Cleveland Plain Dealer: Developers Opposed Cuyahoga County Commissioners' "Secrecy" in Choosing Administration Building Site
Cleveland partner David Marburger was quoted in an August 5, 2009, Cleveland Plain Dealer article, "Developers Opposed Cuyahoga County Commissioners' 'Secrecy' in Choosing Administration Building Site."
According to the article, two of the four final bidders to develop a Cuyahoga County administration building in 2005 argued against the county commissioners' secret process for choosing a site. Commissioners refused developers' requests for information, saying the law let them keep the information under wraps, according to the article. The commissioners also decided behind closed doors to buy the Ameritrust complex, a set of buildings that has so far cost the county more than $40 million even though commissioners have abandoned plans to develop the site, according to the article.
When developers requested documents, the county argued that documents were protected under the real estate exemption in the state's open-meetings law. Written documents, however, would fall under Ohio's open-records law, said Marburger, a public-records specialist who often represents The Plain Dealer. Components of the updated proposals could be considered trade secrets and therefore protected, Marburger said. "I find the trade-secret concept to be unlikely, but I also understand how elements of it could be legitimate," he said. "I don't see how the end game—price—should ever be a trade secret. I do understand how components of how you get to the price could be. But I'm also skeptical of that," Marburger said.