Taxpayers Finally Win One

Today the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County won, and I could not have been happier. 

You may recall a few weeks ago that I went to Federal Court to block the sale of one of our valuable county assets, The AmeriTrust Building, from being sold by the current county commissioners for less than half of its value.

For the last several weeks, this case has been before the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio. I filed the motion in Federal Court because I didn’t want to deal with any local judge that was involved with the corruption scandal. Since two of the tainted judges were arrested and are no longer on the bench, I took my quest to keep Jimmy Dimora and “company” from selling off our assets to Common Pleas Court today, dismissed my Federal case, and asked for an immediate review of a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).

On your behalf, I presented my case before Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold who was good to work with and immediately heard the case. On the stand, our side was able to get Jay Ross, director of Central Services for Cuyahoga County to admit that there was no way that the old form of government could possibly sell this asset this year.

Additionally, assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Charles Hamm agreed stating in his closing argument that the TRO was not necessary since the commissioners could not sell AmeriTrust this year. The decision to sell or not to sell will rest solely with the new county executive and council.

Judge Saffold agreed with the county that they could not sell AmeriTrust and denied the TRO. This is a win-win situation for the people—you get to hang on to this asset and allow me as the new county executive and the council determine its direction next year instead of being defrauded of nearly $20 million.

This is what I call a win by losing. As residents, we won today and I was proud to work on behalf of taxpayers to help stop the commissioners from looting our assets.

Case closed.

People 1

Commissioners 0

Now let’s seize the moment and ensure I can keep fighting for you come January as your first Cuyahoga County Executive. Vote for “Ken Lanci.”

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