Procedural vote on renaming Cleveland Browns stadium turns into debate on lending discrimination, poverty and respect

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cleveland City Council held a last-minute special meeting Wednesday to formally approve the renaming of the Cleveland Browns’ stadium as Huntington Bank Field.

The council approved the name change in a vote that was largely considered a formality. Cleveland’s lease agreement with the Browns for the city-owned stadium requires council members to approve naming rights unless the name violates the law in some way or is deemed to embarrass Cleveland for things like derogatory or sexual language.

Fourteen of the 17 council members attended the 27-minute hearing. All but one – Councilman Mike Polensek – approved the name change.

Though it was largely a procedural meeting, the dialogue among some council members became heated — perhaps not a huge surprise, given looming tensions over a potential deal between the Browns and Mayor Justin Bibb to extend the team’s lease and renovate the lakefront stadium.

Board Chairman Blaine Griffin at times tried to calm the excitement by praising Huntington Bank’s credit history in Cleveland and its recent decision to reopen a branch in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood after protests from residents.

But before the vote, Polensek, along with council members Kevin Conwell and Brian Kazy, offered some pointed questions and criticisms.

Kazy asked a Browns attorney (who was present in a sparsely filled boardroom) to reveal how much the team will receive from Huntington Bank in exchange for its 20-year naming rights deal.

The Browns’ attorney declined to comment, saying the dollar figure is “private.”

In the previous naming rights deal with FirstEnergy, the Browns received $6 million annually.

Polensek also criticised the secrecy: “It is about tens and tens of millions of dollars, and nobody can tell us (how much?). Will we be able to get anything for our neighbourhoods?” he asked.

In response to those concerns, Griffin noted that the stadium lease does not include any clauses requiring the Browns to publicly disclose their earnings from the deal. And Griffin said the money from naming rights, along with other sources of team revenue such as the sale of broadcast rights to games, goes to the Haslams, so they can use it to pay off their share of the city’s 25-year debt for building the stadium.

Kevin Conwell, who represents much of Glenville, demanded that the Browns commit to spending more money in neighborhoods like his. “I don’t want the Browns to get everything, and my people get nothing. They can’t even go to the stadium,” Conwell said.

Conwell wanted to see something similar to the team’s stadium renovation deal with the city in 2014, when the Browns agreed to make improvements to the football fields of several Cleveland schools.

But Griffin ultimately seemed to ease Conwell’s concerns by explaining how Wednesday’s vote was simply related to naming rights and not any public funding for a future stadium renovation.

Both Conwell and Kazy ended up voting in favor of the measure, while Polensek remained steadfast in his opposition.

Polensek, the longest-serving council member who represents much of Collinwood, sharply criticized the segregation of banks on the East Side. He criticized Huntington Bank for not having a Community Reinvestment Act agreement with the city of Cleveland. Griffin responded that one would be finalized in the coming days and that no bank has had such an agreement with Cleveland since 2014.

Polensek also criticized the timing of the board vote. Griffin had scheduled it for a day after what Polensek described as the Browns’ “big announcement” on Tuesday, in which they publicly revealed the new name during a celebratory news conference.

The lease requires the city to approve the name change before it can take place. Polensek said it was “disrespectful” that the team sought city approval after its big public unveiling.

Polensek, who cited Cleveland’s high poverty rates, especially among children, also lamented Cleveland’s historic spending on stadiums and the Browns’ threat to move to Brook Park. He criticized the council for not having had a chance to question team or city officials about the status of the Huntington Community Reinvestment Act before Wednesday’s vote.

“I want to know what the people of Cleveland are getting out of this,” Polensek said.

Griffin noted how the lease allows for the name change to go forward after a 30-day waiting period if the council decides not to approve it.

He did not explicitly mention how that option, if exercised by the board, would have thwarted the team’s desire to use the new name during Sunday’s home opener.

Griffin also described how he arranged the date of Wednesday’s hearing to accommodate the Browns. If the name change had been placed on the agenda of a regular board meeting, perhaps days before a meeting, the name change would have been revealed before the Browns wanted to make it public. And the deal with Huntington Bank was at risk of falling apart if the news had been released too soon, Griffin said.