It was a long, mean summer for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. There was increasing violence on his streets and a news media whose ferocity toward him was reminiscent of the days when Dennis Kucinich and his adolescent administration crouched beleaguered in City Hall as the darkness of default descended.
Yet, while Plain Dealer columnists jabbed at Jackson for not speaking out strongly against the increasing appearance of thugs on city streets, the paper's own editorials were calling the criticism unfair.
Jackson's tenure as mayor has been curious, in that not only does he appear to suffer from rhetorical reticence, he seems to have joined the club of public officials here who do little to upset a status quo marked by the greatest economic decline in the city's 171-year history.
For example, while Jackson was relieving police officers from security details at Hopkins airport, transferring them to the city's ugliest streets, there was a small problem: For the last 17 years, businesses at the airport have failed to pay $5 million in taxes.
Think about that. We cannot afford to protect ourselves against terrorists because the city has no money, and we face a threat from street thugs. Yet, we do not collect taxes that could pay for the safety forces.
You have to wonder why nobody at City Hall thinks about how this will play nationally alongside the advertisements that promote the PR campaign, Cleveland+. You want to talk about another national joke?
The airport story broke months ago. As of this writing, there has been no explanation as to how millions of tax dollars could be overlooked by public officials at several levels.
You don't have to be a Pulitzer Prize winner or Supreme Court justice to find the clues here. Start with the date that tax money from all these businesses ceased being paid. Seventeen years ago takes us to the year 1990. Hmmm, what happened in 1990? Well, that was the year Mike White became Cleveland's mayor.
The benefit of hindsight and the conviction of Nate Gray, Mike White's best man and maybe the best bagman in the city's history, provide another clue as to why many of the businesses failed to pay taxes. Some were "clients" of the ubiquitous Mr. Gray and promoters of a City Hall that played the race card.
A "client-consultant" relationship with Mr. Gray entailed getting favors from City Hall in return for — and forgive me for the crudeness of this description of the business transaction — kickbacks. Mr. Gray was running more kickbacks than the Cleveland Browns.
When the U.S. government prosecuted Mr. Gray, it did so in the hopes he would give them Mr. White instead of taking 15 years in jail. Mr. Gray did not roll and, therefore, is known on the street as the most stand-up guy since the heyday of the Little Italy mob, when the highest honor was serving time for not ratting out the brotherhood.
But the government case against Mr. Gray has had the effect of an ultimately ineffective air strike: a blow that caused a lot of damage, but no follow-up on the ground, which has left many avenues of corruption still functioning.
The Gray case illuminated many of these activities, easy targets for local and county government to follow-up and erase, either through prosecution or simply by firing the usual suspects. Not much of that has happened.
By all accounts, Mayor Frank Jackson is an honest politician, a rare breed these days. So why would he not cleanse City Hall of the bacteria that has eaten away at the sinews of the city? And why didn't former-Mayor Jane Campbell see to it that the taxes were collected? How about that unparalleled community watchdog Bill Mason, who poses as the county prosecutor?
The answer, like many answers to the town's mysteries, rises from the streets like some Delphic oracle: The reason no one wants to make a significant move on the tax cheats is because some of the cheats are prominent black businesspeople who have been active in politics over the years.
Which brings me to a greater question. As time illuminates the events that took place in the White administration, one wonders what happened to the news media. There was a time in this city when corruption of this magnitude would not be tolerated by the newspapers. Or the prosecutor's office.
That the media, particularly The Plain Dealer, turned their backs when they were needed most has had a long-range effect on the attitude of government officials toward the media. Essentially, public officials neither fear nor respect the media here anymore. They laugh behind the backs of editors and reporters.
The Cuyahoga County commissioners, for example, acquired the Ameritrust Tower, passed an additional sales tax and manipulated the Medical Mart issue in a murkiness that defies an understanding of what really is taking place. The news coverage on these issues is hardly challenging or complete.
You can pick up more news in a bar than at breakfast.
Plus, for the most part, we are dealing with public officials of little talent, no vision and dubious intent. They are personalities who symbolize decline, decay and deceit.
Even if the much-publicized convention center and Medial Mart are vital to the city's interest, there is little confidence in those politicians who are trying to sell this vision. The bond of trust between them and the public ruptured long ago. The mayor and the commissioners have reached this pinnacle of irresponsibility because the news media, all of us, long ago gave up our fundamental responsibilities as watchdogs to devote time and effort to frivolous pursuits under the guise of journalism.
Maybe the best thing that has happened in years is that The Plain Dealer, which symbolizes the media here, is now run by people from elsewhere. They might be able to see that most of those who run the city wear no clothes.