FitzGerald era vs. Dimora era: 9 ways the new county HQ hunt is different

Ed FitzGerald's administration is ready to deal. Cuyahoga County put 13 properties up for sale today and asked landlords to offer proposals for a new county headquarters.

FitzGerald wants to get out of the current administration building and unload the Ameritrust complex, the white elephant we ended up with when Jimmy Dimora and Co. bumbled their way through their own headquarters hunt almost nine years ago.

To the layman (me), the new RFPs read like they were written by pros -- smart guys experienced in commercial downtown real estate. (That'd be CBRE, the county's consultants.) They left me feeling nostalgic for the era when our county ran a little more fast and loose.

So I dug up the RFP from the wildly improvised 2003-2005 headquarters search, and I'm posting it for download here, in case you'd like to compare the old and new ways of doing business in Cuyahoga County. Here are some of the big differences I noticed.

1. Old way: Be transparent at the start and secretive at the end. New way: Vice-versa. The 2003 search started out promising, with all the developers' proposals released to the public right away. The mistakes came at the end, in summer 2005, when Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora rejected a lease deal and directly negotiated an as-is purchase of the Ameritrust complex from Dick Jacobs, asbestos and all.

Today, when a once-burned public is paying more attention, we won't have much info to go on at first. "Your proposal will be kept confidential during the negotiating process," the RFP promises, but "ultimately this information will become public when a transaction is submitted by the Cuyahoga County Executive Branch to Cuyahoga County Council for its approval."

This is an improvement over what we heard last week, that the public wouldn't get to see the proposals until a contract was signed.  But it means we'll only have a short window of opportunity to see the details of the administration's plans and debate the other options before the county commits.

2. Old search: For 600,000 to 700,000 square feet.  New search: for about 225,000.  FitzGerald wants a much smaller county headquarters than Dimora and company did.  One reason is that Dimora liked building big, while FitzGerald is cultivating a reputation for shrinking government. He's laid off plenty of people.

But that's not the main reason for the smaller HQ.  The county is seeking to relocate fewer offices this time.  Many agencies, such as the Board of Elections, will stay put.  The idea is to get out of the current county building fast, in hopes a developer will buy the site and add a hotel to the convention center.

3. Lease old, not build new.  The old government looked at leases in existing downtown buildings, then switched gears at Tim Hagan's urging and bought the Ameritrust complex. Hagan wanted the government to own and control its own home.  He and Dimora wanted to tear the Ameritrust Tower down and build something new themselves.

FitzGerald's RFP allows for the options of buying a building or having a developer build a new office for the county.  But leasing an existing building is clearly the favored option.  Building owners are repeatedly required to explain what they'd do as landlords.  Under "New Building Option," the county insists that developers would need to line up lenders in advance and have the building built by March 2014.  Not easy.


4. Old way: Just keep it under $7 million a year.  New way: Break down the costs and cut us some breaks.  The 2003 request asked developers to "detail all and total costs," which "should be similar to current County occupancy costs" of $7 million a year. But the commissioners -- especially Dimora, who wasn't very good at math -- took their eye off the details when they bought the Ameritrust Tower as is, not realizing the move would no longer pay for itself.

FitzGerald's RFP gets into detail: it leaves a space on the form for a rent discount, asks about utility costs, insists the landlord offer janitors and maintenance, and even asks the landlord to pick up the county's costs of moving, "including packing cartons."

5. Broker's fee set in advance.  The county is still smarting from the $3 million paid to its real estate broker, the former Staubach Co., after the Ameritrust purchase.  This time the developer is asked to "outline the standard procuring broker fee offered by Landlord."

6. Package deals encouraged.  FitzGerald clearly doesn't want developers to pick over the 13 county buildings up for sale, bid on some and leave us stuck with the rest.  He'd rather the county's future landlord also take our surplus buildings off our hands.

"Any aggressive offers by Landlord to acquire property shall be a consideration of the [headquarters] transaction, and taken into account during the evaluation," it says. (The 2003 RFP included a line about proposed reuse or purchase of county buildings too, but it wasn't as forceful.)

7. Changing downtown.  Dimora, Hagan, and Peter Lawson Jones justified buying the Ameritrust complex by saying a county headquarters there would revitalize the East 9th and Euclid area.  This time the county will consider the effects on downtown of selling its properties.  Potential buyers have to tell the county what they'll do with the property, how much they plan to invest in it, and whether any renovations will be eco-friendly. (How they'll be held to that once they buy it isn't clear.)

8. Be good!  "Please confirm Landlord and its management company have completed Cuyahoga County ethics training and registered as such with the Cuyahoga County Agency of Inspector General," the new RFP reads.

9. Old way: Insist the deal pay for itself, then forget to do the math.  New way: Just make the best deal.  The 2003 RFP included the goal, "Complete this project with the use of existing resources only, with no additional financial burden on the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County."  Instead, the commissioners pulled the plug after sinking $45 million into the Ameritrust complex, when they realized their plan would permanently add to the cost of government.

The new RFP doesn't make any promises about the budget.  FitzGerald has said that consolidating into new offices will save the county money in the short and long terms.  But it'll be up to him, and us, to do the math before the deals are inked.

(photo from clevelandskyscrapers.com)

FBI, IRS investigated Dimora, Kelley, payment to Staubach Co. over Ameritrust Tower purchase

The FBI and IRS investigated whether Cuyahoga County officials received bribes for their decisions on the ill-fated Ameritrust Tower project, a prosecutors' filing revealed today.

Among the details alleged in the filing: Anthony O. Calabrese III -- an attorney for The Staubach Co., the county's real estate consultant -- asked county employee J. Kevin Kelley to lobby Jimmy Dimora to buy the Ameritrust complex.  Calabrese, who represented Staubach in contract negotiations with the county, promised to reward Kelley if the county purchased the complex.

And in October 2005, soon after the county bought the Ameritrust Tower and paid Staubach $2.6 million for its consulting work, Kelley and a company with a tie to Calabrese both received five-figure payments as part of an unidentified series of financial transactions.  The FBI and IRS investigated whether any money from Staubach was "funneled through others for the ultimate benefit of public officials," the prosecutor's filing said.

The new information is part of a superceding indictment of Calabrese, who's scheduled for a September trial on corruption charges.

However, the filing is also significant for what it does not say.  It doesn't assert that Kelley actually lobbied Dimora, or that Dimora received anything of value for his Ameritrust decisions, or that any of the Staubach money actually went indirectly to public officials, or that the Staubach Co. was aware of what Calabrese was allegedly doing.

Staubach isn't named in the Calabrese indictment, but the company is easily identifiable from details. (Only one "global real estate advisory firm" got paid $2.6 million "related to the Ameritrust project" in fall 2005.) The company had recommended that the county lease, not buy, the Ameritrust Tower as a headquarters site. Its contract called for it to be paid more than $4 million if a deal on a property it recommended was completed.  That $4 million-plus was later negotiated down to a $2.6 million.

Rob Roe, who was managing partner of Staubach (now part of Jones Lang LaSalle), told me in April that nothing about Calabrese’s conduct while representing him appeared improper or gave him pause, and that Calabrese never talked about using any connections in county government to help with the contract.

Calabrese faces only one charge related to the Ameritrust Tower investigation: tampering with a witness or informant.

The indictment alleges that, a week or two after the July 2008 FBI corruption investigation raids, Calabrese met Kelley in downtown Cleveland. They went from a hotel lobby to the 21st floor of the Justice Center, the filing charges, where they talked in a place overseen by someone they could trust: then-judge Bridget McCafferty's jury deliberation room.  The charge alleges that Calabrese talked about the county corruption investigation and a Business 57, which had given Kelley $70,000 three years earlier.  Calabrese made false statements to Kelley, the charge says.

The new charge, Count 20 in today's indictment, explains a lot of the buzz around the Ameritrust Tower lately.  It reveals some of what the FBI was investigating in 2007 and 2008 (previous clues appeared in Judge Sara Lioi's late December opinion).

It also shows that county executive Ed FitzGerald's decision to investigate the Ameritrust Tower purchase, the Staubach contract, and Calabrese's relationship to it isn't just based on idle suspicion.  Judging by what he and top aides told me earlier this year, the U.S. Attorney has been communicating with him and county inspector general Nailah Byrd about the Ameritrust Tower's place in the corruption investigation.

The Calabrese indictment also contains a cameo appearance by Tim Hagan, aka Public Official 10, but it's one Hagan might find flattering: "PO10 [Hagan] questioned the County contracting with Business 55 [Staubach]. Despite PO10's concerns, the County awarded Business 55 an approximately $3 million contract related to the Ameritrust purchase and transition." (Mostly true, except the contract was signed before Hagan took office.)

Here are some links to my previous reporting about the Staubach contract and FitzGerald's Ameritrust investigations:

"How the county spent $3 million on Staubach’s Ameritrust contract," April 30

"How Hagan and Co. cut Staubach loose from Ameritrust deal," May 1

"Two county investigations of Ameritrust Tower underway since December; feds cooperating," March 16

"Can FitzGerald sue Staubach over Ameritrust Tower?" March 23

"FBI investigated failed Ameritrust Tower sale, asbestos contract," Dec. 29


(photo from clevelandskyscrapers.com)

A new county HQ: Will FitzGerald and council do better than the old regime?

Ed FitzGerald is itching to move out of the county administration building, the drab ’50s offices at Lakeside and Ontario. He’s about to start hunting for a new county headquarters site. The county council wants in on the decision.

That means the executive and council will have to succeed where their predecessors -- Jimmy Dimora, Tim Hagan, and Peter Lawson Jones -- failed. They’ll have to choose a new headquarters location wisely, negotiate a good deal, and save money while doing it.

They’ll have to be tough, shrewd negotiators, even when they sit across the table from downtown real estate interests, some of whom like to fund politicians’ campaigns. And without giving away their negotiating positions, they’ll have to be open enough about their decisions to show the taxpayers that the move makes sense.

That’s all going to be a lot harder than investigating their predecessors’ failures, as FitzGerald is doing. It’s easy to find fault with the last administration, harder to do better next time.

FitzGerald and his real estate consultant say the government could save $56 million over 10 years by moving out of the administration building and some of its other offices around town. He wants to choose a new headquarters location this year and move by 2014.

The administration building “isn’t a modern work space,” FitzGerald told me earlier this year. He thinks the site could become a hotel or parking structure for the Medical Mart and convention center.

The county basically faces three choices if it moves: Lease space in an existing building, buy a building and move in, or buy land and build a new headquarters. FitzGerald sounds like he’s leaning toward a lease.

“Under the previous administration, there were elected officials philosophically opposed to leasing,” FitzGerald told me. (He means Hagan, who told me in my 2008 Ameritrust Tower story that he didn’t want the county to be “subservient” to a landlord.)

“I don’t have that point of view,” FitzGerald said. “I’m totally open to leasing.”

The county is looking for 300,000 square feet of office space — which narrows its options.

The leading contender for a new county HQ seems to be the former Huntington Building at East 9th and Euclid.  Built in the 1920s for the Union Commerce Bank, the place almost looks like a government headquarters already, with Roman columns on the façade and a soaring lobby with beautiful murals. Other contenders are the old May Co. building and Eaton Center, once Eaton moves to Beachwood.

But FitzGerald and the county council need to answer a lot of questions before they commit to a new headquarters. After all, the old government failed at precisely the same task, spending $45 million on the Ameritrust Tower, the albatross skyscraper and superhero-battle stage that the new government is getting ready to sell at a loss.

So far, the FitzGerald Administration hasn’t even proven that the county needs to move.  It’s only asserted it.

Allegro Realty Advisors, FitzGerald’s consultant, says the county should sell 22 buildings, including the administration building and the Ameritrust Tower, and upgrade 15 buildings, including the Justice Center. Allegro estimates its strategy would save the county $56 million over 10 years and $84 million over 20 years.

But Allegro’s assumptions about the cost of leases, maintenance and renovations aren’t available to the public. The county has only given out an 18-page PowerPoint presentation and an eight-page list of county properties, with very little financial information.

I asked for the Allegro report’s two appendices and got a phone call from FitzGerald instead. He asserts that the appendices aren’t a public record.

“It’s trade secret information,” he claimed. Releasing the property evaluation would be “giving away our negotiating position with the private sector when negotiating prices,” he argued.

This is a very fishy interpretation of Ohio’s public records law. But it’s true that as taxpayers, we don’t want our government negotiating with all its cards on the table.

“Before we engage in the actual property transaction, we’ll have a very public conversation about why it makes economic sense,” FitzGerald told me.

We’ll need to see a lot more detail. The Ameritrust Tower debacle proved that rosy financial assumptions and a lack of attention to mundane occupancy costs like repairs, maintenance, and utilities can make a bad real-estate deal look good.

Thankfully, the county council has formed a special committee to look at the real estate transactions. Council president C. Ellen Connally says it’ll look at the short-term and long-term benefits of moving.  That’s key, because the question isn’t just whether the county can make some one-time money in a sale.  It’s also, will it be cheaper to operate the government after the move?

FitzGerald says yes, but he isn’t showing us the numbers to prove it.  Allegro’s estimated savings don’t distinguish between one-time cash and long-term savings.

The press and the public will need to make sure the new government doesn’t blunder into some awful sequel to the Ameritrust affair. Three pages in a PowerPoint isn’t enough proof.

How Hagan & Co. cut Staubach loose from Ameritrust deal

Yesterday, I blogged about how Cuyahoga County’s former government committed to a big consulting contract with The Staubach Co. worth more than $4 million as part of its ill-fated search for a new county headquarters. Today, the story continues with the contract’s undignified end: the county rejecting parts of Staubach’s advice and cutting it loose for $3 million.

One more person on the county’s side, besides Neil Dick and Jay Ross, objected to the Staubach contract’s cost: Tim Hagan, who replaced Tim McCormack on the county commission in January 2005.

“I would not have consummated that contract,” Hagan told me in a 2008 interview about the Ameritrust affair. “I thought [the price] was too much. I didn’t like the terms of it.” He began looking for a way to sever the contract.

In January 2005, Staubach recommended that the county lease the Ameritrust complex from the Jacobs Group. That March, after negotiations, Staubach told the commissioners that Jacobs had improved its offer: it had agreed to include a large parking garage and build a second tower alongside the Ameritrust Tower.  (See the design sketch above.)

Staubach has been criticized for recommending the Ameritrust site. It’s not a sought-after location for offices because the tower is so thin. Rob Roe, former managing partner of Staubach, says the second tower was meant to address that.

“We understood that the floor plan of the tower was too small to accommodate their use,” Roe says. “The tower was always built to have a mate.”

The above design sketch shows the new tower that never came to be: about half the height of the Ameritrust Tower and touching it on one end, suggesting that the two towers’ floors could’ve been linked together.

Hagan, like Staubach, liked the Ameritrust complex’s location and its historic bank rotunda. But he thought the Ameritrust Tower was a blight on downtown’s skyline. He also felt a government shouldn’t lease its main offices.

“You can’t be entangled with a private enterprise if the future of a building might be in question,” Hagan told me in 2008. “The public [should] not have to ask anybody for permission to do whatever they wanted within their public building.”

Also, Hagan told me, he didn’t trust Staubach’s advice.

“I didn’t take their advice because that advice might have been in their own best interest, to be quite candid about it!” Hagan said. He didn’t elaborate. “I wanted to sever the relationship with Staubach and we did.”

(Roe doesn’t know what to make of Hagan’s comment. He says Staubach, now merged with Jones Lang Lasalle, has negotiated other deals with the Jacobs Group, but has never been hired by it. His company represents real estate users, not developers.)

Hagan and Dimora decided to buy the complex from Jacobs and tear down the Ameritrust Tower -- ignoring Staubach’s advice that “totally new construction” would not be “fiscally responsible.” (For more on this, see my 2008 story, “Tower Play.”)

The county cut Staubach out of the loop and negotiated directly with The Jacobs Group.

“We didn’t really need [Staubach] to do that negotiation,” says Dave Lambert of the prosecutor’s office. “Therefore, the commissioners asked me to get us out of the contract.

“They brought their lawyer in. The decision was made to cut our losses, cut Staubach out of the process and move on.”

In September 2005, the county bought the Ameritrust complex as is for $21.7 million. The purchase agreement specifically required the county, not Jacobs, to pay Staubach’s broker’s fee.

“The county wanted to negotiate our final fee down from what was in the contract,” Roe says. “They felt it was easier to control the payment of that fee.”

Staubach’s contract had promised a fee of $6.85 per square foot for its role in choosing the 641,000-square-foot Ameritrust complex. That would’ve added up to $4.4 million.

Instead, Lambert and Staubach attorney Anthony O. Calabrese III negotiated a $2.6 million final payment to Staubach. Add in its initial fee, and Staubach got an even $3 million.

Calabrese’s role brings up one last unanswered question about the Ameritrust affair. Calabrese faces trial in September on charges stemming from the county corruption probe. Federal prosecutors claim that by 2004 and 2005, Calabrese was engaged in a racketeering conspiracy with former county employee and Dimora crony J. Kevin Kelley to “give things of value to public officials and their designees” in return for favors to Calabrese, his law firm and their clients. (The specific charges dating back that far involve the nonprofit Alternatives Agency.)

Calabrese appears only once in public records about the Staubach contract, in a mid-negotiation email in 2004 about how to define “rentable area,” the measure by which Staubach insisted on being paid. Lambert says Calabrese never mentioned any relationships with county employees during settlement negotiations, and never did anything that gives him pause in retrospect.

The county’s inspector general and law department surely want to know if Calabrese’s role in the Staubach contract was clean. But they may not be able to answer the question without subpoena power. That may be one reason why the inspector general is, I’ve been told, cooperating with the FBI.

Update, 6/7: Calabrese asked Kelley to lobby Dimora to buy the Ameritrust Tower, according to a new indictment of Calabrese. The FBI and IRS examined five-figure payments that Kelley and a company linked to Calabrese received in fall 2005, after the building was purchased and Staubach got paid, the indictment says. Hagan makes a flattering cameo appearance in the filing as the public official who questioned the Staubach contract. See my new post here. 

Can FitzGerald sue Staubach over Ameritrust Tower?

Ed FitzGerald is mad. He wants to unload the Ameritrust Tower, Cuyahoga County’s $45 million albatross and skyline ghost. He knows he’ll have to sell the empty high-rise for less than the county put into it. Taxpayers are likely to lose more than $20 million.

So the county executive wants to sue The Staubach Co., the real estate consultant that recommended the Ameritrust complex as the best site for a new county headquarters in 2005 and got paid $3 million.

Is FitzGerald grandstanding, like Mayor Frank Jackson did with his lawsuit against subprime lenders? Or does he have a case?

FitzGerald told me he wants to know whether “a contract violation or fraud” occurred. When his law director finishes his investigation, we may know more about whether anything improper happened when lawyer Anthony O. Calabrese III — now a defendant in the county corruption investigation — negotiated the county contract on Staubach’s behalf. We may also find out why the county paid Staubach (now owned by Jones Lang LaSalle) so much money for the job.

But if FitzGerald tries to argue that Staubach’s advice was so bad, it shares responsibility for the Ameritrust debacle, I think he’ll have a hard time. That’s because the county didn’t make the deal Staubach recommended.

I unearthed Staubach’s final recommendation to the county while working on “Tower Play,” my 2008 story on the Ameritrust Tower affair. Staubach recommended the Ameritrust complex, but it didn’t advise the county to buy the site. It negotiated a lease deal that would’ve obligated the owner, The Jacobs Group, to build a new, second tower next door.

“We believe the Jacobs proposal … is the best overall offer,” Staubach wrote to the county commissioners on March 31, 2005. “The existing tower’s high-rise identity and historic rotunda are unmatched by the other submittals.”

Staubach recommended that the county lease the Ameritrust Tower, the Cleveland Trust rotunda, an attached parking garage and a second tower Jacobs had agreed to build for about $120 million to $125 million. The report says Staubach’s negotiations with Jacobs had gotten the company to add the garage and the new tower to the deal, “neither of which were previously offered.”

The second tower seems to have been an echo of Marcel Breuer’s original plan to build two Ameritrust towers. “The overall structure will effectively accommodate all targeted County functions,” Staubach wrote -- perhaps implying that the existing tower, standing alone, would not.

But Jimmy Dimora, Tim Hagan, and Peter Lawson Jones accepted part of Staubach’s advice and disregarded the rest. They bought the Ameritrust Tower directly from The Jacobs Group for $21.6 million in September 2005, without Staubach as a negotiator.

And Dimora and Hagan didn’t buy the tower to move into it. They bought it to tear it down — a path Staubach had warned against.

“We do not believe a totally new construction alternative would be fiscally responsible at this point in time,” its report added.

Two years later, that line in Staubach’s report was proven right. The commissioners halted the project in fall 2007 after realizing they couldn’t afford it. (You can read my full account of the project in my “Tower Play” story.)

FitzGerald’s administration could still argue that Staubach never should’ve recommended the Ameritrust site at all. In a previous phase of the search, Staubach had named its top four sites, including the Ameritrust complex, but noted drawbacks to each. The Ameritrust Tower’s flaws included its small floor plate — one of the reasons the tower isn't desirable office space today.

But if FitzGerald sues, the former Staubach could argue the county’s real losses came when Dimora, Hagan and Jones bought the tower instead of taking the lease deal. In the end, Staubach could deploy an argument most everyone in town accepts -- that Dimora, Hagan, and Jones are ultimately responsible for the taxpayers’ loss on the Ameritrust Tower.

(photo from clevelandskyscrapers.com)

Dimora, commissioners say goodbye today

As the town braces for the post-traumatic return of LeBron James, a figure already receding into our past, a similar drama is taking place more quietly at the county building. Today, Jimmy Dimora will cast his last vote as an elected official. It's likely his last public appearance until his next federal court hearing and his trial.

Yes, the county commissioners are holding their last meeting today.

So it's probably also Peter Lawson Jones' last moment in public until his cameo on Detroit 187. And Tim Hagan's last, until the next party or cast photo with his wife, Capt. Janeway.

It's a severe anti-climax, what with county executive-elect Ed FitzGerald practically governing already. But the Big Three are pounding through a month's worth of stuff in one day, nailing down unfinished business before the new county council arrives and has to figure it all out for the first time.

They're casting 86 votes on an agenda twice that size: one vote will approve 86 more agreements, contracts, etc. Most are routine: an environmental agreement on a piece of the Flats East Bank project, renovations of the jail kitchen. A few catch the eye: $150,000 to design a bridge connecting Whiskey Island's Wendy Park to the Flats West Bank, $60,000 to Richard Blake for legal services related to the county corruption investigation.

After that comes the commissioners' last chance to talk before the cameras and, if Jimmy and Tim revert to old habits, scold the reporters in the room.

Will Dimora offer one last roaring self-defense? Will Hagan offer one last angry defense of the old county government's work? If cleveland.com is true to form, they'll post video of the commissioners' swan songs this afternoon. Update, 12/3: Here's the video.

Dimora will be spared the cavalcade of boos LeBron faces tonight. The commissioners' meeting room holds several dozen people, not 20,000, and a gavel can restore order. The two men have something in common: Clevelanders feel they betrayed the town. There's a difference, though: No one was rooting for LeBron to go away.

Update, 4:05 p.m.: Nope, no melodrama. "County commissioners bow out gracefully before governmental change," reads the headline on Jay Miller's Crain's story.

"I won't say that the two years have been hell," Jones said as the meeting ended. “What we had was a challenge."

"I resent very much Dimora and Russo," Hagan said in a press conference afterward. "I believe public service is an honorable profession." Hagan called the aides who worked for the commissioners "good and honorable people."

Dimora kept silent except to vote. As the meeting ended, he left through a side door.

Dimora gets to stay on the job until year’s end

I’m trying to imagine the look on Tim Hagan’s face if Jimmy Dimora shows up for the commissioners’ meeting tomorrow. Head in hands? Disgusted grimace?

Yes, Dimora gets to stay on the job, as long as he abstains from voting on vast amounts of county business. Here’s the list of stuff Magistrate Judge Nancy Vecchiarelli barred him from deciding, courtesy of cleveland.com:

any issue involving: personnel; private contractors referenced in his indictment; the county's juvenile justice center; the county engineer's office; companies providing halfway house services; funding for the county courts; unions or union members; and matters related [to] Parma, Lakewood, Bedford, Solon and Berea. …

Oh, is that all?

In the brilliant system of county government we’re stuck with for 100 more excruciating days, there’s no real way to keep Dimora from showing up and collecting a paycheck. We can’t recall him, and it’d take 68,000 signatures just to start a separate misconduct trial in county court. He’d lose his job if convicted of a felony, but no way will he go on trial before the new year. Gov. Strickland could remove him for “official misconduct,” but given how the governor deferred to investigators in the McFaul scandal, he probably won’t.

For those of you waiting for Dimora to resign in shame, dream on. His paycheck is more valuable to him than ever. White-collar defense lawyers don’t come cheap!

Update, 9/23: Looks like Dimora can only vote on about half of the county's business. He showed up at today's meeting, voted on 14 items, and abstained from 14.

"It is terribly awkward," Hagan told reporters afterward, according to cleveland.com. "It's even hard to be civil. ... Who would like to sit next to someone who diminished the office where I've served for 22 years?"

Who was right about Russo? Who enabled him?

One of the saddest things about the Frank Russo bribery scandal is that it didn’t have to happen. Twelve years ago, our political system came very close to taking Russo down -- but his offenses earned him a wrist-slap.

Everyone was forewarned about Russo’s true character. But in the past 12 years, he still got away with pages and pages of misdeeds, and an alleged $1.2 million in cash, because not enough people heeded the warnings. And some of our biggest political names – Jimmy Dimora and the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones -- covered for him.

Here’s the story. Russo was appointed county auditor in January 1997 by the county Democratic Party after 13 years as county recorder. Later that year, new recorder Pat O’Malley -- of all people -- blew the whistle on Russo, calling for a special audit of “bookkeeping irregularities” in the recorder’s office. State auditor Jim Petro’s staff spent a year investigating.

“Mr. O’Malley spoke of employees paying ‘kick backs’ to the former Recorder, Frank Russo, in order to receive pay raises,” Petro wrote in his report.

The audit, released in July 1998, reported that dozens of Russo employees were allowed and encouraged to do political campaigning on county time. Attendance sheets were marked “polls” and “election day.” Employees said they passed out “combs, nail files, literature, gum and signs” at the polls. They said payroll officers told them to sign in as having worked in the office that day, and they were later allowed to take unofficial days off in exchange.

One of those payroll officers was Cindy Calabrese -- now Cindy Bialowas, sister of Russo’s housemate, Michael Calabrese. Russo appointed her to co-supervise the troubled Board of Revisions last month. Back then, Bialowas, subpoenaed by Petro’s investigators, denied granting time off for campaigning.

Three workers also told investigators they felt pressured to donate to Russo’s political campaign. Two said they were pressed to sell or buy tickets to his fund-raisers. One said she was told that employees usually donated 2 percent of their salary to Russo’s campaign. Petro’s office forwarded the statements to the county prosecutor, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, for review.

The state audit came out while Russo was running for a full term as county auditor.

That September, Jim Trakas, then county Republican chairman, brought up Russo in his debate with Jimmy Dimora at the City Club.

“The Russo name used to stand for integrity and decency in government,” Trakas said. “Today, it stands for all that is wrong in county government.” Trakas called on Tubbs Jones to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Russo, noting that one of Tubbs Jones’ deputies had taken a leave of absence to manage Russo’s campaign.

Dimora, riffing on Bill Clinton’s legal troubles, joked it off.

“Please, no more special prosecutors,” the then-Democratic chairman sighed. He added, “If she feels there is enough evidence, whether it's civil or criminally, I'm sure [Tubbs Jones will] do the right thing.”

That year, Dimora loaned Russo’s campaign $15,000.

Mike Wise, Russo’s Republican opponent, used the audit against Russo in two hard-hitting campaign commercials. He called on Tubbs Jones (who died in 2008) to act on the allegations before the election. She didn’t. Voters re-elected Russo with 61 percent of the vote.

Russo could’ve faced a theft in office charge, a felony that would’ve barred him from holding office if convicted. Instead, three days before Christmas and 12 days before she left the prosecutor’s office for Congress, Tubbs Jones let Russo plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of dereliction of duty. He was sentenced to 120 days probation and agreed to pay a $750 fine and $26,000 in restitution.

At first, that earned Russo some scrutiny from his peers. The next year, county commissioner Tim McCormack, who’d preceded Russo as auditor, publicly questioned why Russo’s budget was growing. The commissioners held up approval of Russo’s leases for satellite offices until he got his budget under control. Russo tried to blame McCormack for leaving problems to clean up. But it was Russo who had increased the auditor’s staff from 237 employees to 280.

McCormack, a candidate for county executive, now says FBI agents interviewed him about jobs-for-cash allegations involving Russo a year after that, around 2000.

Russo got his revenge. He took the mike at a Democratic party meeting in late 2003 and tried to convince party members not to endorse McCormack’s re-election. Russo threw his support behind Tim Hagan, who also won strong support from business leaders and knocked off McCormack in the 2004 primary.

After that, did the commissioners ever seriously question Russo’s budget again? Not that I know of (and I’d be happy to be corrected on this). When the Plain Dealer ran its patronage exposé in 2008, Russo’s staff was still at 283.

Russo’s 14 bribery counts include a cash-for-jobs-and-raises conspiracy involving six employees -- and those are just the ones the FBI knows about. Anyone in power who says they had no idea Russo was corrupt has to contend with one tough question: After what the town learned about Russo in 1998, why weren’t you watching more closely?

Peter Lawson Jones co-stars, dances in drag in Karamu’s Great White Hope

Peter Lawson Jones’ bio in the playbill for The Great White Hope doesn’t mention that he’s a Cuyahoga County commissioner. It doesn’t even say he’s a lawyer. The Peter Lawson Jones in Karamu House’s latest play is a Jones from the alternate universe of theater. “In addition to doing voice-over and commercial work, Peter is a playwright,” the cast bio says demurely.

I went to see The Great White Hope last night to enjoy the absolutely fascinating story of Jack Johnson, the fearless, cocky, skirt-chasing provocateur who became the first black heavyweight boxing champion in 1908. But I also got a good look at Jones immersed in his other great passion, the theater, and how he integrates it with his political life.

Jones plays Tick, who trains Jack Jefferson, the play’s fictionalized version of Johnson. This is no cameo. Jones is onstage more than anyone except the actors who portray Johnson and his girlfriend.

He proves he’s got acting talent. I didn’t see the Jones I’m used to: The formal lawyer, so careful and precise with his words he can sometimes seem stiff. Jones gives Tick a turn-of-the-20th-century drawl and a physical wiliness, slipping out of the boxer’s way at one moment, getting between him and trouble the next. He’s funny and folksy, wise but reticent.

This is Jones’ third acting gig in two years: He’s appeared in Karamu’s A House With No Walls and the Cleveland Play House’s Bourbon at the Border. He was active in student theater at Harvard, and wrote a play back then, The Family Line, which Karamu produced in 2005. He’s also writing another play, Bloodless Jungle, about a politician torn between friendship and civic duty (timely, huh?). He’s a board member at Karamu, the 95-year-old multicultural theater Langston Hughes once wrote for. He told Mike McIntyre of the Plain Dealer that if he leaves politics, he may well take a shot at professional acting.

Don’t count him out as a lame duck just yet, though. Jones hosted a fundraiser for his campaign committee before last night’s performance. Guests — including prominent county contractor Dominic Ozanne — also got tickets to the play. It’s something Jones has done along with all three of his local acting appearances, he told me after the show.

How was the play? I agree with the theater critics (see the Plain Dealer, Scene, and Rave and Pan): The main actors are great. Anthony Elfonzia Nickerson-El plays Jefferson with the ferocious charisma and dignified rage the part demands. Ursula Cataan is passionate, gorgeous, and graceful as Eleanor Bachman, the white woman Jefferson risks his career for. They and Jones make the play worthwhile. But the 1968 play is too long at three hours, with too many over-the-top scenes that don’t include the main characters. An abridged production would’ve packed more punch.

Still, Clevelanders into both politics and theater will be jaw-hanging shocked at one scene: A purposely awkward play-within-a-play staging of a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin — with Jones as Topsy(!), dancing goofily, arms flailing, in a gingham dress and pigtails.

Watching Jones’ spectacularly ridiculous moment, his total letting-go for comedy’s sake, a thought came into my head: Tim Hagan would never do this.

But Jimmy Dimora might.

--

The Great White Hope runs at Karamu House through Sunday, March 14, then moves to Akron’s Weathervane Playhouse April 1-18. If you’re interested in Jack Johnson’s life, the PBS documentary by Ken Burns, Unforgivable Blackness, is required Netflix-ing.

County transition team promises big spending cuts, job growth fund

Cuyahoga County's transition team just announced an ambitious goal: It wants to cut county spending 15 percent and use $50 million of the savings for economic development programs. It's also set up several advisory committees, full of influential names, to give the county some guidance until the new government gets elected and settles in.

The news shows that power at the county is already shifting toward the reformers, 11 months before the new charter takes full effect. Today's announcement comes from Martin Zanotti, the Issue 6 reform leader, and the commissioners' top employee, county administrator Jim McCafferty. They're co-chairs of the transition group.

That $50 million goal for new jobs programs goes way beyond what the county's doing now: it would quadruple $16 million for economic development in the county's 2010 recommended budget. The spending-cut goals are also ambitious: The county has already cut its staffing from 9,500 employees in 2008 to 8,000 this year, and it already planned to cut general fund spending to $310 million this year, down from $330 million in 2009 and $360 million in 2008.

The list of advisory committees is an interesting mix of prominent names from politics and business and from last year's pro-Issue 6 and anti-6 camps. The transition executive committee includes seven people:
-co-chairs Zanotti and McCafferty
-Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
-Eaton Corp. CEO Sandy Cutler (a top fundraiser for Issue 6)
-Tri-C president Jerry Sue Thornton
-University Hospitals CEO Tom Zenty
-Randell McShepard, head of the Policy Bridge think tank.

(Incidentally, Jackson, Thornton, Zenty and Cutler all made the top 25 in Inside Business' Power 100.)

The three picks for the all-important economic development committee are:
-Sandra Pianalto, the powerful president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
-Judy Rawson, former Shaker Heights mayor and Issue 6 co-framer
-Lee Trotter, recently retired deputy county administrator.

A public engagement committee includes both Harriet Applegate, who helped lead the campaign against the new charter, and Robyn Minter Smyers, a Thompson Hine attorney and Issue 6 co-chair.

“We are not fighting battles from yesterday or last year," McCafferty said in the press release. "We are looking toward tomorrow and next year."

The transition team also announced that Tim Hagan and KeyCorp CEO Henry Meyer III will co-chair the campaign to pass the county health and human services levy on May 4. It'll be interesting to see what Meyer and other business leaders do to support the levy campaign. Hagan is known as a champion of social services on the commission, but this year, with trust in county government at a low point, the commissioners will need people outside the county building to vouch for them and the levy.

What about campaign finance reform? Issue 6 supporters have pledged to come up with proposals for the new government to implement in 2011 -- too late for this year's county election, which won't have limits on individual campaign contributions, as critics have pointed out (see this week's Scene article). Today's press release says New Cuyahoga Now, Zanotti's pro-6 group, will contribute campaign finance reform proposals and a recommended code of ethics to the transition team's final report.

Update, 2/3: Scene, which opposed Issue 6, criticizes the transition team as wielding too much unaccountable power. The most interesting part of its story: it draws connections between the list of committee members and the Issue 6 campaign's donor list.

City challenges MMPI on Medical Mart, proposal to build on Mall

Cleveland City Hall is stepping up to challenge MMPI, the Medical Mart's developers. Yesterday's council hearings laid bare the power shift since the Nov. 3 election: The county's friendly, private negotiations with MMPI aren't driving Med Mart decisions anymore. Tougher, testier stances from Mayor Frank Jackson and city council are.

MMPI says it can't afford to renovate Public Auditorium or buy land west of the Mall, as it planned to this spring. It wants to build the Mart on city-owned Mall C instead.

Meanwhile, the county commissioners, who have led the quest for the Med Mart since 2006, have been rejected by the voters and are heading out the door in December 2010. And the county's decision to wait until the day after the election to give the city the bad news on Public Auditorium backfired, with Jackson feeling left in the dark.

Tim Hagan's renewed warning that MMPI can just walk away if the city drives too hard a bargain has been ignored and ridiculed. The Plain Dealer buried his warning deep inside the Metro section, where lame ducks quack, and cartoonist Jeff Darcy cast him as Grumpy of the Seven Dwarfs. Councilman Joe Cimperman, a possible candidate for county executive, stepped up to say what the commissioners' critics have been saying for years: Med Mart decision-making needs to be more transparent to the taxpayers.

The thing is, though, Hagan has a point. MMPI came to Cleveland to make money, but goodwill between Hagan and Chris Kennedy also played a huge part in getting the company here and keeping them at the negotiating table. City Hall, known for being more demanding of private business than the county, could conceivably push MMPI so hard that they kill the deal.

City officials are insisting that MMPI renegotiate the site sale with them. They insist the city still get paid at least $20 million for the site, even though Public Auditorium won't be sold anymore. And they want MMPI and the county to help fix Public Auditorium, even though they won't use it. That last demand sounds like an example of shooting the messenger: the city seems to think MMPI wounded the auditorium's reputation by saying it needs $92 million in renovations instead of $32 million. But maybe the hall does need that much: MMPI's presentation yesterday on its flaws sounds thorough.

On the other hand, the city does need to defend its interests. Public Auditorium will be less valuable if it's cut off from the convention center. Also, the city is being asked to give up valuable parkland on the lakefront bluff, part of downtown's famous Burnham Plan. (Roldo, who's against the project, asks worthwhile questions today about how the deal will change.)

So the city's demands could prove unreasonable, or a good negotiating stance. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the county is paying MMPI $333,333 a month even though work on the site hasn't started -- payments the county administrator may suspend.

Also, I haven't heard anyone address my biggest concern about the decision to drop Public Auditorium from the Med Mart plan. MMPI said this spring that getting trade shows into Public Hall by next year was key to being the "first mover." It gave Cleveland a competitive advantage over the New York and Nashville medical mart plans, which have to be built from scratch. How much does waiting until 2013 hurt us?

To read my June article about the Medical Mart in Inside Business, click here.

WCPN hosted an hour-long discussion of the Mart yesterday morning with Cimperman and Steve Litt of the PD -- click here to listen. Litt evaluates the new proposal from his architecture-critic's perspective and says a Med Mart on Mall C could be brilliant, or awful. Jay Miller of Crain's Cleveland Business is on the Med Mart story, as always: see his report from the council meeting here. Scene, which just wants the Med Mart to go away, blogs with a clever Darth Vader reference. Brandon Glenn at MedCity News takes a different angle: an update on MMPI's search for Med Mart showroom tenants.

Lanigan & Malone on new reform plan: "Absolute insanity"

Lanigan and Malone, WMJI's morning show hosts, talked this morning about Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones' new reform plan. They don't like it.

"Absolute insanity," Jimmy Malone said.

Malone was trying to get his head around Hagan and Jones' decision to ask voters to approve a charter review commission in November. It's meant to compete with the Go Cuyahoga plan, which would replace Hagan, Jones, and Jimmy Dimora with a county executive and council.

The radio guys focused on how the charter review commission would be chosen: people who want to be on it will have to collect 10,000 signatures by August 20. [Update, 8/5: The secretary of state now says they'll need 5,000.]

"How are we supposed to know anything about these people to vote on them?" Lanigan asked. "The idea sounds good until you find out they need 10,000 signatures."

The charter commissioners will all be politically connected, Malone said. No one else will be organized enough to circulate that many petitions. "It'll cost money," Lanigan added.

"They must be afraid of reform," said Chip Kullik.

Lanigan and Malone, one of Cleveland's top-rated morning shows, often invites local politicians on the air as guests. This morning, Malone sounded exasperated with frequent guest Tim Hagan -- "who I still consider a friend," he said. The hosts said they were surprised to see three other politicians they admire -- Frank Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, and Jim Rokakis -- on the list of supporters.

It sounded like they'd read the spitting-mad editorial in Sunday's Plain Dealer, which lists the supporters of a charter review commission, assumes the worst about their motives, and labels them all "co-conspirators in confusion."

Malone tried to explain what happens if both reform proposals pass: how we might vote next year on a county executive and council and vote on whether to wipe out their jobs before they start. (Here's my attempt to explain it last week.)

Malone added he isn't endorsing the Go Cuyahoga proposal. "I'm not saying Bill Mason's plan is the answer," he said. "I really don't know. But this is so confusing."

Dueling reforms: Hagan, Jones place charter commission on ballot

County commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones voted today to give the Go Cuyahoga reform proposal some competition.

Voters will decide in November whether to create a commission to write a charter for the county -- at the same time they may be asked to approve the proposed charter Go Cuyahoga has already written!

"I think it's necessary because a real reform process should be open and inclusive, not behind closed doors," Jones said at the commissioners' meeting today. Jones and Hagan repeatedly contrasted Go Cuyahoga's charter-writing effort, which involved a small group of local political and business leaders meeting privately, with the openness of a charter commission.

Jimmy Dimora returned to work today, taking part in most of the commissioners' meeting. However, he left before the charter commission vote. He told reporters later that he didn't want the effort to be hurt by any accusations it was his idea.

Here's what's going to happen now: People who want to be on the charter commission -- which would be Cuyahoga County's version of a constitutional convention -- have until August 20 to collect signatures to get on the ballot. In November, county voters will vote yes or no to the question, "Shall a county charter commission be established?" At the same time, they'll choose 15 people for the commission. The commission will meet in 2010 and write a new charter.

Meanwhile, the proposed charter written by the Go Cuyahoga group, which would create a county executive and county council, may well be on this November's ballot too. Jones and Hagan clearly want voters to say yes to a charter commission and no to the county executive idea.

But what if voters say yes to both? Lawyers may have to sort that out. (Here is the section of the Ohio constitution that deals with writing charters.) Jones said, "The product of the charter review commission must be placed on the ballot ... in 2010," which would be "at the same time as the changes proposed by the Zanotti-Mason-Republican plan go into effect."

So if I understood Jones right, if we approve a charter and a charter commission this November, we could end up in a weird form of limbo. We'd vote on candidates for county executive and council in a September 2010 primary, then vote on them again in the November 2010 general election -- at the same time we vote on whether to approve a newer charter that wipes out their jobs before they even start!

Here's a law that says some more about charter commissions. Up to 4 of the 15 charter commission members can be currently elected officials.

Harriet Applegate, local head of the AFL-CIO, spoke in favor of the charter commission at the commissioners' meeting today. Letters supporting it were signed by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, county treasurer Jim Rokakis, and several other local elected officials.

Go Cuyahoga charter effort turns in 79,000 signatures, but may need more

Go Cuyahoga, the effort to enact a charter for a new Cuyahoga County government, turned in 79,255 signatures to the Board of Elections this afternoon. But their press release says they may need more, and they'll continue their petition drive.

Meanwhile, commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones announced yesterday that they plan to offer a competing proposal for restructuring the county on the November ballot.

The Go Cuyahoga group wants to replace the county commissioners with an 11-member council and a county executive who would appoint several county officials who are now elected. It wants to put its proposed charter (click here to read it as a Word document) on the Nov. 3 ballot.

"Our work is the result of over 20 years of analysis," Parma Heights Mayor and Go Cuyahoga organizer Martin Zanotti told me this afternoon, referring to previous studies of possible county reforms. Zanotti said the proposed charter, developed this year by a group of local politicians and businessmen, would reorganize the county around the goals of "jobs, equity, and economic development."

The law says the group had to turn in at least 45,458 signatures by July 13. Now, the board of elections has until July 21 to examine Go Cuyahoga's petitions and decide whether 45,458 of its 79,255 signatures are valid. If they aren't, the group can embark on a second round of signature-gathering, with a Sept. 4 deadline.

“We expect that we will need more signatures," county prosecutor Bill Mason, a Go Cuyahoga member, said in the press release, "but today is a positive step toward putting this charter on the ballot."

That's a sign that the group knows many of its signatures may not be valid -- because of incomplete information, signers not being registered to vote at the address they give, all sorts of reasons. This is common in petition drives. A very similar effort in 2004 turned in 74,000 signatures -- yet so many were invalidated, it fell sort of making the ballot by 2,700 signatures in the first round and 153 signatures short after the second round.

The charter plan may face competition. Hagan and Jones said yesterday that they plan to put a competing proposal for restructuring the county on the November ballot. Their plan isn't written yet, though Hagan said he agreed that some elected county officials should be appointed instead.

Hagan and Jones argued against an executive-council form of government, with Jones saying a county council elected by districts would encourage parochialism instead of regionalism, while Hagan questioned the $175,000 salary proposed for a county executive.

"We will offer options in terms of county government restructuring," Jones said. "We could not in good conscience permit [the charter proposal to go on the ballot] unchecked and unopposed."

Dimora a no-show; Hagan, Jones call for him to take leave of absence

Jimmy Dimora didn't show up at the county commissioners' meeting today, and his colleagues, Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones, called on him to take a 60-day leave of absence.

"We believe that the work of this county is important, and to be distracted during the most difficult economic times that we're confronted with is really a strain on our staff," Hagan said. "We would hope the public understands we are doing everything we can to do their work."

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Jones and Hagan both expressed their anger about Dimora's alleged conduct. Hagan criticized Dimora's statements at his press conference last week. It sounds like Dimora has lost their confidence and patience.

Jones said he and Hagan decided to ask Dimora to take a leave last night after reading the federal charges filed yesterday against Steve Pumper. The former contractor is accused of bribing Dimora with $97,000 in cash, gifts, and work on his home in exchange for at least eight official favors. Pumper issued a statement yesterday admitting wrongdoing.

"If the allegations .... are true, then we have all been betrayed," Jones said. "We have been betrayed as colleagues. We have been betrayed as long-time friends and associates of Jimmy Dimora."

Hagan called the conduct alleged in the filing "abhorrent" and "disgusting," though he said the allegations should be judged in court. "Peter and I know we have to maintain some decorum here. We've indicated how angry we are. We are very angry, believe me," Hagan said.

Hagan also criticized Dimora's claim last week that the federal investigation is politically motivated.

"The integrity of the federal court and federal prosecutor should not be in question," Hagan said. "Those who serve, whether at the United States government or Cuyahoga County, are public people who serve with real integrity in purpose. ... We need to be very careful, in my view, of guilt by association and wild comments. This board -- at least the two of us -- will refrain from conversation and comments that we think diminish those who serve."

Later, I asked Hagan if those comments referred in part to Dimora's press conference. Yes, he said.

Hagan said he and Jones plan to never allow Dimora to be the deciding vote on an issue before the board. If the two disagree on something, they just won't move forward. "Commissioner Jones and I will vote in the majority on issues before this board," Hagan said. "Neither of us will vote in a majority with Dimora [alone]. Why? Because we're doing the investigation."

The county's internal inquiry into all the contracts mentioned in the federal charges and subpoenas will continue, and broaden to include yesterday's filing, Hagan and Jones said. David Lambert of the county prosecutor's office, the commission's counsel, is involved in that effort. An outside attorney, Richard Blake, may be officially hired at next week's meeting.

The two commissioners said they had meant to ask Dimora to go on leave in person today. But with Dimora a no-show, they had to communicate their request to his staff. They haven't heard back yet. "Peter and I are as surprised as anyone that he didn't show up today," Hagan said. They are suggesting a 60-day leave, Jones explained, because a commissioner can be removed for abandoning his job if he is absent for more than 90 days straight.

A Fox 8 reporter asked Hagan and Jones: "Your anger, your exasperation, has it pushed either one of you to consider resigning yourselves, because you just don't want to be associated with this any longer?"

"We are not Sarah Palin," Jones said. "We aren't bailing."

"It's crossed my mind," Hagan said. "Why put up with it? But on the other hand, public life is an honorable thing. And I'm not going to let this define my service to the community."

Dimora vs. Frost: now on video!

Curious about the confrontation between commissioner Jimmy Dimora and county Republican chair Rob Frost today?

Well, first, of course, I'd like to refer you to my blog post from the commissioners' meeting, posted this morning.

Also, cleveland.com has posted their exchange on video. They spliced in Dimora's kiss-off to the reporters who gathered to ask him questions after the meeting: "Clean up!" he growled.

Meanwhile, here's the Republican Party's press release. "Today, Dimora's colleagues..., Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan, took great pains to point out the deep cuts projected in Health & Human Services spending in the upcoming state budget," it quotes Frost as saying. "How outraged will taxpayers be when it turns out that Commissioner Dimora was using the recent Health & Human Services levy as his personal piggy bank for gambling trips to Vegas...?"

Republican chair challenges Dimora at meeting

County Republican chairman Rob Frost appeared at the county commission meeting today and publicly challenged Jimmy Dimora.

When the commissioners prepared to approve several amendments to contracts, including one to the juvenile justice center, Frost asked to speak. He cited the federal prosecutors' allegation that "public tax dollars [are] being diverted to personal gain" and asked the other commissioners, Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan, if they would ask for Dimora's resignation.

Hagan replied at length that Dimora, like anyone, is innocent unless proven guilty. He did acknowledge that "this board has expressed its concern about the integrity of the system with respect to voting" -- an apparent reference to his and Jones' suggestion that Dimora recuse himself from all votes on county business. But Hagan added, "My colleague has every right to his day in court."

Then Frost tried to address Dimora. Dimora turned to Hagan, who was presiding over the meeting, to cut him off. "Are we going to get into personal attacks and issues on individual commission members?" Dimora asked Hagan. Hagan told Frost to address the agenda item, the amendments.

Frost cited the Plain Dealer story about Hagan and Jones asking Dimora to recuse himself. He mentioned Jones' characterization of Dimora's response, which was that not voting would be an admission of guilt.

"That is not my quote," Dimora answered. "My quote is, I’m doing my job that I was elected to do. If I don’t do my job, then you’ll be up here saying, 'He should be removed for not doing his job.'"

"Do you feel you are able to vote on the juvenile justice center?" Frost asked.

"Yes, I do," Dimora said.

A minute later, he did: approving a list of 29 agreements, contracts, and amendments, including one expanding the steel contract at the juvenile justice center.

Removed from that list was an expansion of the concrete contract on the project. Unexplained at the meeting was the reason it was removed. According to Jones' comments in the PD yesterday, it's because the contract is mentioned in Friday's federal charges.

Republican chair: Dimora, Klaiber should resign

Rob Frost, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Republicans, is calling for commissioner Jimmy Dimora and engineer Robert Klaiber to resign. Here is the party's press release.

Frost asks citizens to call commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones, U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcia Fudge, Gov. Ted Strickland, and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and demand that they call for Dimora and Klaiber's resignations.

The call for Klaiber to resign is interesting. The engineer has not been implicated in the corruption scandal. However, his former chief of staff, Kevin Payne, and former employee J. Kevin Kelley, were among those charged with bribery Friday. Klaiber held a wrenching press conference Monday. "I had trust and confidence in these people and that trust was, ultimately, betrayed," he said then. Klaiber announced he would not seek re-election in 2012.

Frost says Klaiber's press conference showed that "he has, at a minimum, failed as an administrator and manager and is not fit to continue as our County Engineer." He calls on citizens to attend tomorrow's 10 a.m. county commission meeting and call for Dimora's resignation.

Commissioners voted to expand contract the day before federal prosecutors questioned it

No wonder Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones don't want Jimmy Dimora to vote on county business anymore. A contract they all voted to expand on Thursday was cited in the prosecutor's charges against J. Kevin Kelley and others on Friday.

On Thursday, the three commissioners voted to approve large change orders expanding three contracts at the juvenile justice center project. Phoenix Cement, which is handling the concrete job, got its $4,576,000 contract increased by $459,000, to $5 million. News reports had already suggested that Phoenix Cement was under scrutiny by federal investigators as part of the county corruption probe.

{Update, 6/18: The commissioners authorized staff to prepare the Phoenix change order on the 11th, meaning it was a preliminary approval, not a final approval. I've changed the headline of this post to reflect that. Peter Lawson Jones now says the final vote on the change order, scheduled for today, will be postponed because the Phoenix contract was named in the corruption charges.}

Then, on Friday the 12th, the prosecutors' filing said this:

On or about March 20, 2008, the County Commissioners awarded Business 4 a $4,576,000 contract for the cement portion of the JJC project, PO1 having taken an official act to assist Business 4 in securing this contract.

An officer of Phoenix Cement allegedly paid for part of PO1's trip to Las Vegas. The dates of the Vegas trip in the court filing match a Vegas trip Dimora took (click here; scroll down to 3rd item).

Now, I should note that the feds' questioning of the concrete contract is not the strongest part of their charges. Phoenix seems to have won the concrete contract legitimately -- it was the low bidder. The prosecutor's filing never explains the "official act" that PO1 -- who is pretty clearly Dimora -- allegedly took to help Phoenix. (Earlier in the filing, it's alleged that PO1 asked county employees to assist Business Executive 1's companies, but the bid that was in trouble then was for another contract, from Phoenix's sister company, Blaze Building. Blaze didn't get that contract.)

Still, the Friday filing casts the debate at Thursday's meeting in a different light. The commissioners were poised to vote to approve the change orders without explanation when Perry Roberts -- a member of the Black Contractors Group, a frequent critic of county contracting decisions -- questioned the changes. Some contractors, he claimed, repeatedly bid low to get a job and file change orders later.

Hagan grew furious at Roberts. He dared him to go to the county prosecutor's office if he thought the change orders weren't legitimate. When Roberts suggested that not enough minorities are working on the juvenile justice center project, Hagan got hot again. He offered to resign if Roberts could prove county staff was turning in false numbers about the project's workforce. (Crain's wrote about Hagan's argument with Roberts here, while the Plain Dealer wrote about the change orders here.)

Jones and Dimora, trying to defuse the argument, politely justified the change orders to Roberts.
"We added an additional building, additional square footage,” Dimora said. "We enlarged the project, so that's what's creating some of the change orders on this project." (The additional building is the juvenile court tower, which will go next to the juvenile detention center.)

I'm not saying Phoenix got the contract or the change order in a shady manner. There are legitimate explanations for both decisions.

But imagine how angry Hagan and Jones must have felt when they read the federal charges and saw the contract they had just voted to expand in there. Or when they read, on the same page, an allegation that an executive with that contractor gave Dimora free casino chips in Vegas two weeks after the contract was approved.

In the 11 months since the FBI raids on the county building, Hagan has expressed plenty of public outrage when he thought critics or the press were "questioning the integrity" of county officials or staff. He angrily scolded the press for its coverage of the raids, citing the justice system's presumption of innocence. He expressed very little anger (in public, at least) over the possibility that the feds might've been on to something, that the county government might have actually been corrupted.

I'm curious to see how he reacts to the prosecutors' charges at the commissioner's meeting this Thursday.

Update, 6/17: Hagan sure sounds different in the print edition of the Plain Dealer's Dimora story this morning. He even uses the word "outrage."

"I made a strong case that it would be in the best interest of the county government to have him recuse himself until the resolution of this investigation," Hagan told the PD's Joe Guillen. "I think what Peter and I are expressing is the outrage that everybody feels about what has been so far put on the public record. If it's true, it's a damning indictment of people who have lost their moral compass."

Jones says Dimora should recuse himself to address public skepticism about "whether or not Jimmy, for example, has any improper interest in any of the issues or contracts that are under consideration."

For instance, the Phoenix contract?

Update, 6/18: Yes, Jones has the Phoenix contract in mind.

Jones, Hagan ask Dimora to stop voting; Dimora refuses

Check out this story on cleveland.com: Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan have asked Jimmy Dimora to recuse himself from voting on all county business while he is a target of the federal investigation.

Dimora refused, saying it would look like an admission of guilt.

"It's his neck on the chopping block," Jones says of Dimora.

Update, 6/17: Here is the print edition version of the story, with quotes from Hagan and more from Jones.