After the Cleveland Browns on Tuesday escalated an ongoing legal battle with the City of Cleveland, Mayor Justin Bibb called the team's "scheme" to move out of the city a "betrayal to Ohio taxpayers."
"The Haslam stadium ploy raises more questions than it answers and makes wild assumptions that will crush taxpayers," Bibb said in a written statement released Wednesday. "The Haslam Brook Park scheme will burden taxpayers and damage downtown to benefit billionaires."
Bibb's criticism came after the Browns' ownership, Haslam Sports Group, amended a federal lawsuit filed in October against a rarely-used state law intended to raise barriers for sports teams that play in publicly-funded facilities attempting to leave cities that have backed them with public funds.
"Despite the new stadium's significant benefits, the City of Cleveland has been misguiding Clevelanders by inaccurately conflating the Brook Park project with Art Modell breaking a lease and moving a team to an entirely different state," the team said in a written statement on Tuesday.
Earlier this year, Bibb, who had offered the Browns a nearly half-billion-dollar plan to keep the team in the city-owned lakefront stadium, invoked the so-called "Modell Law," named for the former Browns owner who moved the team to Baltimore in 1996. The law requires sports teams that play in taxpayer-funded stadiums to get permission to move from their home city or give six-month notice with a chance for the city or an investor “in the area” to offer to buy the team.
The team's legal counsel asserts that the law is "unconstitutional."
Bibb treaded lightly with public critiques of billionaire owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam while the team was in negotiations with the city, but he has since spoken firmly against the plans and the economic devastation he says the move to Brook Park will have on Downtown Cleveland and the region.
The Haslams, who plan to move the team to the nearby suburb of Brook Park, said the opposite on Tuesday: "The Cleveland Browns and our community need and deserve a new home — and from the outset we have been unequivocal that it must positively benefit our community and Northeast Ohio."
Bibb fired back.
"The Haslams yesterday made misleading statements about the diligent work the city has done over the past three years to revitalize the lakefront, protect taxpayer dollars, and keep football on the lakefront," Bibb said in a written statement. "They want to squander taxpayer dollars to invest over a billion dollars into a domed stadium in Brook Park while openly violating state law."
He pointed to the city's offer to foot nearly half the cost of the expected $1 billion in stadium renovations, a refusal he called an "affront to taxpayers." The proposed Brook Park domed stadium has projected costs of more than $2.4 billion, of which the Browns' owners have said they anticipate half to come from public support.
Earlier this month, the Haslam Sports group asked for $600 million in state-backed bonds, as well as $600 million in local funding. An additional $1.2 billion will come from Jimmy and Dee Haslam.
Local officials, including Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne, have been firm about support to keep the Browns in Downtown Cleveland.
In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Ronayne called the move a "risky bet for taxpayers." He said the Browns' economic impact reports rely on "lofty projections and new taxes" for Cuyahoga County residents.
"My fellow citizens, I say to you, that is risk that we should not bear," Ronayne said.
He said the public is at risk if the stadium plan fails, not the Haslams, and if it succeeds, it will be a "publicly subsidized competitor" against existing entertainment centers and complexes like Rocket Arena and Huntington Convention Center in Downtown Cleveland.
"I'm not sold... In a relatively flat growth region, to duplicate what we already have is just redundant and frankly, a deflation of places like Downtown but other of our cities throughout Cuyahoga County," he said.
Read Bibb's full statement below:
The Haslams yesterday made misleading statements about the diligent work the city has done over the past three years to revitalize the lakefront, protect taxpayer dollars, and keep football on the lakefront. They want to squander taxpayer dollars to invest over a billion dollars into a domed stadium in Brook Park while openly violating state law.
The City of Cleveland offered nearly half a billion dollars to keep the Browns in the city, based on the Haslams’ original request for a transformed lakefront stadium – a plan they publicly committed to just two years ago. It is disingenuous and insulting to say – as the Haslams do in their recent federal court filing – that the city doesn’t have a competitive plan for the lakefront. In three years, we have raised an unprecedented $150 million for the lakefront, completed a lakefront master plan, created a waterfront development authority, and established new economic development tools to raise hundreds of millions more. The Haslam’s refusal to release their lakefront stadium transformation plan publicly is an affront to taxpayers.
The Haslam scheme pays for itself on the backs of fans. The Haslams need to raise your taxes, make it more expensive for you to attend games, and steal events away from downtown Cleveland to pay for their stadium. The Haslam stadium ploy raises more questions than it answers and makes wild assumptions that will crush taxpayers. Their scheme relies on average ticket prices nearing $700, parking rates north of $100, increasing taxes for hotels, parking, and rental cars, and the assumption thousands of people will pay high rent to live in luxury apartments in the shadow of the airport.
We have offered a viable proposal to keep the Browns playing on the lakefront in a reimagined stadium as the centerpiece of a huge lakefront development – for half the cost to the public of the dome in Brook Park. We have invested hundreds of millions in downtown Cleveland. The Haslam Brook Park scheme will burden taxpayers and damage downtown to benefit billionaires.
