The money continues to roll in – into the County – and out of your pockets.
Our sales tax “contributions” so far to the invisible Medical Mart and Convention Center now total $48,539,759, heading for the $50 million mark as you read.
If we delay building long enough maybe we can do it without borrowing $400 million and save the interest costs.
My, my, how the money does add up.
Don’t you just feel the trust for the County Commissioners – Tim Hagan, Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones – to guard that $50 million for you?
The County Arts & Culture tax has brought in $39.8 million.
And the “sin taxes” for the billionaire Lerner family now total $49.8 million.
All these figures are as of the end of February.
You must feel good helping billionaires, especially in these tough times.
After all, Browns owner Randy Lerner has to pay the city $250,000 a year for rent. That’s less than the property taxes would be, if he paid property taxes but they’ve been conveniently forgiven. The Lerner family has paid the same amount every year for essentially exclusive use of the city’s $350,000,000 stadium. It is the same rent he’ll pay next year, and the next year and… you get the picture.
And what do these hefty figures tell us?
That the rich get richer as Cleveland and Cuyahoga County drown in joblessness and decline.
I have to be amused by Cleveland State University’s Tom Bier complaining that our problem is that not enough money has been poured into downtown. That, I don’t think, Tom, is the problem.
So keep those dimes and dollars coming all you Citizens.