Roldo: The Haslams Will Get What They Want

This dog won’t hunt.

This dog doesn’t really have to hunt.

Or bark. Or bite.

Because top Democratic pols – County Executive Chris Roynane, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and City Council President Blaine Griffin - will end up giving the Haslams, Gilberts and Dolans just what they want.

Haven’t they always?

Bibb has already offered $461 million for the present stadium redo and Ronayne has told the Browns the county won't support a $600-million ask for a Brook Park dome.

In the end, they will fold. Like a cheap tent in a wind storm.

Roynane already signaled that in his press conference that was supposed to draw a line in the sand to the Cleveland Browns plan – if it is a plan and not simply a strategy – to move the team out to Brook Park.

And Mayor Bibb has already promised the Haslams hundreds of millions of dollars to stay put on the lakefront.

I have been around political maneuvering by both the pols and the team owners long enough to recognize when a “NO” really means "OKAY."

What the pols should be saying to all three teams? We have to renegotiate the Gateway and lakefront deals where the teams have sweetheart deals.

That’s how to start negotiations now.

Back in 2014, estimates put the public contribution to Cleveland sports stadiums around $1.2 billion.

And plenty has been spent since.

The city and county -- which helped build the sports facilities and further moved to make them property tax free -- have to share in the profits, including ticket sales, a share of naming rights, scoreboard ads and a portion of TV income.

What’s fair is fair.

Instead, we get nonsense like, “This dog won’t hunt.”

This dog has to learn to share the cost of doing business.

The last time the Cleveland baseball team paid rent for a stadium was in in 1989 when the then “Indians” rented the old Cleveland Stadium, run by Art Modell. The annual payment was $737,448, with a rebate. Final cost: $569,048.

Now the rent they pay is $0. For a stadium now flush with hundeds of millions in renovations with most income going to the team owners.

Gateway was always generous to a fault.

That’s where the city and county need to start in any new dealing with any of the three owners: Redressing the past errors, all favoring the owners.

And that’s where Roynane and Bibb are dealing from the bottom.

They know this better than the public does.

But they are still dealing as if everything is even and fair.

The deck was stacked from the beginning.

Apparently the Browns ownership has long thought of a new stadium.

Ken Silliman, a former city hall lawyer and former Gateway board member, wrote in his self-published book that a Browns executive had, years ago, pulled him aside after a meeting between the city and Browns, asking as Silliman writes, “… would the city instead consider building a brand new football stadium and, if so, where it would be located.” Silliman noted that the lakefront stadium wasn’t even 15 years old at the time of the conversation.

The truth is that the team owners with their staffs are well ahead of the city and county officials, who often rely on private Cleveland lawyers that seem to represent private interests more than the public agents that hire them.

The first step would be to hire high-powered lawyers from outside Cleveland or Ohio to represent the public.

Then there might be a fighting chance to get a deal that wouldn’t be lopsided in favor of the owners.

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