great news.
This is the best thing to happen in Cuyahoga County since… um… you know, I’m at a loss. I’ve been saying for quite a while that the Corruption Tax is our #1 problem by far. This is the first step towards repealing it.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Since Jane Campbell went in other directions? Or since Mike White retired to llama farming? Or since Dennis Kucinich retired…oops, that’s projecting.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
POETIC JUSTICE! I can’t wait to see how far this corruption reaches…
July 29th, 2008 at 12:20 am
i grew up here in the 60’s& 70’s by 76′ i decided to move to san francisco to finish college, i stayed until 1989 and was lured back to cleveland with the promise of redevelopment and the end of the corruption in govt. that controlled and destroyed this city for so many years. i have been here since 1989 and i must say this is the first crack in the armor since the mike white days and even that is a joke. i hope this is not the same throw us a few bones to chew but true revolution and we will trow the bums out once and for all. i hate to say i still have my doubts how deep it will go. we can hope i suppose.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Actually, no, Jonathan. The weak departures of those former mayors don’t remotely compare to the (obviously likely) Federal prosecutions to come. Whatever corruption Mike White may have engaged in (I’m just hedging because proving him guilty or not guilty is not my point), he’s free to keep counting the money and farming those llamas.
We don’t know yet what the feds were looking for specifically, but they must think they’re on to something. And I don’t think any knowledgeable observer doubts that county government is rife with corruption.
It’s more than throwing the bums out. It’s potentially locking them up, which should be a great deterrent to future shenanigans.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:19 am
It’s hard to underestimate the size of this sweep. County government in lock-down. Remarkable.
Having lived in Louisiana for seven years, I saw a number of public corruption probes. Only the investigation (and eventual conviction) of Edwin Edwards rivals this extensive display of federal investigative power. (Edwards is serving a ten year sentence for racketeering. He’s due out in 2011.)
July 29th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Et tu, Democrats. At the risk of being obvious, I want to point out that several years ago people in this forum engaged in a vigorous debate about public corruption, and a number of people argued that it was a Republican problem.
My argument then and now was that it is a systemic problem and not exclusive to either party. I hope that those of you who argued that it was a one-party problem have learned something here, and are big enough to admit it.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
@J Murray: Funny that you bring up the Democrats. As far as I can tell from all of the column inches being spent at the PD and the news reports, you would be hard pressed to find a reference to the Democratic Party. It seems that no one is mentioning that fact.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
That’s not so weird. It’s been a one-party system for decades, Perk and Voinovich notwithstanding.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
If you have to read more than 3 paragrpahs into a negative story about politics and or a politican, then you can pretty much assume it is a Democrat.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
It’s great to see these people being taken down. The Hollywood story line would have O’Malley and Pumper ratting out the big fish to save their hides. In that respect, Nate Gray is the only old school soldier left who obeys the code of silence.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Still nobody owning up here to stating that it was a Republican Party problem only.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Spoke on ideastream’s Sound of Ideas this morning about the challenges of completing the Med Mart deal in the current environment. You can listen:
http://www.wcpn.org/index.php/WCPN/soi/12935/
July 30th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Can someone explain to me how Jones and Hagan didn’t know this stuff was going on? I have a hard time believing that. And now they’re promising to restore trust in country government? Come on. Give me a freaking break!
P.S. Isn’t taxation without representation against the law?
July 31st, 2008 at 12:36 am
Doug:
At least Jones is out front talking about the consequences. Hagan’s silence is deafening.
You are wrong about taxation without representation. It’s is merely a democratic principle.
(Being stupid and greedy can be against the law, though. It’s a bad combination, especially for public officials.)
My first political job was as a legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. Charlie Vanik, a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
He had a simple rule for himself and his staff. You accepted nothing from a lobbyist or a business person. Not even a cup of coffee.
Every Christmas, we either boxed up the presents and sent them back or turned them over to charity. He drove old cars (one of which he tried to repaint himself with a spray can of paint), bought his black suits in bulk from a warehouse in Baltimore, and lived in a modest split level in Northern Virginia.
He accepted no campaign contributions his last few runs for office. When I asked him why he took this step, he told me, “Ed, if the voters don’t know me by now, I have not been doing my job, and they should replace me.”
(One of my fondest memories is when he asked me to accompany him to witness him mailing hi campaign expenditure report to the Ohio Secretary of State. His report showed an expenditure of $0.13 to mail his expenditure report.)
Regardless of the outcome of the legal proceedings, as far as I’m concerned, Russo and DiMora have violated their public trust and should step down. It’s a different standard, one set in my mind by former Rep. Charlie Vanik.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:50 am
Here are three reasons why the Med Mart deal is in trouble.
Distraction
An investigation of the scale indicated by the raid itself will absorb the attention of the targets as well as key staff members in the County. Similar corruption investigations at RTA and NOACA tied down key staff, disrupted daily operations and, most importantly, made everyone risk averse. Not the least of the disruptions is unrelenting television coverage. “The whole world is watching.” A year transpired between the raid on Senator Stevens’ house and his indictment this week. We can expect that the cloud will continue.
Counting the three votes that matter
A second reason for concern should be the in the vote count on the Commission itself. The Medmart/Convention Center is completely a Commissioner’s project. Mayor Jackson is not involved. He gives every indication of indifference and will not be one to push for the project.
There was no vote of the people — unlike either Gateway or the Browns’ stadium — to impose a tax to support these major projects. As a result of the vote, there was a popular constituency for the projects. There is none in the case of the Med Mart/Convention Center. So, there is no public mandate to move forward. The only votes that count are the three commissioners. Let’s look at these votes more closely.
Peter Lawson Jones has been soft on the project and has raised many questions. He is facing a though race against a Republican mayor. He is unlikely to vote for a risky, high profile project.
Commissioner Hagan will likely continue to support the project though he has an out, should he take it, in the fact that the County finances have been going South, threatening the social service agencies he has long supported. (The PD’s Metro Hospital stories cannot be of comfort to Commissioner Hagan, as they continue to point out the fact that County government is the community’s safety net. How does a County facing these challenges in human services devote money to a convention center?)
Then there is Commissioner DiMora. It’s hard to see him enthusiastic when the investigation he faces appears to deal with contract steering on the the County’s two most recent boondogles — the Juvenile detention facility (which has taken several decades to deploy with all the requisite allegations of sweetheart dealing) and the Ameritust Building, a building that the County bought from Dick Jacobs likely knowing that it was not suited to its needs and then sold at a loss to a younger local developer.
Public contracts offer a multitude of ways to funnel public money into private pockets. In Louisiana, for example, I have witnessed dramatically inflated prices paid by a public agency for private land needed for development, excessive expenditures of public funds for construction (i.e., an LSU research building constructed for $300 per square foot), inflated architect fees, and untracked and unaudited subcontractor agreements. Patronage is a penny ante game compared to these large public projects.
If nothing, his lawyers will likely urge caution on DiMora, since every step he takes will be closely watched. (When you are in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging.)
Caution: Don’t flip that switch
It is hard to see how the Chicago developers (MMI) would assume the risks in dealing with a dysfunctional tripartite commission with one member under threat of indictment and another facing a career-ending election. The project, in their view, may not be worth the candle. The Med Mart/convention center deal will likely attract close scrutiny by the prosecutors. Why would MMI want to risk being drawn into this controversy? MMI’s lawyers are also likely to advise caution.
And there is reason to be cautious. The sort of insider, secretive dealing that has characterized the Med Mart/Convention Center decisions is distinctly different from the practice found in many other cities. The Convention Center process is unlike anything I have seen in twenty years of economic development work. Nowhere have I seen a public body vote to finance a large scale public project without a clear plan. (It’s not unlike a car shopper going into a showroom and telling the salesman, “”Here’s $35,000 in cash. Now show me what kind of car you can sell me.”) On its face, the Med Mart deal has been put together backward, all with a rather clumsy effort, in my view, to steer the project to Tower City.
Missing the boat
Communities of Cleveland’s scale are successfully transitioning into the global network economy by recognizing the value of transparency and broad civic engagement in making major capital decisions.
What we have seen this week is the consequences of insider dealing run amok leading to a
major corruption investigation, the extraordinary direct seizure of public records, and the remarkable effort to keep even the County prosecutor in the dark. In my judgment, County government is seriously impaired by this week’s events, and the major initiatives it supports will be compromised until the dust settles.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
…and it reaches to BEREA: PD” “Federal agents investigate if Kelley tried to influence traffic cases in Berea court”
Wonder if it has anything to do with one of the construction companies mentioned is located there?
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/08/federal_agents_investigate_if.html