With City Council’s efforts to suppress a referendum on the Q deal having failed, Dan Gilbert was finally faced with the prospect of a public vote on the proposed $100-million-plus subsidy to pay for discretionary renovations to Quicken Loans Arena. Rather than subject this project to scrutiny at the ballot, Gilbert decided to pick up his ball and go home.
Yesterday, Gilbert announced his “cancellation of [the Cavaliers’] participation in The Q Transformation Project” in a lengthy press release touting various hypothetical benefits of the renovations and blaming the sponsors of the referendum petition for killing the project. Leading elected officials—including Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Council President Kevin Kelley, Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, and U.S. Congresswoman Marcia Fudge—dutifully followed up with their own statements variously lamenting the death of the project and issuing their own accusations against the petition sponsors. Notably missing from these statements was any criticism of Gilbert himself—a man with virtually limitless personal resources—for taking the position that these renovations won’t happen at all if he can’t get a public handout to pay for them.
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