CLEVELAND — The biggest taxpayer shakedown in this community’s long and at times glorious history is taking place in plain sight. Pretty much every thoughtful leader in town knows it. And if the perpetrators pull it off, the damage to Cleveland might last for decades.
Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam want Ohio’s taxpayers to fork over more than $1 billion to finance their fantasy domed stadium project in Brook Park. Never mind that anyone with a modicum of common sense knows the suggestion this project would pay for itself is utter nonsense. And never mind that one of America’s richest families wants working-class Ohioans to split their cost for this vanity project.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been pouring into downtown to see the Guardians make a run deep into the baseball playoffs and the Cavaliers off to the team’s best start in 54 years, while owners of one of the most inept franchises in all of professional sports want to abandon downtown in a risky reach for revenue.
Denied the assistance they want from Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, the Browns are now spending generously on state government candidates and causes, knowing Columbus can be a place where public policy is shaped by the size of a contributor’s contribution, rather than what’s best for the people who live here. The House Bill 6 scandal that ruined lots of reputations and sent former Speaker Larry Householder to prison taught us the “for sale” is often planted outside the Statehouse door. It would be both unprecedented and highly suspicious if state leaders funded a major project Greater Cleveland’s two most important elected officials oppose.
Greater Cleveland is the smallest market with professional baseball, basketball and football franchises. If this community is to retain a shred of dignity and respect for the people who live here, for the time being, here is a fair counteroffer to the Browns’ request for more than $1 billion:
Zero. Not a single cent. Not now. Not until a plan exists to pay already-existing debts owed the Guardians and Cavaliers under terms of their leases with Gateway. Not only are the baseball and basketball teams better-run, but their ownership is far more loyal to downtown Cleveland.
Aerial view of Cleveland Browns Stadium and downtown Cleveland.The Plain Dealer
For sure, arguments can be made for moving the existing stadium off the prime lakefront spot it now occupies. But no argument can be made for funding a predatory project that would harm a downtown neighborhood whose prosperity will always be fragile. Respect can’t be purchased. The ancillary development planned by the Haslams for the Brook Park site would create a project that directly competes for events now held in Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the convention center, downtown hotels, restaurants and maybe even Playhouse Square.
On Nov. 13, I sent the Browns a few questions about the Brook Park project. A spokesman acknowledged their receipt. Among those questions were:
* A request for the total estimated cost of building the domed stadium and the public’s cost of infrastructure work, including possible road relocations.
* Would the Browns be willing to allow the people who would pay for the project to vote on a proposed tax increase to help pay for it?
* Would the Browns promise not to cannibalize business and/or events from existing downtown venues?
* Facilities used by the Guardians and Cavaliers are five years older than the one used by the Browns, but those two teams were willing to make renovations to those facilities that cost hundreds of millions less than what the Browns want. Given the obvious fiscal limitations of the city and county, why are the Browns demanding the taxpayers pay so much more?
As of this writing, the Browns had not responded. But the answer to the second of those questions is well-known. The Browns are not eager for democracy to get in the way of this project. They know that asking voters to tax themselves would result in a massive defeat.
The Greater Cleveland Partnership’s waffling on this issue is a total abdication of corporate responsibility. Not all parts of a region are equal. And without a vibrant downtown, all of Northeast Ohio suffers. If the GCP lacks the courage to defend its most vital neighborhood, businesses who pay dues to support it are wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere. Dee Haslam is a member of the GCP’s executive committee.
On Nov. 14, the GCP offered up this nothingburger to me: “GCP is committed to both a world-class lakefront and a world-class stadium. We are actively engaged in discussions with public, civic and private leaders towards a solution that delivers long-term and lasting benefits to downtown, the city, and the region.”
No one, including the Haslams and the NFL, want this to disintegrate into a controversy even remotely resembling what happened here in 1995. If corporate and civic leaders joined Ronayne and Bibb in sending a clear message to state government that nothing good would come of a domed stadium project 12 miles from downtown, it might be a difference-maker with state officials whose default mode is to reward contributors, even if it’s bad public policy.
Ned Hill is the recently retired professor of economic development at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University. Hill left Cleveland in 2015 after spending 30 years at Cleveland State University, including a stint as dean of the school’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. Hill has a deep love for and understanding of Greater Cleveland. When Hill was here, he was never afraid to lead.
“Public money should not go to the Browns in any way, shape, or form outside of infrastructure investments that have meaningful and lasting spillover benefits to the public and the city and region’s economic and community development,” said Hill. “Building professional sports facilities — especially football — is not economic development. This spending subsidizes local entertainment and shifts dollars around the regional map, something that has taken place since the Roman Empire.”
“What would be a public policy disaster, no matter the location,” Hill added, “is a massive public payout to the Browns and their private owners to subsidize their business and allow the real estate profits earned from a public investment to be privatized.”
Brent Larkin (Larry Hamel-Lambert/The Plain Dealer) The Plain Dealer
Ten years from now, if the Brook Park project is complete and begins attracting shows, concerts and other events that would otherwise be downtown, the blame-placing will be enormous, changing forever the way some people are remembered. The fact that civic and corporate leaders aren’t now sounding the alarm will be viewed as another defining moment in Cleveland’s decline.
For most of the 1970s, I was City Hall reporter for the Cleveland Press. Those were dark days for the city. In a fire-sale version of regionalism, Cleveland lost control of its transit system, lakefront parks, sewer system, and lakefront stadium. A federal court took temporary control of the school system and the Cavaliers left town for a 20-year run at new arena in Richfield.
Cleveland has lost enough. Gouging taxpayers for more than $1 billion for Cleveland to lose the Browns would be unconscionable.
Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer’s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.
To reach Brent Larkin: [email protected]
Have something to say about this topic?
* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.
* Email general questions, comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at [email protected].