Blaming the Victims Again
By Roldo Bartimole
Two days in a row now the Plain Dealer editorially slapped away at working people. This time at Cleveland teachers. Target the workers.
Who do they think buys their newspaper?
Having never carefully examined a major drain on the Cleveland schools – tax abatements and exemptions – and having never acquired a mindset that might question the ease with which the school system has been depleted of tens of millions of dollars of tax revenues, what does the PD do? It slaps teachers.
It won’t go where the money is. Why not? We know.
It says “Cleveland teachers must accept less.” That’s their editorial headline.
Blame the teachers. Blame the teachers union. Don’t look anywhere else. They might find the real culprits. Horses have blinders for a purpose. So do editorial writers.
Teachers have become the punching bag of Republicans and editorial writers.
“A dangerous game of chicken is being played out in the Cleveland public schools,” say the Pee Dee editorialists, “that could hurt both the city and its schoolchildren.”
Blame the teachers. Don’t look anywhere else.
The issue here is keeping some 300 recalled teachers in the school room when the school system lacks the financial resources to do so.
“The Cleveland Teachers Union has the chance to show that, when jobs and academic gains are on the line, teachers are more than ready to accept sacrifices,” concludes the Pee Dee. Who else might sacrifice?
A day before, the PD slapped teachers (and cops, firefighters, other public employees) with an endorsement to keep the anti-labor Senate Bill 5, passed by the Republican state legislature and our right-wingnut governor, John Kasich.
Never has the newspaper taken a good look at the great loss of revenue that has come from tax abatements and exemptions. They have always endorsed such revenue drains from city government.
I did take a look. It isn’t pretty. No wonder the PD doesn’t want to look. They might just have to come clean.
So if you see no evil, you have to tell no evil. The PD looks for no evil in certain places and for certain people. Others it can find evil in a glance.
Here’s what I found in 2009 when I looked at some, not all by any means, tax abatements and exemptions in Cleveland. Gifts for the richest people in town, believe me. There are countless more abatements than those mentioned here.
– Browns Stadium, used almost exclusively by billionaire Randy Lerner: property tax exemption for his stadium, $8.08 million in 2009 and $7.97 million in 2008. A total of some $16 million in lost revenue. The Cleveland schools absorbed half of that lost in revenue. He’ll never pay property taxes. Tim Hagan and Mike White made sure of that. Too bad, kids.
Most property tax – more than 50 percent – is lost by the Cleveland schools, which depend mostly heavily on the property tax. Too bad, teachers.
– Quicken Arena, mostly enjoyed financially by Dan “Casino” Gilbert, Quicken Loans multi-millionaire: property tax exemption of $3.8 million in 2009 and $3.76 million in 2008. That is a total of $7.58 million over the two years in lost revenue, most from the Cleveland schools. Too bad, schools.
– Progressive Field, owned by the multi-millionaire Dolan family. $4.88 million exempted in 2009 and $4.81 in 2008. A total of $9.7 million lost in property tax revenue, most from the Cleveland school system. Hard luck, kids.
– The Gateway garages, financially benefitting Gilbert and Dolans: $652,963 in lost revenue in 2009 and $644,283 in 2008 for a $1.3 million lost in property tax revenue, mostly, of course, by the Cleveland school system and its children, and it teachers. Sorry, teach.
– Key Center, built and owned by Dick Jacobs, multi-millionaire. $5.39 million in 2009 and $5.32 million in 2009, a total of $10.7 million in lost tax revenue, most again from the Cleveland school system. Sad kids.
Are you getting the picture? The PD hasn’t. The PD won’t. It doesn’t even look. Doesn’t want to know.
– Marriott Hotel, also built and owned by Jacobs, a $1.12 million in tax abatement for 2009 and $1.2 for 2008, a total of $2.3 million, more than 50 percent from the Cleveland schools and its children. Too bad, schools.
– Wyndham Hotel, lost revenue in 2009 of $339,500 and in 2008 $334,989, for a total of $674,000. Gone. Oh, well.
– Ritz-Carlton, owned by members of Forest City Enterprises, surely multi-millionaires. For the two years in question $1.7 million in tax abatement, mostly, of course, from the Cleveland schools. Sorry.
The total lost in only the two years I examined – some $50 million dollars. Only two years. The abatements are usually 20 years; the exemptions, on the sports facilities, are FOREVER. Free taxes for the rich.
But the teachers should pay. According to the Pee Dee.
So you can imagine how much the Cleveland schools have lost in revenue in the last 20 years and how much they continue to lose on the sports facilities, never to be paid a penny in property tax revenue. On the buildings paid for largely by you and me. Sin taxes, you know.
But to the Plain Dealer, the only sinners are teachers and working people.
Yes, the PD says teachers should pay. Well, what do you expect of servants of wealth in town?
Does O’Brien write all their editorials now?
What a shitty paper we have.
Since the Cleveland schools get more than 50 percent of the property tax revenues, I would assume the schools and the school children and the teachers lost some $25 million in two years. In only the two years I looked. Not 20. Not forever.
Do you know where to go for the shortage, PD? Go to the wealthiest Cleveland corporate families – the Gilberts, the Lerners, the Dolans, the Sam Millers, and the Ratners. That’s who deserve an editorial spanking. That’s where the money is. Not in the teachers’ pockets.
Leave the teachers alone. And let’s think about the schoolchildren.
That may be too hard for the PD editorial department, however. They wear editorial blinders over there.
Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]