Cuyahoga County: Corruption Probe

[KJP]

Are the Cuyahoga County Commissioners incompetent, corrupt or just handcuffed by state/federal policies that favor Ohio's developing counties?

Post articles in this thread that you think explain their often confusing behaviors.




McCleveland: edited title

[MayDay]

"We strenuously object"

I agree with Goldberg, but um - Demi Moore quote?

[Flee2theCleve]

Nice A Few Good Men reference.  Dimora did his part as Nicholson. "All you did was weaken a county today"

[w28th]

^Nice.

[MyTwoSense]

Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora had two Plain Dealer reporters ejected from a public meeting on Thursday after he refused to answer questions about a county employee.

Reporters Mark Puente and Henry J. Gomez went to the meeting to ask Dimora about Rosemary Vinci, who is on Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo's payroll. Questions have been raised about Vinci's qualifications and why she was hired.

Wait!  The Plain Dealer has reporters?  Reporters that are not figments of my imagination or reporters that actually go out and investigate stories, tips and leads?  Who knew? 

[MorningTheft]

Is this the same lady that causes all the problems in Duck Island/Ohio City?  Or am I confusing that in my memory?

[redbrick]

certain insects like to run and hide when you turn on the light...

edit: I just listened to the mp3, holy s**t. I hope Dimora follows through on his "getting out of this business" comment 

[X]

Is this the same lady that causes all the problems in Duck Island/Ohio City?  Or am I confusing that in my memory?

Yup.  She's got herself dug in deep at the local CDC.

[MorningTheft]

Well, if she's involved with the likes of Dimora and Russo, I'm sure she's just a lovely person.

[Jax]

The third, Jimmy Dimora, had security officers remove two Plain Dealer reporters from Thursday's public meeting when they asked him about Vinci.

lol What in the hell?? That reaction seems a tad extreme. Makes one wonder if there's more to the story here.

[KJP]

There's some definite mob overtones going on. Vinci's father James was going to testify against some of the top dogs in the local Mafia but was discovered shot to death at his Jimmy's Steakhouse in the Flats (the old Shorty's now long gone -- the same place that Vinci defended with a shotgun which she pointed at RTA surveyors checking out the path for the Waterfront Line). Two men were investigated for killing James Vinci, but no charges were ever filed against them. One of the accused was protecting his cousin, who was then the city's largest waste hauler and has ties to Dimora. The other is now a made member and is president of a tiny local union (only 100 members) that does millions of dollars worth of Medicaid and Workers Comp claims through a local MCO clinic. Must be the most accident prone union in history! Dimora is tight with those running the employment staffing firm which has the MCO clinic in house.

I left names out of this, but you can see why Dimora got upset at these reporters. If names and more facts came to light, there would be a lot of indictments being handed down by grand juries! But if Dimora was smart, he would have just schmoozed these two reporters and said "I think she's a valuable person. Thanks for asking." Now, the reporters and their editors have some motivation to dig deeper to find out why Dimora got so upset.

They will have a lot to discover.

[carolecohen]

KJP I have a feeling if this kind of stuff is going on it certanly explains why it takes 10 to 15 yrs or so to get any constructive activity to happen in our area. I'm assuming by articles you mean current ones, otherwise we could cut and paste every sales tax and med mart thread here.

[KJP]

Read some of the articles I've written on the local mob scene over the last 30 years or so at my old site: www.clevelandmob.com (especially the article "Cleveland's Wars of the Waste" and "Welcome to the Hotel Sterling"). Yes, the Cleveland Mafia is a lot smaller than it was, but it's not gone. Just better at hiding.

[carolecohen]

Thanks KJP sounds like I have some bedtime reading to do...

[ohiocitybob]

This has been great reading KJP! You have tied together some of the corruption that I have observed over the last few years (I won't go into any details here). Suffice to say, we have all seen just the tip of the iceberg. I do hope that justice prevails, but I am not sure this is possible in Cleveland. It gives me much comfort that there are reporters that are willing to stick their necks out to expose the corruption in this city.

[peabody99]

"She is a people person and helpful to people."

  words could  not possibly describe how hilarious that statement is.  Talk about negative energy and divisiveness for the neighborhood- and really the city. Having the friends she does the in the commissioners office and some city council sure makes life grand though.   

[Jax]

There was a segment on WCPN's The Sound of Ideas this morning talking with a PD editor about this episode. Unfortunately I had arrived at my destination just as they started getting going on it. I'll have to track down the mp3, I'll be interested to hear if any of the alleged mob connections are eluded to or not.

On a side note, I have to say I really enjoy listening to Dan Moulthrop on 90.3.

*EDIT: I should have done a simple search first, google is amazing. Here's the link (still haven't listened though, so I don't know how worthwhile it is): http://www.wcpn.org/index.php/WCPN/soi/11603/

[KJP]

I'll be interested to hear if any of the alleged mob connections are eluded to or not.

You people kill me sometimes. It's alluded to. Nobody is eluding anything except Dimora...

[Jax]

You people kill me sometimes. It's alluded to. Nobody is eluding anything except Dimora...

lol -- I wish I could blame that one on my browser's spell check...but i'd be lieing

BTW, the Sound of Ideas segment was sort of 'eh'. Although I did like the quote from Chris Quinn: "It's like putting a neon sign on the County Administration building saying 'We're up to no good, come investigate us.'" He also said they've got about a half dozens reporters assigned to this now.

[carolecohen]

LOL I'm scared to type with a top notch journalist on board and checking my spelling

[X]

Come'on KJP, for all intensive purposes they are literally the same thing!

[peabody99]

Are you alluding to the fact that "elude" is anything close to "allude?"

A's in English must have been elusive.

[carolecohen]

lol @ peabody. Good explanation!

[DanB]

http://www.moviesounds.com/godfathr/someday.wav

Is it the political cronyism that offends or the Italian mob connection?  Inquiring minds would like to know!

[KJP]

Come'on KJP, for all intensive purposes they are literally the same thing!

For all INTENSIVE purposes?!?!?
According to Washington State University (see http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/intensive.html)... Another example of the oral transformation of language by people who don’t read much. “For all intents and purposes” is an old cliché which won’t thrill anyone, but using the mistaken alternative of "for all intensive purposes" is likely to elicit guffaws.

[X]

I know, I was slipping in one of my pet peeves.  Actually two- "literally" to mean "actually" or "very" as well. 

And umm.....I hear Dimora uses both of those phrases regularly.

[KJP]

I figured you were, but I thought I give you hell for it anyway.

[w28th]

I saw Jimmy DiMora at Bier Markt last night with a couple of his flunkies/henchmen.  The guy is a bowling ball.  I yelled out "BREUER TOWER" to him, but got no response.

[cd-cleveland]

^ Hahaha...that's an awesome story.

[MyTwoSense]

I saw Jimmy DiMora at Bier Markt last night with a couple of his flunkies/henchmen.  The guy is a bowling ball.  I yelled out "BREUER TOWER" to him, but got no response.

He didn't have you thrown out?