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With Tim Hagan recently landing a plum job as a senior advisor with MetroHealth Medical Center, it’s worth looking back at the longtime county commissioner’s history with the county-owned, publicly funded facility.

As commissioner, Hagan appointed trustees to the hospital’s board and helped run levy campaigns that fund it. If such support greased the wheels for his employment there today, it would also seem to qualify him for the job.

Back in the late ’80s, however, Hagan split from the other commissioners of the time in support of privatizing Metro, which serves as a safety net for the region’s poor and uninsured. Despite his reputation at the time as a liberal who supported strong, accessible public services, Hagan showed what may have been an early sign of his subsequent embrace of using tax money to drive private profit — a gift he’s honed to perfection with the convention center and Med Mart project.

This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2011.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

13 replies on “Tim Hagan’s History With Metro”

  2. Tim, in his 20 years as a County Commissioner, has presided and in most cases had a direct hand in the following:

    FORCED MODELL’S HAND RESULTING IN THE BROWNS MOVE TO BALTIMORE
    Modell had a contract with the City of Cleveland to manage and pay for all costs to maintain the, then 50 yr old, Cleveland Stadium. Modell used the rents he collected from the Indians to make those repairs. So when the Indians moved into the new Jacobs Field, Modell asked the County and City of Cleveland for $130 million in order to fix the Cleveland Stadium since now there were no rent monies for repairs. The County and City of Cleveland, both partners in the moving of the Indians, said “No”! Modell was then forced to look for a better deal, since he knew there would be future money problems. Hence the move to Baltimore. A few years later we HAD to build a new stadium to the tune of $285 million in order to get a new team. Thats $155 million more than what Modell was asking. In the mean time, the Ravens went on to win a Super Bowl in 2000 with the former Browns players (priceless) and we have had to endure 10 miserable years with the faux Browns.

    PURCHASED A BUILDING THE COUNTY CAN’T USE
    Hagan was one of the commissioners that decided to buy the Ameritrust Building from developer Jacobs. Yes, the same Jacobs that got a sweet deal on the new baseball facility as owner of the Indians. Only after purchasing the building for $21.8 million, plus a $3 million real estate consultant’s fee, the County finds the building will NOT meet the needs of the County for administrative offices. On top of that, the commissioners spent and additional $10 million to remove asbestos from the building. Today that building still sits empty with no buyers and the county is paying for maintenance, taxes (or the loss of tax revenue), and utilities. Now…for those of you that have purchased a home within the past 30 years, it has become standard contractural business to have the purchase contingent on a home inspection. In this case, a simple contingency clause based upon “preliminary design review of useability” would have saved the Cuyahoga County $34.8 million…and counting. Anybody looking to buy a building?

  3. i haven’t seen “cleveland health care”… i’ve seen Godless experimenting, lying, cheating, stealing, and killing. you know, like the Godless leviticus, nazi and communist tricks and toys… and there is that bad trickle out effect like that flood in australia and wars in the mid-east.

  4. cleveland “health care”: barefoot, pregnant, sick and dead…. so Godless morons can keep experimenting or so they “think”. oh, hey…those aren’t “people”…. and that is not the correct way to save the planet.

  5. hey… tim….aren’t you supposed to be helping correct that metro goldwyn mayer interconnected mess? you know with the wayback machine fiasco and all?

  6. example of Godless morons cleveland health care plan: putting a band-aid on the cut they gave you and at metro hospital or apparently cleveland clinic, or any other so-called health care facility located here.

  7. and after they put on the band-aid, they hand you the bill. and repeat the plan with other Godless variations.

  8. guess if you want a real health care plan, you have to talk with real qualified people; not the morons who create the health and safety) problems; and not with brainwashed people pieces parts. ask ed fitzgerald…i’m certain he’s quite familiar.

  10. we are all sick and tired of getting well aquainted with the MESS Godless morons have made……why haven’t the U.S. military, government and justice systems cleaned/cleared it up yet? that is the REAL health care plan.

  11. Don’t forget Tim being at the helm as a county commissioner for 20 years as 136,000 people moved out of Cuyahoga County from 1990 -2010. A 9.8% county population drop!

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