There wasn't a lot of public at last night's public meeting. A dozen people at most - two dozen if you count the ones with a personal stake in the project. Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones was there along with Joe Roman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership to present the proposed plan for the medical mart and convention center to the audience.
None of the information shared was new, but these sessions are mainly to allow the public to react to the proposal. A handful of local tradesmen and business owners cheered on the project but several people present faulted the commissioners for failing to publicize the event and for not making details of the plan available in some written form.
Ed Hauser, an engineer and well-known activist, voiced his frustrations.
HAUSER: When you make a big decision like this there needs to be a proper public involvement process. We're getting a steering committee making decisions behind closed doors, so I can't sit in on these meetings and raise my hand - I just have to be on the defensive commenting on a plan that's already been decided.
Hauser and several others in attendance said they only found out about the meeting by chance the previous day. The commissioners office admits to having posted outdated information meeting on its website until wednesday morning. City Councilman Brian Cummings called the process woefully inadequate and chastised the the committee for not taking complaints more seriously. Cummings, however, did use the forum to complain about the financing which is mainly public money through a hike in the sales tax. According to his calculations merely 2 percent of the project is being financed by the Chicago company that is slated to operate the medical mart.
CUMMINGS: I call it the small sexy tail wagging the big dog from the standpoint that so much of this project is primarily about reviving our convention facility.
With so much at stake, Cummings and others are pushing for greater transparency and hope to garner more public interest. As one woman said, she still doesn't even know what a medical mart IS.
Gretchen Cuda, 90.3