In the weeks since Mayor Justin Bibb publicized his $461 million bid to keep the Browns from moving to Brook Park, the team and City Hall have continued to negotiate behind the scenes.
The two parties exchanged a pair of letters last month. This week, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam met with Bibb at City Hall. It remains to be seen whether the closed-door back-and-forth brought the city and the NFL franchise closer to – or took them further from – a deal to renovate the city-owned lakefront stadium.
At the end of August, the Bibb administration denied a public records request from Signal Cleveland for the two letters. The reason given for the denial was that the letters contain trade secrets exempt from public records law.
“The documents would disclose the city’s confidential business information, business plans, and financial information involved in these negotiations,” Press Secretary Marie Zickefoose wrote in an email. “The disclosure would harm the city’s bargaining position in this and other important projects. The city is taking reasonable efforts to protect sensitive details in order to protect the taxpayers’ interests.”
Ohio law defines a trade secret as information that derives its economic value from not being known and that someone has tried to keep private.
Keeping the Browns on Cleveland’s lakefront with a billion-dollar renovation
City Hall has published just one of its letters to the Browns: Bibb’s initial message to Dee and Jimmy Haslam encouraging them to remain on the lakefront.
But the Browns’ response to that letter and the city’s subsequent reply remain trade secrets in the eyes of the administration. Those letters might shed more light for the public on the sticking points in Bibb’s talks with the Haslams about spending taxpayer money on a stadium.
The mayor has offered $367 million for a major renovation of the Browns’ current stadium. Another $94 million would cover future repairs. The city would foot those costs over 30 years with admission taxes, revenue from the county’s sin tax, reserves and parking proceeds.
That’s less than the Browns have asked for. The team proposed splitting the costs of a $1 billion renovation with the public. Cleveland – and potentially other governments such as the state or county – would have to come up with $500 million for renovation costs.
Typically, local government pays for big-ticket items by borrowing money. To pay down $500 million in debt plus interest, the public would need to tap even more than $500 million in cash over 30 years.
More than a month after Bibb released his pitch to the Browns, neither side has publicly said where exactly negotiations stand.
The Browns declined to comment for this story. Asked on Monday why he was visiting City Hall, Haslam offered a few words as he walked into Bibb’s office just before 1 p.m.: “Seeing the mayor.”
When the meeting ended shortly after 2 p.m., team officials took a path out of the mayor’s office that avoided the reporters stationed in the hall outside.
