FREE SPEECH ON THE TOWPATH? The Brooklyn Sun Journal reported Thursday that "Tax Increment Financing" legislation, which steers Steelyard Commons property tax revenue to help pay for extension of the Towpath Trail from Harvard Avenue to Settlers Landing, is about to be passed by Cleveland City Council.

Ward 13 Councilman Joe Cimperman, who took most of the heat for Council's abortive effort last Spring to block a Wal-Mart supercenter in SYC, is quoted in the Sun Journal article as an avid supporter of the TIF plan.

Here's a question I put to Council President Frank Jackson in his Meet The Bloggers interview, intend to ask Mayor Campbell on Tuesday, and think should be asked of Cimperman and other Council Members:

Are you willing to amend the TIF ordinance to require, in exchange for the City's tax support, that the assisted part of the Towpath Trail -- including the mile-long stretch through Steelyard Commons -- be maintained as a free speech zone with no limits on public access or association... no bar, for example, to a union organizer walking down the Trail to meet with store employees on their lunch break?

Jackson sidestepped the question. I think I'll send it to the Mayor in advance so she can think about it.

BIG LIE ABOUT SYC PUBLIC FUNDING CONTINUES: The same Sun Journal article, by reporter Tom Corrigan, says:

As Schneider declined to accept public funding for the project, [Campbell chief of staff Chris] Ronayne said any dollars generated will go toward completing Cleveland's portion of the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail...

But Steelyard Commons developer Mitch Schneider has not "declined to accept public funding". Not hardly. As Corrigan himself reported back in June, the $120 million Steelyard project is getting over $30 million in Federal New Market Tax Credits financing, arranged by the Port Authority through a private corporation that the Port Authority Board controls. The cash value of this subsidy to Steelyard's owners -- i.e. the amount of cash return to investors that will come from the Federal budget rather than the project's cash flow -- may be as much as $8 million over seven years, according to a source familiar with the deal.

It has now been exactly 36 weeks (252 days) since the Plain Dealer last mentioned this rather important fact about the Steelyard Commons/Walmart deal (except for Olivera Perkins' brief, vague description of a discussion at a No Cleveland Walmart meeting in July). Has the Sun News decided to flush it down the memory hole, too?

I'm sure you're all familiar with the concept of "lies of omission"...