CLEVELAND \u2014 Former Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich was thrown for a loss Monday in his bid to keep a legal fight going over the Browns\u2019 move to Brook Park.<\/p>\n
A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge tossed out a lawsuit Kucinich filed last year against the city of Cleveland. Judge Hollie Gallagher found that Kucinich lacked standing \u2013 and that his claims are moot now, anyway, because of a legal settlement between the city and the Browns.<\/p>\n
In an emailed statement, Kucinich said he\u2019s considering whether to appeal.<\/p>\n
The longtime politician sued the city in August, arguing that officials weren\u2019t acting aggressively enough to stop the Browns from building a new suburban stadium. Cleveland owns the existing lakefront stadium and leases it to the Browns.<\/p>\n
Kucinich asked the court to compel Cleveland\u2019s law director to do more to block the move by using restrictive language in the team\u2019s current stadium lease.<\/p>\n
He also wanted the city to enforce the state\u2019s so-called \u201cModell law,\u201d which Kucinich wrote as a state lawmaker in the 1990s to make it harder for pro sports teams to leave taxpayer-supported facilities.<\/p>\n
The General Assembly changed the wording of the Modell law last summer so that it no longer applies to in-state stadium moves.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers add change to Modell law<\/p>\n
RELATED: Lawmakers slip change to the Modell law into Ohio’s budget bill<\/a><\/p>\n The city, which was already fighting with the Browns in state and federal court, filed a motion to dismiss Kucinich\u2019s lawsuit in early October.<\/p>\n Soon after, the city and team owner Haslam Sports Group reached a roughly $100 million settlement deal. Cleveland agreed to stop fighting the team\u2019s move in exchange for cash and a commitment from Haslam Sports Group to tear down the existing stadium.<\/p>\n Browns, Cleveland reach $100M settlement, paving the way for Brook Park stadium move<\/p>\n RELATED: Browns, Cleveland reach $100 million settlement, paving the way for Brook Park stadium move<\/a><\/p>\n Cleveland City Council signed off on the settlement Dec. 1.<\/p>\n Cleveland City Council OKs $100 million Browns settlement, with some late-in-the-game changes<\/p>\n RELATED: Cleveland City Council OKs $100 million Browns settlement, with some late-in-the-game changes<\/a><\/p>\n As part of the deal, Cleveland agreed to use \u201cbest efforts\u201d to get Kucinich\u2019s lawsuit tossed. Lawyers for the Browns also asked Gallagher to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n Kucinich was seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the Browns from moving. A hearing on his request was set to take place Friday morning.<\/p>\n In his emailed statement Monday, Kucinich said he believes Cleveland taxpayers \u201chave been ill-served by their city leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n Gallagher found that the city made good on its obligations in correspondence and litigation with the Browns. In her decision, the judge also wrote that Kucinich\u2019s status as a Cleveland taxpayer didn\u2019t give him grounds to sue.<\/p>\n In an emailed statement, a city spokesman said the legislature’s changes to the Modell law left Cleveland with no legal path to keep the Browns after the team’s stadium lease expires in 2029.<\/p>\n “That shredding of the Modell Law, in addition to the legislature also giving Haslam Sports Group $600 million, left us with two choices – work towards a settlement to secure some sort of compensation or keep fighting a now weak case in court that likely would result in the City receiving nothing,” spokesman Tyler Sinclair wrote. “We chose the logical option, as we believe $100,000,000 is better than $0. This dismissal reaffirms that the City made the right decision.”<\/p>\n A spokesman for Haslam Sports Group declined to comment.<\/p>\n Contractors are already moving dirt on the future stadium site in Brook Park. The Browns aim to move in mid-2029, once their lease in Cleveland ends.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s still litigation<\/a> over the state\u2019s decision to tap unclaimed funds to provide a $600 million grant for the project. In December, a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge issued a temporary restraining order<\/a>, blocking the state from taking money out of the unclaimed funds pool. The court is weighing whether to impose a longer-term hold.<\/p>\n Michelle Jarboe is the business growth and development reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe<\/a> or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Former Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich was thrown for a loss Monday in his bid to keep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,5491,29043,64454,109649,85,54,109650,2337,107485,109651,7,5497,4398,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-772901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-browns-brook-park","10":"tag-browns-dome","11":"tag-browns-move","12":"tag-browns-stadium-lawsuits","13":"tag-cleveland","14":"tag-cleveland-browns","15":"tag-cleveland-lawsuits","16":"tag-clevelandbrowns","17":"tag-dennis-kucinich","18":"tag-dennis-kucinich-lawsuit","19":"tag-football","20":"tag-haslam-sports-group","21":"tag-huntington-bank-field","22":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116124930912603685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}