Follow the money: Documents reveal No on 96 funding - it ain't people power

Here are scans from county and state documents revealing the REAL people behind the No on Oakwood campaign. As I have stated on this blog before, the driving factor here is activists from Cleveland Heights. There are relatively few donations from South Euclid residents. Many of those come from one person: Linda Pagon of Parkside Blvd. The biggest donations come from Donald McTigue, the lawyer for the No on 96 brigade, and Severance SPE Lease Co, LLC, the owner of Severance Center. Here are scans of the documents. You can click on each document to read at full size.

FLASH: Council candidate Martin convicted for sex crime, child abuse

Click the link for the story:

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-i-team-south-euclid-candidate-controversy-txt,0,1335453.story

Council candidate George Martin was convicted in 1989 of sexually molesting his adopted teenaged son. Martin says he's not guilty, but he accepted a plea deal in exchange for a lighter sentence. According to the trial report, Martin also psychologically abused the boy, making racist comments about the boy's Korean parentage. He also emotionally and physically abused an adopted daughter, punching her in the face. Martin's conviction was overturned in 1993 by a 2-1 vote due to prosecutorial misconduct. Read the ruling here:

http://georgelmartinforcouncilatlarge.com/Full%20text%20United%20States%20Court%20of%20Appeals.pdf

Take particular note of the dissenting judge's comments:

"Martin's generally abusive conduct towards his other child or children...the questioned testimony of the victim's adoptive sister about the petitioner-defendant's abusive conduct towards her was at least arguably admissible."


Sorry, I don't buy Martin's claims of innocence. Nor do I buy his claim that the "details remain a private matter within the family for which forgiveness has been given long ago". Who forgave who? If the son forgave the father, then the father clearly must have done something bad that needed to be forgiven. If the son made false accusations and the father forgave the son, then the son would surely come forward and tell people that "I made it up. My father is innocent."

A lie goes whimpering into the night, but the truth shouts from the highest mountaintop.

Who the hell is Joe Liptow, and why is he so angry?

The most reliable annual events in South Euclid are the Memorial Day Parade and Joseph Jerome Liptow running for office. He ran for city council in 2009 and lost. He’s running again this year and will probably come in dead last. Liptow ran for Cuyahoga County Council in 2010 and failed to get the nomination. He ran as a Republican but claims to be non-partisan. His political views come straight from the Tea Party. He deviates from the Tea Party dogma when it’s convenient for him. In other words, he’ll say anything to bash South Euclid’s elected leaders. He does just that at nearly every council meeting, and you can see council’s and the mayor’s eyes roll when he approaches the mike. They must wonder “Is my salary worth dealing with this nut?” There are times he can manage to keep a level head, but often as not he shouts and screams and scares the hell out of everyone in the room. Back in August Liptow went as far as to assault South Euclid employee Keith Benjamin, spitting on him.

It’s obvious that Liptow’s political agenda is to serve his own interests. As the owner of a home he inherited from his parents, he wants to abolish estate taxes. His family sold part of the land which is now the Cutters Creek development directly across the street from Liptow’s home to a developer. Another part of the land was sold by St. Gregory’s church. But Liptow, a Catholic, fails to note this. He blames the elected leadership of South Euclid for the development, as if they had the power to veto a private real estate transaction. Liptow fought the development of that parcel tooth and nail. He has cited various reasons for this, including the tax abatement being used as an incentive to buy. But he has never come clean about his own family’s involvement in this matter. Nor the fact that the Liptow family allowed the abandoned buildings to deteriorate and the land to lie fallow for decades. Liptow's actions delayed the development breaking ground for over a year. By the time the first units were built, the financial meltdown of 2008 had begun and the rest is history. So Liptow personally cost a local developer hundreds of thousands of dollars. LIPTOW HAS HURT OUR LOCAL ECONOMY.

As the parent of parochial school students, Liptow has fought against every public school levy ever put on the ballot. He’s also supported school board candidates whose agenda was to cut cut cut.

But there is another agenda to Liptow’s rants: He automatically opposes everything the current South Euclid leadership favors. His big issue this year has been, you guessed it, Oakwood. He’s spoken against the development both in public and using a number of sockpuppets. On Cleveland.com he’s known as cautiousman and SoEUCLIDFOREVER. At South Euclid Oversight, which is run by a cohort named Emilie DiFranco, he’s posted under his own name and anonymously. There is one frequent poster there who types in all CAPITAL letters, and I’ve suspected this is Liptow. That suspicion was recently confirmed in a recent post, where Liptow did everything but state his name to drop hints that it was him. It seems that Joe is hell bent on getting his message out, whatever that is. His rants in capital letters and normal case have bemoaned the presence of minorities in South Euclid, called the transaction at Oakwood a Jewish insider deal, and accused councilperson Jane Goodman of being a hypocritical environmentalist. Agree with Jane Goodman on Oakwood or not, but she lives what she espouses. She does not drive a giant SUV and live in a giant energy consuming house like Joe claims. She drives an older Toyota Prius and shares a small bungalow with her sister. Joe drives a Ford Excursion although technically he’s not supposed to be driving anything. More on that later.

I’m sure that if South Euclid’s leaders had been opposed to Oakwood, Liptow would be for it and complain about the city blocking progress. He’s that obvious.

Liptow has also foamed at the mouth over speeding cameras. This is understandable, since his license was suspended at least once! It’s not easy to get your license suspended in Ohio, you have to be either caught for DUI or build 12 points on your license within three years. But Joe has managed to do that so at least he’s accomplished something. Joe is the friend to leadfoots everywhere. I wonder if he would still be opposed to cameras if his kid was hit by someone’s speeding car!

Here’s a link to a South Euclid Oversight video of Joe speaking in 2009. Look at the eyes. They’re crazier than Michele Bachmann’s.

Being realistic

Meet unreality:

Meet reality:

Vote based on reality, not fantasy. VOTE YES ON ISSUE 96!

South Euclid Oversight caught in lie

The guttersnipes at South Euclid Oversight have done a parody post, posing as a pro-Oakwood letter. Here are the screen grabs. You decide.

Here is the grab from South Euclid Oversight. Note their inflated numbers for the No on 96 group.

Here are the grabs from the groups actual facebook pages - taken yesterday morning. South Euclid Oversight is run by two residents of Fairview Park. These two clowns, Joe Liptow, the three people who post over & over again on the yes96 page are trying to paint the no on 96 crowd as a vast movement of involved people. When it's mostly a few crybabies from Cleveland Heights, and a few would be polticians with an ax to grind. The real numbers tell a different story.

DON'T BE FOOLED. VOTE YES ON ISSUE 96!

Speeding Camera Update: 10/25 - 10/31

Monday - Tuesday: College Rd
Wednesday - Thursday: Plainfield Rd
Friday - Sunday: Grosvenor Rd

Halloween will be from 6-8pm, Sunday. Use caution when driving!

Is Schoenewald channeling Nixon?

      Have we got a deal for YOU!

OK. I may be revealing my age here. But do any of you out there know how Tricky Dick Nixon got elected in 68? It wasn’t because of the economy because we were going great gun back then. It was because of Vietnam and because enough Americans were fed up with protesting drug taking hippys who later grew up to be anti-Oakwood activists. But enough on that part of it for now.

Nixon said he had a “secret plan” to get us out of Vietnam. Enough Americans bought Nixon’s line to elect him, and his secret plan basically meant bombing the crap out of Laos and Cambodia.

Bob Schoenewald has offered NO SPECIFICS about how he’s going to deal with South Euclid’s alleged budgetary problems. He must have a “secret plan” too, or maybe he just doesn’t have a clue. Being able to count to 10 without your fingers doesn’t mean you have the vision to run a city of 20,000 people. And unlike what Nixon did in Vietnam, Schoenewald will have to work with city council.

Cedar Center and Oakwood update

Did you see the latest flyer from the anti-Oakwood group? I won’t give them the free advertising by scanning it in here. But it’s a very slick clever document. It’s done up in Brush High School's colors, brown and gold so that at first I thought it was from the school district. Nope, it’s from southeuclidfactchech.org. It trots out the usual talking points about how Oakwood is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. The developer is from Solon! Oh no, not Solon! We’ve heard it all before. Southeuclidfactcheck.org says it’s a project of Ohio fact check. But enter ohiofactcheck.org into your browser and it redirects to southeuclidfactcheck.org. Go ahead, try it. I’ll wait.

As Nixon said, “follow the money.” Who’s paying for this flyer? There’s no information to be found on the flyer or online.

~

OK, you back? Meanwhile, Coral Company announced the following tenants for the new Cedar Center:

Panera
Chipotle
Five Guys Burgers
Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches
China Gate

Chipotle was at the old Cedar Center. So was China Gate which is locally owned/operated.

Coral also announced that an Italian restaurant, a coffee shop, women’s hair salon, and pet supply store are also slated to sign on. I’d bet that the coffee shop will be Caribou, since there’s a Starbucks nearby and a Phoenix coffee at Mayfield & Green.

So things are at last looking up at Cedar Center. It would be a pity to dump Mayor Welo when her efforts to improve things around here are just beginning to blossom.

Re-elect Mayor Welo. And vote YES on Issue 96.

Cracks in the anti-Welo coalition

South Euclid oversight the blog run by two people with a bunch of bones to pick about our city's elected leadership, has been in league with several opposition candidates in the past few elections. This year they've hosted videos by mayoral challenger Robert Schoenewald and council candidates Michael Fortner and Joe Liptow.

The comments on that site are almost always anonymous and usually from some lunatic who always types in CAPITAL LETTERS. So imagine my surprise when I saw this comment:

Our city has been better days. How much of that is due to Welo's performance and how much is due to the national economy and poor leadership at the state level I'll leave you to decide. But if all the opposition can offer up is a goofy bean counter, an senile old man with no ideas, a ranting lunatic with a suspended driver's license, and a Republican only watching out for his own interests, then we're in worse shape than I thought.

South Euclid oversight has also been vocal in their opposition to Issue 96. These guys are so un-fair and un-balanced they're worse than Fox News. But Oakwood commons is the only thing standing between South Euclid and fiscal armageddon. If Issue 96 fails - last one out, turn off the lights.

Watch and Learn

Who are the "citizens" for Oakwood?

Fran Mentch = 1413 Lynn Park Dr, Cleveland Heights
Susan Miller = 3165 Berkshire Rd Cleveland Heights
Garry Kantor = Cleveland Heights
Bruce Knapp = Ardoon Rd, Cleveland Heights
Charlie Mosbrook = Cleveland Heights
Rich Sones = 3790 Bainbridge Rd, Cleveland Heights
Deanna Bremer Fisher= Cleveland Heights (also runs Future Heights)
Bob Rosenbaum = Cleveland Heights (blogger at heightsobserver, published by Future Heights)
Adele Eisner = 2932 Clarkson Rd, Cleveland Heights
Carla Rautenberg = 3065 Berkshire Rd, Cleveland Heights
Richard Wong = 2654 Exeter Dr, Cleveland Heights (CH planning director)
Kathy Schaeffer = 1172 S Belvoir, South Euclid
Jerome "Joe" Liptow - 4501 Anderson Rd, South Euclid
David Furry = 3867 W. 226th St, Fairview Park
Emilie Difranco = 3867 W. 226th St, Fairview Park


DON'T BE FOOLED BY HEIGHTS ACTIVISTS, THEIR LACKEYS IN SOUTH EUCLID, OR GUTTERSNIPES WITH AN AX TO GRIND.

VOTE YES ON ISSUE 96!

Update 4/24: I received a note from Emilie DiFranco claiming neither she nor David Furry were members of Citizens for Oakwood. We apologize for the mistake. Judging by their  post history they were definitely fellow travelers.

Oakwood opponents stink of desperation

Did you see the latest flyer from the "citizens" for Oakwood? They're sending one out every few days, so it may be hard to keep track. Where are they getting all the money for these?

So, this latest missive, which I didn't bother to scan before putting it into the circular file, ranted about the "rich developer from Solon." DUH! Of course Mitchell Schneider's wealthy. He's one of the area's most prominent developers, and he's good at his job. I suppose the anti-Oakwood crowd would prefer a POOR developer, as long as he's from South Euclid.

Friends, DON'T be fooled by the desperate rantings from a coalition of Heightsters, greenies, and candidates with an axe to grind. VOTE YES ON ISSUE 96!

http://voteyes96.com/index.html

Speeding Camera update: 10/18 - 10/24

Tuesday - Wednesday: Princeton Blvd
Thursday - Friday: Felton Rd
Saturday - Monday: Bluestone Rd

Did the Sun let the cat out of the bag?

The Sun Messenger has endorsed a YES vote on Issue 96. Click to enlarge and read the full editorial here:

The passage in question: “Mayor Georgine Welo is strongly supportive of this project even though it will put a big hurt on her husband’s hardware store in the city.”

A Super WalMart would not cause a “big hurt” in a local hardware store. But a Lowe’s would.

VOTE YES ON ISSUE 96.

FLASH: Anti-Oakwood Treasurer NOT South Euclid homeowner

Every political campaign in Ohio is required to list its treasurer on all ads and signs. It doesn't matter whether the campaign is for a candidate or an issue. I've done some research on the treasurers of both sides of issue 96.

Beyond the fact that the ringleader of "Citizens" for Oakwood Fran Mentch lives on Lynn Park Drive in Cleveland Heights, they also list an address on Bainbridge Road as their contact address. The treasurer of "Citizens" for Oakwood, Maria Bernardo, lives in an apartment on Cedar Road - just barely on the South Euclid side of the border. That's right folks, the person allegedly in control of the money for the anti-Oakwood campaign which will determine the fate of South Euclid for decades to come DOES NOT OWN PROPERTY IN OUR CITY!

The treasurer for the Yes on 96 campaign is Rocco Dilillo, and long time South Euclid resident who owns a home on Dorsch Road. You know his loyalties are with the long term viability of South Euclid.


Don't be fooled by Heights activists who just want to keep their bootheels on South Euclid's neck. VOTE YES ON ISSUE 96!

Speeding Camera update: 10/11 - 10/17

Tuesday - Friday: Wyncote Rd
Friday - Monday: Wrenford Rd

How will Warrensville Center Road handle so much traffic?

As these pictures demonstrate, Warrensville Center Road is currently underused. Traffic on that road peaked around 1970, when the population of the area also peaked. Independent studies have shown that Oakwood Commons will, at most, bring traffic back to 1985 levels.

Some noisy people have complained that the increase of traffic will increase accidents, one even going so far as to bellow that Mitchell Schneider would have "blood on his hands" if someone was killed. But the fact is that people tend to speed on underused roads like Warrensville Center currently is.

Have I mentioned that First Interstate will pay for ALL improvements on this road, including a new traffic signal and sidewalk?

By the way, Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights is being narrowed due to under-utilization.

A message from the People's Republic of Cleveland Heights

Click to enlarge

Speeding Camera update: 10/3 - 10/9

Monday - Tuesday: Elmwood Rd
Wednesday - Thursday: Stilmore Rd
Friday - Sunday: Princeton Blvd

The camera's frequent appearances on Princeton Blvd continue.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: South Euclid municipal court will soon be posting case information online. The public will be able to search criminal, civil and traffic court cases.

Oakwood: FINALLY someone gets it!

People are finally talking sense on the anti-Oakwood page. Jane Goodman points out the lie about locally owned businesses. And Hank Drake calls out CfO's REAL agenda: stifling competition.

Will those posts be deleted by Fran or her minions? She's admitted doing it before, she may do it again.

Click to enlarge

Yes on Issue 96 mailers

Finally, mailers in favor of the rezoning at Oakwood have gone out, and they point out the lies being propagated by the anti-Oakwood activists.

An anti-Oakwood person, Aimee Ursic Grabski made the following complaint:

Say what? Look again, the postage permit is in plain sight. Don't make accusations unless you can back them up. Ms. Grabski, do you even live in South Euclid?