, Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers with some 4.8 million readers on Google Plus alone. And the ClevelandUrbanNews.Com website stats reveal some 26 million hits since 2012. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Ohio Supreme Court, on Thursday, ordered Cleveland City Council to accept 20,000 signatures collected by the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, SEIU, and the Greater Cleveland Congregations to put the Q-Deal, a multi-million dollar project to renovate the Quicken Loans Arena that houses the Cleveland Cavaliers, before voters via a referendum vote on the controversial tax-dollars measure.
Led by megastars LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, the Cavaliers. a premier major sports team, are the 2016 NBA champions who lost the title this year to the Golden State Warriors, whom they beat last year.
The 4-3 ruling by Ohio's higest court stops the project from going forward, for now, and keeps the city from using tax dollars for arena renovations that opponents say are elitist and should be secondary, if at all, to community revitalization in an impoverished largely Black major American city like Cleveland, the state's second largest city behind the capital city of Columbus.
City Council, Mayor Frank Jackson and council President Kevin Kelley had argued that accepting the petition signatures for the ballot would interfere with a contract the city has with the Cavs and other deal makers.
But it never made sense that such contract could negate the city charter's clear mandate relative to referendums that must be put before voters.
Cleveland City Council sealed funding for the Q-deal in April before a crowded room with protesters on hand, voting 12-5 to throw some $88 million toward the renovation project, which followed a vote a month earlier by Cuyahoga County Council for the county to contribute $144 million.
Cuyahoga County is 29 percent Black and includes the city of Cleveland.
Nearly a third of the 17 member Cleveland City Council, including mayoral candidates Jeff Johnson and Zack Reed, and Ward 8 Councilman Michael Polensek, opposed the deal .
Councilmen Jeff Johnson and Michael Polensek publicly trashed the deal.
The two tax-supported donations from the city and the county, coupled with the Cavs putting in $122 million through increased rent and Destination Cleveland kicking in 44 million from the county bed tax, brought the Q-Deal to fruition.
But the concessions for the community, other than the Black contractors, were minimal?
And exactly what concessions did the deal bring for Clevelanders and county residents, aside from some promised money for Black construction workers, an agreement brought about with support from outspoken contractors' activist Norm Edwards, who, in turn, praised Cavs owner Dan Gilbert at county and city council meetings.
About $1 million will go to Cleveland's Habitat for Humanity for home renovations of 100 homes, and the Cavs have also agreed to resurface the basketball court at Cleveland's 23 recreation centers, a drop in the bucket, said sources, for a multimillion dollar arena revitalization project that will, among other things, expands the building and adds a glass enclosure.
Still, activists in general were upset, saying the Black community was done in and got little in return for their tax dollars, and so were poor people and Cleveland and Cuyahoga County residents in general.
"It is sad and unfair to the Black community and others," Cleveland activist Ada Averyhart, who picketed regularly over the issue, said of the Q- Deal.
The Q-Deal was vehemently pushed by Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, City Council President Kelley, and Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's three-term Black mayor who faces eight challengers, including Councilmen Reed and Jeff Johnson, in his bid for re-election this year.
They are a powerful trio, like them or not.
Budish, Jackson and Kelley say the deal will bring in jobs and monies to the city, and the region, and will keep the premiere basketball franchise on equal footing with competitors.
And the concessions, slim or not, were not easy coming, Gilbert agreeing to a little more monies after a three-months activists' campaign that included pickets at city and county council meetings and at basketball games.
ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspapers with some 4.8 million readers on Google Plus alone. And the ClevelandUrbanNews.Com website stats reveal some 26 million hits since 2012. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
