Frank Jackson has concerns

"Mayor Frank Jackson has concerns about the city-owned site chosen for a new medical mart and convention center project."

Well, well... welcome to the throng Mayor Jackson.

This flip flopping is so David Byrne -Talking Heads it is laughable. Remember - Making Flippy Floppy? Here's a refresher. [1]This is the last of the lyric [2] - so appropriate as a song for today: 

"Run-a-run-a-run it all together
Check it out - still don't make no sense
Makin' flippy floppy
Tryin to do my best
Lock the door
We kill the beast
Kill it!"

Remember this was on the Stop Making Sense Album... We've got it, we've got it... Next thing you know we'll all be dancing to Burning Down the House on the Mall.

Back to the news: this morning on WCPN we heard, Fred Nance reiterate conditional site selection. It ain't over til the fat lady sings or what?

WKYC and realneo polls indicate many feel this medcon will never materialize.

Let's place bets on what the Cleveland Planning Commission will say. Some could make more cash than they make on the Ohio Lottery by starting office pools. Bookies - are you in on this?

Steve Litt talks basically as co-interviewer on WCPN because he has not been afforded renderings, engineering plans or even a sketch of what the MMPI proposed solution is. Still, Litt raises (pun solidly intended) a good question about elevation. The mall greespace will rise 4 feet above its currenet elevation!?! What!?! and this is too much detail!?! What are they planning to do with Public Auditorium anyway? Meanwhile a local (once upstart) architect has drunk the koolaid weighing in on the potential of this solution [3] and endorsing the site selection. While we're "strengthening Cleveland as a destination", I would like to pont out that there is much that those who are already destined to live here require before we begin entertaining guests... but that aside.

Mark Falanga calls the existing convention center foundation a bathtub. I was laughing so hard, I missed the next comment. Bathtub indeed and Mayor Jackson seems, in a stunning turnabout from last week's cordial interview with Thomas Mulready at the airport, to now want to get out of the bath. Did he learn something about swimming with sharks, potentially "taking a bath" - something we don't know? It seems that as of this writing the county has collected around $52 million for the proposed project. Would we pay this amount for say, insulating or repairing homes in Cleveland? Maybe we would pay this for, oh... I don't know, improved safety services, better schools, improved public transit? 

Frank, Frank, Frank... oh dear! What next? This is a great comedy routine - who's on first. It's Tim Hagan, no Jimmy Dimora, no Peter Lawson Jones, no Fred Nance, no Frank Jackson, no Chris Kennedy, no Mark Falanga... My head is spinning and I'm feeling a bit queasy. Am I dreaming in Fellini's Satyricon?

I don't buy it - the medcon - tax dollars going to support private enterprise, but if we have to have it why would the mayor not welcome the chance to have it on city owned property - the cleveland convention center. What does he want to use city tax dollars to restore Public Auditorium?

Even better are all the folks now weighing in for the other sites. Did Forest City make a lot of phone calls over the weekend? Wagar goes at Wolstein - Wolstein fires back. Still, we have no numbers, no drawings, no cost benefit analysis... sounds like a dud to me. But boy, is it a fun rollercoaster. Look out Cedar Point - Cleveland politicians have got you topped.