Taken directly from my Facebook page. This is a personal view of me, Sam Allard, not Scene magazine:
From the bottom of my heart, PLEASE VOTE *NO* ON ISSUE 7 TODAY. This is extremely important. If you’re already opposed — maybe because you don’t feel that residents of the nation’s second-poorest major city should continue bankrolling facilities operated by billionaires; maybe because you feel that alternatives to the Sin Tax haven’t been meaningfully considered; maybe because the complete lack of transparency from Cleveland’s corporate elite has left you suspicious of a “deal” in which citizens will be obliged to pay millions of dollars far longer than these teams are committed to staying in town — great. Just remember to vote today, and remind your friends and family to do the same.
If you’re on the fence, know that I sympathize with your skepticism. I know that the sin tax doesn’t affect people like you or me in recognizable ways. The tax is *easy.* I know I certainly don’t notice the $15-20 a year taken piecemeal from my weekly six-packs and the occasional Bulleit Bourbon.The tax, frankly, seems like a reasonable contribution for fans of professional sports. Not to mention the fact that the threat of losing our teams has, at times, felt urgently real (esp. given Cleveland’s history of abandonment, and what often feels like mass exportation of those we hold dear). Most importantly, I sympathize with people who interpret a yes vote as a favor to the city; who think that by voting yes, funds won’t be taken from critical services.
BUT HAVING SPOKEN EXTENSIVELY WITH PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE, let me say publicly and confidently that a NO VOTE constitutes an actual commitment to Cleveland. A NO vote is an essential early step not in “keeping” Cleveland strong, but MAKING her strong. I know this sounds dramatic, but as a reporter on this I’ve been in the weeds, and the people in power (at the GCP, at the Cavs, at the Indians, at the Browns, at — regrettably — City Hall) aren’t even aware how deeply entrenched they are in their ways. They don’t even recognize this as greed. They are confused by the opposition, unwilling to engage in constructive discussions (farming out their legwork to strategy groups and PR firms), and so distantly out-of-touch with actual residents in Cleveland’s urban neighborhoods that they literally put “poor people” in quotation marks.
The publicity campaigns? The “tourism sector”? The non-stop assertions that by financing facilities and services for upper middle class folks and visitors we are creating an atmosphere of vibrancy and strength? The evidence is quite to the contrary. These “leaders” are Keeping Cleveland Weak, and the cognitive disconnects are so baffling and Orwellian it’s enough to make a journalist throw up his hands.
Look: A NO vote does not mean the teams we love will desert us. A NO vote does not mean our schools and roads will crumble. A NO vote does not mean you hate Cleveland or intend to cripple it. Nor does a NO vote, in practical terms, mean you want to personally save 1.5 cents on a can of beer. What a NO vote does is signal a call for change in this town. It means we’ve got a year to have discussions so let’s not waste it. Let’s have those discussions and make our voices heard. A NO vote must be the FIRST step along a path at the end of which our leadership MUST BE MADE TO UNDERSTAND that to make a city strong, its residents and its neighborhoods and its schools and its roads must be strong before its billionaires. PLEASE VOTE NO ON ISSUE 7 TODAY. MAKE CLEVELAND STRONG.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2014.
Vote YES for more handjobs.
Maybe the people of Cleveland could make it strong by not voting for the same “leaders” over and over again? Perhaps the problem you allude to in your op-ed is that the citizens of Cleveland keep voting the same lines without recognizing that those lines keep moving farther and farther away from them and their needs.
@Patrick, this is what you get when you blindly vote along party lines over and over without even taking a look at what the candidate did.
Issue 7 is a load of BS, and it’s laughable how really anyone not connected to our sports teams (or busy kissing their asses) could actually be in favor of this. Remember how pissed you were when you found out that the stadium, which Cleveland owns, was being renamed for 100 million dollars and the city was getting exactly $0 from that? Well this is the same thing all over again. I mean, it’s absolutely absurd that we should pay money so the teams can build things that will generate more money for them. We’re literally taking money out of resident’s pockets and giving it to the billionaire owners.
The language of Issue 7 should be changed to read, “Every time you buy something impacted by the sin tax, would you like to be slapped in the face?” If your answer to this is yes, please move to Detroit. No, no, don’t pack your stuff first, just go now. We’ll send your stuff up there for you.
This issue is the absurdity of absurdities. Let me get this straight: the purpose of the Sin Tax is to gouge those who purchase alcohol and cigarettes not because anyone is trying to discourage consumption but rather so the County can use that money to pay for sports stadiums that do not produce anything but a fleeting moment witnessing the passing of a football, the dribbling of a basketball and the throwing of a baseball so that such a minute tidbit of diversion can be enjoyed by all. The stupidity of this proposition is enough to make your head spin even though the spin doctors advocating passage of this nonsense are already doing a pretty good job of hypnotizing the voters to actually consider supporting it. At least the Robber Barons of the previous centuries provided something tangible such as oil, steel, railroads etcetera. These team owners do not even provide one tangible thing that could ever be considered with the term “value added.” Almost everyone discusses this “enterprise” as though it is the same thing as industry {which it is not}. The price of admission is essentially a voluntary tax paid by those who can afford it to pay those who don’t need it. If this isn’t a transfer of wealth I don’t know what is.
The real outrage here is the fact that taxes on alcohol and cigarettes will not be used to aid in the reduction of addiction {hence the reference to “sin”} but rather to stuff the pockets of all three teams who could easily afford to pay for the repairs themselves. The vote was rammed through the last time {under somewhat suspicious circumstances} and hear we go again. But this time…not so fast! We the voters of Cuyahoga County are going to fight the proponents on this one and we don’t care if the teams up and go somewhere else {please see my views on entertainment below} because quite frankly there are simply more important things than sports and the unearned money that comes with it. Those in public office who are too stupid and lazy to find other ways to grow a major American city need to resign and leave their self-seeking political ambitions on the scrapheap of history. Don’t ever let it be said that this was time when the tide ran out on Cuyahoga County but rather was the time when the voters rose up to welcome the rising tide of change and rebuked this pathetic paradigm our previous elected leaders embraced. Let the battle be joined.
And now to the real underlying issue at hand:
One of the most disturbing facts about our capitalist nation is the misappropriation of funds directed to the salaries of entertainers. Everyone should agree that the value an athlete, movie star, talk-show host, team-owner, etcetera brings to the average citizen is very small. Granted, they do offer a minuscule of diversion from our daily trials and tribulations as did the jesters in the king’s court during the middle ages. But to allow these entertainers to horde such great amounts of wealth at the expense of more benevolent societal programs is unacceptable. They do not provide a product or a service so why are they rewarded as such?
Our society is also subjected to the “profound wisdom” of these people because it equates wealth with influence. Perhaps a solution to this problem and a alternative to defeated school levies, crumbling infrastructures, as well as all the programs established to help feed, clothe and shelter those who cannot help themselves would be to tax this undeserved wealth. Entertainers could keep 1% of the gross earnings reaped from their endeavor and 99% could be deposited into the public coffers.
The old ideas of the redistribution of wealth have failed, and it is time to adapt to modern-day preferences. People put their money into entertainment above everything else; isn’t it time to tap that wealth? Does anyone think this will reduce the quality of entertainment? It seems to me that when entertainers received less income, the quality was much higher.
There are some good arguments for nixing the sin tax. This isn’t one of them. It amounts to “vote no because I’ve spoken to people on both sides and I think you should vote no.” Do better.
Soooo making schools and neighborhoods strong by having repairs to these facilities be paid from the general fund? Ummm…yeah…that makes sense.
Thank you, Mr. Allard!
After reading this I voted yes
What a shocker, the sin tax is passed by the same people that kept Dimora and Russo in office all these years. Cleveland voters just don’t feel comfortable unless they’re getting bent over by someone, I suppose. Oh well. Since I live on a county line, I’ll officially be making all my alcoholic beverage purchases outside of Cuyahoga.
I always thought it was a FARCE to build an economy around sports or gambling. One comment made a great point that the money will not even be used to help reduce the consumption/habits. Instead, users of the tax would benefit more if such increased, right? That is all we need here in N.E. Ohio–to further add one more thing to promote poor health.
This archaic vision that “you must feed this sports scene to be vibrant” surely demonstrates a very narrow line of thinking, extreme lack of creativity, and vision upon which to help stimulate the local economy. Here is an idea: Reward Mom and Pop small local and independent businesses like upstart entrepreneurial shops such as fruit/bakery, clothing, etc… Reward the “butcher, baker, candlestick maker kind of economy and see how many people will opt to go into business for themselves.
See how strong and economically diverse this makes us hence not needing the “big brother” company to come in here and do it all for us. Such economic diversity will breed self-sustaining stability. It also adds unique local flair and character–individuality to a community. When you build something around one thing, like we did with this phoney King James LeBron crap…you see what happens when it goes–we all fall down. Same goes with building all around big industry.
On the other hand, when you build your economy around several smaller enterprises…if one falls, then you have several others to pick up the slack. This is how you build an economy…from the ground up, not the top down. The top down mentality defies all natural laws. Most think this is how it has been and has to be. It has not been this way in the history of economic development at the roots and it does not have to be. Look back to Agrarian roots to discover this or read Joel Salatin’s book, “Folks This Ain’t Normal”
Lastly, I am a lover of the local teams as much as anyone. But this is our trouble here in Cleveland/N.E. Ohio, in that our benevolence and loyalty is taken for granted by billionaires who know that no matter what they throw on the field, we will always come back for more. We need to discover other things to be joyous about in life. Sports and such entertainment should make up but a grain of sand on a beach as to what makes your city attractive and special–and a place where people will want to live and raise a family.
Let’s use this voting as an opportunity to have a new awakening as to that idea. Otherwise we will assure that we cling to this economic and social typecast as being mediocre and just about sports and drinking–nothing else. Their is a lot more to Cleveland and N.E./ Ohio than this. Its time we acted like it and exuded a bit more confidence and civic pride. Be brave, vote NO and break the mold.