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Former Cleveland mayor now going to court to stop Browns from moving: I-Team

CLEVELAND (WJW) – The FOX 8 I-Team found former Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich now getting directly involved in the legal fight to stop the Browns from moving to a dome in Brook Park.

Kucinich filed a complaint in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court asking a judge to allow him to act on behalf of taxpayers. He believes the city has not done enough to try to stop the Browns from moving.

The Browns are taking steps to build a dome in Brook Park while the city is pressing a lawsuit to stop that.

But Kucinich told the I-Team on Friday afternoon that, “it’s about keeping the team in Cleveland. It’s about following the law. There’s a number of steps the city skipped.”

Kucinich wrote the Modell Law restricting sports teams from moving, but he argues that the city has not carried out a key part of that law which calls for the city to look for other owners.

“The law was written so that if the team decided they were going to leave, the city or a group of local investors could come in and buy the team. The city has an obligation here,” he added.

Kucinich also points out, the city has talked about remaking the lakefront even with the stadium.

“The city’s action in court is directly contradicted by the mayor’s publicly recognized lakefront development plans,” he wrote in his filing.

Kucinich also refers to what Mayor Justin Bibb recently told the I-Team about the Browns moving.

“It’s sad. It’s unfortunate, but at the end of the day, my job as mayor is to make sure we deliver on a world class lakefront that our city, our region, our residents can be proud of,” Bibb said.

To be clear, state lawmakers recently changed the Modell Law to allow teams to move anywhere in the state. The city has argued that change should not affect the battle over the Browns since this fight began before the change in the law.

The Browns have argued that none of this should matter since the team would not move until the end of the lease in three years.

So much is not settled.

Kucinich said this filing is hundreds of pages and it took many weeks to pull together. Again, Kucinich hopes the court will allow him to be part of the legal fight.

“There’s an attempt to raise issues that maybe haven’t been raised before,” he said.

Kucinich’s filing also states, “As a taxpayer and former member of the Ohio Legislature, Relator has standing to seek to prevent the waste or misapplication of public funds and the abandonment or impairment of statutory protections intended to guard those funds.” And, “Taxpayer standing to enjoin unlawful expenditure or waste of public money. State ex rel. Nimon v. Springdale, 6 Ohio St.2d 1 (1966) Taxpayer may bring an action to enjoin misapplication of municipal funds when city officials fail to act.).”

It adds, “This Verified Complaint addresses the City’s failure to fully and timely invoke R.C. 9.67 upon receiving the Browns’ notice of intent to relocate—and the City’s parallel pursuit of lakefront redevelopment, as demonstrated in credible news reports that presume the stadium’s absence after 2029, contrary to R.C. 9.67’s protections (Exhibits G, H),” the motion states. “Relief is urgently required to preserve the six-month statutory window and purchase opportunity, prevent irreparable harm to public investments and contract rights, and to ensure Charter-compliant handling of lakefront public trust lands and the stadium parcel.”

It is not known when a judge may rule on this.

https://fox8.com/news/i-team/former...court-to-stop-browns-from-moving-i-team/

Is there a good reason why they would want to stop progress? It seems to me that a new state of the art stadium with all the amenities is needed although I'm not from the area.

The city itself would lose business and city tax revenue I imagine is the biggest motivation for the politicians and many Cleveland businesses. The Brook Park location wouldn't just be a stadium. It would be a complex that includes shopping, restaurants and I would suppose lodging would be built close to the stadium. That's all money that would be leaving Cleveland. And for some of the actual fans themselves I suppose tradition plays a big part in it.

The location makes WAY more sense for the Browns rather than downtown. The damn thing is just down the road from our Training site in Berea.

As I said earlier, all Haslam has to do is say the Browns are worth $20 billion to me and that is what it will take for someone to buy the team.

Fair price? No, but he doesn't have to sell for a fair price, at least until he actually wants to sell the team.

I don't see the relationship of the Training facility to a Stadium being a big deal. Downtown and the Browns have a HUGE history., So for me, Downtown is the place it should be. Not sure where to put it, But that's where it should be.


I Don't think you could remember me saying back when they built the stadium we have now, that it should have been where Burke Airport is and that Burke should have moved to a man made Island just north of it's current location with a Roadway to and from.

That could still be done today..Very expensive but could be done. They won't do that..Too much lost revenue with all the other things that will be at the new site.

I'm not sure the location of training camp in relationship to the stadium makes that much difference but we certainly agree that the move to Brook Park makes the most sense. It's very close to downtown but would provide a dome stadium. As much as people kick and scream about "Football was meant to be played outdoors!", at one time horses were meant to be our major mode of transportation. The horse and buggy was replaced by the car. Horse drawn wagons were replaced by trucks.

The only constant in life is change. Sometimes we like those changes and sometimes we don't. Downtown has provided the Browns with no option to build a dome in anything that would be considered a reasonable timeline. Anything they have brought up is more of an abstract future theory than a legitimate plan for a dome.

The NFL is a business and as such Haslam doesn't want to be tied into yet another long term lease in an outdated stadium nor move forward with a new stadium based on old world design. If the city, the fan base and the state collude together to stop Haslam from building a dome, the most likely outcome is he will move the team to another city all together. I don't think there's anything constitutional in the deal that says he must keep the Browns in Cleveland. He would win in court and the Browns would be gone. This time forever.

People really need to be careful what they wish for. I'm pretty sure a lot of us wouldn't blame Halslam the way we did Modell. I would simply follow the Browns to wherever they move to and consider the entire thing nothing more than local and state politicians being idiots and the cause of it all.

Good points, and I’ll add that Cleveland’s political leaders don’t want to be remembered as the ones who let the Browns move out of state…. again.

The loss of revenue because of losing eight, nine home games a year isn’t that impacting, although I’m no expert on such things.

No matter where the Browns end up

Hopefully Berea

I will never forget meeting so many of you at Dawgtalk Island in the Muni

How did we survive that ?

LOL !

Shirtless, coatless, and drunk.

The fun days my good friend !

Remember the moon ?

LOL

I feel a draft

lol

Back in the hotel after the game. In Medina for this one....Rt 18 Fairfield.

I was in the BWW here yesterday afternoon and as I was walking out I thought I saw Dawgy Lama. It wasn't Annie, but it looked like her. It got me to thinking about DTI as well, all the faces and good times.

Time catches up. I sure as heck couldn't do that today. I keep saying I am giving up my tickets, but i just can't, but this might seriously be my last season as a season ticket holder. The drives aren't just a pain in the ass but have become difficult to make. I think I only made 4 games last year and after 1-2 didn't even want to make those. Not so much because the team wasn't good, I am used to that, I just didn't want to make the trip.

Now here I am, in a hotel room discussing with my wife if we should drive all the way back tomorrow or stop somewhere in Ky. to spend another night on the road.

I guess we will figure that out sometime on the drive back.

Love you guys.

We had so much fun sitting together


You still making the 9 hour trip is awesome

Give me a call when you get a chance

keep the faith Peen. One of the best fans there is

Peen...why not fly? Fly Southwest out of BNA to CLE direct flight. Or, Allegiant from BNA to CAK (also a direct flight)? You'd just have the drive to Nashville, which seems much more manageable.

The effort to watch a poor product is taxing, I get it. It's why I gave up my season tickets and I'm local.

I have flown before. I have just found that flying is a hassle. There are just a lot of negatives that make me not want to fly. It's not like I am afraid or anything like that. I know some people are.. My wife and I have probably flown hundreds of thousands of miles over the last 40 years.

I have just had this thought that if I can drive somewhere in 12 hours, I would rather drive. But, you are right, now that I am older, maybe I should fly. It's still a hassle where you have no control.

We had some airline that flew direct, Chattanooga to Columbus. That was perfect. That lasted a year. I have flown in to CAK several times.

I like direct flights. We do have direct flights to Detroit. That is maybe a 3 hour drive to Cleveland. That might be the avenue to explore. I just don't like connectors. That is when you get fu...screwed. Sitting around an airport for 7-8 hours sucks. I speak from experience having lived in a mid-sized city for 50 years.

DTI is an experience that will never be duplicated. For me the same thing could be said for Dawg Talk Day. The team was very generous and gracious to us. Memories I'll always cherish. Meeting so many fans we had so much in common with that came from different places. Meeting you was one such great experience. I could say that about many people I met at DTI.

While you are older than I am the drive to Cleveland is something I will certainly no longer make. Not that I can't but with certain physical constraints it would be far more than I would be willing to sacrifice.

DTI doesn't seem like 20 years ago to me but it was. My dad told me when I was young that the older you get the faster time seems to pass. The older I get the more wise I realize he was.

Some food for thought here, buddy:


Also this, just got the card last month since we travel so much. Used to have the biz card before I sold. 100,000 points = $1300+ in free flights. Annual membership is $95 (waived the first year) but your annual points bonus covers half of that. A no-brainer for us as they had never offered that many points before. Perks = bag flies free for everyone on your booking, all kinds of free boarding upgrades, free seat selection and 25% discount on-board (there are more, that's what comes to mind).


Message me if you need more info. You know you don't want to call it quits, you just need to lighten the grind.

According to google, Allegiant flies from Nashville to Akron-Canton.

If you have a low tolerance for airport headaches, smaller airports like CAK are a gamechanger.

If you guys ever decide to stop off in Cincinnati on your way back down, let me know.

Hell, you should just adjust and go to Cincy every year to watch the Browns. It will cut 4 hours off your trip.

In stadium news. Haslam probably not thrilled seeing Denver privately fund the entire project while he still seeks $600M from Brook Park and/or Cuyahoga County.