The folks from  the  Cleveland Convention and Visitors Bureau  (CVB) in the photo above appeared at the Cool Cleveland sponsored quarter cent sales tax discussion which took place at noon on July 12, 2007 in the basement auditorium of the Cleveland Public Library.      I took the photo.

But first off, thanks to Cleveland Public Library Director Andrew A. Venable, Jr. and the library staff and Trustees for providing a well supported physical forum for this important community civic discussion.  The library system and the auditorium are examples of where tax money is used wisely with direct benefit to the tax paying public.  Thanks also to Cool Cleveland,   Thomas Mulready,   Brewed Fresh Daily , Tim Ferris, Gloria Ferris and George Nemeth  for conceiving and organizing the public meeting.   And thanks to politicians  and especially (who attended without being paid) members of the  public who took the time to attend and speak. 

Second off – think I’m being too personal about this?   Actually accusing the employees of the CVB of perpetrating deception on the public?  I look at it this way: If I were physically accosted by someone on Public Square who reached into my pocket after my wallet – I would call the police and hope to have the perpetrator arrested.  Assault and robbery are crimes.   If the guy got away and was caught later, maybe I would have to identify the individual in a perp walk  I see the CVB members as promoters of a robbery -without the on street physical assault. I see them as perpetrators trying to take my money – under false pretenses.  Money is a personal thing.   I believe a strong and direct reaction to their attack is warranted and necessary – particularly here in NEO where the public taxpayer has been cuckolded with deceitful public building projects intended for private profit for so long

The proposed quarter cent sales tax increase (proposed by Cuyahoga County Commissioners Tim Hagan and Jim Dimora – Peter Lawson Jones wisely dissenting ) - ostensibly to support construction of a Terminal Tower (owned by Forest City Enterprises) convention center and attached medimart - is an example of tax money being used unwisely – no, “unwisely” is much too kind a term –

It is more accurate to describe an increase in the sales tax in Cuyahoga County for the purpose of building a convention center on the Forest City property controlled by the  Ratner’s and Miller’s  as selfish, cruel, deceptive, self-destructive, corrupt, fraudulent – even racist.  Cuyahoga County is already staggering economically. The proposed sales tax hike is another “shot in the head” in the series of Cuyahoga County’s self inflicted economic harms.  And the individuals in the photo above receive their weekly pay check from corporate sponsors (see the CVB members in the CVB link in the first paragraph) to promote this deception.   They are the willing messengers of unsubstantiated projections  -  deception.   Charlatans.

The 42 million dollars which the quarter cent sales tax is projected by the CVB to allegedly produce annually will be extracted from purchasers of goods purchased in Cuyahoga County.  A county with the poorest people in any major urban area in the USA.  A county with one of the worst urban school districts in the USA.   A county with one of the highest mortgage foreclose rates in the USA. A county with Cities like Cleveland and East Cleveland with block after block of abandoned homes waiting to be demolished.  Go drive around Union, Euclid, E 55th and see them…

The corporate benefactors of the 42 million annually will be primarily Forest City and to a lesser degree other CVB members.   If there were any public benefit, that benefit would be last and least – while the public’s risk would be first and certain. 

JUST THE OPPOSITE OF ROBIN HOOD -  TAKE FROM THE POOR AND GIVE TO THE RICH.   (put another way; socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor)

SPIN is the presently politically correct term for LYING.  Especially white collar lying.  When the CVB announces that 300 million dollars will flow into the Cuyahoga community if the convention center is built, if the CVB tells us that 50 trade shows a year will occupy the imagined convention center, are these figures FACT, SPIN, OR LIES?

I believe they are LIES,  and that the persons advocating for the CVB know them, or should know them, to be lies.  The history of  Cleveland’s new infrastructure promotion by the CVB over the past 25 years supports the conclusions that the present rosey CVB projections for the convention center/medi mart are lies.  We have heard the same rosy projections for the Gateway Project and for the Browns Stadium.  The public debt for both Gateway and the Browns  is choking Cuyahoga.   Neither Gateway nor Browns produced any of the projected steady employment.  Both sit vacant the vast majority of the year.  The Gateway Project, the Browns Stadium, and a convention center I see as Circus not Bread – a reference to the Roman adage that all you had to give the people to maintain control was Bread (food) and Circus (entertainment). [ Roger Bundy I’m sorry you weren’t able to follow my admittedly passionate views and hope this helps clarify my arguments against increased sales taxes and against any convention center spending. Rena Koonz understood my drift on Plain Dealer Metro ] 

The CVB staffers in the photo above acknowledged that a convention center is a “loss leader” but claim that in all the amorphous ephemera surrounding a convention center that all boats will float, that everyone in the County will profit for certain.     Cleveland already is suffocating under its highest in the state sales tax rate. 

I believe the tax – as practical matter – can be considered racist because it will be applied in a discriminatory manner – here’s why.

If you have a car and/or internet and a credit card you won’t purchase many big ticket (over $50) items in Cuyahoga County.  You will drive to an adjacent county or use the internet and your credit card and buy it off Amazon.com or similar web site.   Why would I buy a new Panasonic camera anywhere in Ohio when I can order it online from NYC and pay NO SALES TAX and have it delivered the next day?  As the sales tax goes up the merchandising  businesses in Cuyahoga will suffer even more – they are already at a huge disadvantage since Cuyahoga County has the highest sales tax in the state.  How many merchandizing jobs will be lost in Cuyahoga County as a result of the businesses reduced volume and business closing and moving out of the County?  I didn’t hear that figure from the CVB charlatans.

But the poorest people in Cuyahoga County are surely the ones least able to commute to an outlying county and are certainly the ones with the least internet and credit card capability.  So sales taxes in Cuyahoga County are especially cruel because they are especially regressive here – financially punishing the poor more just because they are poor.

Since their testimony and viewpoints are entirely bought and paid for, Joe Roman, Fred the Fixer Nance and the individuals at the CVB who are perpetrating the sales tax increase, at the least,  should be ashamed of themselves.  As should County Commissioners Hagan and Dimora.