clevescene.com | News | Things Fall Apart

clevescene.com News Things Fall Apart: "'You probably got a worse ghetto than what they had when they tore these houses down.' "

Incredible, great job by Lisa Rab at THE CLEVELAND SCENE. We'll all have to watch her work closely. She has the best interests of the community at heart. We'll have to pray she's not marginalized, ostracized, discredited, shunnned, or offered a more lucrative position out of town.

For years, I've been aware of these politically-connected local "developers" who are short on experience, skills, and ethics and therefore fit quite well into the cheesy dynamics swirling around Cleveland City Hall and the local nonprofits. Lurie stands out and is an easy target because of his quick and too-facile transition from the garment industry, and I've mentioned for years that Lurie isn't much of a home-builder, and I have heard him roundly praised and defended by nonprofit executive directors uniformly mouthing the "Cleveland Tomorrow/Us Today" Pollyanna party lines.

The good news is that this story is up and out. The bad news is that local people--our neighbors--have been robbed, bilked, swindled, and stuck by their government, their banks, and their local nonprofits. It's time to begin to take them all apart. They have failed to serve. They have exploited those to whom they are supposed to be accountable, for whose well-being they are responsible.