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CSU plans $45M center for health care focus
Three ticket brokers sue Cleveland over tax City applies admissions legislation inconsistently, companies say in filing
Students will work more closely with peers at former NEOUCOM
By JOEL HAMMOND jmhammond@crain.com
The city of Cleveland’s fight to collect on overdue admissions taxes again is rearing its head, only this time outside of the city’s small music venues. Mayfield Village ticket broker Amazing Tickets Inc., Twinsburg’s Affordable Ticket Agency Inc. and Denver Ticket Co. have filed suit jointly in U.S. District Court in Cleveland over what they call an “unconstitutional tax on innocent” parties and alleged violations of their constitutional rights to due process. The admissions tax came under scrutiny last summer when the city began asking small concert venues to start paying an 8% tax on ticket sales, as long called for under Cleveland’s administrative code. The tax under that specific portion of Chapter 195 of the city’s code is to be paid by venues, which have the choice to pass along that fee to their customers. The Beachland Ballroom at that point owed $400,000 in back admissions taxes. In February, Crain’s reported on a plan proposed by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, under whose direction the city stepped up efforts to collect admissions taxes, that would offer venues with capacities of 500 or fewer people varying breaks on the 8% tax levied on total ticket sales. Seventy-five percent of ticket sales by venues holding 250 or fewer people would be exempt from the city’s admissions tax, with the rest taxed at the 8% rate. Similarly, venues holding between 250 and 500 people would receive a 50% exemption. Yet, according to the lawsuit filed April 5 by the three ticket brokers, the city is trying to extend the admissions tax to a whole new portion of ticket revenue. In March 2011, the city subpoenaed the three named plaintiffs, seeking 8% of their revenues from
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By TIMOTHY MAGAW tmagaw@crain.com
STEVE BENNETT ILLUSTRATION
FAST TO THE FARM Financial advisers pitch themselves to property owners who, sitting on shale gas, suddenly are in the catbird’s seat By MICHELLE PARK mpark@crain.com
B
rent Laner sees the tug-of-war playing out on billboards and in newspaper ads. “We’re the best. We know what to do,” the battling ads declare. A landowner in Tuscarawas “Especially in this part of County, Mr. Laner is witness to the effort by bankers and Ohio ... these are people financial planners to position who have struggled for themselves as the place to turn years.” for farmers and other property owners who are reaping sud– Denise Penz, executive vice den wealth as energy compapresident, COO and wealth nies buy the mineral rights to manager, Premier Bank & Trust their land in the hydrocarbonrich Utica shale region of eastern Ohio. Banks and wealth management firms big and small are hosting seminars, sending direct mailers and even meeting one-on-one
Cleveland State University is laying the groundwork to take on $71 million in new debt, a hefty chunk of which is expected to finance the construction of a building devoted to health care careers. The roughly $45 million Center for Health Professions, as it’s been named, is still in the conceptual stages, but Cleveland State president Ronald Berkman characterized it as one of the “most important” pieces in his vision for growing the urban university. “When I came, I said health care needed to be one of the core strategic areas of the university,” Dr. Berkman said in an interview last Friday, April 20. “As an urban university, we need to form academic programs around the work force opportunities for students and where we can make contributions toward the economic Berkman development of the city.” The new building would be located at the site of the soon-to-be demolished Viking Hall on Euclid Avenue. It would be, in part, the physical manifestation of the university’s burgeoning relationship with Northeast Ohio Medical University, or NEOMED, the medical school in Rootstown formerly known as NEOUCOM. NEOMED plans to contribute as much as $10 million toward the new center, which will serve as a space for Cleveland State students majoring in health careers — such as physical and occupational therapy, social work and nursing — to collaborate with medical students from NEOMED. Also, by 2013, as many as 35 Cleveland See CSU Page 17
INSIDE Shale boom helps counties get land records digitized Gas drillers are offering to make many Eastern Ohio counties’ land records electronic, and it’s not a cheap process, at $100,000 to $300,000 a pop. PAGE 4 PLUS: Experts debate whether exporting natural gas to other nations is the best path to take. PAGE 3
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Entire contents © 2012 by Crain Communications Inc. Vol. 33, No. 17