Ask about tax lien sales in East Cleveland?  From former Mayor Eric Brewer via Cleveland.com:

Gus Frangoes never called me. I do, however, understand Jim Rokakis' oft-handed comments.
 
I wrote him a letter in 2006 asking that he not sell anymore properties through third-party tax lien sales to GLS Capital and Plymouth Park Investments out of East Cleveland. Mayor Frank Jackson had also asked him not to sell tax liens from Cleveland.
 
I was critical of Rokakis pushing this blight-causing deal in 1999 when I hosted a radio show on WERE. I think it's absolutely horrible how he, as an elected official, pushed for a tax lien sale state law that created blight in East Cleveland by letting third party investors sit on vacant properties without cutting the grass, boarding them up, maintaining or rehabilitating them. If Steve Litt wants to write a real story, investigate Rokakis' third party tax lien sales and the impact they've had on school district budgets. He claimed it helps the schools but empty houses don't generate property taxes. Rokakis' policies have done much to decimate the East Cleveland school district's budget and that of every other community in Cuyahoga County where he's been selling tax liens to third party investors.
 
I had some blocks with 37 properties and 25 delapidated vacancies. Every year we had to divert general fund and HUD dollars from other purposes just to take care of abandoned properties. Go to Rokakis' website. He won't update the "tax lien certificate sales" information past 2006 because it will show just how his policies have devasted the county. Through 2006 it shows he sold the tax liens to 22912 properties from East Cleveland, Cleveland and other cities throughout the county. How many tax liens has Rokakis sold over the past four years? That's the number he's hiding from the public. He has refused to allow the individual tax delinquent homeowner to buy their own tax lien at up to a 30 percent discount, but he sells their tax lien to a third-party for that amount. Steve Litt. This is the real story.

Ask about the priority list for demolitions--demos for developers along commercial corridors in Brooklyn Centre and, especially, in the Opportunity Corridor.

Ask about properties in "lock down" for future development and not available to adjacent property owners in Glenville, Hough and Fairfax?

Ask whether folks who "reimagine" properties with farms and flowers get to own those properties? 

Ask about Slavic Village racketeering and the same straw buyer scheme used elsewhere throughout NEO and recent mortgage fraud prosecutions in Beachwood and Strongsville.

Ask about HUD deal on near west side to purchase inflated properties for scattered site housing.

Ask about Safeguard Properties and the issue of government takings of real property from individuals like Frank Giglio, Fred Finley, Desiree Schmitt, Tom Bell, et al.

Ask about role of CDBG funded CDCs using code enforcement to duplicate city inspectors process to expedite demolitions and land acquisition and transfer of foreclosed properties from HUD to CDC employees and their family and friends.

Ask how the land bank generates tax revenue and accountability in NEO to provide basic services like schools, libraries, safety services, public health, street and infrastructure repairs???

Wow--and now, Rokakis takes credit for the land bank concept--assuming he fed the description to the City Club.  If not, then they don't do much research on their speakers...how hard is it to Google?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-07-09-landbanks_N.htm

  If the Plain Dealer runs a story--in two places--it is a suspect story:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/04/cuyahoga_county_treasurer_jim_4.html

http://www.cleveland.com/morris/index.ssf/2010/04/clevelands_neighborhoods_are_t.html

Gambling, the shell game and the blame game...it's been perfected...well, since ancient times.

pollution, corruption, incompetent leaders, screwed up schools, demolishing historic homes, taking from the poor to give to the rich,greed, abuse of power, etc..........................

It's only a matter of time--the town's "not-quite-so-white" ethnic crowd will all come tumbling down...Jews, Greeks, Italians, African, Arab, Celtic, Slavic, Eastern European...all vying for that coveted WASP Blue Blood Country Club validation...too bad.

Maybe that will be some of the crooks' defense,"we were poisoned by all of the pollution and we used to chew on pencils."

  My guess would be the latter...paid to deflect attention from the real crooks.

Maybe both...  A former pencil chewer paid to deflect attention from the real crooks.

http://clevelandmagazinepolitics.blogspot.com/2009/03/mcfaul-resigns-hagan-defends-him.html