BuckeyeBlog

The Cleveland Plain Dealer finds that Cuyahoga County had a chance to save $2 million on the construction of its juvenile justice facility. The construction of that facility is being investigated by the FBI in connection with the Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo raid. The story speaks for itself but I figured I’d link to it because this involves state taxpayer money and you’d have a hard time hearing about this if you weren’t a Plain Dealer reader (calling the Columbus Dispatch…):

Cuyahoga County Commissioners celebrated as they signed a $2.75 million deal to buy land from Sunrise Land Co., a subsidiary of Forest City Enterprises, Inc. That deal ended a more than 14-year battle to find a home for a much-needed county juvenile detention center. There were lengthy speeches, applause and even jokes, according to a tape of that Feb. 29, 2000, meeting.

Commissioner Jane Campbell introduced her newest colleague, Jimmy Dimora, quipping that after “14 years of sturm und drang … you come here and in one year it got fixed. Want to, like, enlighten us?”

“It’s being Italian,” Dimora wisecracked. “You make people an offer they can’t refuse.”

Everyone laughed.

But the deal really wasn’t funny. Just seven months earlier, the county could have saved taxpayers more than $2 million by snatching up the property itself up before the land was sold to Sunrise.

The Plain Dealer reports that prominent Democrats are calling for Jimmy Dimora to resign his position as county Democratic chairman in light of an investigation that centers on him and Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo. Although these “prominent Democrats” aren’t named, Governor Ted Strickland isn’t one of them. He says that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for him to ask Dimora to resign.

Strickland’s reticence on this is amazing. Here he has a powerful Democratic Party county chairman who is also a county commissioner who is under federal investigation for a rash of financial improprieties and other misbehavior. A few months ago we had an Attorney General some of you may remember named Marc Dann. It was alleged Dann did some bad things, too — sexual harassment and an affair with a subordinate. No one investigated Dann for funneling money to his cronies or for getting free work done at his residence or for the systematic abuse of power that seems to be pervasive in Cuyahoga County. But for his relatively minor transgressions Dann faced a united Democratic front — led by Governor Strickland — who called for his resignation.

So why is the case of Dimora and Russo any different? Dann wasn’t under indictment, only under investigation, just like Russo and Dimora. But Dann’s alleged crimes pale in comparison to the alleged crimes of Dimora and Russo. The governor was correct in asking Dann to resign. I’m curious as to why he seems to have lost his zeal for ethical behavior in the Dimora and Russo case.

While the state’s main papers seem oblivious to the scandal unfoding in Cuyahoga County, at least some members of the media are asking why Governor Strickland is treating this differently than the Marc Dann episode. From the Hillsboro Times Gazette:

Shortly after former Attorney General Marc Dann held a news conference in May to answer questions about a sexual harassment scandal involving a top aide, the response from Democrats was quick and forceful: resign or be impeached.

Yet two weeks have passed since the FBI in Cleveland raided the offices and homes of Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy DiMora and Auditor Frank Russo, and the Democratic Party’s response has been muted.

The party issued an initial statement that the two men should be held accountable if there was wrongdoing, but has not supplied the almost daily pressure it did with Dann.

The FBI seized documents related to fundraising, travel and deals with contractors in the searches, which were also conducted at local businesses with county contracts.

What explains the differences in the party’s reactions to the developing scandals? After all, neither Dann, who did eventually resign, nor DiMora or Russo, have been charged with any crimes.

The answer? Politics:

(more…)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer published another article yesterday about the unfolding corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County. It’s too bad that the Columbus Dispatch isn’t doing more to investigate this issue, considering the potential impact this will have on the state.

From the Plain Dealer:

The note in Frank Russo’s office about a $20,000 payment. The paperwork for a downtown condo that Jimmy Dimora might have shared with friends. The meals and trips a county worker received from contractors.

Federal agents knew what to look for and where to find it during raids last week on Russo, the county auditor, and Dimora, a county commissioner and Democratic Party chief, and several contractors.

The details of how the investigation began and what it was based on may not come out for months — if not years — as investigators have to plow through thousands of boxes of paperwork taken in the raids. No criminal charges have been filed.

But former prosecutors and federal agents who have worked public corruption cases in the past — and defense attorneys scrambling to answer grand jury subpoenas for their clients’ records — said the documents give a glimpse of how the investigation may have unfolded to this point.

They said the minute details found in records — the note in Russo’s office, pictures of Dimora with county worker Rosemary Vinci, gifts, campaign literature and casino chips — show the investigation probably started years ago and included informants close to the men, some of whom probably recorded conversations.

So the feds have been looking at this for years, possibly? There certainly seems to be a strong suspicion among the feds that these two men misused their office. According to Governor Strickland, though, the state shouldn’t investigate, too. While nothing has been proven and no charges filed, I find it hard to believe that there aren’t grounds for the state to at least begin looking into this situation. I wonder what the governor would be saying if these two men had an “R” after their name instead of a “D”?

After the police raid targeting Cuyahoga County officials Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, David Hansen wondered why the New York Times had spent so much attention on Senator Ted Stevens but didn’t mention this scandal at all. Well, about a week-and-a-half late, the Times did indeed feature an article about the shenanigans in Cuyahoga County, although its angle was about how it would affect Barack Obama’s chance of winning the state.

It’s shameful that it took the Times this long to report on the story and it’s even worse that they chose not to actually delve into the details of the issue. As pointed out in David Hansen’s post on the issue, there are twice as many people who live in Cuyahoga County than live in Alaska. These folks under investigation are responsible for spending over a billion dollars in tax money. This investigation is a big deal. But I guess stories about things like the judging of baked goods at the Marquette County Fair are more important.

Raided

Where is the New York Times on the Cuyahoga County corruption story? By my count this morning there were 17,000 hits for “Ted Stevens” in the NY TImes site for the past seven days (yes, 17,000, counting all articles, blogs and comments) and nothing for “Dimora“.

Now I get it that a Senator may be a bigger target than a Midwestern Commish for the national media, and perhaps our expectations for the ethics of the US Senate are greater than those we hold for a county position.

Still, we are talking about a county that is home to one of America’s poorest cities, one plagued by all kinds of evils the lefties ascribed to too little government, such as unemployment and the mortgage meltdown. A county that is the political cornerstone to a Democratic victory in Ohio and thus nationally in the November presidential election. A county that is nearly twice the size of Alaska in terms of population.

17,300 cites to 0 is simply out of whack, but then again, it is the New York Times.

BTW, Cuyahoga County also costs all of the honest, hard-working taxpayers of the rest of Ohio dearly to support. So that’s why it is also disconcerting about the silence of our Governor Ted Strickland on this issue, and our new Attorney General Nancy Rogers. Where’s the outrage over the foul smell of offenses which draw in 200 federal agents from across two states to investigate?

Forget this nonsense put up by Strickland about leaving this all to the FBI and the feds. Think of all of the times you’ve read of state and local authorities, smelling blood in the water, jump into cases looking for their own chance at a pound of flesh, like Michael Vick facing VA charges after the federal case was prosecuted. Any good prosecuting authority can figure out how to get into a game as good as this one is.

And then there’s Marc Dann, whose impeachment Strickland, et al. were jonesing so hard after. Not because Dann had been found to have done anything “impeachable”, but because, well, Marc had been kind of a slob in running his office.

Where is the alacrity in running Dimora and Russo out of office shown by Strickland in the Dann Affair?

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has done a great job in covering this story and should be commended for pursuing accountability of government to the people so vigorously. Too bad other media outlets in Ohio and nationally aren’t following suit. Yet.