Aw! Pity Mr. Giardini, the king of the good old boys in Lorain Democrat politics! We bloggers keep sticking our noses into his backroom dealings, and he just doesn’t like it. I feel so sorry that he feels so persecuted. NOT!
What am I talking about? Well, if by chance you saw this Buckeye RINO blog entry, or this Word of Mouth blog entry, or especially, this That Woman’s Weblog blog entry, then compared them with this editorial of the Lorain Morning Journal, then you see that the perceived preferential treatment for Lorain’s good old boys, specifically Lorain City Democrat Party Chair Anthony Giardini’s legal client, Lorain County Commissioner Ted Kalo (who’s seeking re-election, but I urge Lorain County voters to cast a ballot for Nick Brusky, instead) wasn’t a story that was playing well with some of Lorain’s stakeholders.
Lorain County Community Action Agency (LCCAA), a faith-based non-profit quasi-governmental agency that, among other things, runs the Head Start program in Lorain County, has two mortgages on its downtown Lorain HQ properties, and soon they will be required to make a balloon payment, creating a financial hardship for the agency. Lorain City Council is weighing the opportunity to buy the mortgages from the lender, thus ameliorating the financial hardship on the agency.
Meanwhile, Ted Kalo’s flooring business, also located in downtown Lorain, had to file for bankruptcy in recent months and now foreclosure proceedings have begun on the business property. Someone had the bright idea to relocate LCCAA into a portion of the Kalo business property while Kalo continues to use the remainder in order to stave off foreclosure. That bright idea would have been put into motion once city council had acquired the mortgages of the LCCAA property. Hmmmmm . . . ok, I had a problem with that, and so did some others, which is why you’ll find protests of the scheme recorded at each of those first 4 links in the 2nd paragraph of this blog entry.
Guess what? Lorain City Council decided that they will take up the LCCAA mortgage matter WITHOUT considering a relocation from LCCAA’s current HQ to the Kalo property. The Morning Journal quotes Mayor Anthony Krasienko thus:
“We didn’t want it to appear that we were bailing him [Kalo] out in any way.”
Paula Tobias also attended the city council meeting, and provides her summary at That Woman’s Weblog.
I think it’s nice for the politicians to realize that bloggers (here’s another from WoM) and journalists are paying attention to what’s going on.
Anthony Giardini doesn’t think it’s so nice. He wrote a letter to the Morning Journal to complain about the way this scheme was portrayed. He closes his letter with these sentences:
“Meanwhile, guys like Ted and myself and my partners have kept this part of downtown occupied and thriving. Our thanks for sticking it out and making large investments is your column comparing us to the likes of those criminals on Wall Street. To say the least, it was disappointing and disheartening. I have come to expect that sort of thing from certain political people and certain “bloggers” but not from responsible journalists.”
Certain political people, huh? Why, Giardini and Kalo wouldn’t be political people, now would they? How dare certain political people question the likes of Giardini and Kalo. And then the bloggers pile on! How terrible! And then even responsible journalists are asking questions! Horrors!
We should be thanking Giardini and Kalo for sticking it out and keeping the downtown occupied and thriving.
NEWS FLASH!!! Large sections of downtown aren’t occupied, and, overall, the downtown isn’t thriving to well. Many of the things that stakeholders say that downtown needs fail to get the attention and approval from the good old boys. Well, in that case, Giardini and Kalo, thanks for SQUAT!
Next up on this blogger’s agenda regarding Mr. Giardini: Ask Mark Provenza to resign as Law Director for the city of Lorain.
Buckeye RINO 
October 8, 2008 at 1:07 am
…..what a difference a year makes. Remember last year on election night Daniel, when we met at Paula’s function? Well, after leaving Paula’s, I ventured on down the road to another popular night spot and ran into all the victorious dems, all high-fiving each other. A whole bunch of them, all thumping their chests. Look at them now, a year later. One’s been convicted, another is just a good judge away from his 3 rd DUI conviction, and another is looking for the sweetheart deal to stave off foreclosure because he hasn’t made a mortgage payment in who-knows how long. What a year for the Dems. And the common link ?
Anthony Giardini !
October 8, 2008 at 11:39 am
Oh, my! We keep pointing fingers at poor Mr. Giardini. So sad.
October 31, 2008 at 11:15 am
[…] I’ve occasionally posted blog entries about the good old boys of Lorain here, here, and here. I also wrote about Kalo at Word of Mouth, and Kalo responded. I’ll have more to say […]
November 4, 2008 at 12:11 am
Ted Kalo isn’t telling the whole story. First he buys a property for around 175,000 and somehow gets a huge loan for over 700,000 for improvements. Was the work done he claimed the money was intended for or did he buy his house on Oak Point Road around the same time? He had a house off Oberlin Avenue that he made no money on yet he found a down payment on his Oak Point Residence? He also was married before and there appears to be an ex-wife with kids and support involved. I wonder if his support order what he claimed as his earnings matched the loan applications for his business he took out at the same time. They are not even close, in my opinion this is fraud and should be looked into. Although a nice guy, he has too many skeletons in the closet. No one knows about his once gambling debt to “Pete” which was in the Thousands. His son like relationship to Bansek and his City contracts. If you look deep enough you will find some patterns……
November 4, 2008 at 8:55 am
Thanks for commenting. I have very little knowledge of Kalo’s personal life, but I think Kalo’s public record demonstrates he needs to be voted out. Of the commissioner candidates, Kalo raised the most campaign money, and I’m disturbed by that. Obviously “The Powers That Be” want to continue to thwart the will of the people. The tax measure last fall went down to defeat by 80% to 20%, so that’s what the will of the people is. Unfortunately, turnout last year was small, because it was an off-year election. Those that did vote were more likely to be informed voters. This year, turnout will be huge because of the presidential race, and I’m worried that a large number of voters will cast straight-ticket ballots for Democrats not knowing anything about county government or how Kalo has an agenda that’s separate from the people’s agenda. Kalo is certainly counting on Obama’s coattails. I’m hoping enough people have been paying attention and vote for Brusky.
November 4, 2008 at 10:50 am
[…] County Commissioner. You can read more about the current state of affairs in Lorain County here, here, here, and here. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)In Barrett’s wake: GOP […]
December 2, 2008 at 4:15 pm
[…] person responsible for Provenza being in office is none other than Lorain Dem party boss Anthony Giardini. Giardini got Provenza in, and Giardini can get Provenza out. If Provenza is reluctant to step […]
August 27, 2009 at 2:31 am
[…] and thus his name will definitely appear on the November ballot. The good old boys (particularly Anthony Giardini) who run the Democrat party in Lorain are aiming to subvert the laws to get Riley’s name on […]
September 1, 2014 at 8:26 pm
[…] in a related CT story, I don’t have to wonder where local Democrat Party boss Anthony Giardini stands on who is worthy and unworthy of support. Whoever Giardini handpicks is worthy of support […]