MORE GLIB LIES FROM PORT AUTHORITY - SO VOTE NO ON ISSUE 14

The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority continues to obfuscate and intentionally misrepresent the facts in its attempt to finance itself from our county taxes.

 

The Port “club’s” campaign literature ( ostensibly mailed by “Citizens for the Port of Cleveland”, Reverend Sterling Glover, Treasurer, 26100 Lake Shore Blvd, 44132)  contends “It’s not a Tax Increase” (i.e. voting affirmatively on issue 14)  is at best a grossly misleading statement, and in my view an outright lie – because the tax levy which the Port hopes the voters will pass constitutes a NEW TAX to replace a tax levy which is set to expire.  So it is a new tax, and thus a tax increase over what we would have without Issue 14.

 

And the only “jobs” any new tax would support will be the too well paid “jobs” held by the authority and its employees. The issue's own web site acknowledges that the present tax which is due to expire  “Raises about $3.2 million annually to fund vital Port Authority operations”.  “Vital” to whom? Is the question…   Go down and view the “Port” for yourself – it is obsolete and dead 99% of the time. 

Remember, Port Authority Chairman Carney led the Authority a year ago to pass a vote to exercise eminent domain for developer Wolstein in the Flats.  That eminent domain was challenged in Court and, without even hearing the case, the Court indicated clearly that Wolstein would not prevail, causing Wolstein to buy property from various private owners at multiples of the value that the Port had originally offered in their heavy handed eminent domain extortion.

 

The Authority is obsolete,  has abandoned  it’s primary job, grossly inflates it’s economic impact on North East Ohio, and remains AWOL [1].

 

Help shrink this underhanded bureaucracy, VOTE NO ON ISSUE 14

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P.S.

The URL for www.protectourport.com [2] was created on Aug. 30, 07 and is registered to

new media campaigns

2 davis dr

p.o. box 13159

research triangle park, NC 27709

Do you think Reverend Glover hired New Media Campaigns [3] to do the “Port” Authority’s bidding?  Who bought the URL?  Where did the money come from to mail out a flier to all registered voters under Cleveland, Ohio postal bulk rate permit No. 360?    Did the Port Authority itself fund any of this political campaign?  Or is it “I’ll scratch your back you scratch mine” between the Port Authority and Greater Cleveland Partnership?