Cleveland’s TV station owners are – as are other corporations – taking advantage of the job problems – by slashing the pay of its workers. It’s for no other reason than they can apparently get away with it.

The Cleveland Scene has been watching this issue.

This item on its blog reveals that WKYC-TV, Channel 3, is slashing pay without dealing with its union. Just cut it and let them run to the NLRB, I guess is the attitude.

What people need to do is tell WKYC that they will boycott the station’s news as long as its workers are being so shabbily treated.

Here’s the Scene piece:

TROUBLE IN TV LAND

After nine months of difficult negotiations, management at Cleveland’s WKYC-TV3 has broken off labor negotiations and implemented a unilateral pay cut for union members.

The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America (NABET-CWA) says the station is in violation of its contract, which should have been in place for another 18 months. It’s filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board and is now seeking a federal injunction to enforce the contract.

The Gateway Economic Development Corp., the non-profit entity that operates Progressive Field and Quicken Arena, has set a budget of $3,275,873 for 2010.

As a result of Gateway’s near bankruptcy a few years ago the two team owners decided to “save” Gateway from bankruptcy by agreeing to pay operating costs. They now are multi-millionaires Larry Dolan of the Indians and Dan Gilbert of the Cavaliers.

In exchange, the team owners got the entitlement to income from naming rights. It now looks as if the team owners again got the best of the bargain. By far.

Naming rights revenues now easily exceed the operating costs, as we shall see.

Just how good a deal this was can be seen by the naming rights cost at the former Jacobs Field, now Progressive Field. The naming rights bring Larry Dolan $3.6 million a year. (As Jacobs Field in the final years the rate was some $900,000 a year.) See the $3.6 million deal here: http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080111&content_id=2343558&vkey=news_cle&fext=.jsp&c_id=cle

Dolan’s share of the 2010 proposed budget is $1,890,548, according to Gateway. That sounds like less than $3.6 million a year the naming rights produces. Maybe half?

Taxpayers continue to pay dearly for the run-over costs from Gateway. Cuyahoga County sent a check of $2,493,426.93 but that was only a small portion of tax funds that now total far more than $100 million paid for bond borrowings in the 1990s.

Payments last year put the cost over $100 million; $9.7-million payment was made this January.

Similar January payments will continue annually through 2023. Go Cavs!

Dan Gilbert, Cavaliers owner, is one of the beneficiaries of this tax subsidy. You can thank Tim Hagan and Mike White mostly for this heavy subsidization of Gateway.

The full payment was $9,787,701.05.

In addition to the $2.49 million check from the County another $7.29 million came from other public sources. It includes millions of City of Cleveland tax dollars via the admissions tax and some $3 million from County bed taxes. (In this case, the bed taxes for two years were allocated in 2010.) A small part of the cost results from consultant fees.

We haven’t heard the next barrage of fireworks from the tiff among the Cleveland Foundation, the Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future but I’m wondering how much big salaries have to do with the Cleveland Foundation’s desire for more control.

The Cleveland Foundation has sliced its hefty contribution to the Fund and says it will give individually to some of the same entities funded through the Fund for Our Economic Future.

Apparently, a major issue is where resources should be most concentrated. Cleveland Foundation suggests Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is its major concern. The Fund apparently wants to focus more outside those confines to a larger northeast Ohio area.

The issue has became fodder for the Plain Dealer recently and today’s paper has three letters to the editor on the matter.

The issue seems to be one of control. The Cleveland Foundation has given some one-third of the Fund’s budget annually but it has only one vote of 70 since each contributor giving $100,000 a year gets an equal vote. The foundation has cut its usually $3 to $4 million grant to a $100,000, the entry fee for a vote.

I looked at one of the funding recipients for money going to the Fund – JumpStart, Inc., a venture capital entity - and the salaries at least to me are rather shocking.

With George Voinovich retiring from the US Senate at the end of his term this year, Cleveland area car dealer Tom Ganley sees it as an opportunity to enter politics. Ganley has been running this advertisement in heavy rotation as he tries to win the primary against fellow Republicans. Rob Portman is currently well ahead early in the race on the GOP side, and Lee Fisher is in the lead for the Democrats.

Cleveland area Congressman Dennis Kucinich updated his webpage saying that his fellow Democrats should focus on the economy following the upset win by the GOP election in Massachusetts. He writes:

Hi, Dennis here.

We should pay careful attention to the message of the Massachusetts election. And that message is to focus on the economy. To make sure that we have jobs programs that can put millions of people back to work. To make sure that we have programs to help those one-out-of-every-three Americans, who is upside down on their mortgages, to save their homes. To make sure we protect people's investments, their savings and their retirement security.

The Audacity of No.

The Republican Party has put the country into serious financial jeopardy. Now they blame others.

Two Republican wars, two Republican tax cuts mostly to the wealth and a Republican prescription drug benefiting drug companies – and NONE paid for by the party that now sees disaster in deficits.

What gall.

Of course, one of the leaders of the dire need to deal with the deficit is our own Sen. George Voinovich. His image burnished by the Plain Dealer and Steve Koff recently as so, so concerned about our profligate spending.

In a paean of praise, Koff recently credited Voinovich, who ends his career this year, with going out by working to “force Washington to deal with the national debt that could doom the nation’s shaky finances…”

Where have Voinovich and Koff been for eight years?

The problem we all are in now has to do with the news media, the mainstream media’s biases. It’s utter failure to be honest about the predicament we are in and who caused it.

They are treating the dire problems the nation faces dishonestly.

The treatment of President Barack Obama and the Democrats in reporting the situation the nation now finds itself lacks the proper context that could make truthful. So it is a lie.

The Cleveland Police Department has announced that William Colderwood has been arrested in connection with the massive explosion on West 83rd Street that was ruled arson recently. Calderwood lived next door to the abandoned house and was quick to blame the gas company for the blaze. Investigators would later find out that he had been arrested twice before in connection to arson and was named a person of interest yesterday and a warrant was quickly obtained for his arrest last night. Calderwood was detained by police just before midnight by the fugitive task force.

Shaker Heights, Ohio approves oil well drilling...
at Thornton Park Recreation Center.

What's with the fossil thinking?
Aren't we trying to move into sustainable energy?
Can't a wind turbine and a solar collector be a better alternative to an oil well?
Both would provide a great educational opportunity for the children of Shaker Heights.
But no, lets go backwards, while you are at it, bring back the Shakers...
They could make really cool baskets to sell.

An arrest Warrant has been issued for Bill Calderwood a day after that Cleveland firefighters ruled the massive explosion and blaze on West 83rd Street was an arson. Calderman lived next door to the house that rocked an entire Cleveland neighborhood and investigators uncovered that he been a convicted of similar crimes in the past. Calderwood had given interviews to local news outlets saying he believed he had smelled gas on the street just prior to the huge explosion.

A $2,000 reward has been offered for tips that will lead to the arrest of Calderwood. You are asked to call the Cleveland Police Department at 216-623-5584.