Roldo Bartimole

Add them up: The Imperial Avenue atrocity of 11 women raped and murdered by Anthony Sowell; The gunning down of Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams by out-of-control Cleveland police; and now the revelation that three young women have been held captive for years in a home on the city's near West Side right under our noses. And who knows how many other failures?

What does this tell us?

It tells us a version of what Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine reported about the recent police chase and gunning down with 137 bullets of two unarmed suspects, Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams.

DeWine said that the police chase of some 62 police cars - 59 without permission - racing at very high speeds through the city streets of Cleveland to capture and kill two unarmed suspects was a "systemic failure" of command and communications.

It was more than that.

It goes a lot farther, doesn't it?

The revelation that these three women were held captive, no matter what the circumstances get revealed, shows that the SYSTEMIC FAILURE goes far beyond the police force.

I had to chuckle reading Steve Litt's lead on his umpteenth piece ballyhooing a revamp of Public Square.

"Cleveland's drab and gray Public Square..." Litt starts the latest propaganda push for more downtown public dollars. Public Square is an essential property for the city. Is that why we put a gambling joint at its doorstep? To dress up the place. Good thinking.

Litt didn't mention that the present configuration of Public Square was the lady bountiful project of Iris Vail, the wife of former Plain Dealer Publisher Tom Vail. It gave me my chuckle.

Of course, helping to lead the latest grab ($40 million to start) for public monies for Public Square is Plain Dealer Publisher and CEO Terrance Egger. Was it ever so! Change is sooo hard.

They just never do stop. They can't help themselves.
You'd think there was nothing else in town that really needed attention.

Watching a TV news clip of neighbors protests the rape and murder of two women and another almost victim in a small east side area I noticed film of the desolate surroundings. People decried the poor conditions of the streets and surroundings. They know the score.

They said rightly it gave evidence to them that nobody cares if rape and murder happens where they live. The city's clear confirmation by neglect tells residents what they are worth. Nothing.

As I reach the age of 80 it is hard for me to believe that my life has taken roads that I would never have foreseen. It has been an unexpected life journey. So I take liberty now to speak of it.

Never would I have believed as a youngster that I would become a radically different person than I ever could have imagined of myself. I am timid, if anything. Truth is, early in life, I had no special expectations for myself. No great or even strong goals. I took the most general of subjects in high school. I could have anticipated life as a clerk, having worked in my dad's butcher/grocery store. Only because of the GI bill did I even think of college. After two years in the Army, I entered business school at Northeastern University, hardly a choice I would have made years later.

It was 50 years ago my path changed. What I saw and experienced did it. I was working at the Bridgeport Sunday Post, my hometown paper. I had worked sports for the morning edition in 1959, left for a news position in Haverhill, Mass. I was lured back months later with an offer to be an assistant to the Sunday editor.

How do you do aggressive, honest reporting? Ned Whelan, who died Wednesday, days after an accidental fall, showed exactly how. He died in Phoenix, visiting his daughter. He was 70.

As a Plain Dealer reporter in 1970, Whelan covered a meeting of the Bluecoats, an organization of the top corporate executives in town. The Bluecoats support police killed on duty with financial help for family and children.

The situation was an introduction by top corporate Cleveland elite, Fred Coolidge Crawford. He was then board chairman emeritus of TRW, Inc., a major American corporation based here and on the boards of other major corporations.

In his talk Crawford uttered two racist "jokes." Whelan was covering the meeting for the Plain Dealer. He had the courage to write into his article the essence of this elite's attempt at humor. Of course, the material never made it to the newspaper the next day. Ned's honesty was killed. Left on the cutting floor by editors.

I wrote at the time that "Such incidents usually die with self-censorship by reporters," not so with Whelan. He wrote it.

Someone, maybe even Whelan, as I remember it, sent me the actual edited copy. The material missing in the PD appeared only in my newsletter Point of View in November 23 1970.

Whelan wrote: "Crawford told two racial jokes to the all-white audience.

Okay Plain Dealer reporters: the outlook is dark and tragic. No easy way to put it.
So take advantage of the Newhouse family's bad situation of caring more about making money than serving the public.

If they're going to go to three days start now producing some hard hitting stuff that tests management's mealy-mouthed approach to informing the public.

Let's see some hard hits.

People are hungry for it. They know they're not getting it. They know the papers are too frightened to turn up the heat on the 1 percent and the rest of the wealthy. They know you're a friend of the powerful, not the weak. It's not hard to figure out. That's why the paper has lost 166,000 since 1994 and continues to lose support.

Stop giving free rides to so-called leaders. Where have they gotten us?

Let's get into the most impoverished parts of Cleveland where people are suffering and tell their stories. Go to the people who try to meet some of these needs, whether they are social workers or radicals and find the stories. They're out there. There's suffering. Plenty enough to fill pages. Cultivate the voiceless people. Give them a voice.

My former colleague Mark Naymik opened what should be a serious discussion on sports funding. We both worked at the Free Times.

At least I hope it opened the debate. It's long overdue.

He casts Council President Martin Sweeney as the heavy in the failure of the city to pursue some of the football stadium naming rights money - put at $100 million - for the city.

After all the stadium was built by the city, on city land, is financed by the city and its upkeep cost are borne by the city. And it pays no property taxes. So profits go to the team owner, not the city. Does that make sense? To anyone?

Why Naymik didn't mention Mayor Frank Jackson I don't know. Mayor Jackson has the bully pulpit to put some pressure on Browns owner Jimmy Haslam. Naymik says Haslam has Sweeney under a spell. Jackson too apparently. Jackson is still the mayor, isn't he?

Actually, he has everybody under a spell. Especially the community's watchdog, the Plain Dealer.

He follows Al Lerner in that occupation.

We have a No Fault Cleveland City Hall.

- A No Fault Mayor Frank Jackson.
- A No Fault Police Chief Frank McGrath.
- A No Fault Safety Director Marty Flask.
- A No Fault Cleveland Police Force.

HELL, nobody's responsible for Anything in Cleveland.

What a wonderful world where no one is to blame for anything. The best of all worlds. No consequences. Impunity to them all.

Except for those who suffer the consequences of this madness. Two dead citizens and their families.

Apparently in Jackson's world no one who works for him merits any blame for anything.

Jackson rejects the findings by Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine's report that the police chase and gunning down of two citizens was a "systemic failure" and a failure of "command" and "communications." This rejection is totally unacceptable.

This simple dodge should not be allowed to pass.
Jackson's remarks fully backing McGrath and Flask reveal a delinquency on his part of major proportions.

In his first week of office in 2006 Jackson said that "excessive force shall not be tolerated." He was reacting then to a rash of police shootings. This was a perfect warning.

What happened to that Frank Jackson?

Here was a new day, Mayor Jackson was warning police on the "use of force."

We didn't get a "new day." We got the same old excuses for poor, if not criminal, police work.

There was one time I felt sorry for Art Modell.

It was in a court room. I'll get to that.

What bothers me now of the attacks on Modell by our sports writers and fans are that they for so long kissed his ass. He was the Big Dog.

Just as they do now for Jimmy Haslam. Is Haslam any better than Modell? Nah.

Between whining about LeBron James and Art Modell, the town earns a reputation - a city of cry babies.

Modell left Cleveland because he lost political power. He lost it because he was a poor businessman. He could no longer get what he wanted. Dick Jacobs aced him out.

One bad business decision in particular made his trouble public. He tried to scam his silent partner - venture capitalist Bob Gries.

Modell himself owned the Stadium Corp. The firm leased the old stadium from the city. It had a sweetheart deal. Not near as good as Haslam has, however.

Some of the nasty partisan war by Republicans against President Barack Obama reminds me of how white politicians - mostly Democrats in this case - played politics against Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of Cleveland.

Stokes, like Obama, shocked political observers by winning Mayor of Cleveland in 1967, defeating oligarch Seth Taft, the grandson of U. S. President William Howard Taft. He was considered the first African-American mayor of a major U. S. city.

Both Obama and Stokes had to face attacks not based solely on politics but on the color of their skins.

There was a similar enmity toward Mayor Stokes, as reflected by Sen. Mitch McConnell. He said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." In Cleveland, the main concern of many was making it impossible for Carl Stokes to govern or be re-elected.

Of course the issues differ as one would expect with the different levels of government - city to national. There is great change too in our news media coverage. But one factor remained the same: race. Both men were, of course, black. Both too were firsts of their race to reach high office.

The carpetbagger from Tennesse didn't take long to find a way to fleece northern sports suckers.

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, one of society's takers, will pocket the $100-million naming rights on a property tax-free stadium built, owned and maintained by taxpayers. He already had a sweet deal for a pittance of rent ($250,000) never to increase over 30 years.

And you wonder why Jimmy's seems always to have a grin, ear to ear.

How many times have I been over this fakery?

Anything these rich blood suckers want they take. The fix is always in for the Haslams, Gilberts and Dolans. We've continually invested too much public money for private interests. Already, they're lined up to extend the sin tax that should lapse in 2015 after 25 years of hitting Cuyahoga residents.

But we're all supposed to not see these thefts in progress.

Why? Well, in part surely because of our journalistic deceivers. Can you imagine, for example, the giddy Jimmy "Voice of the Browns" Donovan telling a truth about the stadium deal? How can he be a journalist and a paid promoter of the Browns? More disturbing, the empty-headed, monkey-see, monkey-do of his WKYC teammates - Russ Mitchell, Kris Pickel and Robin Swoboda.