[Last Thursday I wrote: I’d also want to ask O’Donnell if he observed the first rule of journalism and followed the money. Not the panhandlers, the Alliance’s.

And I asked:

Who are the major contributors to the Alliance? Who sits on the boards of the foundations that are financing it?

The whole idea has set my Lemmings Meter ticking and I have to wonder if the not-for-profit organization might not be just another Astroturf front for the same folks who want to tax us more to line their pockets with the cash from building a convention center?

Well, here's the answer.]

Ordinary panhandlers need not apply.

For example, Marinucci’s Downtown Partnership got gifts of $25,000, $10,000 and $7,500 from the Gund Foundation. It got gifts of $48,512 (for Public Square so let’s keep panhandlers and homeless out), $5,000, another $5,000, $36,000 and $6,000 from the Cleveland Foundation. (All these figures of non-profits – meaning tax dodgers – are from 2005 tax returns, the latest available.)

In his new operation, Marinucci got $208,750 from Gund for the Downtown Alliance.

These foundations are part of the apparatus that works to wheedle money from government for private interests. Their bosses are well paid for the effort. Ronald Richard, president of the Cleveland Foundation gets an annual $305,000 salary and a $63,118 contribution to his pension. One guesses he won’t be panhandling when he retires.

Dave Abbott gets a $236,808 salary and $54,284 pension contribution from the Gund Foundation. No panhandling in his future either.

The slogan given for the attack on panhandlers by Downtown Alliance is “Don’t Give Where it Can’t Help.” I’d suggest another panhandler catchphrase: “Don’t Give to Those Who Can Help Themselves.”

That could get us right into the Medical Mart Trojan horse these same folks are pushing as a means to get an unnecessary new convention center. Roldo Bartimole

And, oh yeah, why the feck isn’t there a single journalist worth the title on the Plain Dealer able to stand up and tell the truth?

Perhaps it’s time for Pee Dee editor Susan Golberg to follow the example of her predecessor Doug Clifton and have a sit down with Bob Garfield at On The Media and talk about what’ not going on, i.e. news reporting, in Cleveland.

It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the folks at the Columbia Journalism Review were turning their eyes on Cleveland, again.