Last Tuesday afternoon, Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish stood at a packed County Council meeting and emotionally pleaded for Council to approve the most recently proposed $70 million public handout to Dan Gilbert for upgrades to Quicken Loans Arena. Even though there is no legal obligation for the public to provide the proposed subsidy, the County Exec went as far as to say, “we stand a very good chance of losing the Cavaliers and the Q … at the end of the lease if we don’t make this deal now.”
Here, Budish explicitly communicated on Gilbert’s behalf the absurd threat that Gilbert and his surrogates have been hinting at for years to justify the constant flow of nine-figure subsidies to the Cavaliers and Cleveland’s other two professional sports teams (all three, of course, privately-owned): “Give us your money, even though we don’t need it, because if you don’t we’ll pack up our balls and leave town just like Art Modell did.”
The message here is nothing short of … Click to continue reading at Cleveland Scene
