by Anne Trubek
At the Ward 15 Democratic Club meeting on Saturday morning, Councilman Matt Zone explained that the morning’s program—a debate on Issue 7, a ballot measure to extend a cigarette and alcohol tax to pay for the city’s three professional sports stadiums—was a first. Wards 15 and 16 had recently merged, a result of depopulation that led to redistricting. The newly formed ward club on this “midwest side of Cleveland” would be holding more events, Zone told the crowd of about 60, including one “the Tuesday after Easter.”
Easter was the reason why one of the panelists was without “the family support I was hoping for” at the event. “My wife and daughter are over at the Easter Egg hunt,” Martin McGann, who works for the Cleveland chamber of commerce, explained. We were sitting in the gym of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. On one wall was a giant mosaic of Pope John Paul XXIII; next to the pontiff was the school mascot, a gigantic tiger. On the other wall, above the blue and yellow bleachers pushed against the wall, were hand-made letters spelling out “Viva Italia” in red and green. From the rafters above draped the flags of the Vatican , the United States and the Mercedarian Community, which Google tells me is a Catholic order founded in 1218.
Attendees were sprinkled throughout, sitting in orange plastic chairs set up in rows. The debate was scheduled to start at 10:00, but by 10:15 no panelists or program had emerged. “The first half hour is always for networking,” I was told. “Saturday morning ward meetings: gotta shake hands.” And sure enough, small groups of folks stood chatting around the donut table and the registration desk. At 10:30 the event started and I did an informal count: 41 men, 14 women, 98% white, average age of about 50.
Zone introduced the moderator: “Many of you know Carrie,” and following that the speakers continued to speak in tongues. Places and names and acronyms flew about and the phrase “as most folks know” was uttered more than once. When one panelist mentioned a piece by “Miller in Crain’s,” everyone giggled. Miller, I later learned, is the father of the moderator.
There were a few verbal fisticuffs but not enough to pep up the sleepy, hungover crowd, and I could easily imagine the four men debating below the pulled up basketball hoop having a beer together while watching a game.
Afterwards, we were invited to stay for coffee and doughnuts, and new groups formed to chat. I went to the basement to find a bathroom, and walked through a cafeteria smelling like something meaty and doughy. The churchfolk were preparing for a “reverse raffle” to be held later on.
I walked out of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and along an urban street lined with hipster boutiques and new American bistros, businesses all born in the past few years in this neighborhood oft touted as an example of community resurgence. I walked from old world, old school white Democratic machine politics to millennial artisanal globalism, one might say.
Or maybe not. In both the hipster bar and the reverse raffle I would bet most know who that guy on stage was referring to when he described when “a certain person decided to move his team.” They understand what it meant when another mentioned “when a certain person made a certain decision.”
There is nothing more comforting or more scary than a tightly-knit community.
But what is the story of a Saturday morning ward meeting in Cleveland 2014 if not a story of stitches that have been dropped, creating holes in the fabric. The ghost residents of Ward 16 are as much a presence as are Art Modell and LeBron James. Holes are loss and holes are openings. Even I got some of the jokes. I looked up “Easter 2014” on my phone and drove home.
Anne Trubek is the founder and editor-in-chief of Belt Magazine. She is not a native Clevelander.
Marty McGann
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.