At minimum, $7.9 million will be requested from the County’s General Fund as early as next week. That figure could balloon to more than $20 million by the end of the year, in a “worst case scenario” outlined by county budget officials.
These funds would initially cover $1.4 million in unpaid property taxes and more than $6 million in debt service that, per Astolfi, typically come from the hotel’s revenue. Due to drastically reduced occupancy rates during the Covid-19 pandemic, the revenues simply aren’t there to cover the costs.
That means the public, which paid for the construction of the $260 million hotel on the promise that it would enhance the attractiveness of the Convention Center and Medical Mart / Global Center, is now on the hook for these payments. But the general fund itself is on the brink of an enormous shortfall due to Covid, with declines in county revenues (mostly from property and sales taxes) currently projected at $76 million.
Unlike other Covid relief expenditures, like the proposed $6.8 million in rental assistance for county residents, the Hilton bailout cannot be covered by federal CARES Act dollars.
The biggest insult in all this is that, according to county budget officials, the Hilton’s books will remain closed. The hotel’s occupancy rate is evidently “proprietary information,” even though Destination Cleveland’s David Gilbert has said recently that most hotels in the area had seen 90 percent declines in occupancy compared to last year. (Those numbers are gradually rising.)
Just like in the region’s endless subsidies for sports arenas, the public will shell out millions based on a private company’s word.
Back in 2013, when former county executive Ed FitzGerald was promoting the county hotel on the familiar ‘If You Build It, They Will Come’ platform, critics predicted the current scenario.
“If the hotel is not profitable, the county is liable for that debt service,” former County Councilman Dave Greenspan told Scene at the time. “That’s an exposure I’m not comfortable with encumbering upon the residents of this county…I don’t believe the county should be in the hotel business.”
As Scene noted at the time, “the fine people of Cuyahoga County front the risk, and Hilton Worldwide walks with the benefits.”
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This article appears in Jun 10-16, 2020.
This should be added to their loan, rather than an outright gift. For regular people impacted by the Covid downturn that is what all the banks are doing.
How much did local Democratic politicians receive from Hilton and other businesses, like the construction company that was paid to build Med Mart, etc…, in campaign contributions?
Scene should publish the names of the Democratic politicians, how much they received, who donated it to them, and their connection to the Hilton/Med Mart boondoggle.
well covid was a hoax so…
Once again, the taxpayers get left holding the bag in this corruption-filled, dump of a city and county led by Taxin Jackson and thief Budish himself!!!
Until both of these crooks are finally, and forcibly, removed out of office, nothing will likely ever change around here except paying more and more taxes for more and more of their never-ending shenanigans and blatant waste of taxpayer money again and again!!!
All this money that we are putting into things like Sherman Williams, the Hilton, and our sports teams could have been used to invest more into our communities and address these issues like poverty and a failing school system. I know money is not the solution to these problems necessarily it’s a way to start
I guess this is what happens when you do unnecessary, unlawful shutdowns.
Good lesson for next time, completely ignore these shitbag Politicians and their Globalist Agendas.
Thanks Queen Sam.
I remember back in 2003, when Cleveland schools had hired 1,4000 new teachers and driven class sizes down to less than 15 kids per teacher. The plan was working. We needed a levy to pay for it. Cleveland decided to focus on a Convention Center instead. We laid off those 1,400 teachers and have been struggling ever since.
But at least we have an empty convention center and and empty hotel next to it. I guess that was worth it. Wasn’t it?
Building Your City’s Future on fickle hopes of Sports Teams, Tourism, and Convention Business is and always has been a pipe-dream sold to the undereducated, over medicated, ill and idle sheep who know, no better.
Our ever corrupt politicians continously line their own pockests, and those of their relatives at the public trough, while big corporations and financial institutions laugh at our stupidity, all the way to their high-stakes gambling den, the U.S. Stock Markets.
Thus is has always been, and will probably always be, for my lifetime at least.
CMSD gets $17K+ a Student to churn out literal retards. I think about that whenever I see Walt’s posts.
Hey, “Teachers Unions Openly Support Socialism,” I spent this week helping eight Seniors who haven’t been in school since April graduate. They are not “retards,” as you so eloquently put it. I’d rather spend a whole week with them than a hot minute with you.
Oh, and Happy Juneteenth! Our latest and much deserved holiday!😄
Teachers Union of Chicago openly supports defunding the Police and the Democratic Socialists, these are the people that have 8 hours of access to your children.
Do your part, vote down every levy. Enroll your Children in Charter Schools and send anyone that’s unfortunate enough to still attend CMSD in with a camera to record every second.
Hey, “Break the Programming,” when was the last time you saw the inside of a Cleveland School? When Frank Battisti was still a judge? Just before your parents pulled you out of Kindergarten and hot-footed it out to Medina?
Walter, the teacher student ratio is still 15 to 1.
https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?Search=1&details=1&InstName=Cleveland&DistrictType=1&DistrictType=2&DistrictType=3&DistrictType=4&DistrictType=5&DistrictType=6&DistrictType=7&DistrictType=8&NumOfStudentsRange=more&NumOfSchoolsRange=more&ID2=3904378
Hey Bob, Im not talking about the overall numbers. They are artificially depressed because of the incredibly high number of special needs kids. That requires a large number of special education teachers. I’m talking about boots on the ground, middle school, regular education classroom sizes. The difference between 15 seventh graders in a class and 20 is huge and almost incomprehensible to someone outside the profession. Before the mass layoffs, I had that magic number of kids and could teach. After the layoffs, we immediately went to the high side of 20 and the job got way harder. Add to that the whole stupid “getting rid of middle school” idea, and the even more stupid “small schools” idea, and you get a perfect storm of stupid and an entire lost generation.
The failed CMSD will have their hand out yet AGAIN this November for ANOTHER ma$$ive property tax levy renewal AND increase!!!
Just remember to VOTE NO on this, and ALL other Urgent property levies that will show up on the ballot by our crooked local politicians!!!
And another moron heard from…🙄
Walt, I’m not a Boomer like you. I’m in my 30’s.
….but I do love how this article has taken a turn to everyone calling you, the CMSD and the Socialist/Communist Teachers Union out on your bullshit.
Fuck Socialism
Fuck Communism
Fuck Marxism
Fuck Communitarianism
Fuck Social Engineering
Fuck Social Justice
Save your Children, and America by rejecting the horsehit ideology Public Schools & Teacher’s Unions are brainwashing them with.
Fuck, even the Chinese Government has infiltrated our schools from K-College, Google “Confucius Institute” Cleveland State & Oberlin High School have programs.
Fight now before it’s too late
Break the Programming, you want to fight now? Hell, you have already lost. While you were busy typing, we were busy creating a nation of unified, militant, young, Black Socialists. We have been working at this project for years, quietly, diligently, all while you were inhaling chicken fried steaks at the Cracker Barrel.
Your problem hasn’t changed any since Vietnam. Every day for the past fifty years you sat in your suburbs and got weaker while we squatted in the bush and got stronger. You need your cold beer and your barbecued steaks and your USO. We didn’t get much USO in Glenville. We were dug in too deep or moving too fast. Our idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. We knew we had only two ways home: death, or victory.
So don’t worry about being replaced. You already have been.
Did you channel Jane Goodall to get all that communicating done?
At least you’re openly admitting what the Teachers Unions and Liberal Universities have been up to.
It has been screenshotted and saved to show my fellow militiamen and fence riders. Thanks for putting it in black and white….and thanks for leaving now doubt about your intentions and who you are. Lol
Militiamen? Bwah-Ha-Ha! You guys look more like a collection of Pillsbury Doughboys in ill fitting cammies. Exactly what do you have to do to join your little band of hydrocephalic weasels? I bet its the Triple Crown of Incompetence: Fail the Army PT test, the tape test, and the ASVAB all on the same day.
Oh Walt, I already told ya I’m not a Boomer like you. Affirmative Action doesn’t teach ingenuity and you cannot train “some folks” to out think their instincts.
Soy Boys, Dykey Feminists, Hippie Boomers and Low IQs CMSD Students ain’t gonna cut it.
Remember you kill your babies, we teach ours that protecting each other gets you into heaven.
You geriatrics and your imbecile pets don’t stand a chance. The folks that you’ve held under thumb for years are starting to wake up.
MAGA Bitch
Oh Malt Liquor, what exactly makes you think that you will be any more successful in your MAGA fantasy than you are now? Face it, Dude, the reason you can’t hold your own in today’s world is the same reason you won’t be able to be successful in your MAGA dream world: you are a lazy, dumb crook. Your only possible solution is if Trump made you the new cabinet Secretary in charge of Lazy Dumb Crooks. However, that’s unlikely. There are way to many of you guys in that line already.
Lmao at the whiney white dude above claiming that minorities have held him under their thumb.
What kind of drugs does one have to take to be that ass backwards in your thinking, I wonder?
Maybe some meth shards while a constant stream of Trump scented ass gas is pumped directly into your lungs via a tube in your nostrils? They’d place the tube in your mouth, but then you would have to remove it to make room for that orange, self tanner scented wiener that you keep in there at all times. Remember, work those tiny orange balls while attending to that skinny orange shaft!
You almost had the ending right, don’t worry I fixed it for you:
MAGA *is for* bitches!
I’d also like to point out that ISIS members teach their children a similarly stupid ideology, look how well that worked out for em…
Shame you right wingers weren’t a little more tolerant, you guys could get together and go back and forth about being Gods chosen ones, delivering justice against those evil liberals that want to help and support others with one hand, while finger banging your biological sisters with the other. Seriously though, think about it, you guys have soooooo much in common, a hatred of anyone who doesn’t have a second century mindset coupled with a die hard love of incestual sex, sprinkled with a dash of entitlement and racism.
You’re perfect for each other!
Wedding bells are ringing….
In the upcoming fog of lionizations upon Joe Roman’s retirement as GCP’s CEO, this should stand as the most brazen piece of public larceny among the many he has engineered…The public had once voted thumbs down on a new convention center; the issue was so popular that even Jane Campbell wouldn’t touch it…Virtually all the authoritative voices knew the fallacy of spinning a convention center as a public asset…They NEVER pay for themselves…Still, in the dead of night, GCP prevailed on the County to raise sales taxes without a vote of the people to raise a convention center we couldn’t afford, attach it to a “”global center” which we STILL don’t know what to do with, and toss on a taxpayer-funded hotel in a down market, so it’d be available during the five nights of the RNC convention…It was an exercise in corporate power, and a perfect example of GCP’s approach to “economic development:” rent seeking, the sleazy art of hijacking taxpayer dollars and turn over to private developers, usually with no questions asked…
Dan’s Brady and his wife Dona Brady have been Eating at the Government Trough for over 20 yrs
That is the Audacity of White Mediocrity …………………………………………………………
White mediocrity is the lowest common denominator for experience ……………………………….
Do u White folks have no shame ????????????????????????????
“The public, which paid for the construction of the $260 million hotel”
“These funds would initially cover $1.4 million in unpaid property taxes and more than $6 million in debt service
‘The hotel’s occupancy rate is “proprietary information,”
Endless subsidies for sports arenas, the public will shell out millions based on a private company’s word.
btw: I spoke with someone from Cuyahoga County Council and she told me that none of
u raging lunatic call or left an message in opposition to White Corporate Welfare or Subsidies…..
so shut the hell up and go back into ur mommy basement and play Fortnight season 3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!