Comments on: TOIstudio’s Dru McKeown Throws Down on the Med/Con

By: Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann

Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:21:39 +0000

Money where your mouth is.

I’ll make this bet:

When the new Convention Center opens, you give me $10,000. Every time a medical convention is held there during the first five years of operation, I’ll give you $80. (Details: by “medical convention” I mean one that is on the list of 500 that was touted by CVB a couple years ago. I’ll hand you a check the day each medical convention opens.)

Given that fifty medical conventions a year are planned, this is an easy 2-to-1 payoff. (50 x $80 = $4,000 per year, for five years–against your $10,000.)

Any takers? If not, why not?

By: John Ettorre

John Ettorre — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:51:46 +0000

Jeremy, you perhaps weren’t paying attention in class when the whole notion of the importance of understanding history was discussed. The words “what’s past is prologue” are carved on the entrance of the National Archives for a reason. I would hope any educated person can understand that to fully appreciate where we should go, we first need to understand where we’ve been. And better understanding the Group Plan in a very real way helps any contemporary planner decide how to intelligently devolop the city today. None of that is at war with the obvious point you raise, that things have since changed.

By: Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann

Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:59:45 +0000

I think it’s extremely important to define WHAT WE WANT, not what we don’t want.

Okay, what I want is the promoters of the Gateway and MediMart swindles out of office and permanently exiled from public life. Hagan and Dimora for sure.

By: Justin Balck

Justin Balck — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:06:05 +0000

Good point on Gateway. It’s the same yahoos pitching the same tired ideas. Success never comes, jobs never come, just the bureaucrats, parasites and consultants remain.

By: Jeremy Borger

Jeremy Borger — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:11:47 +0000

Why are people committed to sticking to a “Group Plan” that was developed over 100 years ago? Hasn’t anything changed since then?

Let’s move forward, not look back.

By: anastasia

anastasia — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:59:26 +0000

It’s easy to talk about the Convention Center/Medical Mart being a “success,” but given the lack of groundwork and clear definitions of what that “success” might entail and whether such “success” has ever happen anywhere as a result of building such a project, it reminds me of George Bush talking about “success” in Iraq. Every time I heard him say it, I found myself yelling “Define ’success.’” Of course, he never did — and so there was no “success.” The real problem with this project goes all the way to its inception: the assumption that it was something we had to do and justification came afterward. There was never an open public discussion of “What is the goal and are there other, better, more efficient ways to achieve that goal?” Until and unless we rewind and go back there — and we won’t — to where the idea of building a convention center is not a given but one of a range of possibilities, we’re boxed into something that ould not only be a failure but a catastrophe, given that every single convention center in cities like Cleveland, no matter how spectacular and “state-of-the-art” is being subsidized by tax dollars. We need to ask if pouring those dollars into propping up a convention center forever is going to create a comparable amount of economic development — and we need to have an honest, open, realistic discussion of how that’s going to happen.

By: George Nemeth

George Nemeth — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:16:08 +0000

An excellent economic development policy would be to start with what Hagan supports and then do the opposite.

I think it’s extremely important to define WHAT WE WANT, not what we don’t want. If we get there by defining what we don’t want, that’s cool, as long as the end we have in mind is much more positive then the path before us.

By: lmcshane

lmcshane — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:15:44 +0000

I echo Dru McKeown’s sentiments. The Group Plan has never been fully achieved. This is a chance to do something right.

By: Mark W. Schumann, formerly known as Some Guy on Mapledale

Mark W. Schumann, formerly known as Some Guy on Mapledale — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:22:31 +0000

No.

I mean yeah, it will HAPPEN, there will be a convention center and a MediMart… but the big boom they keep talking about? No. It’s no more realistic than the 28,000 “good paying permanent jobs” at Gateway, which was supported by the EXACT SAME PEOPLE with the EXACT SAME PITCH.

Gateway is costing county taxpayers $8 million per year over and above its dedicated sin tax.

An excellent economic development policy would be to start with what Hagan supports and then do the opposite.