These days former Cleveland Mayor Mike White is venturing from his alpaca ranch in Newcomerstown to speak here in public, blaming the media for Cleveland's forlorn state, especially The Plain Dealer for holding out reporting, as the main purveyors of doomsday.
I agree with him. The media have let the town down.
However, the reason for my denouncement is far different than that of the erstwhile mayor, whose speech was a sad act by a pathetic man trying to recover from the scandal that dances around him.
I blame the media for allowing White to preside for a decade over an administration that was as corrupt, if not more, than any in the city's history. If his speech was an effort to defend his reputation and cast aspersion elsewhere, then it was a failure.
White's legacy is a dilemma for him: Either he was incredibly dim, or he was in league with the corruption wrought by his friend and best man, Nate Gray, who is serving 15 years in federal prison on corruption convictions.
Either way, history will cast White as a hollow man, a figure of immense potential who failed the people and a city that needed him the most.
For his speech, at the annual Council of Smaller Enterprises conference at the I-X Center, it was ironic that White was introduced by Fred Nance, the Squire, Sanders & Dempsey lawyer (and managing partner) who once represented Cleveland in the purchase of the I-X property, for which the city grossly overpaid. The deal resulted in the imprisonment of lawyer Ricardo Teamore, who was convicted, along with Gray, in a kickback scheme.
"The Cleveland we know is gone," White told the audience. "We need to hold up this city and not bash it in the newspaper. Only a strong Cleveland will create a strong region."
No doubt he was thinking about that while his best friend was plundering the town.
White drew a standing ovation from the gathering of small-business owners who were obviously desperate to find some solace in the depressing state of politics and business in the region.
As he made his way out of the meeting, James Renner, a writer from the weekly newspaper The Free Times, approached White and asked if he had used his influence to place minority front companies at the airport in exchange for kickbacks.
It was the kind of question that The Plain Dealer, fearful of the race card, dared not ask for a decade. It stunned White. Suddenly, embattled City Council President Martin Sweeney, who is fighting for his own reputation in a sexual harassment case, blocked Renner's way, allowing White to escape.
It didn't matter. Renner already had his story, one that, again, evaded the fumbling Plain Dealer, which originally reported that the concessions at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport failed to pay $5.4 million in property taxes over a 16-year period. The paper then neglected to pursue the story to learn why the taxes had not been paid.
The story was out there for months, a hanging curveball any competent editor could identify, even a singles hitter could handle. But it turned out to be yet another embarrassment for White, the black business community and the newspaper he chastised.
There was no black businessperson more prominent during White's time as mayor than Carole Hoover. It was through White's influence that she became president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, a position similar to that held today by Fred Nance.
Hoover was active during the civil rights era, as a personal assistant to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1996, the airport renovated its concession area and sought a company to run the businesses. White picked Host Marriott Services (HMS), which then selected Carole Hoover's company, Concessions International of Cleveland, as its required minority partner.
Hoover's company had a 36 percent share in the concessions — which meant it had to match that percentage both in capital and minority workers. Renner questions whether Hoover could put time into the business while collecting $475,000 in pay and benefits from her other job at the Growth Association.
Nate Gray was listed as a consultant to Hoover's company on federal documents, according to Renner. Yet she denies paying him as a consultant.
Renner reported that HMS and Hoover's company never paid the property taxes to the county. She withdrew from the partnership two years ago.
Interestingly, the taxes were owed to Cuyahoga County. The city's Department of Control paid the $5.4 million tax bill with money from other airport operations. It has been months since Mayor Frank Jackson was apprised of the situation. Still, nothing has happened.
The money that the city paid the county for the concessions' back taxes came from other airport revenues. This resulted in increased prices for goods and services, such as airline landing fees. Nobody cared that the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland was desperately trying to attract visitors who were being squeezed by the scam.
Those visitors would be a boon to the business owners who applauded White for his attack on the media. And soon they will be told, once again, we need to build a new convention center to attract visitors.
Michael D. Roberts (situations6@aol.com) is a former editor of Cleveland Magazine who once served as the city editor of The Plain Dealer. He writes about special situations consisting of greed, incompetence and the way things really work in Cleveland government and politics.