PATMON RIGHTLY CALLS JACKSON ON JACOBS DEAL

Bill Patmon slammed Mayor Frank Jackson on his “gift” of $2 million to Jeff Jacobs for a proposed fish tank for his Flats project. It’s a proper slam of the mayor.

 

Jackson said that the money could only go to a profit-making business, which I would think is either absurd or an outright lie.

 

Patmon, a member of the RTA board, suggested that the money be used to help keep alive community circulating buses in Cleveland neighborhoods, as reported in a blog by Henry Gomez of the Plain Dealer.

 

Jackson scoffed at Patmon saying, “It is amazing to me that someone who touts himself as having such great knowledge of city finances and city government would not be aware of how this money” can be spent.

 

Jackson said the money comes from a fund that can only be used to subsidize for-profit enterprises. However, he didn’t identify the fund and it seems strange to me.

 

Neither Jackson nor the Plain Dealer has identified what money we are talking about.

 

It may well be that Jackson doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Jackson doesn’t say what pool of city money provides this $2 million.

 

I’d say that if city money can go into bicycle paths then city money can go for transportation for transit-dependent people. In fact, it would be a much better use today.

 

But more important is the question of how a Jeff Jacobs’s private deal for $2 million, offered this June, jumped ahead of all other possible projects the city could subsidize with the $2 million, no matter where it comes from. I have a list that is years old with projects that should proceed any new deals.

 

There are scores of other neighborhood projects on the agenda of needs for the city for years.

 

I have a document from the early 2000s of “Core City Fund Projects” that lists nearly 100 projects awaiting some kind of city subsidy.

 

These projects total a desire of $55 million in subsidies that were scheduled to trigger $430 million in total project investments.

 

They do include for-profit business but also non-profits and even churches, presumably non-profit entities.

 

So if anyone has this concept wrong, I believe it’s Mayor Frank Jackson.

 

Further, we need to know where the money is coming from, how long Jacobs will hold the $2 million, what interest, if any, he will pay. Further, will Jacobs get any tax abatement or other subsidies for this project?

 

Jackson, who has played himself as a financial wizard, is way out on a limb with this deal. He has a lot of explaining to do. Now.