BREAKING NEWS: Ohio Supreme Court issues order to Q expansion deal litigants

Court orders parties to file responses by this Friday

More Late-breaking News: Eric J. Brewer, Tony Madalone, Robert Kilo file more signatures hoping to get on ballot for Cleveland's Sept. 12 mayoral primary

The litigation to determine whether the voters of Cleveland are entitled to have a referendum on the Quicken Loans Arena expansion deal may be headed to a fast-track decision by the Ohio Supreme Court.

The Court this afternoon gave Cleveland Law Director Barbara Langhenry and Cleveland City Council Clerk Patricia Britt less than 48 hours to respond to a motion filed by five Cleveland voters on behalf of the more than 20,600 citizens who signed petitions asking for a chance to vote on the Q deal.

The Supreme Court case was initiated by Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson [through Langhenry] and Council president Kevin Kelly [Britt’s boss] last month. Jackson and Kelly, who both support the Q deal, filed the mandamus action, alleging that they did not know whether the referendum petitions should be accepted by the council clerk because the city charter provision ordering their acceptance was in apparent conflict with the fact that the city had already proceeded to act on the legislation the petitioners want to overturn.

The five Cleveland voters, acting on behalf of the petition signers, filed a motion with the Supreme Court on June . They want the Court to throw out the original suit. The petitioners argue the suit is “collusive” litigation cooked up by Jackson and Kelley to delay any referendum vote until after this year’s citywide municipal elections. Jackson and Kelly are both up for reelection, and all 17 council races are contested. Both the mayoral race and possibly as many as 14 of the council seats are slated for the September 12 primary.

Political observers suggest that were the referendum to be on the same ballot as the municipal elections, the increased turnout could very well jeopardize the reelection chances of the mayor and those council members who voted in favor of the Q deal.

The timing of the Court’s eventual ruling on the merits of this case thus becomes almost as important as its eventual decision. Generally speaking, the County Board of Elections orders ballots printed about 45 days in advance of an election. Should the Court rule that Britt must accept the petitions, and her office then finds at least 6,000 or so of them valid, city council would then either have to reverse its vote or put the issue before the voters. Theoretically, at least, if the Court were to rule in the voters’ favor in the next ten days or so, the referendum could come during the primary election, for which early voting starts August 15.

It would be speculation to infer that the Court’s order to all parties to expedite their responses to pending motions indicates a leaning in favor of one side or another. But it does seem to indicate the Court’s awareness that that the extraordinary remedies being sought by the parties have time-related consequences.

It should be noted that while the Jackson/Kelley argument that a referendum would impair contractual rights — the city signed an agreement with Cuyahoga County authorizing it to proceed with construction within hours of Jackson’s signing the enabling legislation — the County hasn’t yet issued the bonds to finance the work, undoubtedly because the potential for a referendum vote creates an uncertainty that bondholders would be unlikely to accept. This reality would seem to undermine the validity of the city’s already tenuous argument that the deal authorization was an emergency measure. All parties knew before the ordinance was passed that the referendum process provided for by city charter would be invoked.

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Meanwhile, the campaign watching continues with reports that three mayoral contenders — former East Cleveland mayor Eric Brewer, 2009 mayoral candidate Robert Kilo, and businessman Tony Madalone — each met today’s noon deadline to file additional signatures to qualify for September’s primary. They must now await petition checks to determine whether their names will appear on the September primary ballot alongside those of Jackson and five other previously validated mayoral candidates: Cleveland Councilmen Jeff Johnson and Zack Reed, state Rep. Bill Patmon, social entrepreneur Brandon Chrostowski, and Dyrone Smith.

BREAKING NEWS: Business leaders seeking end to impasse on Q deal

Talks may be on tap as civic leaders regroup in wake of referendum petition filing

CLEVELAND — The Real Deal has learned that civic and business leaders have made overtures to the Greater Cleveland Congregations that may result in negotiations that could allow the expansion of Quicken Loans Arena to go forward.

At this point no one will speak authoritatively for fear of jeopardizing the possibility that a negotiated settlement might be found to end the current impasse. No dates have been set, no negotiators identified, no pre-conditions established. But movement is afoot.

Although both the County and the City of Cleveland have approved the deal, serious questions remain whether the project can go forward. GCC formed a coalition with political and labor organizations that also oppose the deal on multiple grounds. The coalition gathered more than 20,600 petition signatures of Cleveland voters calling for a referendum on the deal.

The city technically refused to accept the petitions when they were presented on Monday, but when GCC leaders adopted a resolute stance that was evocative of 1960s southern civil rights demonstrations, city officials agreed to receive the petitions for “safekeeping”.

Whether or not the petitions are ever officially accepted and forwarded to the Board of Elections for certification, and the issues put before the voters, the coalition that gathered them has made its strength known.

The coalition had 30 days to submit about 6,000 valid signatures from registered Cleveland voters to force a referendum on whether the Quicken Loans deal passed last month by Cleveland City Council should remain in force. By submitting more than three times the number required by the city’s Charter, the coalition demonstrated the immense unhappiness on the part of ordinary Clevelanders over financing the proposed expansion of the Q and cast doubt on the project’s survival.

Deal proponents want the County to issue bonds on June 1 to finance the project and to commence work as soon as the NBA playoffs end for the Cavaliers, which would be June 18 at the latest.

It is unknown exactly who has reached out to GCC leaders or who might have seats at the table. That may become clear over the next several days as talks likely have to begin soon if the Cavaliers’ June 19 project start date is to remain intact.

GCC has maintained all along that it is not opposed to the Q’s expansion but that any deal involving public financing should be fairly negotiated and include well-defined community benefits. These benefits would include the establishment of a Community Equity Fund to underwrite effective jobs programs, create east and west side mental health centers, and invest in neighborhood development. The size of the fund, and how it would be administered are yet to be determined. GCC leaders have disavowed any interest in controlling the fund.

Until now, there has been no willingness on the part of the Cavaliers, city or county public officials, or the business and philanthropic community to give even token credence to the GCC position.

Off the record conversations with civic leaders suggested that some civic and business leaders saw negotiations as the prudent path to finding some sort of middle ground that would allow the deal to go forward and avoid the contentiousness of a referendum campaign. The momentum for such talk likely accelerated after Monday’s confrontation, including the flimsiness of the city’s response.

The talks will likely have an undercurrent of urgency, given the desired construction timetable, and the likelihood that legal questions regarding the city’s obligation to process the petitions will remain unresolved and potentially court-bound.

But for Cleveland residents who feel their neighborhoods have been neglected in favor of downtown and select other interests, news that a community equity fund may lead to some much neighborhood transformation has to be cause for at least guarded optimism.

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CPT | Latest on status of the Q deal referendum drive, Ward 14, Marcia Fudge, Jeff Johnson

CPT: Cuyahoga Politics Today

Confrontation looms as citizen’s coalition files more than Twenty Thousand Signatures to put Q deal on ballot

City Council leadership signals legal strategy to avoid referendum; issue may soon be in court

UPDATE: Today’s lead item was written with the understanding that a citizen’s coalition would file petitions today so that Cleveland voters could decide by referendum whether or not to support the Q deal. Before we posted it, word came to us that City Council leadership, meaning the mayor and those who call the shots in town, had refused to accept the petitions on the grounds that the City has already signed a contract to go ahead with the project and that it would be an unconstitutional interference with property rights to allow for a referendum at this stage.

Council's clerk subsequently received the petitions but the City's position is now clear. The battle lines have now been more sharply drawn and the matter will undoubtedly be decided in court. The importance of Councilman Cummins’ 12^th vote in favor of the deal now stands in sharper relief: it is clear that the insiders’ strategy all along was to shut down the people’s right to vote on the Q deal.

I won’t venture an opinion on the outcome of the impending lawsuit, but the brazenness and contempt of our public officials for the voice of the people is evident. I expect that attorneys for both petitioners and the city began weeks if not months ago to prepare for the coming battle.

We have thought for months that the Q expansion deal would heighten interest in this year’s citywide election for mayor and all 17 council seats. Today’s action guarantees it.

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CLEVELAND — This morning's filing of over 20,000 signatures of registered Cleveland voters moves into a new phase the very public discussion on whether the public should spend $282 million to expand Quicken Loans Arena.

Proponents of the deal cite the necessity of maintaining the competitive status of the publicly owned facility and the Q's importance as a major driver of local economic activity.

Opponents say by and large they don't oppose maintaining and even improving the arena but have major reservations — economic, pragmatic, and moral — about this deal, which appears to have been agreed to with great nonchalance by city and county officials, most especially County Executive Armond Budish, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and their respective council presidents, Dan Brady and Kevin Kelley.

While downtown interests are all in for the deal, most city voters are troubled by the sense that these glittering large scale projects have few if any benefits that trickle down to their neighborhoods.

Typically, and this deal exemplifies the process, the little folk have no seat at the table, are not even in the room, and in fact have no knowledge a deal is even being cut until the fancy power point slides have been created and the sleek website designed. Testimony at early county council meetings seemed to suggest that the negotiations were even more of a charade this time, with little if any energy expended by the public's representatives to secure any community benefits.

This might be baffling if it weren't simply the extension of a well-established pattern. Entrenched power has a natural appetite for expansion until it meets resistance. When resistance appears, it is usually episodic, unorganized, inchoate, marginalized, bought off, or otherwise rendered ineffective. 

That business would proceed as usual was no doubt the expectation at the time of the mid-December press conference rollout announcing the deal, which was presented as a fait accompli, all wrapped up and tied with a big red bow in keeping with the festive holiday season. Pictures of the occasion showed participants still basking in the aura of our World Champion Cleveland Cavaliers, contemplating the promise of a new season, the super-sizing of a downtown jewel, and even the cherry on top of an NBA All Star game. Tipped off in advance, the Plain Dealer obligingly had a full color spread celebrating the inevitable success of this project, the latest pearl in a string that included the NBA championship, the 2016 GOP convention, the remaking of Public Square, the Indians' World Series run, and a spate of new hotel and restaurant openings.

But over on the side, a voice could be heard, asking questions, expressing concerns, urging caution, and framing the deal in a larger context.

That voice was dismissed. As I write this, it is showing up at City Hall with 20,000 + signatures calling for a vote, saying we will be heard.

A new phase in the dialogue now begins. Stay tuned.

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Speaking of new voices, and petitions, we believe this Q debate is pivotal for our community in ways both macro and micro, communal and individual. When the dust settles, the landscape will be different.

A harbinger of that change may come tomorrow at noon over at the Board of Elections where Jasmine Santana will file to become a certified candidate for Cleveland City Council. She has her sights set on the Ward 14 seat currently

Jasmin Santana

held by Brian Cummins, who is a part of City Council's leadership team and who, by virtue of his very public and critical flip on the Q deal, whereby he became the crucial 12th vote in favor, perhaps claimed the biggest bull’s-eye on his back for incumbent council members.

Santana, at 38, would likely reshape Council chambers in several ways. If elected she would be the first Latina on city council, and the first Hispanic to serve in that body since council was reduced to its present 17 member size. Hispanic leaders with whom we have spoken see her as an agent of change in a City Hall that clearly needs it.

And while ethnicity is no reliable predictor of change or politics — some of City Hall's most ossified fixtures are African American — Santana's election would likely mean that persons of color would hold a majority of council seats for the first time in history.

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Speaking of color, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge made several ear-catching statements over the weekend. One of the most intriguing was her reference to the commonplace but erroneous assumption that black members of Congress represent only black people. She noted that her district was at 50.1% just barely majority black. She repeated that statistic later when she suggested she might be the last black person to represent the 11th District.

Fudge was participating in a community conversation sponsored by the Western Reserve Chapter of the Links in conjunction with their 30^th anniversary.

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Finally, the petition challenging the legality of Councilman Jeff Johnson's right to run for mayor owing to his 1998 conviction is on the agenda for tomorrow's 3:30pm Board of Elections meeting.

Fallout from Q deal will be enduring

​A different sort of transformation may be end result

Win or lose, the principals in the controversy over whether the public should fork over $288 million dollars to enhance the profitability of Quicken Loans Arena for its principal tenant and operator have collectively ushered in a new day.

Not since the Kucinich years has the business community encountered a challenge as serious as the one currently being mounted by citizens who object to the corporate subsidies being demanded by wealthy private interests.

Back in the mid-seventies, the long-standing dominance of corporate interests was temporarily stymied by the determined will of the city’s ‘Boy Mayor” — the diminutive Kucinich was elected to his single two-year term at age 31. His refusal to sell the municipally owned electric plant to its private rival led to a stand off that resulted in local banks pushing the city into default by refusing the routine roll over of some city bonds.

While Kucinich was ultimately vindicated by the revelation that the Illuminating Company had conspired to run Muny Light into the ground, the corporate community nonetheless molded that shameful behavior into a business-friendly narrative of the city’s turnaround, namely, the ushering in of a public-private partnership that began with the Voinovich years.

For the last 40 years, this public-private pas de deux has been relentlessly cited as justification for the siphoning of hundreds of millions of dollars in support of projects the business community favored but was unwilling to pay for. And while we now can boast of an attractive downtown, with a thriving food scene, a hip entertainment district, and a growing residential market at our core, it has come at a heavy cost to many local neighborhoods that once symbolized the heart of what made our city unique. There has been no trickle out and no trickle down.

To be sure, what we witness today in Cleveland’s devastated neighborhoods cannot be laid entirely at the feet of our leading civic citizens. Larger forces — including globalization, technology, the war on drugs, deindustrialization, the 2008 financial meltdown, population flight, and state disinvestment — have all contributed to the growing inequities that can be seen in hollowed out neighborhoods and even some parts of our first ring suburbs.

But civic and corporate leaders can be cited for their repeated failure to come up with innovative responses to mitigate the effects of these larger forces. Brick and mortar as first and primary response is not the solution to Cleveland’s problems.

Cleveland’s downtrodden and neglected residents and neighborhoods have found champions in the form of some activist civic organizations, principally Greater Cleveland Congregations and the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus.

GCC in particular is proving itself to be a worthy ally of Cleveland’s masses. It is well organized, sufficiently resourced, clear-eyed and dogged. Predictably, its leaders have been mischaracterized and demonized, no doubt a backhanded tribute to the fact that their spiritual underpinnings have not made them weak-kneed sisters. And while they may have made some tactical missteps in seeking to initiate a dialogue with the city’s movers and shakers, their adversaries have made the more fundamental error of refusing to engage. The Cavaliers and their public partners — the city and the county — have consistently sought to stonewall GCC and to work around them by allying with more pliable partners that have demonstrated no interest in changing the status quo.

The refusal of the Cavaliers, the weakness of our elected officials, and the failure of the business community to exercise any leadership, has led the city to a dangerous precipice. The likelihood is great that GCC, CCPC and their union allies will in the next week or so turn in far more than the minimum 6,000 valid signatures necessary to force a referendum by Cleveland voters on whether the city should commit a minimum of $88 million for an expanded sports arena. Few doubt that if the issue goes on the ballot, the current deal will die. And that referendum campaign would unfold without the mayor or a single one of the 12 council members who voted for the deal enthusiastically campaigning for it. They will mostly be trying to change the subject in hopes of getting re-elected.

It would not serve the community if public officials or the Cavs resort to the courts and find a way to nullify the referendum effort. The Jackson administration used a similar extra-ballot tactic last year to kill the $15 minimum wage campaign, running to Columbus to get an anti-urban legislature to pass a bill killing the initiative. The mayor was right to oppose that legislation, but his tactic eroded a good portion of his political capital. His inability to forge an emotional connection with voters and his pipefitter’s approach to problem solving are not going to sustain another end around.

Cleveland’s philanthropic and business leaders with a long-term stake in this community — we don’t put Dan Gilbert in that category — are going to have to step up and address the community’s critical neighborhood needs if the Q deal is to go forward in any fashion. They may not want to deal with GCC, but they have lost their leverage to mandate who gets to sit at the table.

In normal times, civic and business leaders could have sat on the sidelines as the World Champion Cavaliers seduced out of touch legislators and their chief executives into accepting this lopsided deal, which, truth to tell, is actually a convenient hostage to force the kind of discussion about equity this community has long avoided.

The real question is what kind of community do we want to be? What do we value? If we can’t get the right answer to that question, then another world title or two won’t really matter much. If we don't have it now, then when will we have it?

We have some reason to believe that a few civic and business leaders are looking for ways to create a meaningful dialogue that could render the referendum moot. But time is short.

Perhaps city leaders could emulate local hero and leader extraordinaire LeBron James: subordinate egos, put team first, keep eyes on prize, and act with urgency. We think that approach could get a reasonable deal struck in the time it will take to vanquish either the Celtics or the Wizards. Then we could truly be All In.

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Coalition forms to put Q Deal on the Ballot

A newly formed coalition has come together to challenge the $282 million deal to expand Quicken Loans Arena by putting it before Cleveland voters.

Announcement of the coalition came less than 36 hours after Cleveland City Council approved the deal Monday night in council chambers packed with supporters and opponents of the controversial legislation.

The coalition, comprised of Greater Cleveland Congregations, Service Employees International Union Local 1199, Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, AFSCME Ohio Council 8, and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268, will need to collect 6,000 valid signatures from registered Cleveland voters within the next 30 days to bring the Q deal before Cleveland voters through the referendum process permitted by the city’s charter.

Given the membership bases of these groups, and their organizing skills and experience, collecting the necessary signatures could probably done in a matter of days. It is likely, however, that the coalition will take longer, possibly to make a show of strength by submitted considerably more than the charter requires.

Once the signatures have been gathered, the petitions must be presented to the clerk of city council. When the petitions have been verified, Council has the choice of either reversing its 12-5 vote or placing the issue on the ballot.

Council would set the date for any referendum vote. Possibilities include this year’s primary or general election dates [Sept. 12 or Nov. 7] or a special election.

The debate over the expansion of Quicken Loans Arena has centered on several issues. Proponents assert that the facility, built in 1994, must be modernized to keep it and Cleveland competitive among its peer groups: the National Basketball Association and the regional venues that seek to attract events ranging from truck shows, concerts, circuses, etc. They point to the Q’s importance as the area’s leading driver of economic activity with nearly 200 events a year. Without this bill, they say, promoters will bypass Cleveland and the Cavaliers could leave when their lease expires in 2027.

Critics have expressed many concerns. They say the deal was done behind closed doors without adequate representation of the public interest. They question whether Q expansion is an appropriate expenditure of public funds in this manner at this time and in this amount. Almost all of this expansion will be paid by public dollars, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The city is committed to $88 million, Cuyahoga County will pay $16 million, and the quasi-public Destination Cleveland will contribute $44 million of tax revenues. The Cavs will pay the remaining $122 in the form of increased rent for the improved facility, the rent of course being public revenue.

Greater Cleveland Congregations has repeatedly sought to engage Cavaliers management and public officials in dialogue about a community benefits agreement that could enhance the entire community and not merely the arena. In this morning’s press release announcing the coalition, GCC co-chair Pastor Richard Gibson of Elizabeth Baptist Church said:

“From the beginning there has been an unwillingness to develop a deal that addresses the critical ills in our neighborhoods like high unemployment, inadequate mental health crisis centers, increasing gun violence, and persistent challenges in schools. More energy has been spent attacking our proposal than considering or developing a deal that would more broadly impact our city and county.”

Critics say beyond the deal’s finances are these larger questions: why are neighborhood needs consistently shuffled to the back of the agenda in favor of downtown? When will the corporate and political leaders abandon the discredited notion that “trickle down” economics works? How can we build a community that prioritizes human needs over athletic shrines and play palaces? How might we create a community where all voices are equally valued?

As the Q question moves towards a likely ballot battle, it may be hard for voters to keep these larger questions in mind. A court challenge to the referendum by corporate interests is a distinct possibility. Personal attacks are likely to escalate. And all of this will unfold in the midst of a citywide election that sees the mayor and all seventeen council seats on the fall ballots.

REPORT: Q ‘Transformation’ deal facing strong headwinds in crunch time

​If deal gets through city council, it will likely face referendum in an election year

The most intriguing year in local politics in a generation got even more interesting last night when Cleveland City Council president Kevin Kelley held up final passage of a bill that he and the Jackson administration want to pass as emergency legislation.

Last night Council meeting was to have been the third and final reading on the legislation to expand Quicken Loans Arena for a total public cost of $282 million. But Kelley postponed the vote with the thoroughly implausible explanation that some council members wanted more time to study the issue.

The controversial bill has already had more hearings than most city hall legislation gets. On April 4, Council’s six-member Development, Planning & Sustainability Committee, chaired by Ward 12’s Tony Brancatelli, found all but two of Council’s 17 members spending large parts of the day at the six-hour session.

The bill’s proponents assert that upgrading the publicly owned arena — they like to call it “Transforming the Q” — will enable Cleveland to keep pace in the escalating race among municipalities to retain or attract professional sports teams and various entertainment events. They claim that without the upgrades, the Cavaliers are likely to leave and bookings will wither, leaving the city with an expensive white elephant. The proposed deal extends the Cavs lease with the Q an additional seven years until 2034.

Six council members have announced opposition to the legislation: Zack Reed [Ward 2], T. J. Dow [7], Mike Polensek [8], Kevin Conwell [9], Jeff Johnson [10], and Brian Cummins [14]. Their “no” stance is supported by more organized civic outrage than any issue in recent memory, centered principally on two arguments: [1] the city has much greater needs than improving the arena, and [2] the deal is an inequitable transfer of wealth from poor, neglected neighborhoods and residents to downtown interests that are not only wealthy but already heavily subsidized.

Kelley’s delay in moving the bill final passage to final passage was not totally a surprise. Speculation was rife over the weekend that council leadership was seeking to inoculate the bill from a referendum challenge by securing twelve votes in its favor, meaning it would pass as “emergency legislation” by a 2/3 majority. While some doubt whether a 12-5 vote would achieve that aim — a court challenge by opponents would be all but certain — another reason for the delay may be closer to the truth: the measure may be more in danger of losing support than in gaining that crucial extra vote.

Indeed, the unpopularity of the measure among the electorate is widely acknowledged: the bill stinks to high heaven of privilege, greed, and disdain for neighborhood development. Arguments that speak to the Q’s value as an economic driver fall have little currency to an electorate that has been repeatedly sold the same trickle-down bill of goods even before the Gateway development that built the Indians a new ballpark and brought the Cavs downtown was first proposed in the early ‘90s.

While the Cavaliers and their emissaries have worked diligently behind the scenes to court wary members of both Cuyahoga County Council and Cleveland City Council, they have consistently refused even to acknowledge the concerns of the citizens groups that will likely drive the coming referendum effort. Instead, the team left it to county executive Armond Budish and the respective council presidents to carry their water. 

Budish was almost over the top in championing this deal, while county council president Dan Brady seemed to have his patience taxed by the organized opposition. Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson appeared at the December press conference announcing the deal and lent it his typical stylistically tepid support. Since then, however, he has been conspicuously absent from waving the flag publicly for the deal.

With good reason, no doubt. Jackson is running for an unprecedented fourth term this fall, and he will encounter the most intense opposition of his long political career. He’s been mayor for twelve years, long enough to have accumulated a long list of wounds and a resume with several major shortcomings that stand alongside a litany of accomplishments.

Budish and Brady managed to get the legislation past County Council by an 8-3 vote but Cleveland was always going to be a harder play. Its full time council people are collectively far more seasoned as a political body and they play a much harder brand of ball than their county counterparts. City council members are structurally much closer to the people — city wards average about 23,000 citizens, while county districts are each about four times that size. Moreover, city residents tend to be poorer and would be paying for this deal twice, as both city and county taxpayers].

Most importantly, however, getting this deal through city council would be a supreme challenge because every one of its members is on the ballot this year. Only two of them have not declared or signaled intent to run for re-election — Jeff Johnson is challenging Jackson’s reelection bid for mayor, and Zack Reed is widely expected to join that race as well.

The lobbying will no doubt intensify this week, but it is probably too late. Any council member who switches sides to support this bill would almost certainly be defeated this fall. And while Zack Reed told Scene magazine that Cavs owner Dan Gilbert lobbied him directly, there is no sign of any concession on the horizon that could lead to a compromise.

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