If you’re not familiar with the somewhat archaic idiomatic term “dog in the manger,” it simply means someone holding onto something they can’t use, simply to prevent someone else from using it. That’s what’s going on here in Ward 7, and there are plenty of deranged dogs in Hough’s manger — most of whom don’t even reside in the community.
A meeting was held at the Third District Police Precinct on Chester Avenue at 45th Street to allow the entities involved in proposing a $100 million development deal for Upper Chester to make a presentation to ward residents. The meeting was really meaningless, a goodwill gesture on the part of the Fitch Group, Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic to mollify residents after the fact. That fact being, Cleveland City Council has already told Ward 7 Councilman TJ Dow they were going to green light the project with or without his consent and agreement.
Now it’s only a matter of hammering out a community benefits agreement, a process Dow is completely clueless about — and this goes directly to the heart of the matter. When an elected official is afraid they’re going to get rooked by someone or some entity more skilled than they are, instead of engaging the services of a qualified consultant, they simply dig their heels in and say “no.”
Nonetheless, Dow held a dog-and-pony show (again packed with angry black folk from all over the city) where he pretended that he still had the power to block the building of a new dental school and hotel, which he doesn’t. But that didn’t stop some of his handpicked camp followers from acting out — actually “clowning” is a better word to describe their behavior. Their behavior was beyond embarrassing; it was downright cringeworthy.
The first audience member to speak after the architects and developers made their presentations was “Apostlett” Pamela Pinkney Butts, who took time off from her presidential campaign to attend the meeting. Yes, since her last discharge from a mental health facility, she has decided that God wants her to be president. I only wish I were making this up, folks.
The “Apostlett” swiftly promised God’s wrathful vengeance would fall upon the greedy white-run institutions that take advantage of poor black folks. And since it was kinda cloudy out, I was expecting a lightening bolt to come through the windows at any moment. But then I felt comforted that we were, after all, in a police precinct, where one would assume the glass was bulletproof; but was it lightening-bolt proof was the question that kept going through my mind.
As the other angry non-residents that Dow had summoned to the meeting got up to speak, things went downhill from there — which I know is hard to imagine. The cheap trick the councilman was pulling was to encourage folks to vent their rage over whatever complaint they have with the world in general, and white people in particular — on the representatives of the institutions so that he could turn to them and say, “See, my folks really don’t like or trust you guys.” The only problem was “his folks” by and large don’t live in the ward.
When a resident of Hough was occasionally allowed to get a word in edgewise without being shouted down by Dow, they were all virtually unanimous in their support of the project. The rest of us just sat there in shame and utter amazement.
For a minute it looked as if sanity would be restored when councilmen Zack Reed and Jeff Johnson (whom Dow allowed to take over the meeting) were invited to speak. But no, disingenuousness, half-truths and outright lies continued to be the order of the evening.
Johnson almost got to the truth of the matter when he praised the representative from Cleveland Clinic, Vicki Johnson (who is a 25-year Hough resident). He noted that when she was the executive director of a nearby community development corporation, she did a good job of negotiating with large institutions.
What Johnson failed to point out is that is exactly what Ward 7 currently lacks: anyone with the skills to do what a professional like Vicki Johnson knows how to do. There are qualified people in the black community who know the ground rules for these types of negotiations, but Dow wants nothing to do with them.
Instead, at the end of the meeting, he asked residents to serve on a committee to help craft a community benefits agreement. I suppose he’ll then bring them along to the negotiations. This will be akin to a team of 8-year-old peewee football players going up against NFL Super Bowl champions. You kinda know how this is going to turn out.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.