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7 Responses to “Jimmy Dimora’s confusion”

1. John Polk Says:
   July 3rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm

   Commissioner Dimora is learning the hard way that the court of public opinion is far less forgiving than a mere court of law.

   It can be painful to feel one’s political power slipping away. All the people who relied on your influence to get what they wanted…people who “owe you”…are now keeping their distance. Because, after all, friendship is one thing, but business is something else.

   Worse yet, the oligarchs who promised they’d take care of you as long as you played ball with them are telling you there’s nothing they can do to help you…if they’re returning your calls at all.

   (No doubt there are times late at night when he thinks that if only he’d given Forest City their convention center, he’d at least have a few friends. He neglected to learn from his former colleague Tim McCormack’s experience: cross Forest City and they’ll find a way to punish you).

   To heighten his anguish, he can look back over his 15 years as a Commissioner and SWEAR that he hasn’t changed his behavior at all. He’s been doing what he’s always done…and now his colleagues, friends and enablers have turned on him. Of course he feels like a victim.

   Jimmy Dimora didn’t invent corruption in Cuyahoga County. But he came to power as The Cleveland Kleprocrats, with Mike White as their front guy, and The Men Behind The Curtain (still lurking after 15 years) as his enablers, had refined “pay to play” into a business strategy.

   The unapologetic brazenness of their larceny, without even a veneer of discretion, together with the zeal they displayed in assassinating anyone who wouldn’t play along, has created the banana republic culture in which Dimora and his colleagues have grown up and grown (you should pardon the expression) fat.

   There is still the possibility that Dimora won’t be indicted, and if he is, that he could be acquitted. Since he was a newbie Commissioner, the ethic (?) in Cleveland and County politics has been to rely upon the principle in state law that anything which is not explicitly prohibited by law is deemed to be legal…a distinction which does not accommodate the difference between doing what’s not illegal and doing what’s right.

   Some of his underlings may have gotten sloppy, and his own long history of unaccountable power may have caused him to stop being careful, but my guess is that the indictments, should they come, will focus on a series of petty, venal, penny-ante instances of routine corruption. Most of the BIG theft, the most egregious fleecing of the taxpayers, has been done perfectly legally.

   We may yet again be reminded that mere incompetence and disgraceful behavior are not technically illegal.
   And, of course, that right and wrong don’t really matter; what matters is how good your lawyer is. Perhaps that’s the “vindication” which Commissioner Dimora looks forward to…

2. Ed Morrison Says:
   July 3rd, 2009 at 7:43 pm

   John:

   It’s ironic that the GCP is now pushing for political reform in the County. These are the business “leaders” that have distorted our politics and destroyed the careers of more than one politician.

   I do not have nearly the experience or insight that you have shared, but here’s how I see it:

   Although I was not around CLE in the 1990’s, I understand that Mike White was, at one time, a politician with a future. Sam Miller’s destructive influences on White were, by the time I arrived in CLE in early 2002, well known.

   Many mark the Browns Stadium deal as the turning point…when White turned to the dark side. White converted the project, as well as the airport, into a bag operation. While I was at REI, more than one African American activist pointed to Miller’s continuous coaching of White as part of the problem.

   Miller and Dabreko (who’s destructive powers were yet to be fully realized) next turned on Tim McCormack for crossing Forest City on the convention center deal, as you note. McCormack bit the dust.

   Then comes along Jane Campbell, and the business leaders turned on her and pushed her over the edge when she did not deliver a convention center to Tower City.

   (Jane started in a ditch. When she arrived in office, virtually all the files from the mayor’s office were gone. In many ways, Jane was over her head as mayor, but the business community, led by Miller and Daberko, bumped her off the plank.)

   Now Dimora.

   True enough, Dimora grew up in a political environment in which the business community looked the other way as politicos steered contracts and employment. As long as political leaders were willing to deliver public funds to the real estate interests through questionable deals (Ameritrust, Juvenile Justice Center, and others) who cared?

   The interesting play in all this has been Hagan’s turn on Sam and Albert. Hagan stole Forest City’s deal. He was smart enough to realize that the only way to beat one real estate developer was to line up one on his side. Hagan also put the convention center where it should be — on the mall.

   There’s only one problem with Hagan’s plan. Convention centers lose money, and no one has even come close to estimating how much the operating deficit will cost the taxpayers (at a time when the county’s financial condition is deteriorating by the month). His estimate of 50 medical shows a year is Disneyland.

   But as you have pointed out, this project is not about rational analysis. It’s all about power. We saw that last week when Hagan assembled a group of Cleveland leaders to show off his big project.

   Hagan cleverly jammed the convention center up Forest City’s nose by seducing Dimora. Now, I suspect, Hagan’s also one of those folks watching as Dimora twists in the wind. And not returning Jimmy’s calls.

   Dimora must feel quite alone right now, but he joins a long list of politicians who have seen their careers trashed by the political chaos that the GCP, by its cynical machinations, has created.

3. John Polk Says:
   July 3rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm

   I don’t view GCP’s recent actions in quite the same way. Mr. Roman was quite explicit in stating that GCP’s support was meant merely to enable the referendum to be placed on the ballot, and shouldn’t be seen as an expression of support for the reform proposal.

   I rather suspect that some of the Republican business leaders whom Dimora suspects prevailed on GCP to fund the signature-gathering process rather than let the initiative die for lack of citizen participation. I imagine the pollsters will be quite busy come Labor Day determining whether the referendum has a chance of winning . Once it has determined which way the wind is blowing, GCP will decide how best to end up on the winning side.

   Except for that, I agree with your reading of recent history. I remember in late 1993, when Art Modell, having envied the success the Jacobs and Gund boys had with Gateway, asked Mayor White for a similar deal to help build a new stadium for the Browns. The Mayor had other ideas, left Modell twisting in the wind, and forced the crisis which resulted in the Browns leaving town, the new stadium debacle, and a whole new era in civic larceny was born.

   The players then were the players now.

   When I worked with Ray Pierce on the 2001 Mayor’s race, no one wanted to hear that she had no executive leadership portfolio. Raymond ruled out a convention center; Jane didn’t. The SHE didn’t deliver.

   Commissioner Hagan will be just fine. He’ll retire from public life and take up a couple board positions…perhaps with his Chicago pals. He’s helped make the deal. Whether it works or craters, it ain’t gonna be on his watch.

4. Ed Morrison Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 10:08 am

   John:

   I’ve spent some additional time to educate myself.

   You are right about the GCP’s position, as reported in the PD: http://snurl.com/lre94

   Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation in Cleveland, Roman can find no way to lead his organization above the moral squalor.

   This proposal is seriously flawed — moving in the direction of 11 district based elected officials does not make a lot of sense to me — but a chamber’s role is to lead, apparently a foreign notion to Roman and his board. Instead, the GCP appears to be facilitating the continued confusion and decline of the county.

   It bring to mind the quote of John Gardner, founder of Common Cause: “A cynical community is a corrupt community”.

5. John Polk Says:
   July 5th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

   That venerable philosopher Bill Cosby has said, “Parents are not interested in justice; they’re interested in silence….”

   The vast majority of GCP’s Board are there either out of noblesse oblige or because they’re strivers and climbers who are happy to have a quarterly “seat at the table” with The Big Guys. It makes them big by reflection.

   The second-last thing any of these people want is to be exposed to any sort of controversy (unless they can get the inside dope). Any issue which might disturb the “We are all of us Masters Of The Universe” vibe of those quarterly meetings is most unwelcome.

   The LAST thing most of them need is to be forced to confront the dark side of their organization’s activities. No one wishes to be the source of any friction, or to ask questions which might not be on the agenda. To do so is to risk losing that seat at the table.

   So outside of those quarterly meetings, most of the shenanigans are overseen by a much smaller group of insiders, GCP’s Executive Committee, who see their primary role as supporting the staff, not to manage them or hold them accountable.

   After the fashion of La Cosa Nostra, you don’t get to that table until you’ve “made your bones:” until you have benefited somehow from the status quo, and have made decisions or taken action which would be deeply embarrassing if they became public. I promise not to tell others your secrets, and you promise not to tell mine to others. So, like The Mob, omerta is the principle which binds most of them together.

6. Ed Morrison Says:
   July 6th, 2009 at 7:58 pm

   The LAST thing most of them need is to be forced to confront the dark side of their organization’s activities.

   My guess is that until someone in the business leadership of Cleveland confronts the poor performance of the GCP, not much will change in this town.

   While I was at the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University, Roman and representatives from Eaton Corp. approached me about publishing a report prepared by the tax department at Eaton. The report compared the tax burdens in Cleveland to those of other cities in the Great Lakes. The report was sound, but that was not the problem.

   Eaton and Roman wanted me to publish this report by hiding who prepared it and publishing it as a report prepared by the Center.

   I must admit I was stunned by the boldness of their request. Fraudulently misrepresenting the source of a research report would have compromised the integrity of the Center.

   The fact that Roman and the representatives from Eaton could even make this proposal underscores the ineptitude of their leadership. CWRU is the major research university in Northeast Ohio. The leadership of the GCP clearly did not understand the role of a research university in a regional economic development strategy.

   Ethical issues like this are difficult to pin down because they are based on only oral accounts. Nothing gets written down.

   It’s easier, I suspect, for the board at the Greater Cleveland Partnership to make some simple comparisons on Cleveland’s relative economic performance. Based on these metrics, Cleveland’s overall performance sadly ranks with Detroit. Places like Pittsburgh and, more recently, Akron are doing measurably better.

   You’d think that someone on the board would have enough curiosity to ask “Why?” But perhaps, as you suggest, that’s not the reason that most people join the board. You may be right that social climbing, in effect, trumps genuine leadership.

   In my experience, staff led organizations often underperform. The staff perpetuates the dynamic by carefully selecting board members who will not disrupt the dynamic and ask difficult questions. I’ve seen this dynamic operate in places like Oklahoma City and Charleston, South Carolina.

   The dynamic doesn’t change unless a small group of board members decides that the interests of the community override the interests of the staff. Cleveland has clearly If not reached that point. But, as the case of both Oklahoma City and Charleston demonstrate, the economic performance of a metro region can change dramatically with more effective business leadership.

7. John Polk Says:
   July 6th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

   A small group of deeply entrenched developers, and the professional facilitators (or “Fixers”) who enable them has decided that GCP’s principal function is to develop the means to direct public funding, and public subsidies, to support public and private development activities…by any means necessary.

   Because this strategy depends so much upon the collusion of elected public officials, the rules in Cleveland for nearly 20 years has been to let them get away with ANYTHING, so long as that small cadre benefits.

   Anyone who was aghast at the hack job which was GCP’s siting study for the MedCon would find it easy to believe your own colorful anecdote. These yahoos will say anything, and do anything, to advance their agendas…and to recall an earlier generation of robber baron, the public be damned.

   Because the organization is in the business of merely facilitating process, it tends to absolve itself of responsibility for the results of its machinations when the outcomes are not successful.

   By any measurable standard, the organization’s performance as a driver of broad-based economic development has been dismal. Membership is sagging, its programming irrelevant to most of the community, and it has been abject in its avoidance of complex issues (like education)which could contribute to broad economic and political reform, while embracing old chestnuts like casino gambling…which IS, of course, related to its core mission to bring home the bacon for the benefit of the small group of insiders whose support the staff needs to stay employed and well-compensated.

   Think about the pressure on the staff to “deliver” on casino gambling, particularly after having hijacked the civic process in an unsuccessful attempt to give Forest City its convention center. Guaranteed it’s the only thing keeping them employed…that, and the income the organization channels to the various fixers in town, who successfully play both sides to keep the process moving.

   One of the factors impeding the development of real regionalism is the desire on the part of many organizations not to wade into this quagmire. It’s the same dynamic which makes smart Board members reticent about cleaning up the morass which The Chamber has become.

   “The best lack all conviction. The worst are filled with passionate intensity”…William Butler Yeats