BREAKING NEWS: Mayor Coleman’s Pay Off to The Columbus Dispatch (aka John Wolfe)
Late in the 2007 Columbus Mayor’s race, I reported that The Columbus Dispatch’s management put the brakes on an article, which was scheduled for publication and was damaging to Mike Coleman’s campaign. Further, I outlined how Dispatch owner John Wolfe and his family contributed $8,000 to Mayor Coleman, as well as how Mayor Coleman has gone out of his way to offer taxpayer funded incentives to Wolfe’s business interests. Acting as the “shadow” Dispatch, I correctly predicted several stories that were apparently held back by Wolfe that were eventually published. (Hey Ben, so much for the “Big Wall” between the Editorial Department and the Newsroom at the Dispatch.)
Well, in case you missed it, the Mayor’s apparent “pay off” for the Dispatch protecting him began in earnest yesterday (see Gongwer Report below blow). While I was not surprised, when I read the Dispatch this morning, there was no mention of this meeting in their paper. Coincidence?
After reading the report below, the first question I asked was “Why is the associate publisher of the local newspaper involved with this?” Then it all made sense, John Wolfe’s “other” company (his only profitable company) Wolfe Enterprises will probably get a piece of the pie when City Center is rebuilt.
I predict that soon we will read about a new “public-private” partnership between the City, the State and private developers to include ….. Wolfe Enterprises. The fix appears to be in. Let me translate this for you all in Rio Linda… it appears that Columbus taxpayers’ dollars will be used to make private developers and Wolfe Enterprises “happy.” Keep in mind how many millions of Columbus taxpayers’ dollars were already spent the first time when City Center was originally built. Now, the Mayor, Governor and John Wolfe may want to fleece taxpayers once again.
Gongwer: Volume #76, Report #225, Article #03 -Thursday, November 15, 2007
MAYOR COLEMAN MEETS WITH GOVERNOR TO TALK ABOUT CITY CENTER, DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT
Fresh off his Nov. 6 re-election victory, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman met with Gov. Ted Strickland on Thursday to talk about the future of the now all-but-vacant City Center Mall and efforts to revitalize the downtown district.
Also among those at the meeting: real estate developer John Kessler, chairman of The New Albany Company, and Michael Curtin, vice chairman and associate publisher of The Columbus Dispatch.
“They were here to brief the governor on the status of the City Center project and other efforts downtown,” said Keith Dailey, the governor’s press secretary.
Details of the discussion were not available. The meeting comes in advance of the administration’s submission of a capital improvements budget in 2008.
Mike Brown, the mayor’s spokesman, confirmed the subject of the meeting.
“We are looking at partnering with the state on a variety of downtown projects, from fixing (the Interstate) 70-71 split to building the Scioto Mile Park system. There are many ideas floating about on the future of City Center, as it is in the heart of downtown,” Mr. Brown said. He could not comment on any of the possible future plans.
Mayor Coleman came under fire during his re-election campaign from Republican opponent Bill Todd for failing to move quickly enough in response to the demise of City Center, a destination shopping venue when it opened 18 years ago.
The mayor’s new budget calls for coordinating with Capitol South and the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation on redevelopment of the mall property. It also proposes increasing the number of downtown employees “by strengthening partnerships with the state of Ohio and other public and private employers.”
A source also told me that there has been numerous “fights” between reporters and editorial staff because their stories on Coleman were canceled. Way to go John Wolfe. Not only is your paid readership sinking but apparently so is morale amongst the remaining employees you still have left (Any more buy-outs coming? Or any more outsourcing your paper’s jobs to India?).
Here is a suggestion to the remaining few who still pay to subscribe to the Columbus Dispatch….. CANCEL your subscription.
This kind of back-room deal making is not only typical Mike Coleman maneuvering, but it’s how business is and has been conducted in Columbus. The cheering choir of business backers for downtown development wouldn’t touch it before Coleman started ladling out generous tax credits and other incentives. Before giving away future revenues to developers who had foregone downtown development for the growing suburbs where they could arm-twist sympathetic officials for unneeded development incentives, the market for downtown development, especially living there, was flat to nonexistent. The market had spoken, and what it had to say was don’t invest here unless you’ve got a sweet heart deal. Being the cosmopolitan cupid he is, Coleman delivered to Wolfe Enterprises and others, like the dynamic real estate jackals like Kessler and Wexner, who owe Coleman a life-time debt of gratitude for finessing water and sewer services to their high-priced, upscale suburban development called New Albany.
With former key downtown shopping destinations like Lazarus and City Center looking like backdrops for the Columbus version of “The Last Picture Show,” the game board is being reset for Columbus’ furtive but famous power elite to step into the breach, and with the help of Coleman, get a windfall position that no one, The Columbus Chamber or Ohio’s Greatest Home Newspaper, will dare challenge it for what it is: another tailor-made opportunity for Columbus cannibals to feast on the body politic.
Let us not forget that City Center was made possible by Mayor Tom Moody, with strong support from the same suspects, whose administration declared the area — full of Columbus heritage buildings and small shops — to be blighted, clearing the way for demolition using UDAG funds, which no longer exist. In countering the call by many neighborhood advocates who said preserving the buildings, their architecture and the many shops and jobs they embodied was the right and smart thing to do, Mayor Moody famously said City Center would become a “gold mine” for the city. On hindsight, he was right that it was a gold mine but it turned out to be Fool’s Gold.
So like the Buckeyes under Woody Hayes, famous for their run-up-the-middle plays, Columbus will call the same play again, albeit with different players. The go-to-strategy of setting up a public-private partnership, where the public gets screwed and the private guys go to the bank, will play out with the new deal as it did with the old deal. It’s too bad for Columbus that while it talks a good game about how hot it is, it is far less than it could be if these kind of deals hadn’t taken place. But this train has left the station. We’ll probably have to wait another five years to find out it didn’t turn out as it was forecasted to. You can take Dispatch headlines proclaiming the recuperative value of big-ticket, special interest projects, like City Center and others, and if you change the names and date every few years, they’re as relevant as the first time they were published.