CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL delivers an unprecedented handout to developer SCOTT WOLSTEIN, solidifying the city’s longstanding position that the public coffers are open for pilfering BY SAM ALLARD
| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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CONTENTS
DECEMBER 2-8, 2020 • VOL. 51 NO 24 Upfront .......................................5 Feature ..................................... 10 Arts .......................................... 13
Eat ............................................ 15 Savage Love .............................. 18
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| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
UPFRONT JUSTIN BIBB SIGNALS 2021 CLEVELAND MAYORAL RUN AFTER MONTHS OF ANTICIpation, local businessman and RTA board member Justin Bibb has formally signaled his intention to run for Cleveland Mayor in 2021. In his first public communication with the press, he announced significant early fundraising, which he said will build momentum for a 2021 campaign. Bibb launched a committee to explore a 2021 candidacy only three months ago, the press release said, and has already raised $180,000. “People are sick and tired of being sick and tired and the promise of new leadership in Cleveland is catching fire, with early investments from grassroots organizers and leaders across our city,” Bibb said in the release. “Their support in our shared vision is a sign that Clevelanders can’t wait to see change in 2021.” Bibb is a so-called emerging leader who has worked in both consulting and finance. After stints with Gallup and the corporate strategy offices of KeyBank, Bibb now works for a Washington-based nonprofit called Urbanova, which works toward “smart city solutions.” Bibb is the cousin of local news anchor Leon Bibb and a board member at the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. In 2020, he founded Cleveland Can’t Wait, a nonprofit concerned with economic opportunity and racial justice in underserved neighborhoods. That organization was a partner in “Masks 4 Community,” which assembled and distributed 60,000 masks to residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland during the early months of the Coronavirus pandemic. The announcement of Bibb’s 2021 candidacy has long been expected. He has already attracted an array of supporters, including members of the business community, whose financial backing has proven crucial in past Cleveland elections. Like other prospective candidates, Bibb’s early rhetoric has zeroed in on the necessity of new ideas and fresh blood at all levels of Cleveland leadership. -Sam Allard
Photo courtesy Justin Bibb
Cleveland Police Report on May 30 Lays Groundwork for More Police Violence According to an internal review of Cleveland Police conduct on May 30th, 2020, local officers understood the precise use of force guidelines by which they are governed. The munitions teams who launched cannisters of tear gas and fired pepper balls, pepper spray, flash grenades, and assorted lessthan-lethal bullets into a crowd at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center six months ago “acted within their training and used munitions effectively” as crowd control measures. “When officers used force,” the report asserted, “injuries to citizens were minor or non-existent.” John Sanders, the 24-year-old Sandusky resident who was shot in the eye with a beanbag round while snapping a photograph outside the Justice Center and who later had his
eyeball surgically removed, would likely dispute the characterization of his injury as minor or nonexistent. (Sanders was shot by a Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Deputy, not a Cleveland Police Officer, for the record, though the distinction is no doubt immaterial to him.) The report, released earlier this month, was overseen by retired Ohio State Highway Patrol Lt. Col. Michael Black and was an attempt to document “all aspects” of the civil unrest on the day of the George Floyd demonstrations in Cleveland. It included the compilation and analysis of police reports, body camera footage, local media accounts, social media posts and internal intelligence. The day’s events, which evolved from an afternoon protest into scattered evening riots, have been reconstructed in meticulous, if sometimes suspect, detail. That’s in keeping with the report’s stated aims: not to ascertain why the demonstration became violent,
but to document what happened in order to improve police policies and procedures. The first half is a panoramic, hour-by-hour timeline of the chaos. It conveys well the extent of property damage downtown. The time and location of every broken window and every trash can set ablaze is recorded with precision. It also confirms what had been previously known: that Cleveland Police were in tactical disarray for much of the afternoon and evening, overwhelmed both by the size of the crowd and the scope of attendees’ responses. CPD’s initial intelligence, harvested from a Facebook event post, dramatically underestimated the eventual number of protesters. At a virtual press conference with the city’s top safety brass earlier this month, Police Chief Calvin Williams described the report’s recommendations as largely matters of personnel and equipment. Even if all 1,600 of the city’s police officers had been downtown, he said, property damage and looting likely could not have been prevented entirely. But better planning, more officers and more strategic staging of “assets” could have more effectively controlled the crowd and ameliorated some of the damage. “It would have been a better outcome,” he said, though he doubted that use of force could have been prevented even with maximal staffing levels. That view is reflected in many of the report’s recommendations. Some of them, including sensible suggestions about interagency coordination and large-scale event preparation, have already been implemented. But many of the others presage the escalating militarization of the department. Indeed, the unchallenged consensus that Cleveland Police were “unprepared” or “ill-equipped” for the demonstrations leads to almost no other outcome. The report, then, serves a familiar purpose. Just as the erroneous information that Mayor Frank Jackson and Chief Calvin Williams fed the media in the immediate aftermath of the unrest supported a narrative whereby a violent police response was proper and good, the report, which absurdly overplays the “tactics” of | clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
protesters, creates a framework for ongoing police violence. The principles of the police response on May 30th are never questioned. It’s taken for granted that officers behaved commendably under extraordinary pressure. Their use of force isn’t even detailed beyond the mention of 19 complaints registered with the Department of Internal Affairs and the Office of Professional Standards. In order to prevent another riot, the report concludes, the department simply needs more resources: more officers at more locations, more weapons, bigger and better gear. In that case, it’s worth considering: What would a fully “equipped,” “prepared” department have looked like on May 30? And what will it look like next time? Hundreds of officers in full tactical body armor and shields, tear gas bazookas perched on every shoulder, tanks circling every grouping of six or more teenagers waving signs? Are we to shrug and accept that this is simply the appearance of a local law enforcement agency in the 21st century devoted to its citizens’ First Amendment rights, as Williams insisted? Is this what citizens want? Whether we want it or not, that appears to be where we’re headed. More officers have already been trained on the ordnance unit, which is tasked with firing weapons upon crowds. Next up, according to the report’s recommendations, is more launchers to equip them with. And because these officers will be taking up considerably more space in their bulky tactical gear — to withstand the barrage of fruits and vegetables heaved in their direction — the department now urgently requires much roomier and more protective vehicles. That means tanks. The vehicle described in the report’s recommendations should “protect from projectiles” and be able to “comfortably transport” an entire team. This might be a reference to an MRAP, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle that has become increasingly popular with American police departments of all sizes.) Not for nothing, but this is the opposite of defunding the police. And, if pursued, these acquisitions would represent enormous outlays of public dollars at a time of nationwide police controversy and fiscal precarity. But justification for these acquisitions is nevertheless baked into the report itself. Though instances of police use of force are not discussed in detail, protester “tactics” are listed repeatedly and at length. After they are described throughout the timeline, they are
synthesized in their own special section, which contains more headspinning stupidity than the rest of the report combined. I say without glibness that most of this is just too dumb to comment on. These aren’t tactics so much as spontaneous expressions of selfdefense. When an actively deploying pepper spray cannister is aimed at your face, you too might use the “tactic” of trying to bat it away. Others are just retroactive attempts by the police to save face. It’s not like the size of the crowd, for example, was some big tactical secret. It’s not like “those planning bad acts” instructed hundreds of attendees not to respond to the Facebook event to dupe the cops. Protests were happening nationwide. The momentum was organic. The police simply relied on weak intelligence. The very first “tactic” noted, though, does require comment because it seems designed specifically to anticipate a legal challenge. Cleveland.com’s Cory Shaffer reported that police gave no audible dispersal warning, as required by law, before they began firing munitions into the crowd. This was corroborated by a number of eye witness accounts, (and my own, for what it’s worth). But now, police can point to this report in their defense. It was the rioters, they can say, who tactically raised their voices to “drown out” the reading of the dispersal order. Absolutely risible. Careful readers may also notice that throughout the timeline, certain alleged actions by protesters are duplicated or nearly duplicated, raising questions about the narrative’s overall accuracy. Some are plausible repeat offenses. The protester with the green laser pointer, for example — referenced in the Rioter Tactics section
above — is mentioned no less than four times during the timeline. Other examples of duplication are more questionable. They point to imprecision in the timeline’s reconstruction, which might mean dishonesty by reporting officers, dishonesty by those producing the report itself or dishonesty by those even higher up the food chain. This could very well be an echo of the same tendency to exaggerate the actions of protesters to justify the police response. To take one example, there was reportedly a broadcast between 3:30 and 3:44 p.m. of “a male wearing a black mask throwing an object under a black Chevy Impala.” Nothing came of this observation, incidentally, but for whatever reason it merits inclusion in the report. It sure raises questions, though. Who was the male? What was the object? Was it a bomb? In the report, the answers are irrelevant. Likewise those associated with an “unknown male” who, the report says, at 4:18 p.m. “placed a black bag under a black car.” Is this the same male who threw the object under the black Impala? Is this the same event, accidentally duplicated less than an hour later? If not, what was in this new black bag? Did anyone bother to investigate? Other examples are even sloppier. An incident in which protesters attacked a cargo van and stole equipment appeared twice in the report, word for word, at 3:21 p.m. and 4:02 p.m. Was this a mistake? If so, by whom? Those reporting the incident or those writing the review? On a similar note, one of the issues that the review was meant to address was the breakdown in communication which led to Chief Williams getting so many facts
wrong in the ensuing days. Scene wrote at the time that Williams lied to the media, and we suggested a straightforward reason for his doing so: to shape a narrative in which the police were justified in firing upon the crowd. If the riot police were being attacked with rocks and bricks and glass bottles of urine, as Williams claimed erroneously, and if protesters had breached the justice center, as he explosively alleged more than once, then police had every reason to fire back. It was they who needed to defend themselves; what’s more, they had to defend the public turf! The report’s timeline achieves a similar effect with humdingers like: “There was a constant barrage of hard objects, such as frozen water bottles, frozen eggs, metal wrenches, and frozen vegetables thrown at the officers holding the field force line.” (Italics added.) A constant barrage of metal wrenches. In any case, after Scene’s piece, Williams said that he was not lying. He had no reason to lie! He was merely conveying information that he had at the time. Scene asked at the press conference, then, how he came by this bad information. Who told him that protesters breached the Justice Center? Where was the communication breakdown? In response, Williams directed us to page 13 of the report — though it had not yet been released to the media — and said it would show clearly the sequence of events which led to his statement. Here it is: “At 5:57 p.m., an officer transmits that “The County Sheriff’s telling us that they’ve made [it] inside the JC.” Then, at approximately 5:59 p.m., the same officer transmitted the following: “81 to Command Bus.” After the Mobile Command Vehicle dispatcher responded with “Command bus. Go ahead,” the officer stated: “County Sheriff’s saying they’ve made it inside the JC, they’re in the County Clerk’s Office, they’re trashing the place.” It was later determined that a CDP officer relayed this information by request from an unknown Sheriff’s Deputy.” Hm. That explanation holds water from about 5:59 p.m. on May 30 to — in the most generous possible interpretation — maybe 6:04. If this transmission were taken seriously, officers would have been dispatched inside the Justice Center to collect these stealthy rioters who somehow made it past the police line without police detection. There are two possibilities: Either 1) an officer would have radioed immediately to say that the information provided by | clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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the Sheriff’s Deputy about the breach was incorrect, or else 2) officers would have radioed a few minutes later, after sprinting to confront the rioters in the Clerk’s office, finding none, and reporting a false alarm. Yet hours later, at a city press conference, as Frank Jackson declared a military-style curfew, Williams had not yet been set straight. On the contrary, he embellished these facts further, saying that protesters had not only breached the Justice Center, but had been starting fires and attempting to free the prisoners, an allegation that even the report dares not countenance. Williams doubled down on these allegations days later, in a private meeting with the editorial board of the Plain Dealer/cleveland. com, even after pressed by editor Chris Quinn. There is no world in which Williams was deliberately deceived by his officers, who were themselves deceived by a prankster or opportunist from the County Sheriff’s office, and that the deception lasted until County Sheriff
DIGIT WIDGET 11 Delivery days required to mail an issue of Scene Magazine from downtown Cleveland to Beachwood, Ohio, via the United States Postal Service.
3 Northern Ohio USPS District nationwide ranking for slowest delivery times. (Delivery trucks were lined up outside the USPS facility downtown for days last week.)
0 Total Spanish Speaking contract tracers (out of 70) currently employed by the City of Cleveland’s Department of Public Health, nine months into a viral pandemic.
$14.6 million Median salary of CEOs at 54 Ohio Corporations that filed reports with the Security and Exchange Commission. Ohio CEOs now make more than 300 times their media employees.
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Photo by Sam Allard
Dave Schilling testified before county council a month later that no breach of any kind had occurred. The only explanation that makes any sense at all is that Williams was fabricating those facts intentionally — that is, lying. But look at the way the report attempts to cover all these unpleasant tracks: It was later determined that a CDP officer relayed this information by request from an unknown Sheriff’s Deputy. What? What do you mean ‘later determined’? When? How? Who was the CDP officer? Why is the Sheriff’s Deputy not only unnamed but unknown? Did the CDP officer relay false information knowing that it was false? What were the circumstances of the unknown deputy’s request? Why aren’t the report’s authors, and the Cleveland Police brass, bringing the full might of their offices to bear on uncovering the identity of this nefarious deputy who caused such a stir? In Cleveland, to ask those questions is to answer them. -Sam Allard
Cleveland Hostel in Ohio City Will Serve as Seasonal Homeless Shelter The Cleveland Hostel in Ohio City will serve as Cleveland’s seasonal cold-weather homeless shelter. It will have 24-hour access, a capacity of 60 and ample space for dining and isolation if guests experience Covid symptoms. The location was selected after months of meetings between local government and non-profit partners. Michael Sering, of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries, told Cleveland City Council’s health and human services committee — presided over by new chair
| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
Councilman Kerry McCormack — that the seasonal site opened on the night of Dec. 1 and has been averaging 33 persons per night in its first week of operations. (Dec. 1 was also the first evening of heavy snowfall in Cleveland.) The Cleveland Hostel will function as the seasonal shelter until midApril and will be funded largely by Cuyahoga County CARES Act dollars and the Community West Foundation. Funding is in place through April. Sering said that Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries’ central kitchen will prepare meals at the site, and accommodations have been made for spaced out dining. The cold-weather shelter is a result of increased coordination during the Covid-19 pandemic, but also a result of vocal public support, in January, for Cleveland’s unhoused population. After a zoning dispute in Ward 11 over a church’s ability to shelter those experiencing homelessness, members of the community rallied at City Hall to show support for the church (Denison UCC) and to ask legislators to take homelessness seriously by developing a cold-weather plan. Chris Knestrick, Director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, told City Council Tuesday that since March, there has been a 30% decrease in unsheltered homelessness in Cleveland. That’s due in large part to increased street outreach during the pandemic and new shelter capacity thanks to public and nonprofit dollars. Additionally, things like hygiene stations have been added citywide. Eleven of them are now in place in high-traffic areas near other service sites. The Cleveland Hostel won’t be the only cold weather shelter in town, either. The Metanoia Project, a nonprofit which last year worked in conjunction with Denison UCC, will
operate three additional sites this season with varying capacities. Two hotel sites, including one specifically for unsheltered people with Covid-19, are also still in operation. Homeless service providers say that Ohio City Inc. was instrumental in both setting up the hygiene stations and facilitating the Cleveland Hostel as the seasonal shelter location. Knestrick told Scene in a phone call following the council meeting that there was almost no pushback to the location, which is on W. 25th Street near one of Cleveland’s most popular nightlife districts. In January, Knestrick called on Clevelanders to “take a stand against NIMBYism and racism in our community” which led to the Denison UCC dispute. Crucially, the Hostel will not exclusively be an overnight facility. Due to Covid and the importance of sheltering in place, it will be a 24-hour operation. In compliance with HUD best practices, the site has semi-private rooms, and laundry and cleaning will be conducted on a daily basis. NEOCH and LMM will work with guests toward establishing permanent housing solutions during their stays. When asked for final comments at Tuesday’s meeting, Sering, Knestrick and Melissa Sirak, the new head of the County’s office of Homeless Services, all said that contributions of money and time are valuable, especially due to a dip in volunteers across the board. Knestrick reminded council — and the city — that as people find themselves in housing crises, we should be responding from a place of compassion and love. (People who are facing imminent homelessness can call 216-674-6700.)
scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene
FEATURE
Photos by Erik Drost/FlickrCC
FLAT OUT DUMB Cleveland City Council delivers an unprecedented handout to developer Scott Wolstein, solidifying the city’s longstanding position that the public coffers are open for pilfering
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| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
By Sam Allard TRUE TO FORM, THE SOUND and fury of Cleveland City Council’s dismay over an outrageous piece of legislation signified nothing. Council voted 14-2 Wednesday to extend by 30 years an existing 30-year Tax Increment Financing arrangement for the Flats East Bank project. Ward 16 councilman Brian Kazy and newly appointed Ward 15 councilwoman Jenny Spencer voted against the emergency measure. The extension will allow the Flats East Bank’s developers — the Wolstein Group and a hornet’s nest of subsidiary LLCs — to forego nonschool property taxes on the 23-acre parcel of prime Cleveland real estate until 2071. Twenty. Seventy-one. (Deep breaths.) If that sounds patently ridiculous, that’s because it is. The ponderous term of the subsidy is unprecedented in the history of Cleveland governance. But the legislation’s purpose, relayed with no shame whatsoever by the city’s economic development director David Ebersole and two financial consultants for Wolstein, exposes what should be a familiar subservience to private real estate interests. That purpose — this is almost too embarrassing to repeat — is to help the developers with a cash flow problem. Council’s basic function in recent decades has been to maximize the flow of public dollars to private entities. And while the current extension is certainly among the more garish examples of that prerogative — to reiterate: It will abate all non-school taxes for a $500 million Class-A development until long after most of city council’s current occupants are dead — it is merely the latest in a series. Lest we forget, council voted in 2015 to grant these same developers taxing authority, which would have led to increased taxes in their special district to pay for so-called “maintenance and upkeep” of the project’s “public infrastructure.” That deference to the developers was a bridge too far even for Mayor Frank Jackson, who vetoed the legislation. But with respect to cash flow:
Wolsten now gets to refinance the whole kit and caboodle, taking advantage of current low interest rates, and then borrow against what is now a juicy additional revenue stream: 30 years of taxes that the projectwould have paid to the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County from 2041-2070. (This should make your head spin.) Those funds will be loaned upfront to Wolstein to pay down existing public debts, including a $30 million HUD loan in the City of Cleveland’s name. Wolstein has been behind on these payments since 2017, per Ebersole, and council huffed and puffed but ultimately voted in agreement that extending a generous subsidy by 30 years was the appropriate solution to get a very rich man current on his bill. (Deep breaths.) Ebersole, who works for the city but might as well be a spokesman for the developers, recommended repeatedly that council authorize the TIF extension. He claimed that he and the rugby squad of Wolstein accountants had been meeting for two years to iron out potential alternatives. Go figure, seeking the maximum possible TIF extension now permitted by Ohio law was deemed the only viable option. It came to light, though, that there was one other strategy out there: simply collecting the money owed. This is a strategy which has been on the table in literally every private financing arrangement in the history of commerce, but which Ebersole nevertheless kept trying to radicalize by calling it “aggressive collection.” He warned that pursuing this strategy would set a “dangerous precedent” for future development in the Flats East Bank and for Cleveland’s development scene writ large. (More on this in a sec.) Councilman Brian Kazy, during a lengthy and sometimes heated Q&A, summed things up succinctly when he surmised that “we have a big developer here who’s gotten into some financial trouble, and they’re looking for the city to bail them out.” He recalled a recent series of committee hearings in which the wisdom of long-term contracts was often questioned. His personal belief,
he said, was that a sixty-year TIF was just way too long. Council President Kevin Kelley intervened to correct what he viewed as a mischaracterization. “This isn’t a bailout,” he said. “We’re not giving [the developers] any money. We’re not providing anything. We’re allowing a tool so that they can pay us back the money that is owed to us. We’re still going to be paid back according to schedule. None of that changes. It’s just this tool that changes.” (Deep breaths.) (This is for me.) Mother of God. Just for clarity’s sake, abating taxes on a project lowers the total cost for the developer and diminishes the income for the taxing authorities, (which in this case are the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.) With all due respect, that is the definition of giving the developers money. Kelley referring to 30 new years of tax abatement as merely a tool, not a subsidy itself — “We’re not providing anything!” — is depressing beyond belief. These are the antic ravings of a bought man. The situation is more or less as Kazy described. But the TIF extension also provides the developer instant liquidity which theoretically creates momentum for the development of additional phases in the Flats East Bank. Whether Wolstein actually required that liquidity to move forward with these new phases or merely said he required that liquidity (in effect, holding the city’s economic development department hostage), he now has it, thanks to the obedient council. Kevin Kelley knows precisely what’s happening, by the way. He’s savvy enough to frame the issue in pragmatic terms for his colleagues, who, through no fault of their own, tend to be in way over their heads on this stuff. (In one of the quotes of the day, Councilman Tony Brancatelli referred to the original deal as a “baklava” of funding sources. The accounting jargon can be a real bear to decode, is the point.) Kelley distilled the vote for his colleagues as a response to the simple question of debt collection. Getting
“our money” back was the important thing, in this narrative. Council members would have to make a tough choice: Would they pass the distasteful TIF extension to guarantee that the City gets its overdue payments when refinancing closes? Or would they vote no and attempt to collect those payments in the traditional way (by legal action if necessary), thus imperiling the Flats East Bank development by means Ebersole and Kelley never did specify? It was obvious which way Kelley was directing the body, but he got his Majority Leader and Whip, Blaine Griffin and Phyllis Cleveland, to offer final comments in praise of the legislation anyway. Griffin tossed a softball as gently as softballs can be tossed to Ebersole, asking how the TIF extension would affect development in other parts of the city. This was so staged and cringeworthy that I honestly had a hard time watching, but Ebersole said voting in favor of the TIF would send a “positive message” to the development community, a message that the city of Cleveland was willing to “share risks” on big projects like this one. Griffin nodded contemplatively. He said that while he appreciated the tough line of questioning from some of his colleagues (Joe Jones, Brian Kazy, Jenny Spencer, Charles Slife and Kerry McCormack, all of whom had gone to town on Ebersole), he was concerned about inaction. “Sometimes there’s a cost to inaction,” he said. “The cost of inaction is a challenge for me.” In prepared remarks, Phyllis Cleveland said much the same. The “greater risk,” she’d decided (referring to Kelley’s two choices), would be inaction by voting no. “We are at a point where we’ve got to do something. It’s better do something than punt down the road.” Do something about what, though? What was the big problem here? That’s the question that Jenny Spencer and Charles Slife seemed most keen to answer. Wasn’t the Flats East Bank doing well? Indeed, it was revealed that with new leases, the project will be inching toward 100% retail occupancy and | clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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Kazy asked directly how the HUD loan would be repaid if not for the TIF extension. Ebersole responded matter-of-factly that the developer’s own resources might then have to be tapped. That this option is considered out of bounds — an absolute last resort — is one of the reasons this region is so destitute. has hovered in the “mid-80s” for residential occupancy for several years. The gleaming Ernst & Young office tower and Aloft Hotel properties were both described as “sound.” Why is this successful project, then, in desperate need of a new long-term subsidy which, stacked atop the existing subsidy, will deprive the public of critical revenue for the next fifty years? (The actual answer, remember, is that it isn’t. Wolstein simply wants more money, and the city does his bidding, providing instant cash by allowing him to borrow against future taxes, thereby paving the way for additional development. Not that this came up Wednesday, nor does it matter to the dishonest brokers at City Hall, but Wolstein has already announced that he planned to break ground on the next phase of the Flats East Bank in 2021. Kerry McCormack, inaccurately as it turns out, said in October that the TIF extension and the next phases of development had “nothing to do with each other.”) The justifications provided Wednesday, at any rate, were a joke. Among other things, the parking revenues have fallen $1 million short of projections. That does little to explain why Wolstein is now $6.5 million behind in his loan repayments to the city. One possible reason is that Wolstein is behind for reasons external to the project in question. Another is that he’s simply unwilling to contribute personal resources to pay back his debt. Either way, as Councilman Slife noted, “any average citizen” knows that if they are behind on their car payment, they can’t go to their lender and demand to double the length of their loan. (That’s an imperfect analogy, but the point stands!) The implication was that the city should not be responsible for dealing with the developer’s financial problems. Never mind the fact that the money owed to the city — the lynchpin of the legislation, in Kelley’s version — is HUD money! It was loaned to Wolstein with the city serving as intermediary. What that means in practice is that the city has voted to forego 30 years of future tax revenue from an
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enormous project in order to collect, with a bit less friction, delinquent payments on a HUD loan. This is suicidal fiscal policy. (Deep breaths.) Kazy and Spencer, who both acquitted themselves honorably via Zoom, should be commended. Spencer, in particular, stuck her neck out in the first controversial vote of her fledgling tenure. In a series of pointed question, she wondered why council was being presented this piece of legislation as an emergency measure, without having had the opportunity to hear from the developer himself, and after council’s own Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee had voted 4-2 the previous day to delay the vote, pending additional information. A looming December 31 deadline for the TIF extension was the culprit. Spencer asked, in that case, why no one had known about this all-important deadline? And might a special meeting be called before the end of the year to more fully vet the issue? Kelley said council can do “whatever we want,” but such a meeting would be “unusual,” and held the vote anyway. Spencer followed her objections to their logical conclusion and voted no. Not so with Jones, McCormack and Slife, who all asked a number of detailed questions about the deal’s financing — including why the maximum extension was required — but ultimately ratified the proposal as presented. The temptation would be to celebrate Kazy and Spencer for standing on principle. They have both already been applauded on social media. But the more pressing, and more dispiriting, question is why only two of the body’s 17 members (Basheer Jones is in Egypt and did not cast a vote), managed to discern what every conscious human adult understood immediately, without benefit of supplemental materials or team of accountants: this is another grotesque corporate handout. Were these council members persuaded by Phyllis Cleveland’s threat at the end of her comments? “All of us at one time or another are going to have to step up and take a hard vote,” she warned her colleagues. “So keep that in mind.” (The message
| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
they were meant to receive was that council leadership wanted them to vote in favor of the TIF extension, and they had better buck up and do it if they wanted leadership’s support for individual ward or pet policy issues in the future.) Or were they actually persuaded by Ebersole’s dark prophecy about “dangerous precedents” on the development scene? Surely councilman Slife wouldn’t have been convinced. It was he who proposed a counterargument: that in fact, council might be setting another precedent. In failing to collect its payments, and failing to effectively use public dollars as both carrot and stick to incentivize private development, the city might not be taken seriously as a financial institution. Slife was correct, but inadvertently. The city is not meant to be taken seriously as a financial institution. It is merely the spigot. Developers know well that there are occasional spurts — the Jackson veto of the special tax district, for example, darn! — but the flow is generally strong and unperturbed. Developers have played this game and controlled this system for decades. They know that pursuing “risky” projects like the megadevelopment at Flats East Bank — with “soft” projections and “thin” margins for error — is usually a great bargain because the public assumes the risk. All the risk. When the projections fall short, as they always do, and the margins for error are eclipsed, as they always are, it is the public coffers that come to the rescue. And when those coffers are exhausted, it is the public coffers of the city council members’ children and grandchildren that are plundered next. All of this becomes much more surreal when the alternative is considered. Kazy asked directly how the HUD loan would be repaid if not for the TIF extension. Ebersole responded matter-of-factly that the developer’s own resources might then have to be tapped. That this option is considered out of bounds — an absolute last resort — is one of the reasons this region is so destitute. Kerry McCormack was approaching enlightenment when he asked Ebersole shortly thereafter
if intermediate solutions might be considered. Was there a way, he wondered, for private equity to cover these loan delinquencies? “What’s their skin in the game?” He wanted to know. Ebersole responded that the developer has “significant equity” in the project already, and that it would be “better for everyone” if additional developer equity was used to fund future phases of the project. “Well, this is a private development,” McCormack rejoined. “So of course there’s private equity in it.” Ding ding ding! So many of Cleveland’s leaders have their heads so far up their butts, and are so wittingly or unwittingly beholden to the chamber of commerce rhetoric about growth and development, that even acknowledging this basic fact can seem insurrectionary. It’s no surprise that in that climate, asking a developer to pay back his loans with his own money is an act of transgression among elected leaders. It’s totally taboo! Beyond the pale! Future taxes must be surrendered to avoid that disaster! But that’s the dangerous precedent about which Ebersole was sweating. If council makes Wolstein pay back his own loan, with his own money, what’s next? They might begin to intuit the absurdity of their submissiveness to local real estate interests, and begin, slowly but surely, to piece together connections between perpetual corporate handouts and the region’s poverty. They might screw their heads on straight and recognize that in the arena of public-private partnerships — the thing they’ve been taught to exalt — the public shouldn’t be required to bear all the costs. Alas, they are nowhere near that threshold. The 14-2 vote was testament to the chasm yet to be crossed. It was particularly galling, though, a day after council’s Utilities committee met to discuss the lifting of the city’s shutoff moratorium. There, council members disparaged the “deadbeats” in town who were treating the pandemic as a “utility and rent holiday.” They stressed the importance, for those delinquent on their bills, of contacting the city to enroll in affordable payment plans and affirmed that disconnections would be forthcoming. No such tough love, nor the storied responsiveness of Cleveland Public Power’s customer service, awaits the deadbeat Wolstein.
sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard
ARTS STRONG AND SEEN
About Body | About Face at AAWR examines how African-American bodies are portrayed in art By Shawn Mishak ARTISTS ARCHIVES OF the Western Reserve (AAWR) Gallery is now hosting About Body | About Face, a smallgroup, figurative exhibition that examines representation of African American bodies in art and culture. The show is free and open to the public at the AAWR Gallery, which is taking all necessary precautions against the spread of Covid, through January 16. About Body | About Face is a follow-up to the seenUNseen exhibition, which took place in 2019 with the help from AAWR. The second round is an opportunity for some of the artists who were featured in that collection to more fully exemplify their work. Curator, artist and Executive Director of AAWR Mindy Tousley writes in the curator’s statement for About Body | About Face that, “I purposefully included a range of styles and materials, not just a show of paintings or photography. From my point of view as an artist and curator, I am more interested in artwork or exhibitions that push the limits of expression, while still maintaining balance, so including work made in a variety of materials made sense.” When I walked into the exhibition, I was immediately enamored with how concise and yet rich with content the show is. From the surreal and somewhat eerie photography of Yvonne Palkowitsh to the delightful paintings of LaSandra Robinson to the representative yet somewhat obscurely rendered self-portraits by Davon Brantley, the gallery represents the work magnificently. Brantley, in his self-portraits, reaches to address dissociative behavior which can be a result of childhood trauma. His artist’s statement notes, “Brantley’s work is about the subversion of dark fantasies and tragedies are a result of living in this world, in a way that consecrates rather than demonizes. He references Renaissance and
“Shared Daydream (Detail)” by LeSandra Robinson
Baroque portraiture and religious paintings, two era of art that are almost exclusively lacking in depictions of people of color.” In Brantley’s “ON SIGHT, 2020” piece (charcoal, pastel, sepia paper), we see what appears to be the artist, nude with the exception of opulent textile wrapped around his waist. The depiction is realistic yet stylized how the knee protrudes out towards the viewer the way Caravaggio’s unconventional style, for the time, extends the action of his composition beyond the picture. The most perplexing element of Brantley’s piece is the silhouette of the subject’s head enclosed by a red circle resembling a nimbus, much
like one might find in a Renaissance religious work. The fact that the face is colorless and featureless makes one wonder if this is commentary on his search for identity. Divergently we have the work of LaSandra Robinson, who paints females portraits and states, “My more recent abstract portraits are about the strength and beauty of Black women, letting their inner light come through.” Robinson’s style is characteristic and reminds me of Bisa Butler’s palette, yet with pigment rather than cloth. Her whole series is strong, especially the centerpiece — a portrait of two woman in revealing dress and matching pearl earrings
entitled “Shared Daydream (Detail).” Beyond the warm browns ranging from coffee to peanut, Robinson allows the lighter portions of the portraits to radiate with a spectrum of fantastic color, as if someone shined a light through the subjects’ souls to reveal the refracted color of their human condition. The pastels which peek out from under the flesh tones bring warmth and vitality to the images while the expressions of the subjects’ faces remain demure and confident, the elongated features presenting elegance and femininity. (At $700 for this 48” x 36” work, I’d be surprised if this, along with many other pieces in this exhibition, didn’t sell expeditiously.) “I would hope that people gain a better understanding of what it is like to be an African-American artist,” said Tousely about the show, “or simply an African American in our society today, as well as an appreciation for the richness that these artists in particular and African American Artists in general add to our culture. They need to be seen more and appreciated.” Many Clevelanders might not be aware of AAWR, the archival facility and regional museum created to preserve representative bodies of work by Ohio visual artists, but this facility shares the site, off of Euclid Ave. just east of MOCA, with Cleveland’s The Sculpture Center. Both facilities were made possible by Bernice and David E. Davis, who founded The Sculpture Center in 1989. David E. Davies was a prominent Cleveland sculpture and arts advocate who died in November of 2002 at the age of 82. He founded AAWR in 1996 with promise of nurturing regional artists. About Body | About Face is just another example of how Davis’ mission continues to offer artists a place to develop.
@clevelandscene scene@clevescene.com | clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
EAT HOLY GHOST
From turnaround times to style, Corner Spot is doing things a whole lot differently than other pizza joints IN THESE LAZY DAYS OF instant gratification, when literally any food can be summoned from the comfort of one’s davenport, Corner Spot pizza is an aberration. In stark contrast to the “30 minutes or less” pledge of mega-chains, I had to wait nearly two weeks for my pie. Even then, the handoff took place not on my own front stoop, but in the deserted parking lot of a church, like some shadowy blackmarket exchange. And I’m one of the lucky ones. “It’s interesting because it’s just pizza, but people do have to take a few proactive steps to have it available to them – and even then it doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be able to get it,” says Jordan Lakin. First, one needs to learn of the venture’s existence, typically by scrolling through the Gram and stumbling upon that sexy pizza porn. When the urge to bite strikes, as it doubtless will after spying those razor-sharp edges, crispy corners and glistening ‘roni cups, you’ll need to follow Corner Spot’s account, send a DM and hope to be added to the weekly mailing list. Orders are accepted on a firstcome, first-served basis, paid for via Venmo, and arranged for weekend pick-up. As diners, we’ve watched our favorite restaurants pivot away from full-service dining to take-outfriendly operations in an attempt to stay relevant and alive. But Corner Spot had the “luxury” of coming of age in the midst of the pandemic, permitting them to shape the business accordingly. “Because of the timing of when we started this, it allowed us to consider the reality that we’re in now as opposed to having to pivot,” Lakin says. “As we were exploring different ideas and settling into this concept that I had been developing, we tried to design it for being not just take-away but giving an oven-fresh experience at home.” What sets Corner Spot apart from most of its colleagues – in addition to its style and substance – is the heat-and-eat process. Customers receive fully-baked pizzas, but not
Photo by Doug Trattner
By Douglas Trattner
hot pizzas. Included with the menu are detailed heating instructions that are intended to produce a very intentional outcome. “One of the exceptional characteristics of this pizza is the
Detroit, Cleveland and Naples. Customers can build their own by selecting between red or white sauces and toppings like sauteed cremini mushrooms, pickled peppers, spicy Italian sausage and thin-sliced
CORNER SPOT INSTAGRAM: @CORNERSPOTCLE
crispy corners and crispy edges,” notes Lakin. “Our desire is that people would experience the pizza as we were experiencing it.” After a few minutes in an extremely hot oven, preferably atop a baking stone, the pizzas indeed acquire sharp edges, crispy corners and bottoms so crusty that a knife and fork become practical accessories. At prices that hover in the $18 to $22 range, this is not inexpensive pizza. But each one is 8 by 10 inches in scale, more than an inch thick and stacked with highquality ingredients like Wisconsin brick cheese, Ohio City Provisions meats and a naturally fermented sourdough crust. Lakin describes the pie as a hybrid of styles from
pepperoni that crowns in the oven like crocuses at dusk. Predesigned pies include a Margherita ($18) with fresh mozzarella, the Demeatrio ($22) loaded with sausage, bacon and piles of pepperoni, and the Spuddy Rich ($20) starring thin-sliced potatoes, sweet onions and rosemary cream. Most pies come with the red sauce on top à la Detroit style. Lakin and his “lifelong friend” Eric Shafran launched Corner Spot this past summer when they sent an email to a small group of friends advertising their product. As the distribution list – and resulting orders – expanded, the cottage business relocated operations to the commercial kitchen at Pilgrim Congregational Church (2592 W.
14th St.) in Tremont, which also is the point of pick-up. Lakin admits that in the beginning, the exclusivity factor might have provided a subtle boost, but it’s developed into a matter of practicality. “We started out with a pretty thin window and as demand has grown we tried to widen the availability and now we’re trying to find some sweet spot to keep things manageable for us but also available enough to grow organically,” he explains. When asked the inevitable question about his and Shafran’s future plans, Lakin answers like a true product of his times. “We’re in a good place,” he says. “We’re not in any rush to jump into anything that would create a lot of overhead for us, especially while still so close to the pandemic. We’re hoping to be able to grow in the space we’re in at least for the foreseeable future and then we’ll see how things evolve in 2021.”
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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JANUARY 25-31, 2021 | CLEVELANDWINGWEEK.COM
Mette Blumensaadt
EAT BITES
Matt Harlan to open new eatery in former Vento space in Bay Village By Douglas Trattner MATTHEW HARLAN BEGAN working for Michael and Liz Symon when he was just 21. He ended up staying for 23 years, making him the second longest-running employee at the company. After starting at the original Lola in Tremont, Harlan has been an integral component of Lolita, Bar Symon and B Spot Burgers, of which he was regional manager. Now, after working more than half his life for others, Harlan is opening up a place of his own. The restaurant will be called Chatty’s Pizzeria, a nickname that Harlan has worn proudly for decades. The space is the former Vento la Trattoria (28611 Lake Rd.) in Bay Village, Di DeRubba’s charming Italian restaurant that closed last week after 11 years. The one-of-a-kind setting on the BAYarts campus at the Cleveland Metroparks Huntington Reservation was what motivated Harlan to make such a bold move, he says. “It’s a phenomenal space,” he states. “It was the location that really kicked me in the ass. If you talk about what’s so awesome about Cleveland, it’s the museums and the Metroparks. To be in the Metroparks and be across the street from Lake Erie, the scenery is just awesome.” Harlan, his wife, Melanie, and their two sons are Bay Village residents. Chatty’s Pizzeria will be a family-friendly restaurant serving approachable Italian foods like salad, pizza, sandwiches and dessert. Items likely will include charcuterie boards, burrata salads, meatball and chicken parmesan sandwiches and two styles of pizza: traditional New York and “Grandma style,” a thick sheet-pan type of pie. Harlan says he will be installing a pizza oven in the open kitchen. “You’ll walk in the door and see me making pizzas,” he says. Chatty’s will be open for lunch and dinner six days a week, but the space really blossoms in summer when upwards of 80 guests enjoy the scenic outdoor setting with beer, wine, cocktails and food. Harlan anticipates six to eight weeks of work before opening day.
After 23 years of working with one of the top restaurant groups in the game, Harlan is walking away with innumerable assets. He says the move is bittersweet, but he is looking forward to getting off the road and getting back in front of customers. Friends don’t call him “Chatty” for nothing. “It’s mostly the relationships I’ve developed with customers,” he admits. “Leaving Lolita and going to B Spot was definitely the right move for me and I’ll never regret doing it, but when you get out of that restaurant where you see people all the time and have so much fun talking to them and then see nobody, it sucks.” Harlan’s ex-boss offered a ringing endorsement of his longtime employee. “Chatty has a passion for providing great food while using quality ingredients,” Symon said. “From cooking in the kitchen to building relationships with, and advocating for, our customers, Matt will thrive in his new restaurant – and the community will love him!”
Dirty Bird, a New Virtual Eatery from Michael’s Genuine at Van Aken District, Stars Spicy Fried Chicken and Sides We can add Dirty Bird to the long and growing list of fried chickenthemed concepts popping up across Northeast Ohio. This new “Southern comfort food” eatery might be new to diners, but it’s being prepared by the veteran chefs at Michael’s Genuine (3427 Tuttle Rd., 216-230-8022) at the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights. “We’ve been talking about doing something a little different,” says Jordan Kirk, chef de cuisine. “We like to cook food that we like to eat and we love to eat fried chicken. This was food we were already cooking for ourselves and then we just brainstormed it and went from there.” Call it a ghost kitchen, virtual restaurant or whatever, this new menu is being prepared out of the same kitchen space at Michael’s Genuine. The idea is to introduce
exciting new options for local diners who might be looking for a change of pace, while allowing the chefs to expand their repertoire as well. The take-out and delivery only menu stars heavily spiced fried chicken in half- and whole-bird portions; this is not a pieces-parts operation. The buttermilk-marinated and seasoned chicken also is available in a Nashville Hot-style sandwich, a sandwich starring smoked thighs, and “Bird Bowls” layered with greens, veggies, fried or smoked chicken and creamy buttermilk dressing. For now, sides are limited to baked beans, mac and cheese, seasoned fries and loaded fries. Items likely will be added down the road, notes Kirk. Dirty Bird isn’t all that’s new at Michael’s Genuine. If you haven’t ordered from them in a while, you might not have noticed that the original menu has been completely retooled to make it more appropriate for take-out and delivery. “From what we were doing for dine-in to what we are doing now is, for the most part, a complete reset,” says Kirk. “When we came back we started focusing on mostly pizza, pasta, comfort food type stuff. It’s been refreshing because we’ve been able to cook foods that are a little more rustic.”
BrewDog USA Confirms Search for Cleveland Location, But Site Has Not Yet Been Chosen Cleveland Twitter was abuzz this week when BrewDog CEO James Watt posted a photo with the caption: “BrewDog Cleveland? Watch this space.” Despite the vagueness of the space — a cavernous warehouse
interior with few identifiable attributes — it was almost immediately identified as developer Fred Geis’ Avian building, presently taking shape on Scranton Peninsula. But while Cleveland beer lovers were busy raising a pint glass to the news, BrewDog principals were appealing for patience. “Other than the fact that we’re dedicated to finding an amazing location in Cleveland, I don’t have much else to share currently,” says BrewDog USA CEO Jason Block. “The site that was shared on social media last week was one of many we’ve been touring. We hope to have a location lined up soon.” This isn’t the first time the Scotland-based brewery has been sniffing around town; in 2017, former USA CEO Tanisha Robinson told Scene, “BrewDog Cleveland is in the works! We want Cleveland to be our first site outside of Columbus, and are currently scouting locations for a BrewDog bar.” Launched in 2007 by a pair of young, brash beer lovers, BrewDog played by its own rules. By year two it had become Scotland’s largest independent brewery and by year five it was named the “Fastest Growing Company in Scotland.” With the opening in 2017 of its large Columbus brewery, the company established a presence in the States. Already they have expanded to Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. Is Cleveland next? Maybe, says Block. “Cleveland is a huge focus market for us,” he adds. “Finding the right site there is our top brick-and-mortar priority.”
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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SAVAGE LOVE GAY DREAM BELIEVER By Dan Savage Hey, Dan: I’m wondering if you can help me with some dream interpretation. If it helps for context, I’m a single 29-year-old gay man. For just about as long as I can remember, I’ve been having mildly unsatisfying sex dreams in that the dreams never seem to lead to sex itself. My dream partners range from people I work with to people from high school to celebrities I’ll never get the chance to meet. I never dream about someone I wouldn’t want to sleep with in the waking world, given the opportunity. The scenarios are generally different as well. Sometimes the sexual tension is palpable but we’re in a crowded room. Sometimes we get close enough to get started but the setting is off. Sometimes we start to get hot and heavy but the dream ends just prior to the sex. In each case I wake up frustrated and masturbate to finish the fantasy. I’ve been pretty sexually starved during the pandemic, Dan, so you can imagine my frustration when I woke up this morning having almost had dream sex with Andrew Rannells. Can you think of why this might be happening? Any advice would be appreciated! Distancing Real Earnestly And Missing Erotic Romps “Well this is certainly VERY interesting,” said actor, singer, and author Andrew Rannells. “I’m honored I made the list of people DREAMER would actually have sex with in real life, if given the chance.” Seeing as this two-time Tony Award nominee is taken — Rannells fell in love with Tuc Watkins, one of his co-stars in Boys in the Band on
Broadway, and the two men now live together in Los Angeles — there’s not much chance of something happening between an anonymous “Savage Love” reader, DREAMER, and Rannells, one of the stars of The Prom on Netflix. But Rannells was more than happy to do a little amateur dream interpretation for a fan. “As for the root of this issue,” said Rannells, “I suppose it could have something to do with not having the confidence of actually following through with the full act? Maybe while awake he could experiment with fantasizing about a more complete experience and see if that changes his dream life?” My two cents: Perhaps these dreams are lingering evidence of some shame about your same-sex desires — which is why your dream universes conspire to prevent you from having gay sex — or perhaps the continued existence of bigots who would prevent gay men from having sex preys on your subconscious mind and manifests in the form of these frustrating/frustration dreams. Or maybe there’s no way of knowing what the hell is going on here and trying to attach meaning to something as random as a dream is a waste of time or a scam or both. The real takeaway here, DREAMER, is that you now have Rannells’ permission to masturbate about him whenever you like — or at least that’s how I would interpret his encouragement to fantasize about “more complete” experiences with the men who populate your dreams, Rannells included. You didn’t need his permission to masturbate about him, of course, and as a general rule we shouldn’t need to ask the people we want to jack off about for their okay. But Rannells basically offered, DREAMER, so have at. “Ultimately, we can’t control our dreams,” added Rannells. “For instance I have a recurring stress dream where I am supposed to be driving Jessica Lange somewhere and I can’t get the GPS to work. What does it mean? We’ll never know.” Follow Andrew Rannells on Instagram @AndrewRannells.
Hey, Dan: After years of receiving oral sex from girlfriends who were careful to never inflict any sort of pain on my testicles, I met a woman who wasn’t so
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| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
careful. For our fifth date, she came back to my place and we watched a movie. After the movie we began to kiss and soon she was making love to my stiff penis with her mouth while rather roughly massaging my testicles. However this came to be, I was liking it quite a bit. The more pressure she applied to my testicles, the harder my penis became. This has never happened to me in my 33 years of lovemaking! I actually asked her to squeeze my testicles harder and harder and I can honestly say my penis was harder than it has ever been. Against my better judgment, I asked her to squeeze my testicles as hard as she could. After several seconds of the most intense pressure she could provide, I had the most powerful orgasm I have ever had. All of a sudden, I was dizzy and my vision went black. When I finally came back to reality, there was an extraordinary amount of come all over the place. She has made love to my penis dozens of times since in the same manner. My question: Will there be any physical complications to my newly discovered taste for this kind of play? I look forward to your response! This Exquisitely Sensuous Torment Enhances Sex Ball busting — the kink you stumbled on — is inherently risky, TESTES, in that you could actually rupture, a.k.a. “bust,” one or both of your balls. Hence the name. But considering how much pleasure you’re deriving from this and considering how short life is and considering how long you’ve been sexually active and considering how little use you’re gonna get out of your balls once you’re dead, TESTES, I don’t see any reason why you should deprive yourself — at this stage — of this newly discovered sexual pleasure. Well, actually … I can see one reason why you might want to knock this off: When it comes to ball busting, TESTES, there’s no way to eliminate the risk of a physical complication that lands your sack in the emergency room, and ER nurses and doctors have enough on their plates right now. So maybe give your balls a break until after the pandemic is over and then go nuts.
Hey, Dan: I’m writing in response
to WHY, the Italian fellow whose partner has a significantly lower libido than he does. I would like to share my perspective. I have a high libido and my partner of more than twenty years has a low libido. From the perspective of the person with the lower libido, there’s no problem to address. The person with the lower libido gets to have sex whenever they want. When they don’t want sex, it doesn’t happen. If WHY wants to engage his partner in a conversation about this he has to make it clear this is a make-or-break situation. Use very specific language like, “If we can’t talk about this, I’m leaving,” or, “If we don’t go to counseling, I can’t stay in this relationship.” In my case, I did not communicate how important the issue was and my partner did not think we needed to talk about it because it wasn’t a problem for her and she didn’t know — because I didn’t tell her — how much of a problem it was for me. Eventually I acted out and had a random hookup. We wound up in counseling, which got us talking, but nothing changed the fact that we have very different libidos. More than likely I am moving out when our youngest son goes to college. If I had to do it over again I would have let my partner know exactly how important it is to me that we have a healthy, robust sexual relationship. Having a difficult conversation is better than acting out in a way that puts everyone’s health at risk and damages trust. I have no idea if that would have changed things between us, but I would feel a whole lot better about how things went down. One Man’s Opinion Thank you for sharing, OMO, and here’s hoping you get a chance to “do it over again.” With a new partner, if you wind up leaving your partner, or with the partner you have now, if you stay. There’s nothing you can say to change your partner’s libido, OMO, but if you keep talking you may be able to work out a compromise or an accommodation that takes the pressure off her (to round her libido up) and off you (to round yours down). Good luck.
mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savagelovecast.com
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| clevescene.com | December 16-22, 2020
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