I want to start this topic before I forget about it.  I really should be doing some school work, but...

 

I generally have a lot more respect for critics who offer a solution.  I have read a lot of things by Roldo and have yet to ever hear him advance an idea that would help solve the problem.  Now, I can't claim to know all of what the man has written. Maybe I have missed some very well-written articles that offer constructive solutions.  I know that newspaper commentaries are supposed to offer a critique.  Roldo does that.  Yet, time after time, he delivers the same anti-business message that follows the deeply-worn tracks of his previous pieces.  The piece below is no different. 

 

Does anyone like his articles?  Is there any redeeming value in his predictable style?  I don't mean this to be a rip-apart-Roldo piece, I would like to know what I am overlooking.

 

 

Memo to Chris Ronayne...

Give Until it Hurts, and Then Give More

Perspective from Roldo Bartimole

08.24.05

 

Memo to: Chris Ronayne

Chief Development Officer & Chief of Staff

City of Cleveland, Ohio

 

From: Roldo Bartimole

 

Chris, you fucked up again.  Lost OfficeMax.  It was born here.  Why Chicago ?

 

I know you and the gang wanted to give them two million, maybe three million dollars, maybe four or more, to stay but they turned you down.

 

You learned a lot from the experience, they say.  I wonder what, though.

 

Here’s where you made your mistake, Chris.

 

These guys that run the company have their homes in the Chicago area.  I’m told they don’t want to give up their homes.

 

You messed up.  You offered them tax abatements.  You offered loans.  Low-interest loans.  Some they wouldn’t have to pay back.  (Those are not really loans, Chris; they’re gifts!)  Free parking?  What no BMWs?

 

You forgot about the homes.  Why didn’t you buy the estate of the late Al Lerner and offer that tract for the OfficeMax chairman’s new Cleveland home?  Free.  No taxes.  Limo service back and forth to OfficeMax's Cleveland or Shaker Heights executive offices.

 

There must be other places available out in Hunting Valley , Gates Mills or Moreland Hills that would have made nice gifts – the kind you cannot refuse – to lure other high OfficeMax executives here.

 

Boats for Lake Erie .  All the top staff could have been given yachts.  That’s enticing.

 

College tuition for their kids, anywhere, free.

 

Hey, if you’re going to attract top talent you have to pay the price.

 

See.  You didn’t use your noggin.

 

You depended upon all those old gimmicks – tax abatements, 1970s stuff.  Low-interest loans.  Pffft, you can get that anywhere.  You have to think out of the box, Chris.

 

The time is now ripe to really help your corporate leaders.

 

How about free restaurant meals for all the executives?  That would be nice.

 

How about full income-tax rebates?  That might sing the right song to them.  Why should they pay income taxes when they honor us with their presence?

 

Let’s get into the right frame of mind here in Cleveland, Chris.

 

This is an arms race.  We need new weapons.

 

They’d miss Chicago ?  We’ll give them jets to go back on the weekends.  No cost to them.  Maybe some spending money, too.

 

We need a Plan B, as Shaker Mayor Judy Rawson suggested.  B for Bribery.  Corporate bribery.  That’s what works today in Corporate America .

 

You want corporate headquarters?  Well, you have to be more creative.  A little bit more generous, too.  Give them what they want.

 

Never mind that old tax abatement stuff.  That doesn’t work anymore.  Anyone can give that.

 

You know how it is with kids.  Offer them candy and they want more.

 

Hope you get the drift, Chris.  You just have to be a little more inspired, somewhat more artful.

 

Without it, you’re just left buying your pencils at Staples.

 

I guess now it’s back to the Convention Center for some community oomph.  We need it more now that ever!  That could be your slogan, Chris.

 

Well, since Roldo was bitching about Jackson in the last article, I feel a bit better about the mayor-elect

I feel like I just wasted 1 minute of my life.  I suppose the words "Roldo Article" should have been a tip-off.  Anyway, I agree that Roldo is a waste of journalistic space.  If you want to spend your life bitching about anything and everything that is being done in your community, at least offer some ideas of what SHOULD be done.

I feel like I just wasted 1 minute of my life.  I suppose the words "Roldo Article" should have been a tip-off.  Anyway, I agree that Roldo is a waste of journalistic space.  If you want to spend your life bitching about anything and everything that is being done in your community, at least offer some ideas of what SHOULD be done.

 

Well, offering solutions after you complain is nice.  But non-implimention is as bad as not suggesting all together as well.

 

IMO.

As I said before - he had a legitimate place in Cleveland's past as a muckraker when there was an overabundance of muck.

 

I'm not saying that everything has been cleaned up in Cleveland but now he's a muckraker to justify his blathering rants. He's a relic of Cleveland's regrettable past and it absolutely boggles my mind that the people at Cool Cleveland find his ranting diatribes worthy of distribution.

 

Here he is, toiling away in his office (it looks like one of those places the 2 British cleaning ladies on TLC would have a field day with):

 

It seems he is offering an a solution.

 

The Officemax execs lived in Chicago and moved the coporate HQ to where they lived.

 

So the solution would be to relocate the corporate execs...buy them nice big mansions and provide other perks .....make 'em an offer they cant refure.

 

 

If you have read Roldo, you know that he is against any sort of corporate welfare. He would never seriously suggest buying homes for corporate executives. 

To me, he personifies the whole idea that Cleveland will never succeed, why bother to try anything because we will always fail because we are Cleveland.

 

fuck that

Yeah, trust me Jeff.  Those of us who've commented on this guy are commenting because this is the one billionth Roldo article (bitchfest) we've seen.  They are all basically the same. 

 

BTW- Damned if his office don't look like mine!

ah the tedious roldo, same one note negativity, same off key song, diff decade. thankfully his day has passed.

So, to sum up what I read of Roldo today it was something like, Cleveland is dying, and all of the new projects are just the same as urban renewal in the 60's/70's and whatever happens Cleveland will fail.

 

I assume what I did not read went something like, if you do not live below the poverty line you should be shot.

 

 

The good thing is it seems like he is becoming more desperate to get people to believe that Cleveland is a suburb of hell

In the same article he wrote this:

 

"I’ve only watched these powerful forces at work for slightly more than 40 years."

 

"Mike Polensek, dean of City Council, probably has been around too long."

 

Hmm, rather than the pot/kettle reference, isn't that the "fossil calling the triceratops" old?

Did anyone see that "Disbelieve in Cleveland" ad with Roldo front and center?  ;)

^a new roldo low.

 

as others mentioned i am also a firm believer that any valid criticism should at least suggest a solution or three. i have no time for rants and the lazy "everyone's a critic" style of old school editorializing. a complaint and a dime are ten cents. otoh, if you are going to say, "this is the problem" and follow-up with "and this is what i think could be done, what do you think readers?" well then you have my attention. the format is not brain surgery.

 

yeah why cool cleveland & brewed fresh daily are so in love with roldo is a mystery. nostalgia? he goes against everything else cool cleveland is about.