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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS
WWW.CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM
NOVEMBER 5 - 11, 2012
PUBLISHER/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR:
Brian D. Tucker (btucker@crain.com) EDITOR:
Mark Dodosh (mdodosh@crain.com) MANAGING EDITOR:
Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com)
OPINION
Nice digs
W
e wouldn’t go back to the old form of Cuyahoga County government for a second, nor was there much to praise about the former Board of County Commissioners during the last few years of its existence. We’ll give the now-imprisoned Jimmy Dimora credit for one good move, though — that was voting to pass the increase in the county sales tax that made possible the construction of a new convention center and medical mart in Cleveland. It was back on July 26, 2007, that then-commissioner Dimora and his colleague, Tim Hagan, bypassed a public vote on the tax hike by approving the one-quarter percentage point increase at a meeting of the three-member board. Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones voted against it. The action was not universally popular, and immediately prompted talk about a petition drive to revoke the tax hike. However, the increase remained in place, and money began to pile up for the new convention and med mart complex even though the site for it had yet to be determined. More than five years later, construction of the $465 million project is on track for completion next July, ahead of schedule and on budget. It didn’t hurt during negotiations with contractors and property owners that the county had money in hand and was ready to move ahead with the project once it settled upon the site of the old convention center as the home for the new one. It’s impossible to say what would have happened had the commissioners decided to put on the ballot the tax hike for the convention center/med mart. Our guess is that it would have been rejected. Convention centers aren’t like ballparks or arenas, which sports fans lovingly embrace. They also aren’t like tax levies for mental health services or park systems, which appeal to voters’ sense of doing good. Convention centers are cold, hulking buildings that many local residents never will step into their entire lives. If commissioners Dimora and Hagan hadn’t taken matters into their own hands, it’s likely Cleveland would be no closer now to a new meeting complex than it was 30 years ago, when it already was apparent that its convention center was obsolete and that the city was missing out on tons of meeting business because of it. The man who is now Jailbird Jimmy may have seen the tax hike for the convention center complex as a fresh pot of money for his contractor friends to tap into so that he could enjoy a few more favors from them. It’s hard not to question the motives of someone found guilty of accepting bribes. However, the need for a new convention center was beyond dispute if Cleveland hoped to capitalize on hundreds of millions of dollars of public and private investment in its meeting and tourism business. The proof is in the conventions that already are lining up to come to the city once the new complex is open. Cleveland essentially was out of the convention game for a generation. Now it’s months away from re-entering the business in a grand way. And it can thank two guys for their roles in giving it a fresh start.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
No monkeying around on this issue
T
ake a deep breath and repeat afor lose them, it spurred my thinking ter me: “It’s just one more day. about government and the legislative It’s just one more day. It’s just process. one more day… It’s inarguable that we need govern“And I’m going to put my foot ment, and reasonable folks can agree to through my TV if I have to stomach one disagree about how much is too much or more commercial with some politician enough. But when some guy sets loose calling his or her opponent a liar!” his lions and other beasts and then kills Seriously, now… himself, leaving authorities to Wait. I was being serious. clean up the mess, it’s right for OK, so it’s time for me to BRIAN government to step in. take a deep mental breath, and TUCKER You might recall that Terry repeat after myself: “There are Thompson did just that a year some good people in governago at his property outside ment, despite how they act in Zanesville. He released 56 public during campaign season. animals, among them lions, And there really is some good tigers, leopards and bears. The that comes out of our public police, who were ill-prepared servants.” for such a mess, were forced to Take Ohio’s new exotic animal kill 48 of the animals and Ohio law, for example. made national news. And no, this is not going to be some Gov. Kasich, correctly, stepped in and cheesy joke about politicians and animals. issued a temporary moratorium on the Right about now, I’m siding with the ownership of exotic animals, and lawanimals. makers helped establish new laws conBut when I read in The Columbus trolling ownership and mandating regisDispatch that today is the deadline for tration by owners. The newspaper owners of exotic animals to either register reported that 40 owners — some of them
zoos, obviously — had registered by last week. The state plans to build a $3.5 million holding facility that will house seized animals until they can be relocated to a zoo or some other appropriate facility. That’s a good investment. “Our last resort would be that we have to take custody of an animal,” state Agriculture Director Terry Daniels told the newspaper. “We want the public to be safe.” Hear, hear, Mr. Daniels. We want that as well, and so do the hundreds of sheriff’s deputies, state troopers and police officers across the state that get plenty of training about dealing with bad guys but next to none about caging a lion. Mr. Daniels says the state estimates there are 500 to 600 exotic animals in Ohio, and he couldn’t say why more owners hadn’t registered by now. The state’s veterinarian worries that owners don’t trust the state. I don’t know about you, but on this issue, I’m putting my trust in government. People who want pets ought to go to their local animal shelter. ■
LETTERS
For much-needed port reform, defeat levy
T
he Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority levy, known as Issue 108, must be rejected to force needed reform to a faulty, mistake-prone government board. The current proposal is more bailout of the city of Cleveland by suburban voters, who are 70% of the county population and would pay more than 80% of the taxes. The bailout is mostly for spending not related to the port, orchestrated by representatives of the city of Cleveland — a bridge from City Hall to the Science Center, repairing Franklin Hill to save city water and sewer lines, and so on. Less than 20% of the taxes even go to existing port-related activities. For its 44 years, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority has been
city-dominated, with two-thirds of its board selected by Cleveland’s mayor. For at least the last five or six years, it is a government in search of some purpose as its base mission has diminished, taking on economic development revenue bonds, failed plans to move the port, various lakefront real estate development ideas not within its core expertise, and now the role of “river keeper” for Cleveland and its infrastructure. These various changes of direction and mission have been taken with little effective public input, and certainly little input by government that represents most of the taxpayers. Actual port operations are largely limited to bulk cargo (iron, stone, cement, grain, salt), as St. Lawrence Seaway shipping and general cargo has never
really taken off and the Seaway was actually destined to fail from its opening day as shipping passed its capacity by. The appointed authority has also had its share of serial gross mismanagement, and recent involvement in special perks, favoritism and fallout in the scandalplagued old county government, which appointed three of its nine board members, one of whom just resigned under a cloud. Having reformed county government, we must continue the housecleaning by replacing the authority with a new government structure, appointed by the new government. With the county’s new economic development powers, whether the port should continue as the bonding conduit for county development See LETTERS Page 9