Recent Comments
- Ed Morrison said “Carla: You are welcome. I hope we can all benefit from this powerful line of ...” on Food and cancer prevention
- Brian Cummins said “The following was posted as a comment on the Plain Dealer blog -- http://blog.clev~ ----------------~ ...” on Cuyahoga Board of Elections to enter agreement with US Dept of Justice to accommodate Puerto Rican Voters
- Carla said “Ed, thank you so much for posting this very important video. I will be passing ...” on Food and cancer prevention
- JS said “Since Seth Priebatsch and his ilk look to be rediscovering captology and serious gaming, the ...” on More on the video gaming software cluster
- John Polk said “We took a couple small stabs at a gaming strategy a few years ago with ...” on More on the video gaming software cluster
- About BDP Comments
Meta
Ed Morrison · Groupthink and the med con
February 16th, 2009
The breakdown of Cleveland’s civic process carries consequences. We are seeing, in my view, a groupthink process at work in the med con. Sadly, the costs for this incompetence will be shifted to the next generation.
Another form of groupthink occurs when people are either isolated from crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the group, some of whom may have malevolent intent.
Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison
- Detroit's logistics strategy - September 5th, 2010
- Youngstown's new hub - September 4th, 2010
- Food and cancer prevention - August 31st, 2010
- BFD Learning Moment: Detroit moves on design as a strategy - August 30th, 2010
- More on the video gaming software cluster - August 30th, 2010
February 16th, 2009 at 10:06 am
It amazes me that tucked in with all the bank failure and federal bailout, auto bailout and foreclosure crisis news we are still contending with this medcon crap.
Chris Kennedy said “we read the blogs”. Which freakin blogs are they reading? While the rest of the world watches the waggle dances of the honeybee scouts who are advertising a “new home” (one that stems the tide of foreclosures and bank failures), the BOCC and MMPI are apparently tuned into an entirely different dance – the unlikely “build a party center and they will come” dance.
I can’t help but apply the same logic that occurred to me when the BOCC wanted to tear down the Breuer Tower to build new offices: When you can’t pay the mortgage on your primary residence, is it a good time to be taking on a second mortgage on that vacation residence in Hilton Head?
Are we trying to reduce the population of Clevehoga even further? (Doesn’t appear so; the foreclosure lines aren’t shortening according to Bill Callahan.)If we succeed in so doing, will there be enough sales tax collected each year to pay for this party center for docs and hosps?
I would venture to say that more people are wondering how to pay for necessities, not focusing on party centers. Maybe health care institutions are quietly considering the Tupperware model – have it in your own damn living room. Has anyone asked them since this financial meltdown began?
Maybe CCF is buying new furniture and art at a breakneck pace, but what about other health care institutions? Are they really making plans to fund big expense laden buying trips?
February 16th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I’m sorry, but I think anyone who likens a convention center to a party center is hard to take serious.
February 16th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Has anyone asked this ever? I mean, anyone with political clout? It’s glaringly obvious that the MediMart concept didn’t make sense for the public from the beginning. If it did, there would be a business plan and real research to back it up.
The “process” that led us to this point starts and ends with politically connected people wanting a free facility, with no steps in between.
As Susan Miller suggests, it’s yet one more reason for productive working people to get the hell out of Cuyahoga County. The powerful will clean up and move on, as they always do.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Well, John, if this project is not done right — with the proper financial analysis, market analysis, and risk allocation — it could end up as a party center.
Thusfar, I see a politically driven process with very little market or financial analysis. The risk allocations are only vaguely stated, and the initial financing indicates that not enough risk will be borne by the private parties in this deal.
It’s the goofiest process I’ve ever seen.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
John, a librarian in Parma once told me, “When they give you a farce, turn it into a circus.”
I’m still not sure what the hell she meant by that, but they are words to live by nonetheless.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I’m not defending the process, which has had more than its share of problems. But to me, any major municipal convention center project will always have political drivers, given that it involves a piece of public infrastructure. Politics can’t help but intrude on that.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
John Ettorre–Can you explain to me why the public is going to pay for a privately owned and privately operated facility of any kind? WHY? It’s nutso. The poorest big city in the country is subsidizing the Kennedy family. You couldn’t make this up.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I’m not remotely in favor of it being privately owned. That’s a detail that has only recently come to light in the memorandum of understanding, and one which might well sink this project, and should. I also think that detail is up for further negotiation, and some at least modest fallback position is likely to be found. The public shouldn’t stand for anything else. As for subsidies, they sometimes have to be paid simply because the market won’t bear the cost. No one has to subsidize a booming market. When your region isn’t booming, subsidies, among other incentives, have to be considered.
February 16th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Kennedy and Falanga did not make the case that hospital personnel (purchasing officers) were crying out for a mart because it would create an efficient system to relieve their current expensive solution to equipping their facilities. Or did I miss that part? Does going to a convention/tradeshow facility to make buying decisions represent some better way to purchase for POs that I missed?
It seems to me that convention spending has been on the downturn even prior to the fed-perceived recession. I don’t have the figures (do you?) on how many conferences and conventions purchasing officers or those in charge of capital projects in health care have made or are making, but it seems to me that, with belt tightening, might come cut backs in travel related expenses.
Hospitals and labs are facing financial hurdles, too. Scores of uninsured, newly unemployed, increasing numbers of elderly, continuing numbers of poorly nourished and overstressed patients who cannot pay are making balancing budgets even more trying. Hospitals are cutting back on capital projects: http://bondbuyer.com/article.html?id=20090211YLL3AWMF
They are laying off staff.
If they need a new this or that what indicators do we have that having a hotel stay, airfare, cab fare restaurant meal, a powerpoint presentation and a drink with that makes it more cost effective? I think that hospital equipment can be had without a gathering/party/get together. That’s why I called it a party center, John.
But wait, they showed slides of how we could use the facility during off-times for community events. How many of these do you think out of work Clevelanders will be up for? Aren’t there enough ballparks and open public greenspaces to take your kids to without another disneyesque cavernous public space in which to buy sugary drinks and overpriced junk food?
Ed – goofy? I don’t find it particularly funny when our “leaders” have foisted this upon us. John may not take me seriously, but I was pretty serious when I collected signatures to put the tax increase on the ballot (a plea for more information). I am still serious about this. I don’t want to be unwelcoming to MMPI, I just don’t want to pay for their private enterprise. If it is going to be so profitable, why don’t they pay for it? I’m with Roldo on this – we have plenty of space for meetings and showing things. We taxpayers don’t need to take on anymore debt for arenas, stadia or convention centers. We have plenty already. It hasn’t turned our economy around, yet.
February 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
That’s why committing public money should have been the last part of the process. As you recall, it was the first. And our Civic Boosters led the way on that.
Also, John, I’m pretty sure private ownership of the Medical Mart was part of the plan (such as it was) from the beginning. At least it wasn’t obvious to me that it wasn’t part of the plan.
And I think you’re dismissing the corruption angle far too lightly. Don’t take my word for it; listen to Ed Morrison–it’s the craziest process he has ever seen, and he consults on economic development all the time. Do you have reason to think he’s exaggerating?
Specifically, we’re talking about a billion-dollar project for the direct benefit of a close personal friend of one of three county commissioners. How is that not extraordinary?
February 16th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I’m afraid the reality is that if you’ve been watching how things work in this region for a long time, the bar on what seems extraordinary keeps going higher. By the way, we should be clearer than we’ve been: the memorandum as it now stands calls for MMPI’s initial ownership, with ownership eventually reverting to the county.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
The going to the county after 20 years is the same kind of deal as Gateway. Who cares? In twenty years they’ll certainly be talking about the NEW convention center that’s needed. The then OLD convention center doesn’t meet the needs of a new era. Or we will need – who knows how prices will be – $400 million to bring it up to speed with what other cities have.
After 20 years tell MMPI that they should keep it and pay the upkeep and reconditioning costs themselves.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
If ownership is going to revert to taxpayers eventually, doesn’t it seem prudent to ask taxpayers if this is what they want to buy?
When I buy something, I look at the need to determine that it will benefit me, I look at the quality to see if it is the right product and I look at the warranty or guarantee.
The bar going higher? I’d say we’ve lowered the bar on extraordinarily dumb things in NEO. It seems any hobbled quadruped could easily step over it. How about we raise the bar and demand some accountability?
How did we go from “privately owned. That’s a detail that has only recently come to light in the memorandum of understanding, and one which might well sink this project, and should. I also think that detail is up for further negotiation, and some at least modest fallback position is likely to be found.” to “the memorandum as it now stands calls for MMPI’s initial ownership, with ownership eventually reverting to the county.”? That’s the same slippery slope that Gateway slid down – we buy it, but we also bought parking, private loges and fancy furnishings for the developers… Oh, right, sometimes when developers want slick furniture and easy parking for the gladiator’s amphitheaters we need to provide subsidy for that, too.
February 16th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I’ve actually been hearing the “detail” about the Convention Center/Medical Mart being “owned” by MMPI for quite sometime now. And it’s something Kennedy and MMPi clearly want you to not pay too close attention to, as he gloosed over it with a non-answer, as if to brush it away, at the city council hearing last Thursday. In fact, Kennedy’s dismissive, condescending arrogance throughout was troubling. Even though Sweeney was careful to assure that none of the project’s biggest critics on council got to question him, Kennedy struggled with any question that wasn’t a softball (Roosevelt Coats’ embarassing “Are you related to THE Kennedys?” Puh-leese.)
John, MMPI’s PowerPoint presentation that they showed at that hearing specifically likened the new facility to a party center, promoting its use for high-school dances, graduations, meetings and soccer clinics.Maybe we should agree not to take MMPI seriously. (On the other hand, I do take Susan seriously!) Nothing about the funding and the deal is passing the smell test with me anymore, and Kennedy’s high-handed failure to address questions put to him by friendly council members is disturbing.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Anastasia:
Thank you for your report. You paint a picture of the arrogance of power. This is quite ironic, of course: two proud Democrats — Hagan and Kennedy — behaving like Bush and Cheney.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I must not be the student of history you are, Ed, because I wasn’t aware “the arrogance of power” was exclusive to a specific party. You may also want to review what actually constitutes irony.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I hear you, Anastasia. I sat through their afternoon presentation to the larger public at the Stokes library, and they did present that part of the plan, about opening it up for school events and the like in the off-peak convention season, during holidays. Not sure I took that too seriously. As I told Roldo last week (he was also at the morning presentation to City Council), Kennedy’s overt arrogance seemed much more under wraps in the afternoon, except when he was angrily confronted by a representative of Forest City, who was trying to make the impossible case (given their history) that his company is the one that stands for open dealing before the public. Kennedy gave that contention all the respect it deserved. In other words, none.
February 17th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Re: “the arrogance of power”…It generally accrues in the greatest amounts to those whose power has remained unchecked the longest. In Cuyahoga County, that would be the Dems.
Even so, when a few courageous and impassioned citizens took it upon themselves to start a petition campaign to force the Med Mart tax onto the ballot, did the Republican Party in Cuyahoga County seize what would have been an ideologically perfect opportunity to help fight this outright theft by the Democratic County Commissioners? Uhhm, no. Nosireebob. They didn’t.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
It’s interesting, Carla, that the drive to put the tax on the ballot was bipartisan – there were certainly outspoken Republicans in the room when we met — but the party organizations themselves were another matter. And of course, if you look at the history of donations by powerful individuals like Sam Miller, they tend to play both sides of the fence.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Tom:
Your point is well taken. Arrogance not the domain of a single party, and my thought was incomplete. (Indeed, the “arrogance of power” was popularized in the mid-1960’s by Sen. J.W. Fulbright in the context of Johnson’s Vietnam policy.)
Given the current trend of the Obama Democrats toward openness, Kennedy and Hagan — both proud Democrats and strong Obama supporters, no doubt — are hardly in step with where Obama is leading the party.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I am still confused. In the MOU the tax is said to pay for two things – permanent exhibition hall and temporary exhibition tradeshow facilities. They are collectively referred to as “the facility”. We build a convention center (which we might get back) AND a permanent exhibition facility (which they might continue to “manage” at the end of 20 years).
Though they did prior to pushing through the tax increase advertise the need for this as “we NEED a convention center because a medical mart being built here by MMPI is predicated on that action – so we are using the leverage of a convention center to get the medical mart.”
Now it seems that we are using MMPI to get a convention center. MMPI will operate the convention center and the tradeshow – the whole shebang.
What if MMPI does stick it out for 20 years (they are not obligated by the MOU to do so) but at the end of that period or at any other time prior to the 20 year lease/sublease period, they decide to bail? Then what? Do we go in search of someone who wants to run what turned out to be a pipe dream with no traction in the marketplace? Or will we have just paid for another white elephant in our downtown?
Someone please help me to untangle this.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
When you’re running a scam, speed is very important. If the mark has time to think, you run the risk of blowing it.
Thus far, this particular scam hasn’t worked all that well. So the principals are falling back on their power to preclude discussion.
The significant decline in large meeting activity has been a readily-observable phenomenon for most of the past decade, especially since 9/11/01. Everybody knows meetings are down. Everybody knows that convention centers in non-Sun Belt communities are large net money losers. Everybody knows the likelihood is high that the currently contemplated complex will be unlikely to rise above national trends. But to those within The Matrix, the data don’t matter, and the facts don’t matter. Only the deal matters.
Once again, I think we can get a cramp from thinking any of this makes sense in the logical, linear way regular people tend to think. The proponents are saying whatever they need to say at any given time to keep things moving.
In general, the dodge you get from the self-anointed insiders is, “If you only knew how incredibly complex and painful the process is, you’d really appreciate how hard we’re all working. Believe me, you shouldn’t worry your little head.” Loosely translated, that means, “We’re smarter than you, so sit down and shut up.”
The answer to the ownership question would very likely depend on whom you ask. If you ask MMPI, the answer will be, “Because that’s the deal we were offered, and given what we know about the industry and the market, it’s the only way we can make any money.”
As far as I can tell, the only folks who technically owe the public answers are the Commissioners. But they’re not writing the script.
The Commissioners DO nominally employ Fred Nance to negotiate the deal on their (our?) behalf, so he’d be a good guy to ask. And given that he played a similar role regarding Cleveland Browns Stadium as Mike White’s personal lawyer, he probably has the answers. But he’s being paid with private dollars. If you’re the Chairman (or immediate past Chairman) of the private sector group, but representing the public sector in the discussion, BUT being paid with private dollars, is your work a matter of public record (I believe much of the Browns Stadium documentation was marked “confidential work product”)?
Mr. Nance and the CEO of GCP reportedly did most of the negotiating with MMPI. But, as we have established, even in matters regarding public expenditures, the GCP is a private organization and owes the public nothing.
Positively Cleveland, which has been notably silent on the matter, does receive a big chunk of its funding from the public sector (and if press reports are accurate, may be liable for a big haircut if the County decides to divert bed tax dollars to the project). But given their non-involvement in the matter (kind of odd for the convention and visitors bureau), I’m not sure they’d have any answers, even if they were inclined to come out of their hidey-hole and talk about it.
One of the benefits to The Imperial Bureaucracy of the byzantine structure of the so-called economic development organization process is that the complexity tends to shelter ALL the players from much accountability. It’s much easier for all the guys to hide, talk only with one another, and give each other awards if nobody knows exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. And in the absence of metrics, nobody will know whether you’re doing your job or not, WHATEVER it is. In Cleveland’s Economic Development Matrix, you’re successful because you say you are, and because you can f–k with anyone who says differently.
It strikes me that, in all the chaos surrounding this particular (to use the Kennedy-esque) scheme, one question has eluded me till I read this post: Has the legislation which enabled the Commissioners to raise the sales tax without a vote been tested for constitutionality?
February 19th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
One way to cut through all the complexity is to oust Hagan and Dimora, at least. If the scam is somehow not really their fault, although I can’t imagine how that’s possible, they’ll squeal before it costs them their Commision seats.
February 19th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
WOW. Calling all lawyers! John Polk asks “Has the legislation which enabled the Commissioners to raise the sales tax without a vote been tested for constitutionality?” What a great question.
February 19th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
It’s generally been described as a loophole in the state law which permitted the commissioners to raise that tax without first putting it to a vote of the public. If so, that damn loophole ought to be closed right quick. After his latest comment here, I think one can see fairly clearly why Mr. Polk stood out so prominently in the Cleveland business leadership during his time running COSE. His ability to courageously cut through the bull and call things what they really are was as refreshing as it ultimately proved to be unwelcomed in some quarters.
February 19th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
For sure, J.Ettorre, “that damn loophole ought to be closed.” Jennifer Brunner? Before you’re TOO busy with the race for U.S. Senate, how about taking on this wee matter of restoring the constitutional rights of the citizens of Cuyahoga County? It could make you mighty popular up here in NEO.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Carla,
Let’s ask for the opinion. I’ve been wondering this since we were collecting signatures two summers ago.
Both posts address the “loophole”. http://realneo.us/content/meaningless-public-meeting-medical-mart
and
http://realneo.us/content/frank-jackson-has-concerns#comment-9211
Isn’t there a practicing lawyer on the BOCC?
Would we be asking for an opinion of the Attorney General on this enactment of a section of the ORC or would we be addressing the non-election issue to the Secretary of State? Come on guys, you’re smart. I am just a dumb dance company director who emerged from a quarter century in studios and theaters to shock and awe.
(Tried to ask this question earlier today, but apparently it didn’t post…Thank you, Mr. Polk for restating what I have been asking since the summer of 2007. I was sounding like a broken record to myself.)
February 19th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I’m somewhat removed from the legislative process these days, but I suspect a little research would demonstrate that the loophole was opened, very quietly, by the former Convention Facilities Authority as a late-night amendment to a state capital budget somewhere around 2003 or 2004. The sponsor was probably a downstate Republican. Not a lot of those in the NEO delegation back then. And you’d need the majority to enact such an amendment without a hearing.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Interestingly enough, it turns out it was enacted by the legislature way back in 1993 (thanks for that link, Susan). Which, if memory serves, happens to be just one year before Mr. Polk got unceremoniously ousted from his perch at COSE.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Look, they raised the tax for a convention center which should have gone before the electorate according to my reading of the ORC. Who provides the opinion, Cordray or Brunner? I’ll just make the calls and find out if you guys don’t know.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Susan:
Keep pushing. I have no clue, but I have been suspicious not only of the lack of a vote, but also of the selection process (there was none that I remember) for MMPI.
Some smart lawyers undoubtedly read BFD, but Cleveland, in my view, is dominated by either a fear of reprisals or an Alfred E. Neuman “What Me Worry?” syndrome. Few of these folks will likely stick their head up.