It’s a curious choice, but does it matter?
Hamilton County made a serious move recently.
As the deadline looms for the county and the Cincinnati Bengals’ stadium lease, all three commissioners for Hamilton County voted to part ways with lawyer Tom Gabelman, who helped put together the current leases for the Bengals and Cincinnati Reds’ stadiums.
The county is bringing in new representatives, one of which the Bengals are bringing attention to as a potential conflict of interest in a recent statement:
“Recently, the Team was surprised to learn that Hamilton County had retained an outside stadium consultant who is, in fact, performing stadium consulting services for the Cleveland Browns. This was not disclosed to the team initially, and the team undertook research to finally uncover this truth.
“The team has expressed concern to the County that a stadium consultant performing services for the Cleveland Browns might not have Cincinnati’s best interests at heart. The County can decide how it wants to proceed, but the team felt it appropriate to share concerns over whether parties involved in discussions were working exclusively to advance local interests — or whether other conflicts might exist.”
The motion to move on from Gabelman was a last-minute move that Gabelman himself was unaware of until an hour before the vote.
The move was spearheaded by Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich.
“Now is actually the very perfect time, because we do have the deadline looming in just a month in a half,” Pillich told Brian Hamrick of WLMT5. “If we don’t make this switch and get some new eyes on the project in a hurry, I feel that we’re going to just tread water, as we seem to have been doing for quite some time.”
The big question here is how much does it matter that they brought on the same consultant that has been working on the Cleveland Browns new stadium? Probably not much. It isn’t like this has anything to do with team building or what is happening on the field.
This is about getting a new lease in place that works for both sides. It seems this is solely about the stadium. It seems plausible this person can potentially put aside any bias for what could reportedly be $450,000 payday if their advice is used to reach a new lease. That seems like motivation enough.
Still, it seems like a confusing time to make this move with the deadline fast approaching.
All we can do is wait and see how this shakes out.
