RINOs in Cuyahoga County

Ralph King and President Trump

Ohio’s Ralph King: Establishment Republicans
are Trying to Take over Local GOP
to Help Matt Dolan in Primary

The “Ralph King” in the Breitbart headline is Cleveland Tea Party founder Ralph King :

Ralph King, the co-founder of Cleveland Tea Party Patriots, told Breitbart News Saturday that establishment Republicans with close ties to Democrats are trying to infiltrate the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County in order to help U.S. Senate candidate Matt Dolan early in the primary process and wrest control away from conservatives who have taken command in recent years.

King, who has been active in Cuyahoga County Republican politics since 2001, explained that the establishment Republicans are trying to infiltrate the local county party in an effort to help Dolan in the upcoming 2024 Senate race’s Republican primary after his failed attempt in 2022 when he came in third behind now-Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) in the GOP primary.

“The activists and the conservatives, you know, we’ve been fighting for a long time,” King acknowledged. “We just stopped a lobbyist from taking over the Ohio Republican Party. There’s a huge fight between the lobbyists and the conservatives in the Ohio House over the Ohio speaker. And in Cuyahoga County, which I’ve been on for many, many years, you know, we continually fought against the liberals, the establishment, the donor class, and until recently, we finally got a good chair to put a stop to all that. And the liberals and the RINOs in the establishment, you know, they are pushing back. And at this moment, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to hold illegal meetings … to try to get rid of a new chairman that we have [who] has given voice to the members and has stopped putting their finger on the scale, to tip it towards the establishment, and they’re mad they no longer control the party.”

“Between [former] President [Donald] Trump coming out [in support] for J.D. Vance and us on the Cuyahoga County Republican Party, Matt Dolan tried to steal that endorsement,” King continued. “Cuyahoga County Republican Party is one of the largest GOP parties in the state of Ohio. Although we’re in the pit of the Democrat heart of Ohio, we do have the largest party. It is Matt Dolan’s home party. That’s the importance, so between President Trump and the Cuyahoga County Republican Party slapping Matt Dolan down in that last election — between the two — we ultimately killed his chances to win the primaries. That’s why Matt knows he needs control of the GOP in Cuyahoga County at this point. So what he did, he’s vowed revenge since that time.”

King ultimately said that the “illegal meeting” the establishment Republicans are trying to hold for the Cuyahoga County Republican Party is to remove the current chair, Lisa Stickan, halfway through her four-year term to put Lee Weingart in as chair to help Dolan be better placed in the 2024 Republican primary.

“So what [Dolan’s] done is we have a gentleman by the name of Lee Weingart,” King explained. “Lee Weingart is a lobbyist. Lee Weingart has a history of donating to [Rep.] Marcy Kaptur [(D-OH)], [Sen.] Sherrod Brown [(D-OH)], a long history of donating to [former Rep.] Tim Ryan [(D-OH)] — actually made $3,000 donations to Tim Ryan in 2021 and was actually campaigning for Tim Ryan in Iowa [during his failed presidential run] — which would be par for the course for Matt Dolan to team up with a guy and a lobbyist like Lee Weingart. Lee Weingart tried to hold an illegal meeting. He used Matt Dolan’s firm to give some outrageous legal opinion supporting this illegal meeting. And what people need to realize is there’s a key between Matt Dolan and Lee Weingart and the donations to the Democrats and supporting Democrats. Matt Dolan was originally a Democrat before he started calling himself a Republican. … We are in a fight for the life of the Cuyahoga County Republican Party against the establishment likes of Lee Weingart and Matt Dolan.” . . .

Ralph King: fighting the good fight.  Full report is here.

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Election Day: Go Vote

 

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2022 election next week

 

Updated from last month:  The part of any ballot that finds me generally unprepared is the judicial section, particularly the down ballot candidates.  So I consult the website Judge4yourself for candidate ratings.  The ratings also include endorsements by cleveland.com, which is my rule-of-thumb for choosing the other (non-endorsed) candidate.  However, this year, there are a couple of judicial candidates who either wouldn't respond to any questions or who got such negatives from the other resources that I would make an exception and vote for the cleveland.com-endorsed candidate (i.e., J Synenberg and Wanda Jones).  Speaking for myself, I either print out the lists or jot the preferred names down on a notepad, as I don't otherwise remember most of their names when I go to vote. 

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2022 Election cycle notes

 

Ohio Voter registration deadline is today Oct. 11. 

The part of any ballot that finds me generally unprepared is the judicial section, particularly the down ballot candidates.  So I consult the website Judge4yourself for candidate ratings.  The ratings also include endorsements by cleveland.com, which is my rule-of-thumb for choosing the other candidate -- in most cases.  This year, there are a couple of judicial candidates who either wouldn't respond to any questions or who got such negatives from the other resources that I would make an exception and vote for the cleveland.com-endorsed candidate (i.e., J Synenberg and Wanda Jones).  Speaking for myself, I either print out the lists or jot the preferred names down on a notepad, as I don't otherwise remember most of their names when I go to vote. 

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Has your polling place changed?

 

Ohio’s primary election day is Tuesday, May 3.  A number of greater Cleveland polling locations have changed.  To see if yours is one of them, click here for Cuyahoga County wards, precincts, and suburbs affected.

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Capricious Governors

According to cleveland.com, "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday during an interview on "Meet the Press" that he would not rule out a statewide mandate to wear masks in public."  Cuyahoga County already has a mandate.  Theaters, sports venues, and other large gathering places are still closed.  

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Alert: You can vote only by mail now

art credit: cedarhills.org

Yesterday, I went to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website; I wanted to double-check the rescheduled date when voters could go to their respective polling places to mark their ballots.  The date I marked on my calendar was June 2.  That date was not on the website, so I planned to phone the BoE today.  No need.  Susan Daniels at American Thinker is a few steps ahead of me:

The residents of Ohio are getting screwed.  They have not been informed that voting day has been moved up from June 2 to April 28.  No notice from the county to anyone and nothing in the media.

The primary election in Ohio was set for March 10, 2020.  Then someone in Columbus, without explanation, changed the date to March 17, St. Patrick's Day.  [Note: some of the comments at the link at Lucianne raise questions about the accuracy of this sequence. -D]  The cynical among us believe that the hope was that fewer voters would turn out that day, with the Cleveland parade and all, which of course was canceled for the first time in 178 years.

Except that lifelong politician and governor Mike DeWine canceled elections at 3:30 A.M. on the 17th itself.  He had gone to court earlier that day to try to stop the primary.  DeWine said he would go along with the judge's decision.  The judge said "no," and all of a sudden, the judge's decision was unimportant.

It took DeWine's cronies until 3:30 A.M. to get four Ohio Supreme Court judges to agree by phone to call off voting.  (Was that even legal?)  DeWine set the new date as June 2.  Then on March 25, the General Assembly passed H.B. 197, resetting the date to April 28, 2020.

If you have not voted early, residents are no longer allowed to go to the Geauga Board of Elections (BOE), where I live, but instead have to follow a complicated procedure, which I learned about by accident.  The county has not informed the voters; the media have never mentioned it.

You can vote only by mail now.  But before you can vote, you first have to get an application (mailed or faxed to you) to apply for a ballot.  You then fill out that application, and it must be mailed to the BOE.  Then they will mail you a ballot.  After you fill out your ballot, it then must be mailed back to the BOE.  And all this has to be done in less than a month.  What could possibly go wrong?

And where are all the votes that were already cast being securely kept?

Ms. Daniels is right to ask if any of this is even legal.  In essence, Ohio voters have been deprived of their right to vote at their polling place on Election Day. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website confirms:  “No in-person voting at polling locations.” 

To request your ballot by mail, go to your Board of Election website; click here for the Ohio directory.  

UPDATE 1:55pm:  Cleveland.com headline

Ohio Secretary of State preparing to mail 

vote-by-mail instructions for state’s delayed primary

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On the ballot next week: judges

Next Tuesday is Election Day. On the Cuyahoga County ballot are two municipal judge races:

Marilyn B. Cassidy vs Jack Russo

and

Ronald J.H. O'Leary vs W. Moná Scott

The website Judge4Yourself.com is a service of the Judicial Candidates Rating Coalition, and the recommendations go to Cassidy and O'Leary.  I am never happy to read that a candidate has been recommended or endorsed by the Editorial Board of cleveland.com, but the other positive ratings appear consistent.  

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Voter fraud in the millons

art credit: omnithought.org

At least 3.5 million more people are on U.S. election rolls

 than are eligible to vote. 

Investors Business Daily reports:

Elections: American democracy has a problem — a voting problem. According to a new study of U.S. Census data, America has more registered voters than actual live voters. It's a troubling fact that puts our nation's future in peril.

The data come from Judicial Watch's Election Integrity Project. The group looked at data from 2011 to 2015 produced by the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, along with data from the federal Election Assistance Commission.

As reported by the National Review's Deroy Murdock, who did some numbers-crunching of his own, "some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America's adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud."

. . .

In his spread sheet, he listed Delaware county as the Ohio county with the largest number of “ghost” voters. Delaware County includes heavily red Columbus. His chart did not list Cuyahoga County, so I did a little search of my own and found the following at a blog called End of The American Dream, by a blogger named Michael Snyder, reporting on the 2012 election:

Barack Obama received more than 99% of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on election day.  In fact, there were a substantial number of precincts where Mitt Romney got exactly zero votes.  So how in the world did this happen?  Third world dictators don’t even get 99% of the vote.  Overall, Mitt Romney received 30.12% of the vote in Cuyahoga County.  There were even a bunch of precincts in Cuyahoga County that Romney actually won.  But everyone certainly expected that Cuyahoga County would be Obama territory.  And in most of the precincts that is exactly what we saw – large numbers of votes for both candidates but a definite edge for Obama. 

However, there are more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County where the voting results can only be described as truly bizarre.  Yes, we always knew that urban areas would lean very heavily toward Obama, but are we actually expected to believe that Obama got over 99% of the votes in those areas?  In more than 50 different precincts, Romney received 2 votes or less.  Considering how important the swing state of Ohio was to the national election, one would think that such improbable results would get the attention of somebody out there.  Could we be looking at evidence of election fraud hidden in plain sight?

Perhaps if there were just one or two precincts where Obama got more than 99% of the vote we could dismiss the results as “statistical anomalies” and ignore them.

But there were more than 100 precincts where this happened in the most important swing state in the nation.

Maybe there is some rational explanation for the numbers that you are about to see.  If there is, I would really love to hear it.

What makes all of this even more alarming is that there were reports of voting machine problems during early voting in Ohio.  It was being reported that some voters were claiming that they tried to vote for Romney but that the voting machines kept recording their votes as votes for Obama…

Lots more here, including specific data on precincts in Cuyahoga County.

Some Cleveland Tea Party readers often volunteer at the polls as observers. Glenn Reynolds has argued for a return to paper ballots. I wish.

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Progressive Cuyahoga County

image credit: commondreams.org

image also at the Wikipedia website for the Congressional Progressive Caucus

The headline yesterday at cleveland.com:

Progressive activists launch takeover bid 

of Cuyahoga County Democratic Party

From the report by Andrew W. Tobias:

Progressive activists, along with a suburban mayor who lost last year's party leadership fight, say they have filed hundreds of candidates in their insurgent bid to seize control of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party's central committee.

The full report is here.

Well, they'd be in good company. Did you know that Rep. Marcia Fudge is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus? (For more perspective, see David Horowitz's essay - from the year 2000! - showing how Hillary’s identification as a modern-day “Progressive” is no different than identifying as communist.)

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Register to vote in Cuyahoga County

If you are not registered to vote in Cuyahoga County, you have until February 16 -- that’s next Tuesday -- to register to vote in the March 15 Ohio primary. The County’s Board of Elections web site here lists the dozens and dozens of locations for registering and has more information on eligibility requirements.

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Ohio Rep. Bill Patmon in the news

A few days ago, Ohio Rep. Bill Patmon (representing the 10^th district in Cuyahoga County in the Columbus statehouse) made a speech that is getting picked up at Red State, Lucianne, and other blogsites. Breitbart reported:

Ohio State Representative Bill Patmon (D) declared Black Lives Matter protesters “skipped one place, they should be in front of Planned Parenthood” at a rally at the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday.

In the speech, video of which was first posted to Dix News’ and the Youngstown Vindicator‘s Statehouse Bureau Chief Marc Kovac’s Capital Blog, Patmon states that his mother would have been a “prime candidate” for an abortion, but chose not to have one.

He later said, “‘What business is it of yours, Mr. Patmon that 56 million unborn –?’ It is my business, especially 17 million of them are black women. 17 million, more than any other population. 17 million…that look, and act, and talk, and would be similar to myself. But, even more than that, they’re Americans, and they’re human beings.”

After saying he doesn’t like the term “African-American” because he’s just an American and there’s “no need for any extras,” Patmon stated that 5,499 abortions that take place in Cuyahoga County, which he represents, and “63% are black women.”

According to CNS News:

In 2014 alone, Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, received $528.4 million in taxpayer funding, according to its 2014 annual financial report.

Whether you are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, the taxpayer should not be subsidizing Planned Parenthood. Lest you think the GOP in DC is on the case, the current legislation being crafted is, according to a blog on American Thinker, merely symbolic, and its sponsors already missed their opportunity to vote on an amendment with teeth in it. Read the analysis here. 

UPDATE: Townhall reports: Ohio Dem Introduces Bill to Strip Planned Parenthood of State Funding.

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Tax Dollars Blowing in the Wind of Crony Capitalism

We recently posted an excellent article by former Congressman Ernest Istook highlighting the battle we face in the upcoming lame duck session of Congress over a proposed $18 billion extension of the wind-energy production tax credit being fueled by crony capitalism.

For the latest example of wind blown tax dollars and crony capitalism in Ohio we only need to look at the shores of Lake Erie and the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo).

LEEDCo was founded as a non-profit economic development corporation in 2009 as a result of a public/private funded feasibility study for the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force to put wind turbines in Lake Erie. Members of LEEDCo include the Cleveland Foundation, NorTech, the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain and Ashtabula counties.

The projected costs for the 6-9 wind turbines alone is approximately $92 - $100 million. This does not include any overruns of construction costs, the cost of installing the transmission lines to get the power from the turbines to the shore, reworking or updating of the existing power grid to accommodate the wind power and/or the estimated yearly maintenance costs of $5 million as outlined in the feasibility study.

After several failed bills in the U.S. Senate to promote funding for wind energy (Here & Here) by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and after his continued badgering, LEEDCo received an initial $4 million grant in 2012 to fund their Project Ice Breaker. Project Ice Breaker is for research & design engineering on the bases needed for the proposed wind turbines in Lake Erie.

This grant is through the first stage of a $180 million U.S. Dept of Energy sponsored offshore wind power competition.  Along with this, three other N/E Ohio companies with ties to LEEDCo received grants;

• Freshwater Wind LLC (LEEDCo's private developer) $500,000
• Nautica Windpower LLC (A LEEDCo Partner) $500,000
• Case Western Reserve (A LEEDCo Partner) $540,000

Failing to qualify for the full $47 million available for each project in the second round of the grant awards (tax dollar giveaways), LEEDCo was only awarded $2.8 million by the D.O.E. to complete engineering and other related studies on Project Ice Breaker.

But this setback is not about to stop LEEDCo. Lorry Wagner, president of LEEDCo, acknowledges the setback but reaffirms their dedication to forcing this project through.

In 2012 the left-leaning Brent Larkin of the Plain Dealer was surprisingly critical of the wind turbines in Lake Erie and again questioned the cost & sensibility of the turbine project....

There are 534,899 households in Cuyahoga County. Installing five or six wind turbines seven miles out would generate enough power to light a maximum of 6,100 of those households.

The cost is pegged at about $150 million. In Cleveland dollars, that means overruns would push the final figure past the $200 million mark. That doesn’t include annual maintenance costs of about $5 million.

Because businesses and manufacturers always use between 30 percent and 40 percent of the power produced, the wind turbine pilot project would produce about 0.5 percent of the county’s required electricity.

Nevertheless, windmill supporters haven’t given up the chase. Even as business leaders who know how to read a bottom line have quietly backed away, proponents – led by the Cleveland Foundation – have refused to follow the lead of other Great Lakes cities and scale back their grandiose plans. (Emphasis Added)

And this brings us to the wind-blown bile of crony capitalism we see in many of these wind turbine projects.

When speaking of crony capitalism in Cuyahoga County and/or Ohio, somewhere along the line you will find some sort of non-profit group being controlled or influenced by the cabal of corporate charlatan's at The Cleveland Foundation & the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP).

Taking a look at the original Great Lakes Energy Task Force and LEEDCo the non-profit economic development corporation specially created for wind turbine project, you will see it is nothing more than a shell game of incestuous relationships fleecing the public with our own tax dollars.

The Cleveland Foundation and Nortech, a non-profit front group for the GCP, both served on the Great Lakes Energy Task Force. The task force in turn hired JW Great Lakes Wind LLC to create a wind feasibility study for turbines in Lake Erie.  

In creating this wind feasibility study for the Task Force, JW Great Lakes Wind LLC had the "help" of the Great Lakes Wind Energy Center, a front group for the Cleveland Foundation pushing for turbines in Lake Erie. 

From this wind feasibility study for the Task Force, paid for partially with public money & created with the help of groups tied to the Task Force, the non-profit Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. (LEEDCo) was created by the Task Force to oversee the push for wind turbines in Lake Erie.  

With a quick click here, you will see many of the Board members of the Task Force that created LEEDCo, are now Board members for LEEDCo.

The non-profit LEEDCo hired Bechtel Development Company, Inc. (Bechtel), Cavallo Great Lakes Ohio Wind, LLC (Cavallo) and Great Lakes Wind Energy, LLC (GLWEnergy) to work on the project.

Bechtel, Cavallo and GLWEnergy have formed Great Lakes Ohio Wind, LLC (GLOW), the company that will own and develop the project.

With only the tip of the corporate cronyism pointed out in just this one "wind" project in Ohio, do you really need more reasons as to why Speaker Boehner & the upcoming lame duck Congress should reject extending the $18 billion Wind Energy Tax Production Credit?
 

Cuyahoga County Council Candidate John Currid Calls on Sunny Simon to Prevent County Funds From Being Used For Federal Relocation of Illegal Immigrants

Cuyahoga County Council candidate for District 11, John Currid, has challenged the incumbent Sunny Simon to put the concerns and well being of Cuyahoga County citizens first by preventing any county funds or services being used to facilitate or support any attempts of the federal government to relocate illegal immigrants in Cuyahoga County.

Simon, who has previously stated that "she does not care how county spending will impact resident's lives," has yet to respond....

From Cuyahoga County Council Candidate John Currid --

Cuyahoga County Council nominee John J. Currid called on Councilwoman Sunny Simon to introduce legislation to prevent county funds or resources from being used to support federal relocation of illegal immigrants. He is concerned that the United States government would relocate illegal immigrants to Cuyahoga County in a similar fashion to what has been done in other areas. His concern is heightened by the fact that Cleveland has a Federal Immigration Court.

Mr. Currid recently sent Ms. Simon a letter calling on her to to introduce legislation that would prevent county funds from being appropriated to support illegal immigrants that would be relocated to Cuyahoga County by either the federal government or private “hosting/fostering” organizations. The proscription would include the use of any county resources, including personnel, for such purposes.

Currid stated: “The federal government has failed in its mission on the southern border, and that burden should not be shifted to states, counties, and cities. As the nominee to represent the people of the Eleventh District of Cuyahoga County, I feel a responsibility to ensure that the children, elderly, and families of this county are our first priority. I have asked the councilwoman to join me in this effort to immediately ensure the residents she was elected to represent are her number one priority as well.”

While the underlining issue is immigration, candidate Currid made it clear that his request of Ms. Simon comes from a broader concern about the use of limited resources, and the prioritization of the residents of Cuyahoga County over illegal immigrants. He believes that immigration is a federal issue, and one in which the county has no role. Unfortunately, in too many instances, the federal government transfers the financial burden of its failed policies to local and state governments. By being proactive and passing this legislation, Currid believes Cuyahoga County will be in front of an important issue, and will protect the use of the county’s limited resources for local county residents.

Currid believes, “diverting resources or funds away from needy children or families at this critical time would be both irresponsible and unacceptable.”

Read More: Currid: “Cuyahoga County Residents Need to be Our Priority”

Read More: John Currid’s Letter to Councilwoman Sunny Simon

County Council candidate for District 11 John Currid should be applauded for his speaking out, standing up and putting the citizens of Cuyahoga County first.

Now let's see what County Councilwoman Sunny Simon says! 

Is Simon willing to stand up for the citizens she was elected to represent? Or will Simon simply remain silent, giving tacit approval, of supporting and putting illegal immigrants over the Cuyahoga County citizens of District 11 she was elected to represent?

Cuyahoga County Residents Need to be First Priority

From Cuyahoga County Council Candidate John Currid --

There is a crisis on our southern border and although we watch the news coverage from afar, I fear a situation where the failure of Washington, D.C. will have a dramatic impact right here in Cuyahoga County. This is why I recently wrote a letter to Councilwoman Sunny Simon asking her to immediately introduce legislation that would prevent county funds, resources, or personnel from being used to support a federal relocation program of illegal immigrants. Although the Councilwoman and I are opponents in November, I felt we needed to stand together on this issue. While we might disagree on many issues, making Cuyahoga County residents our priority should be one we can agree.

So what does this have to do with Cuyahoga County and its residents? The federal government could relocate some of illegal immigrants to Cuyahoga County to utilize the Federal Immigration Court located in Cleveland or for some other unrelated reason. Recently in Tennessee their governor only became aware of thousands of illegal immigrants relocated to his state after the fact through news reports. The federal government is bussing illegal immigrants to counties and states nationwide especially to states currently facing real hardships. I recently watched a report identifying four relocation locations in Michigan; meanwhile the state’s largest city, Detroit, is under state control, is in default, and going through bankruptcy. The city’s public water service is $6 Billion in debt and almost 100,000 accounts are past due. While I do not condone the past due balances any resources or funds the city, county or state might have should go to secure basic civil services for low-income families who could soon go without water or sewer service instead the state is now burdened with the federal governments own failure.

I want to ensure that if the federal government does relocate illegal immigrants here in our county, it is clear that Cuyahoga County is not left paying the cost or diverting resources away from the mission of serving the county residents. As I travel through the six cities in the eleventh district of Cuyahoga County, I hear many wonderful stories of hope and success. However, it is also apparent that many of our neighborhoods have seen misfortunate and are going through tough times. The children, the elderly, and the low-income residents of Cuyahoga County deserve our undivided attention. We have our own crisis occurring on many streets, in schools, and throughout many neighborhoods of this county. Anything short of our undivided attention would be irresponsible and not acceptable.

The people who are on the front lines of serving the needy and under-privileged children and families of Cuyahoga County are members of the faith community, non-profit leaders, and other local leaders. When I meet with them one of the first concerns they share with me relates to the delays, red tape, and inefficiencies they face when working with county departments. While I believe the county is working hard to provide better services to its residents, we have a lot of work to do; now is not the time to redirect resources away from these departments. 

I want to be clear, this is not an issue about immigration; this is an issue about county resources and county residents. In my opinion, elected officials of Cuyahoga County government should make you, the residents, their first priority when allocating resources and funds. While the overall immigration situation is a crisis and deserves our full attention, immigration is ultimately a federal issue. Senators Portman & Brown as well as our local Congressman or Congresswoman are the folks we should be addressing those opinions. For this specific issue I am calling on Councilwoman Simon to stand with me and prioritize the children and families of this county above illegal immigrants should the federal government attempt to pass off their responsibility. 

LETTER I SENT TO COUNCILWOMAN SUNNY SIMON

Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Sunny Simon say's "Who Cares how County Spending will Impact Residents' Lives"

When pushing for her proposed country-wide 5 cents per bag plastic bag tax in 2012, County Councilwoman Sunny Simon is on the record as stating she "wants to see how far she can go to impact residents' lives." 

But as you see below when it comes to accountability, transparency or being a good steward of your tax dollars - with almost an air of indifference, Simon pretty much says, "she doesn't care how far county agencies spending of tax dollars will impact residents' lives."

From District 11 Cuyahoga County Council Candidate John Currid--  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

CONTACT:  

John J. Currid (216) 502-0914

campaign@bestcuyahoga.com

WEBSITE:

http://www.BESTCuyahoga.com

South Euclid, July 21, 2014 - Cuyahoga County Council nominee John J. Currid praised the Cuyahoga County Council for taking a bipartisan step last week to control county spending by passing Cuyahoga County Ordinance 2014-0013.

The ordinance utilizes a common-sense approach to budget oversight by requiring County agencies to provide a detailed request for additional appropriation, itemize their service and program budgets, establish formal budget milestones and timelines, and document proposed staffing levels for all new programs and services for all internally requested taxpayer funds.

Prior to the passage of this Ordinance the County Executive and other County departments could spend taxpayers’ funds without Council’s oversight. This law was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support although it was not was not passed unanimously. According to Currid: “Councilwomen Sunny Simon once again showed indifference to protecting the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County. She was the only member of Council to vote against Ordinance 2014-0013. Ms. Simon’s initial comments on the ordinance were unsuitably brief: ‘I am going to be voting ‘no’ on this piece of legislation.’ She did not articulate any reason for being against such clearly-needed legislation that was ultimately supported by every other member of Council.”

Under questioning, Ms. Simon later suggested the ordinance was unnecessary, saying she and her colleagues already had the power and oversight to request this information without the need of additional legislation. However, Councilman Dave Greenspan, one of the co-sponsors of the ordinance, provided examples of approximately $30 million in spending by the Executive in which Council’s request for additional information were ignored by the Executive. This money was spent by the administration without the oversight of Council, and under Ms. Simon’s watch.

Currid concluded: “It is clear that Ms. Simon does not have the taxpayer’s best interests in mind. This ordinance requires that Cuyahoga County offices utilize basic accounting and budgetary tools, instruments that are learned in 101-level accounting classes. One must ask what Ms. Simon’s motivation would have been to vote against this ordinance, especially when all ten of her colleagues voted in favor.”

Video of Council’s debate can be viewed here.

### 

Reason #7,392 to Vote No on Issue 7: Cuyahoga County Council Admits They Do Not Know How Sin Tax Money Will Be Spent!

Amazing!  

Confirming the elected officials on Cuyahoga County Council were derelict in duty regarding Issue 7 the Sin Tax extension - you will see below - even though they did not know how the funds for the Sin Tax extension would be spent - they voted to put it on the ballot anyway. 

From Cleveland Magazine --

If the “sin tax” for stadiums passes May 6, who decides how much will go to the city of Cleveland, and how much to Gateway?

Who’ll decide what gets replaced first — the Quicken Loans Arena roof or the ramps at Progressive Field or the seats at FirstEnergy Stadium? Can any of it go to pay off construction debt, or will it all go to repairs and new scoreboards?

We don’t know. No one does. The city and Cuyahoga County still have to negotiate how they’ll share the alcohol and cigarette tax money. The negotiations won’t be easy. And they don’t intend to hash it out until after voters approve the tax. 

“We do recognize that this is a gap in the legislation,” county councilman Dave Greenspan told me recently. “It is an issue we will need to deliberate on.” 

The “sin tax” on alcohol and cigarettes is a county tax. So if voters extend it, the Cuyahoga County Council gets to decide how it’s spent. But city, county and business leaders say the extension is meant for repairs at all three publicly-owned sports facilities. (You can see the Indians' and Cavs' wish lists and a report about the Browns' stadium here.)

The city owns the football stadium, while the public Gateway corporation owns the baseball stadium and basketball arena. How will the money be divided? 

“I think it will probably be even,” Mayor Frank Jackson said at the February press conference that kicked off the pro-sin tax campaign. Jackson wants the tax revenue, a projected $260 million over 20 years, to be split equally among baseball, football, and basketball. 

But at a January meeting, Greenspan and three other Cuyahoga County council members warned Jackson’s chief of staff, Ken Silliman, not to expect an even split. 

“A third, a third, a third is not something I am interested in,” Greenspan tells me. “I’m a big believer that the money follows the need. If in one year, Progressive Field has greater needs than the other two, that’s where money will go.” 

The city and county haven’t had to share stadium money like this before. The first stadium sin tax, from 1990 to 2005, was earmarked for Gateway, to build Progressive Field and the Q. When the tax was renewed for 2005 to 2015, the first $116 million was earmarked for building and repairing FirstEnergy Stadium. (The last year or so of the tax will go to the county.) 

But if the tax is extended to 2035, the city and county will have competing interests for the same pot of cash. The Jackson and FitzGerald administrations want to negotiate a cooperative agreement to figure out how to sort through those interests. 

It’ll be tough. The Browns’ lease is more complex and vague about what the public has to pay for than the Indians’ and Cavs’ leases. The football stadium is newer and is used less often, but it’s bigger, and it’s battered by lakeshore winds. Gateway already has a system for weighing Progressive Field’s repair needs versus the Q’s. But that doesn’t help any with the football stadium -- unless Gateway were to take it over too. 

The county will have the upper hand in negotiations with the city, because it levies the tax. But the cost of public stadium ownership is falling harder on the city right now. Cleveland is still paying off $13 million a year in construction debt on the football stadium, while the county is paying off $9 million a year in debt from the Q. 

Could any sin tax money go to those old debts? City councilmen Brian Cummins and Mike Polensek have asked that question, and Jackson has entertained the possibility. But it seems unlikely. The county council sounds unwilling to hand over a straight third of the tax money to the city, and the county seems entirely focused on future repairs, not past debt. 

Why wasn’t this all figured out before the tax went on the ballot? Greenspan asked that question at the January meeting. 

“Those discussions need to happen, in my opinion, before the vote in May,” he said then, “so that the voters understand the complexity and understand the fundamental decision-making process as to how these funds are going to be used.” 

He was ignored. Our elected officials would rather present a united front to get the tax passed, then argue about the messy details later.

And as we see - even though County Councilman Greenspan's concerns were ignored - all members of the County Council, including Greenspan - voted to put Issue 7 the Sin Tax extension on the ballot.

This is the same Cuyahoga County "take the money & run" attitude that has plagued this area for far too long!  So much for the County Reform as it looks more like the status quo of weak and spineless elected officials unwilling to stand up for the people in Cuyahoga County!

By Voting No on Issue 7 - you will simply be forcing the elected leaders of this area to do the job they were elected to do!

Issue 7: Vote No on the Sin Tax & Keep Cleveland Strong!

Vote No on the Sin Tax Issue 7

Issue 7 means twenty more years of taxes and broken promises.

20 MORE YEARS OF TAXES:

We built the stadiums but the owners got even MORE.

• Bed Tax- $42,208,096 between 2000-2010
• Car Rental Tax- $30,777,748 between 2000-2010
• Concessions- Receives all the profit from concessions sold at games
• Parking- $117,802,711 between 2000-2010
• Stadium Ads- Receives all profits from ads placed in the Stadiums.
• Naming Rights- Recently sold for $100 million.

TWENTY MORE YEARS OF BROKEN PROMISES:

They Promised More Jobs:

Stadium promoters promised 28,000 jobs would be created in the Gateway district. This never happened. It is estimated that only a third of those the jobs appeared. Does this Keep Cleveland Strong? NO!

They Promised a Stronger Community:

One out of every three Clevelanders now lives in poverty and more than one-quarter of Cuyahoga County mortgages are underwater. Yet Issue 7 would give millionaire franchise owners millions more!!

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY:

The downtown power brokers, politicians and billionaire franchise owners are trying to rush this tax through. We should slow down the process and explore other options.

• The New England Patriots relied on private funding to build their stadium, using public funding for only 17% of their costs.
• The Indianapolis Colts increased taxes in 6 counties outside Indianapolis  to help fund the Lucas Oil Stadium.
• The Denver Broncos enacted a multi-county sales tax to help fund the Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium, helping their home town taxpayers.

Those three teams evidently know more than just how to win football games!! (Don’t you wish the Browns did, too?)

Go to the Coalition Against Unfair Taxes to learn more by clicking here!