Having observed local politics here for more than 50 years, I see a glimmer of hope.
The resistance by Mayor Justin Bibb and County Executive Christopher Ronayne toward the outrageous desires of the Browns ownership for a second subsidized football stadium suggests the political leadership has reached the end of an era of automatically bowing to special interests.
At the same time, it appears that private leadership, long in the hands of business leaders here, is willing to allow the Browns owners to not only tap significant state funding for a stadium, but to build a second “downtown” in a white suburb to damage the city of Cleveland.
This cannot be allowed.
It really should serve as a national example to stop the big grab by sports enterprises throughout the United States. The pork barreling by sports teams has gotten intolerable. This is especially true when the New York Mets were able to pay a record $765 million over 15 years to Juan Soto.
Roldo Bartimole,
Cleveland