Who is Fact Checker??

Those being quoted as sources in this story are major contributors to the city's blight.  Everyone quoted is either a current or former Cleveland councilman.  Jeff Johnson, Jim Rokakis, Gus Frangos, Ed Rybka.  All have poorly-served the city and county in every capacity in which they've held office, even today.  Quoting them as reliable, without knowing their history, is a disservice.

Rokakis and Frangos pushed the third party tax lien sales that wiped out blocks of east side homes in Cleveland, East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights before the foreclosure crisis.  Now they're letting demolition contractors dump on and pollute landbank lands in those same east side neighborhoods where they turned homeowners into renters, and with the council Johnson serves on's blessings..  This was before they all supported Lee Fisher's board-up of over 1000 so-called "drug houses" when he served as attorney general.

Have you ever, Leila, thought to examine the relationship between the officials of GLS Capital, Plymouth Park Investments and the other third party tax lien buyers and the players who wrote and pushed the law in 1998 that allowed these sales to take place in counties with 1 million in population and more?  Have you examined the impacted neighborhoods?  This was supposed to benefit schools? How does creating housing vacancies benefit schools?

The "D" in HUD stands for "Development" not "Demolition."  The same money spent on demolition can be spent to renovate some of the homes, and it's okay with HUD if the homes are sold at cost. If the renovation is $10,000 the house sells for $10,000, the funds are recaptured and then used to renovate and sell other homes the same way.  It creates real afforable home ownership.  That was Eric Brewer's plan as East Cleveland's mayor when he wrote the $2 million NSP grant before leaving office. He also wrote a vacant property registration ordinance that brought in money without taxing residents, and forced real vacant property owners to maintain them or be jailed. [1]

Anything Johnson says about Glenville shouldn't be taken seriously.  He needs to tell his wife to stop posting family pictures of their family home in Twinsburg on Facebook.  He's running for mayor of Cleveland.  He should at least minimally keep up the appearances that he cares about the residents of Cleveland and "their" problem schools while his girls are educated in Twinsburg.

There are answers to the vacant housing problem in Cleveland but the so-called experts quoted in this story don't have them.  The focus of the entire discussion about the resolution of this city's problems with blight and a lack of overall neighborhood development has to change, and so do the people and writers leading the discussion. 

If this newspaper were honest they'd be investigating Rokakis, Frangos, Rybka and their relationship with the late Judge Raymond Pianka and how he abused the housing court to wipe out liens and harass property owners out of their properties for all their special interests.  Johnson, too.  This council is savage in intimidating housing and building inspectors under the mayor's supervision into targeting specific property owners for harassment.  It's unlawful but it's done.  If you want a real story Leila, go through the housing court docket and start talking to property owners who Pianka jailed.

There's more than 150 years of service from all the players quoted and their tenure has only led to worse and not better for Cleveland.  Investigate them, Leila.  Don't uplift them.  Their track records and deeds are so nefarious you'd win a Pulitzer for the newspaper by exposing them.