My guess is that until someone in the business leadership of Cleveland confronts the poor performance of the GCP, not much will change in this town.

While I was at the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University, Roman and representatives from Eaton Corp. approached me about publishing a report prepared by the tax department at Eaton. The report compared the tax burdens in Cleveland to those of other cities in the Great Lakes. The report was sound, but that was not the problem.

Eaton and Roman wanted me to publish this report by hiding who prepared it and publishing it as a report prepared by the Center.

I must admit I was stunned by the boldness of their request. Fraudulently misrepresenting the source of a research report would have compromised the integrity of the Center.

The fact that Roman and the representatives from Eaton could even make this proposal underscores the ineptitude of their leadership. CWRU is the major research university in Northeast Ohio. The leadership of the GCP clearly did not understand the role of a research university in a regional economic development strategy.

Ethical issues like this are difficult to pin down because they are based on only oral accounts. Nothing gets written down.

It’s easier, I suspect, for the board at the Greater Cleveland Partnership to make some simple comparisons on Cleveland’s relative economic performance. Based on these metrics, Cleveland’s overall performance sadly ranks with Detroit. Places like Pittsburgh and, more recently, Akron are doing measurably better.

You’d think that someone on the board would have enough curiosity to ask “Why?” But perhaps, as you suggest, that’s not the reason that most people join the board. You may be right that social climbing, in effect, trumps genuine leadership.

In my experience, staff led organizations often underperform. The staff perpetuates the dynamic by carefully selecting board members who will not disrupt the dynamic and ask difficult questions. I’ve seen this dynamic operate in places like Oklahoma City and Charleston, South Carolina.

The dynamic doesn’t change unless a small group of board members decides that the interests of the community override the interests of the staff. Cleveland has clearly If not reached that point. But, as the case of both Oklahoma City and Charleston demonstrate, the economic performance of a metro region can change dramatically with more effective business leadership.

My sense is, though, that there’s a more immediate motivation: the PD’s editors are angling for a Pulitzer for their corruption coverage. They’ve been handed a fat opportunity that does not come along too often in the newspaper biz.

The vast majority of GCP’s Board are there either out of noblesse oblige or because they’re strivers and climbers who are happy to have a quarterly “seat at the table” with The Big Guys. It makes them big by reflection.

The second-last thing any of these people want is to be exposed to any sort of controversy (unless they can get the inside dope). Any issue which might disturb the “We are all of us Masters Of The Universe” vibe of those quarterly meetings is most unwelcome.

The LAST thing most of them need is to be forced to confront the dark side of their organization’s activities. No one wishes to be the source of any friction, or to ask questions which might not be on the agenda. To do so is to risk losing that seat at the table.

So outside of those quarterly meetings, most of the shenanigans are overseen by a much smaller group of insiders, GCP’s Executive Committee, who see their primary role as supporting the staff, not to manage them or hold them accountable.

After the fashion of La Cosa Nostra, you don’t get to that table until you’ve “made your bones:” until you have benefited somehow from the status quo, and have made decisions or taken action which would be deeply embarrassing if they became public. I promise not to tell others your secrets, and you promise not to tell mine to others. So, like The Mob, omerta is the principle which binds most of them together.

I’ve spent some additional time to educate myself.

You are right about the GCP’s position, as reported in the PD: http://snurl.com/lre94

Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation in Cleveland, Roman can find no way to lead his organization above the moral squalor.

This proposal is seriously flawed — moving in the direction of 11 district based elected officials does not make a lot of sense to me — but a chamber’s role is to lead, apparently a foreign notion to Roman and his board. Instead, the GCP appears to be facilitating the continued confusion and decline of the county.

It bring to mind the quote of John Gardner, founder of Common Cause: “A cynical community is a corrupt community”.

I rather suspect that some of the Republican business leaders whom Dimora suspects prevailed on GCP to fund the signature-gathering process rather than let the initiative die for lack of citizen participation. I imagine the pollsters will be quite busy come Labor Day determining whether the referendum has a chance of winning . Once it has determined which way the wind is blowing, GCP will decide how best to end up on the winning side.

Except for that, I agree with your reading of recent history. I remember in late 1993, when Art Modell, having envied the success the Jacobs and Gund boys had with Gateway, asked Mayor White for a similar deal to help build a new stadium for the Browns. The Mayor had other ideas, left Modell twisting in the wind, and forced the crisis which resulted in the Browns leaving town, the new stadium debacle, and a whole new era in civic larceny was born.

The players then were the players now.

When I worked with Ray Pierce on the 2001 Mayor’s race, no one wanted to hear that she had no executive leadership portfolio. Raymond ruled out a convention center; Jane didn’t. The SHE didn’t deliver.

Commissioner Hagan will be just fine. He’ll retire from public life and take up a couple board positions…perhaps with his Chicago pals. He’s helped make the deal. Whether it works or craters, it ain’t gonna be on his watch.

It’s ironic that the GCP is now pushing for political reform in the County. These are the business “leaders” that have distorted our politics and destroyed the careers of more than one politician.

I do not have nearly the experience or insight that you have shared, but here’s how I see it:

Although I was not around CLE in the 1990’s, I understand that Mike White was, at one time, a politician with a future. Sam Miller’s destructive influences on White were, by the time I arrived in CLE in early 2002, well known.

Many mark the Browns Stadium deal as the turning point…when White turned to the dark side. White converted the project, as well as the airport, into a bag operation. While I was at REI, more than one African American activist pointed to Miller’s continuous coaching of White as part of the problem.

Miller and Dabreko (who’s destructive powers were yet to be fully realized) next turned on Tim McCormack for crossing Forest City on the convention center deal, as you note. McCormack bit the dust.

Then comes along Jane Campbell, and the business leaders turned on her and pushed her over the edge when she did not deliver a convention center to Tower City.

(Jane started in a ditch. When she arrived in office, virtually all the files from the mayor’s office were gone. In many ways, Jane was over her head as mayor, but the business community, led by Miller and Daberko, bumped her off the plank.)

Now Dimora.

True enough, Dimora grew up in a political environment in which the business community looked the other way as politicos steered contracts and employment. As long as political leaders were willing to deliver public funds to the real estate interests through questionable deals (Ameritrust, Juvenile Justice Center, and others) who cared?

The interesting play in all this has been Hagan’s turn on Sam and Albert. Hagan stole Forest City’s deal. He was smart enough to realize that the only way to beat one real estate developer was to line up one on his side. Hagan also put the convention center where it should be — on the mall.

There’s only one problem with Hagan’s plan. Convention centers lose money, and no one has even come close to estimating how much the operating deficit will cost the taxpayers (at a time when the county’s financial condition is deteriorating by the month). His estimate of 50 medical shows a year is Disneyland.

But as you have pointed out, this project is not about rational analysis. It’s all about power. We saw that last week when Hagan assembled a group of Cleveland leaders to show off his big project.

Hagan cleverly jammed the convention center up Forest City’s nose by seducing Dimora. Now, I suspect, Hagan’s also one of those folks watching as Dimora twists in the wind. And not returning Jimmy’s calls.

Dimora must feel quite alone right now, but he joins a long list of politicians who have seen their careers trashed by the political chaos that the GCP, by its cynical machinations, has created.