Cleveland's gadfly.

• Author: Wicklein, John
• Position: Journalist Roldo Bartimole

Cleveland, Ohio

Roldo Bartimole has just completed twenty-five years as gadfly to the government-business establishment in his city. He thinks its leaders will provide enough muck to keep his newsletter, Point of View, raking for another twenty-five.

Bartimole is not loved by the Cleveland establishment. He got his jaundiced view of the city's movers and shakers while working as a reporter at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and in the Cleveland bureau of The Wall Street Journal.

"I saw that many things weren't reported--there were sacred cows all over the place," he says. "Invariably, I saw the most wealthy and powerful people making the decisions. They were made in self-interest, and the working people and impoverished people were paying the bill." So in 1968, Bartimole started his newsletter.

In its early years, he focused on the local news media, pointing out controversial stories they had missed or downplayed. In the last decade, he has attacked the establishment directly, charging that it has manipulated public funds to favor developers at taxpayers' expense. He considers the local news media part of the establishment. Sixty now, gray-haired and bespectacled, Bartimole is as eager as ever to take on the power elite.

He is particularly angry about public funding of the Gateway complex, including a new stadium for the Cleveland Indians and a new arena for the Cavaliers in professional basketball. "That's paid for by a tax on cigarettes, beer, and wine--a very regressive tax," he said. And large property-tax abatements have been granted for a $90 million Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. All of this money, Bartimole says, could have been better used to help inner-city neighborhoods.

Business executives and government officials argue that Gateway is essential to build the city's image and keep major-league sports teams in town. Losing a team, as other cities have in recent years, would be disastrous to the economic well-being of the very people Bartimole wants to help, they contend.

Bartimole says Gateway, in particular, has been a sacred cow to the Plain Dealer. The paper pushed it heavily in editorials. "They even used the Gateway logo in their news stories--almost looked like ads."

"There's something to what Roldo says," a senior Plain Dealer reporter remarks. "Some coverage of Gateway and the Rock-n-Roll Hall of...