For a crash-course in Cleveland politics, read Roldo’s columns. Below is an excerpt of this week’s Cool Cleveland column:

Hagan, Petro (and Mary Boyle) in the 1990s voted two bond issues, one for $75 million and another for $45 million to make up for the shortages.

We – County taxpayers - are still paying bondholders each January for those borrowings. They have cost taxpayers, mostly from the County general fund, $7 to $8 million annually.

More than $100 million – some from the city (see below) – has been paid since. We will continue to pay until at least 2023, longer if required by shortfalls.

Hagan’s arrogance has no bounds.

At one meeting, the commissioners took 30 seconds to vote for a multi-million bond issue for Gateway.

During another discussion of county bonds for Gateway, Hagan, as soon as it came time for the public to speak, showed his utter disdain for the taxpayer.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” he told the audience. He then invited a band of construction workers there to support spending millions tax dollars to join him in the next room for coffee. He left the public to talk to other commissioners.

Hagan haughtily backstabs other politicians.

Cong. Louis Stokes opposed the tax so Hagan labeled Stokes a “front” for tobacco interests. His reasoning: cigarette taxes hurt sales, therefore, anyone opposing him and the tax favored smoking.

Sharp reasoning, no?

Hagan also accused Stokes of “rewarding people that are doing a terrible disservice to the poor and minorities…by glamorizing the use of booze…” Further, that Stokes contributed “to the infant mortality rate.”

Such blatant nonsense as trying to portrait Stokes as anti-black qualifies as a “Willie Horton” smear by Hagan.

Hagan – who has never seen a regressive tax he didn’t embrace – said, along with his sidekick Mayor Michael White, that he wanted public debate on those 1990 issues. Debate is important, he claimed.

I’m sure he’ll do the same this time, claiming the two phony meetings he has set up to inform the public about the need for the sales tax increase as the “public debate.”

His idea of debate, however, is one sided…

CoolCleveland.com - Roldo Link Hagan The Backstabber At It Again