By Roldo Bartimole
Where there’s a carcass it is very difficult for vultures not to feed on it.
Last week I talked about the demise of the Cleveland Press. Too bad. It was hard to lose it. Looking at today’s state of newspapers surely we wouldn’t still have the Press around. Hell, we hardly have the Plain Dealer around.
But the end of the Press was a lesson in the cannibalization of community assets for profit.
The saga continued beyond what I stated last week.
The old Press property still kept giving to our duplicitous political/business syndicate.
In the summer of 1987 a well-dressed short, intense man walked into Cleveland City Council offices demanding, “Where’s George Forbes’s office.”
It was Joe Cole. Fannie Lewis told him that George, in a finance committee meeting, was too busy. Cole went away. Clearly unhappy.
He should have been happy. It was the same day the U. S. Justice Dept. – despite plenty of evidence to the contrary – dropped its indictment in the sale of the Press. Cole was home free.
Indeed, Forbes in the meeting, as I wrote that June, was “punching holes in the deal that would allow Cole and his partners to build a 1,000 space parking facility on city land behind their new Press office building.” The building was called North Pointe.
Yes, the dealing never stops. And everyone wants a piece of the remains.
Joe Cole would have been even more unhappy if he had stepped into the hearing room where Forbes was putting on an impressive show of “good government.” It was nothing of the kind.
George Voinovich’s staff people were seated before Forbes trying to sell a deal to lease city land behind the Press building for a parking facility for Cole/Ferchill’s project. It’s a good deal, they said.
Here’s part of what I wrote of that day:
“The deal would allow Cole to use the city land for 50 years at a minimum rent of $120,000 a year.
“Forbes had put on a show the day before telling John Ferchill, Cole’s partner, that they would have to come up with more money for the city land. (That’s probably why Cole was looking for Forbes.)
“Forbes was at his best. Or worst.”
“Forbes was throwing smokescreen on top of smokescreen to hide his real interest in the parking deal.
“His real interest, of course, had nothing to do with the public interest, as his public words seemed to suggest, but to his private interests.”
But here he was portraying himself as protector of the public. Protector of the little guy. Watchdog of the public interest. Not going to allow Voinovich to give away city land for a pittance.
George could have won an Oscar that day for his performance.
First, he threatened to make all city-owned parking, including meters, free if this dirty deal was going to help the parking lot people. This was “prime” land Forbes reminded everyone. He’d hurt the parking people’s business!
Then he attacked Jones-Day. They were dictating how high the parking facility would be constructed, he said. Forbes would have none of it. He was indignant.
“Council is not wed to a building below the window of the managing partner (Dick Pogue at the time). We’re not here to give him a clear view of the lake,” Forbes spoke for the entire Council. He was slapping the top lawyer in town. Publicly.
“You understand me?” he said. They understood where he was going.
He admonished Lee Kohrman the lawyer Cole had sent to represent him. What a smokescreen this was.
Forbes was putting on one of the best performances I’d ever seen of power and political domination. He was the master.
He roughed the lawyer up but didn’t mention Kohrman was a good friend. Or that Forbes’s son-in-law worked for him. He had even pledged $1,000 in Lee’s name to a WCPN-Radio fund drive. He knew him well enough to pledge $1,000 for him to contribute.
Ferchill was also in the audience. He was eager to get some words into the discussion, which Forbes was totally dominating.
Ferchill tried to explain something.
Forbes cut him short. He was pointed. “If I was you, I’d let my lawyer do the talking… I’d appreciate you taking the advice.” Ferchill shut up. He understood the message. This was a fight he couldn’t win.
What Forbes neglected to say, however, was his real interest in the parking deal. The real reason for his outbursts. The audience was in the dark.
Forbes wanted System Parking, headed by Joel Cole (no relation), to be the operator. He had good reason to want Systems.
I called Joel and asked if George Forbes, the lawyer, represented him.
“Not personally,” he said. Does his firm? The answer was “Yes.” Ahh.
Forbes never mentioned this connection to his colleagues. Nor did he abstain in the debate he led or in the vote. (Forbes ironically, as a host on WCPN, also pledged $1,000 for Joel Cole during the same fund-raiser. What are friends for?)
One had to wait for the coup de grace.
To prove that Forbes’s bullying worked, I reported in April 1989 that Cole hired Systems Parking to operate parking facility it finally constructed. The deal was done. Sealed some time before.
About the same time Dick Jacobs hired System Parking for two lots leased to him by the city at E. 12th & St. Clair. Forbes and Council gave Jacobs leases on the city land. At the time the city was making money on the lots. Jacobs immediately raised parking rates.
Even better, Forbes helped Jacobs win the Mall A underground garage in front of the Jacobs Marriott hotel. Forbes (and Voinovich) added a 20-year tax abatement at 100 percent for Forbes’s buddy and sometime client.
George and George the 1980s created the Take Decade of sweet deals to benefit friends and benefactors. Nobody in the conventional media noticed. Or cared to notice.
No wonder the Jacobs/County deal at E. 9th & Euclid slid by everyone so easily. Greased.
Who said you can’t fool all the people all the time. Not George. Not the other George. Not me either. I’ve seen it happen too often.
* * *
Forbes Still Plays the Selfishness Game
George, 81, is still playing the game. And getting away with it.
His invite to certain black leaders to meet secretly with Republican Gov. John Kasich suggests he’s still looking for deals. He’ll take Republican patronage. It spends nicely.
The patty-cake sport being played by Forbes and Mayor Frank Jackson with loser Kasich is more than disgusting. It’s costly.
You know, the Kasich who tries voter suppression. Guess which voters? Gerrymandered parts of Cleveland with Lorain and passed SB5 hitting public workers where African-Americans get a better shake at holding jobs.
This stuff plays into the deepest racist vein Republican are trying to tap to take over the government and squeeze ordinary people until they fear even speaking against Republican policies.
The heaviest cost for all of us is the 2012 election. It means a curtailment, if not end, to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That’s the real aim of these millions of dollars being poured into the campaign by America’s richest.
To play into that hand in any way is traitorous and treacherous.
If President Barack Obama loses Ohio – and thus the election – we know who to blame. Those who played patty-cake with the other side. This coalition of the compromised.
Forbes, Jackson and their ilk always put their interests ahead of everyone else, including the African-American community, which gives them their power. What a waste.
Where is the new generation of leadership?
It’s time someone called Forbes what he is: a greedy man who can’t stop himself. Someone has to do it for him. To paraphrase former Texas Gov. Ann Richards: “Poor George, he can’t help it. He has played to greed so long he can’t stop himself.”
* * *
Litt Sets Cleveland Agenda – Downtown Reigns!
When you see Steve Litt’s smiling face on the Plain Dealer front page you know you can expect another glowing pitch for huge public subsidies for Public Square.
These days – since the foundation crowd has its school plan passed and a levy plan ready, the casino up and operating, tons of money rolling for the medical mart – it’s time for a push for new downtown money.
Why not spend millions of dollars on Public Square. Where else are there deeper needs?
If it upsets the Regional Transit System and adds a million or two dollars to its budget plus inconveniencing thousand of RTA riders, so what? People who don’t own cars probably should stay home.
The blindness and crassness of Litt, Mayor Frank Jackson and the Greater Cleveland Partnership and County Executive Ed Fitzgerald to keep demanding public investment downtown while so much of the rest of the city and its people suffer disinvestment and disregard should disgust us.
I recently read that Cleveland is losing 190 people a day, according to the U. S. Census Bureau. That’s almost 70,000 people a year. Not good, GCP, Mayor Jackson. In fact, very bad.
The Plain Dealer and the visiting news media can talk all they desire about the growing population of downtown Cleveland. That’s not the whole city.
So those who can leave are telling our leaders, go to hell. We’re through with you. It’s a message that has been just as clear for decades.
But we do have a new casino. So this town is booming for some.
* * *
$199,800 Salary for New Cleveland School Hire
I noticed a small blurb in the PD the day after the state legislature passed the so-called Jackson Plan (really the foundation/corporate plan). It said seemingly innocently: “City schools vacancy filled.” Innocuous enough.
The appointee will take the position vacated by schools boss Eric Gordon.
I thought it deserved more attention.
What should interest readers – and especially Cleveland teachers berated by the media for not taking more money cuts – is the salary given Michelle Pierre-Farid. She’s from D.C. and getting a D. C. salary.
It’s about as close to $200,000 you can get. $199,800 salary. Annually.
How many teachers will be laid off to meet that salary?
Are we going back to the good old days of Barbara Byrd-Bennett?
You may remember that the Cleveland and Gund Foundation and Cleveland Tomorrow (now Greater Cleveland Partnership) provided a private stash for her to entertain and amuse others so that public money wouldn’t be used, nor would there be public accountability.
It’s the way the foundations ingratiate themselves with supposed leaders. Really bought and paid for flunkies.
I remember that the corporate bosses ruled out a levy at that time. And Byrd-Bennett remained silent. Why? Because it would interfere with another corporate desire of the period. A convention center. They got it, didn’t they?
Of course, the foundations and the GCP will be steering the November levy. No doubt about that. With the help of the PD, also of course. What a cabal!
Roldo Bartimole has been reporting since 1959. He came to Cleveland in 1965 to report for the Plain Dealer where he worked twice in the 1960s, left for the Wall Street Journal in 1967. He started publishing his newsletter Point of View in 1968 and ended it in 2000. In 1991 he was awarded the Second Annual Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in Washington, D.C. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, Cleveland chapter, in 2002, and was named to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, 2004. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]
2 Responses to “ROLDO: Finishing Off the Press Carcass”
TIM FERRIS
Roldo, what was Eric Gordon’s salary?
What if we talked about total compensation here, adding in other benefits, allowances, and supports? People need to be aware of the total cost of a new hire.
Roldo Bartimole
Gordon’s salary was in the PD recently. He took a slight pay cut as are others. He just signed a three year contract.
But we can surmize that if the levy passes compensation will rise.
Roldo