Home improvements for favors: More charges implicate Dimora & Russo

The U.S. Attorney has filed charges against two new defendants in the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal, and they fit a familiar pattern.

The defendants are businessmen who supply and install granite, but the details of the charges also implicate Public Official 1 and Public Official 2 -- the feds' code for Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, still not named or charged with crimes. Again, the feds seem to be building two different kinds of corruption cases against the two county officials.

This time, the feds say Dinesh Bafta, president of regional stone supplier Mont Granite, bribed PO2 (Russo) with granite slabs and a sink worth $5,800 to be installed in Russo's house. In exchange, the charge says, the auditor's office reduced the tax valuation on Mont Granite's Solon office reduced from $1.56 million to $1.23 million, and Bafna talked Russo out of a valuation increase of $250,000 on his Pepper Pike home, which restored the value to about $865,000. The charge alleges that Bafta called Russo twice personally to get the values lowered.

John Valentin, an official with Cleveland granite retailer Salva Stone Design, is accused of having his company install granite in PO1's (Dimora's) indoor and outdoor kitchens and master bathroom, then install a sink basin and countertop in Dimora's bathroom. (Total value: about $3,250.) In exchange, the feds allege, Dimora "acted in his official capacity to assist Valentin's friend with a tourist visa application."

This is peculiar -- PO1/Dimora works for Cuyahoga County, not the State Department -- though a letter from a local official might help a visa applicant as character testimony. You can easily imagine Dimora's defense: this is just good constituent service, not a steered contract!

But there's also this: on May 23, 2008, the day the FBI asked Dimora's buddy Steve Pumper to cooperate with them, and Pumper allegedly made a plan to tip Dimora off, the feds say Dimora's wife called Salva Stone for its mailing address, and Dimora "caused a personal check on his bank account to be written" to Salva Stone for $250. That's months after the first granite was allegedly installed in his house, though not long after the second round of stuff.

The pattern I described in my October issue profile of Dimora, "Life of the Party," still holds true: "The filings depict Dimora doing little favors," I wrote: "He puts in a good word for people, nudges, recommends... and takes gifts from his friends before or after." That leaves a gray area that Dimora's attorneys could use in a defense.

The feds' potential case against Russo looks far different: stark, simple bribe allegations. Earlier, we saw allegations of cash kickbacks for contracts -- and now, home-improvement gifts for fixing property values.

Prosecutors again appear to be lining up potential witnesses against Dimora and Russo. "The Government anticipates that both Bafna and Valentin will provide evidence against other unindicted participant(s) in the bribery conspiracy," an accompanying filing says. PO1 and PO2 are the most prominent unindicted figures mentioned in the charges.

Mayor Jackson questions MMPI’s motives: 'Do they really want to be here?'

Mayor Frank Jackson just put out this press release challenging Medical Mart developer MMPI, asking if it is trying to get out of its deal to build in Cleveland.

MMPI's decision to release their study of Public Auditorium's flaws to the Plain Dealer has Jackson furious.

The Medical Mart project is now at a moment of crisis. What will MMPI, the county, and City Hall do next?

Bolds are mine:
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A Statement from the Office of the Mayor
Mayor Jackson Questions MMPI’s Motives: Do They Really Want To Be Here?

CLEVELAND – Since Mayor Jackson has been crystal clear on his willingness to keep Public Auditorium and explore MMPI’s new plan, MMPI’s latest actions cause him and others to question their motives. The city and taxpayers need to know if MMPI still plans to develop in Cleveland. The Mayor has been very supportive of and committed to this project. For an example, once the County selected the site, Mayor Jackson and City Council turned this deal into a letter of intent within 10 weeks. MMPI has had unlimited access to investigate the site since the spring. After many months of silence by MMPI and continuing inquiry by the City of Cleveland, on November 4, MMPI told Mayor Jackson and Council President Martin Sweeney that Public Auditorium had many problems, that it no longer fit their business plan, and that they now want to put the Medical Mart at the end of Mall C (rather than on the previous St. Clair site). Mayor Jackson responded that the City is perfectly willing to keep Public Auditorium and is ready to discuss the new plan. Two days later Mayor Jackson’s staff asked MMPI to send the highlights of the Public Auditorium building study. Instead of sending the study highlights so that the City can take appropriate action if necessary, MMPI elected to publicly trash Public Auditorium in the media even after the building was no longer a part of the plan. MMPI’s actions beg the question: Do they still want to develop in Cleveland?

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.

Sweeney retains council presidency

Martin Sweeney will remain Cleveland city council president, Henry Gomez reports on cleveland.com.

Rival Matt Zone couldn't get the 10 votes needed to topple him. Sweeney, forcing Zone's hand, scheduled a council caucus today over lunch at the 100th Bomb Group restaurant. Going into the meeting knowing he didn't have the votes, Zone told Gomez that even he planned to vote for Sweeney.

That show of official fealty is customary once a winner becomes clear, I think. I seem to remember Mike Polensek officially ascending to the council presidency by unanimous vote in 1999, though the actual factional divide was 11-10. It also means Zone is not asking fence-sitters to take a losing stand with him -- he can save their goodwill for later, if Sweeney stumbles.

Quiet mayor wins landslide; Jeff Johnson's comeback complete; will Sweeney hold on as council president?

He is who he is, and that's fine with Cleveland voters: Mayor Frank Jackson, the quiet and workmanlike mayor, buried his challenger in a landslide yesterday, winning 78% of the vote.

It's been interesting, in the last year, to watch business and media elites accept the soft-spoken, unambitious, competent mayor and shed their yearning for a pulpit-pounding, charismatic strongman mayor (like, say, Akron's Don Plusquellic). Last week at the City Club debate, former councilman Bill Patmon did his best to project himself as the forceful-mayor type, to no avail. Jackson held his ground, explaining details of his work to deliver services and trim the budget.

Patmon may be right that Jackson will soon have to carry out the sort of sweeping budget cuts he campaigned on having avoided -- Henry Gomez predicts as much in the Plain Dealer today -- but voters trust Jackson to make those decisions. Meanwhile, the people who want mayors to use the bully pulpit to rally the region can turn their attention to who the first county executive will be.

In Glenville's Ward 8, voters returned Jeff Johnson to city council, 20 years after he left it to become a state senator, and 10 years after he left the state senate to serve a prison term for extortion. Johnson worked his way back to the public's trust by serving in Jane Campbell's administration and working for the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. Now, it seems, his rehabilitation is complete. (To read Cleveland Magazine's 1999 profile, "The Rise and Fall of Jeff Johnson," click here.)

Now, the political action at City Hall shifts to the council presidency. Johnson's election, and Zack Reed and Brian Cummins' victories in spite of redistricting, weaken Martin Sweeney's hold on the job. He and rival Matt Zone are competing for the 10 of 19 votes needed to be elected leader. The PD's Gomez has the news on this contest -- he reports that Sweeney got his council colleagues together at the Lancer Steakhouse last night, no doubt to try to consolidate support. A caucus vote on the presidency should come tomorrow; here's Gomez's handicapping.

Update, 11/5: Sweeney won.

Issue 6 approved: A new government for Cuyahoga County

Voters have reacted to two years of corruption and patronage scandals by throwing out every Cuyahoga County elected official. They approved Issue 6, a charter that creates a new form of government, with 66 percent of the vote.

We'll elect a county executive and an 11-member county council next year in a Sept. 7 primary and the Nov. 2 general election. The new charter will take effect Jan. 1, 2011.

The vote was overwhelming: Issue 5, the county commissioners' alternative plan to appoint a charter commission, failed with 72 percent of the vote. The Issue 5 side's vagueness about how they would reform government proved fatal. Their message failed to even make much of a dent in the 75 percent support for Issue 6 in a July poll.

Tim Hagan is on WMJI's Lanigan & Malone this morning, saying the vote for 6 shows how much power corporate political donors and Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg now have in Cleveland. Hagan complained the paper's county coverage was biased, and John Lanigan and Chip Kullik agreed that the PD's Oct. 2 headline about Hagan was misleading, which it was. But blaming the PD and business leaders for the new charter disrespects the voters. Hagan got it right later in the hour when he added that voters changed the government because they were disgusted with the behavior of some of their elected officials.

Everyone knows the biggest reason voters want reform: federal prosecutors are investigating Jimmy Dimora and suspect Frank Russo of stealing $1.2 million in cash. No one else in the current government noticed anything was wrong, and no one can fire Russo or Dimora now.

Hagan noted the charter will usher in a huge change in Greater Cleveland: the new county executive will be the most powerful elected official in the region, even more than the newly re-elected Cleveland mayor. Who might run for county executive? Jimmy Malone kept dropping Chris Ronayne's name. Hagan, perhaps thinking of Brent Larkin's August column on the subject, mentioned Gund Foundation head Dave Abbott.

Big leads for Issue 6, Mayor Jackson in early voting

A plan for a new Cuyahoga County goverment has a 2-1 lead in results from early voting, and Mayor Frank Jackson leads challenger Bill Patmon by almost 4-1, just-posted results from the board of elections show.

Issue 6, which would create a county executive and 11-member county council, has 102,000 votes for it and 53,000 against in the absentee ballot results. The competing Issue 5, which would create a charter commission to write a different reform plan, is losing more than 2-1, or 45,000 yes to 107,000 no.

Frank Jackson is out to a huge lead, 23,700 votes to 6,300, in his bid for a second term as mayor.

Most Cleveland city council members have solid leads, with three exceptions.

Former state Sen. Jeff Johnson is ahead of recent council appointee Shari Cloud in Glenville's Ward 8. Councilman Brian Cummins is somewhat ahead of Rick Nagin in Ward 14 on the near west side. Phyllis Cleveland in the Central neighborhood's Ward 5 is ahead of challenger Pernel Jones by only 35 votes. Each race could affect whether council president Martin Sweeney holds onto his job.

Absentee ballot totals can be a good early guide to where an election is going -- and now that it's so easy to vote by mail in Ohio, they make up a lot of the total vote.

Complete results aren't expected in Cuyahoga County until early morning.