PLAIN DEALER'S IDEA OF "CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE"

This is how distortion gets mistaken for reality. This is where propaganda outdoes truth.

The Plain Dealer this a.m. in its crusade for the Medical Mart calls the group that selected the Tower City site a “citizen’s committee.”

That’s really reporting very loosely with the truth - to describe a group that is entirely made up of Corporate/Corporate controlled individuals as representing the vast citizenry, thus the public. There isn’t a normal “citizen” on the committee because they are all related to the corporate community and its self-interests.

Below are the members of the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) Site Selection Committee. You tell me if they qualify to be called “a citizen committee?”

- Christopher Connor, CEO, Sherwin-Williams.
- Alexander Cutler, CEO, Eaton Corp.
- David Daberko, former chairman, National City Bank.
- Andrew Jackson, VP, Greater Cleveland Partnership.
- Henry Meyer III, CEO, Key Corp. also chairman GCP.
- Fred Nance, managing partner, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey.
- Tim Reynolds, president, Tribute, Inc.
- Dennis Roche, president, Positively Cleveland (Visitors & Convention Bureau.)
- Joe Roman, CEO, Greater Cleveland Partnership.
- Jerry Sue Thornton, president, Cuyahoga Community College. (Also a GCP member and on the board of directors of RPM Industries, Applied Industrial Technologies and American Greetings.)
- Kurt Treu, regional chairman, U. S. Bancorp.
- Les Vinney, former CEO, Steris Corp.
- Helen Williams, program director, Cleveland Foundation.

By describing the decision as one by a “citizen committee” we are being told that our peers have decided this. However, this is completely untrue. A small, select and biased group of business people have decided this for the community.

Even more disgusting, the decision is a $1 billion PUBLIC decision, using Cuyahoga County taxes.

Further, the entire Page One story is a distortion of the truth.

It quotes as an unbiased “expert” a long-time advocate of convention center business Bruce Harris. Now, Harris may not have any ulterior reasons to bless the Tower City site as the best. The question is, however, is this the best person for a newspaper to quote exclusively – WITH NO BALANCE AS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT SUGGEST OTHERWISE – since this has been his life’s work. Indeed, his passion.

Harris is going to be honored, in fact, at the “2009 Professional Convention Management Association Education Foundation Dinner Celebrating Professional Achievement” (that’s a mouthful) in April in Washington, D. C.

He is this year’s honoree, along with two others.

“The accomplishments of these three industry leaders are truly exceptional. They’ve dedicated their careers to advancing the meetings industry and their passion is unmatched,” according to the event’s president and CEO.

Now, isn’t it convenient for the Plain Dealer to headline this “expert” as a result of a private meeting between Harris and PD reporters, editors and publisher Terry Egger?

That tells me up to the PD publisher they don’t know at the Plain Dealer what a “citizen” is. Certainly, they don’t know what an unbiased source might be.

No wonder the paper’s such a cheerleader without the ability to serve the community without bias and self-dealing.

It’s also interesting that Harris tells the Plain Dealer that one of the greatest assets of this Tower City site is that visitors never have to set foot on a Cleveland street!

Here’s how the PD put it: “Because it is so well ‘connected,’ Harris said. Conventioneers and trade-show visitors could reach it from the airport, move to an adjacent hotel, eat and be entertained without venturing outdoors much, if at all.”

Now there’s a good reason to spend $1 billion to attract “business” to Cleveland.

Harris also is wrong that “hotels are blocks away” from the present Convention Center. The Marriott hotel is diagonally a block away.
How can you trust a publication with such distorted thinking?