GOVERNMENT WASTE

- OHIO -

Date	Individual / State Agency	Who, What, Where?
03/01/06	Cleveland	Cleveland Residents May Pay Part of New Soccer Stadium Well here we go again. Every month, we need to rip apart government’ s passion for wasting taxpayer money on some grandiose sports facility. As we have repeated over and over again, politicians, in cahoots with big sports business, concoct new schemes to overtly steal from the taxpayers for some new venture that should be the sole responsibility of private enterprise. Now the president of the Cleveland Force soccer team, Paul Garofolo, is trying to coerce Cleveland officials to pay a portion of the costs of a proposed new stadium to seat 20,000-25,000 people, which of course will include a 600,000 square foot “lifestyle center” (most likely a shopping center). Officials who attended the meeting included city officials; Nordonia Hills school superintendent Wayne Blankenship; officials from the Summit County Port Authority; and the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, part of the money to build the facility will come from a tax increment financing plan (watch out for that little gem), part from private funds, part from the Port Authority through bonds, and part from the city and the school district, which would need to relinquish tax money. Now let me see if I have this right? The city and schools would need to give up funds that are normally earmarked for students? Wow! Are these rip-off artists really getting brazen! Isn’t it bad enough that school districts spend money on expensive unnecessary frills, but to give up school funds to build a commercial soccer stadium is the height of arrogance and stupidity? Lets hope the citizen’s see through this charade.
03/01/06	Eastlake	Stadium Fever Spreads Like Cancer in Ohio As if taxpayers in Ohio don’t have enough to worry about with their tax money being used to pay for a soccer stadium, the fever has spread to Eastlake. Now the city fathers want the residents to cough up $1.1 million to continue support for a minor league baseball stadium that is a perpetual money loser. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, some residents want to sell the stadium, but no one wants it. The city, which has been under a state-imposed fiscal-emergency since May 2004, managed to realize $1 million by selling stadium naming rights and getting state grants. But the city faces debt payments of more than $2 million in 2008 and 2009 for stadium construction costs. The city council has now put a 6-mil tax on the may ballot. The politicians have threatened the residents that they will need to close the senior citizen’s center and fire 14 employees if the tax fails. Resident Larry Mullen said, “Every time a levy comes up, you threaten to close the senior center. It’s rotten as hell.” It’s a simple matter. If government and it’s incompetent bureaucrats would stay out of private enterprise, which they don’t understand, the problem would never surface.
06/01/06	Department of Job and Family Services	State Worker Admits To Lackadaisical Workplace The Apathetic Voter has always tried to convince the public that state workers have it easy compared to the private sector. Yes, yes, there are a few workers who put in a day’s work, but they are the exception. Well now a state worker has admitted to the lackadaisical environment that puts “do nothing” employees on the payroll and drains our tax dollars. According to the Plain Dealer, a state worker, Paul Wade, was fired from his job with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which was paying him $34,600 a year to help unemployed and disabled veterans find jobs. A report issued Wednesday by the agency's Office of the Chief Inspector says Wade, 50, resigned last month after investigators found crude jokes and pictures, class assignments and the following July 2003 diary entry on his state computer: "I don't like my job but I find it beneficial for doing schoolwork since I have so much free time to do so. Now, if I enjoyed my job more I know that I would be able to fill my time with work related activities but since I don't I do what is minimally necessary and then spend the rest of the time doing school work. I think I do this because then I have time in the evenings for my vices."
06/01/06	Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections	Prison Affair Costs Taxpayers $21,525 Reena White was incarcerated for drug possession. The state paid for the birth of her first son in prison in 2002. Thanks to an affair with a prison guard, they paid for the birth of her second son. Because of prison officials turning a blind eye to the continual sexual trysts, a Court of Claims judge, J. Craig Wright, has ordered the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections to pay $21,525 to White for negligently supervising the guard. Wright awarded the damages after an investigation uncovered staggering incompetence and unethical behavior at the prison. Although several inmates and guards were aware of the shenanigans, prison officials didn’t investigate until 10 months later when the woman began experiencing morning sickness. Court records show that no one blew the whistle because the guard’s supervisor, former Captain William K, Abrams, was protecting a black market tobacco-distribution business he was running with Reena White and her cousin, another inmate. To-date, no one has been prosecuted or penalized for the felonies.