$68 MILLION READY FOR HANDOVER TO MMPI

Cuyahoga County taxpayers now have “contributed” some $68 million for the proposed Medical Mart project. I guess all the great needs of this area have been superseded by special interests again.

 

Let’s not talk about the Great Recession or people’s needs. Let’s just satisfy Tim Hagan, Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones and their desire for a building project – The Tim Hagan Convention Center and Medical Mart. Or should I say the desire of special interests that the three represent.

 

The $67,975,153.04 was collected by a quarter-percent increase in the sales tax. It was voted without public input. It took effect in January 2008 and runs for 40 years! This tough economic year for Cuyahoga County accounted for $25.8 million in revenue as of the first eight months of 2009.

 

The Plain Dealer recently in a peculiar sentence told of some expenditures from this $68 million:

 

“So far, the County has paid the company (MMPI) $1,333,000 to meet with potential contractors, though the company is not required to provide detailed invoices,” the sentence read.

That’s convenient. You mean you send someone one-and-a-third million dollars but don’t require proof of how the money is used?

 

In a county afloat with FBI agents that seems a rather peculiar way of doing business.

 

It’s especially strange when later in the same article Jeff Applebaum, hired to write a “new” contract between Cuyahoga County and MMPI of Chicago, declares, “I want to make sure that every dollar the county expends is put to optimal use. You have to see where the dollars are going.” (Applebaum was hired despite the fact that the County paid Fred Nance of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey $750,000 to essentially do the same thing, I thought - broker a deal with MMPI. I guess they just wanted to keep Nance occupied.)

 

I agree with Applebaum on transparency but he didn’t return a telephone call to find out how the two – no invoices from MMPI and knowing where dollars are spent – squares with him and County officials.

 

Taking MMPI at their word alone doesn’t strike me as transparent or wise.

 

Could some of that money have gone to Hagan’s buddy, Chris Kennedy of MMPI? The Kennedy family friend got the contract without a bid. Could other MMPI executives be paid from this account instead of their regular business?

 

I’ve seen it happen before.

 

 When the City of Cleveland gave a $7-million repayable (after 20 years) grant to a Forest City offshoot for a renovation of the Halle building, salaries of Forest City executives showed up on receipts for the Halle project.

 

For example, one executive had 30 percent of his salary of $230,000 charged off against the city money. Another executive paid $340,000 a year would have part of his salary for each of five years charged off against the Halle account at a percentage from five to 10 percent a year. (No wonder the project had a $10 million overrun, which meant that the city’s supposed share of profits equaled zero and never went above that figure.)

 

Isn’t it time for total transparency for this project as it starts to rev up? Isn’t it time that the Plain Dealer as the paper of record here insist on seeing the records? And not wait 10 years for the next FBI probe?

 

Let’s get this one right and not have another Gateway.