The political fight over a Cudell gas station development is still spilling into the courts.
The gas station’s developer has filed a defamation lawsuit over a public comment at a Cleveland City Council meeting. The company has also been fighting in court to overturn a denial by Cleveland’s Board of Zoning Appeals.
The developer, Shaker Madison LLC, had proposed turning a vacant CVS on Madison Avenue into a gas station and retail plaza. The zoning board denied a variance for the project. Backers and foes of the project have taken the microphone during City Council public comment sessions.
One opponent of the gas station project, Dallas Eckman, now faces a lawsuit from Ibrahim Shehadeh of Shaker Madison LLC. At an April council meeting, he said Shehadeh was part of a group that had displayed “racist behavior” toward people who supported New Era Cleveland leader Antoine Tolbert.
(Tolbert was acquitted in August of charges that stemmed from a dispute on the East Side with gas station owners, including Shehadeh.)
Shehadeh sued Eckman in June in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. He contested Eckman’s account, saying the public comment was aimed at hurting his gas station businesses. In a court filing, Eckman stood by his words and asked Judge Shannon M. Gallagher to dismiss the case. She has not yet ruled on the motion.
Now to the zoning suit. Shaker Madison has argued that the zoning board’s decision to block the gas station was “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.” The company criticized one board member for not recusing herself from the matter sooner.
This week, an attorney for the City of Cleveland defended the board, arguing that Shaker Madison lost its zoning case fair and square. The board member in question, Nina Holzer, abstained from voting last year because she also served on the board of Northwest Neighborhoods Community Development Corp., which opposed the gas station.
During the zoning meeting, Holzer “never expressed an opinion” on the development and “had no influence” over the board’s final decision, the city’s lawyer wrote. That case is ongoing.
