Kevin Kelley talks vacant housing, council discipline, East Cleveland merger

My Q-and-A with Kevin Kelley, Cleveland’s new city council president, is out now in the March issue of Cleveland Magazine.

Kelley’s election may lead to a more assertive city council than we’ve seen in eight years. His predecessor, Martin Sweeney, valued cooperation with Mayor Frank Jackson and let the mayor's office set civic priorities. Kelley’s agenda for 2014 includes initiatives on vacant housing and gun violence, both still in the study stage.

The 45-year-old councilman from Old Brooklyn talked with me about his insistence on better discipline and decorum in council, his plans to step up home demolitions, and his thoughts on whether Cleveland should annex East Cleveland. Here’s an extended version of his answers. You can read his comments about why he supports extending Cuyahoga County’s alcohol and cigarette tax for stadium repairs in this blog post.


CM: What are your plans for vacant housing?

KK: The council has commissioned a study to look at the effect of demolition and how it affects property values. We need to aggressively attack these houses. Some homes are candidates for restoration, but what’s really causing the devaluing of real estate is the 5,000 we can all agree need to come down. The biggest challenge is not identifying the houses to come down, but identifying the money.

CM: Councilman Jeff Johnson will often make the case: I don’t just want demolition, I represent a historic neighborhood, I want some of these properties preserved, and I want to find money for that too.

KK: Certainly there are some [houses] that are candidates for restoration. But the biggest part of the problem is those that must come down. Even councilman Johnson or those who are active in the historic preservation community would agree that there are homes that are beyond saving. It’s bringing all of our property values down.

CM: At a retreat just after New Year’s, you told councilpeople to show up to meetings, show up on time, understand what they’re voting on, and pay attention to testimony. But only 10 out of 17 councilpeople attended your retreat. Does that prove your point?

KK: No. That was something I wanted to do before we started the session. I knew it was during the holidays, some people told me they were out of town visiting family. If it were held while we were in session, I’m confident we’d have 100 percent participation.

Look at attendance and punctuality since that retreat. Every meeting has started within 3 minutes of its starting time. We’re acting in a more professional manner. I think we’re taking things more seriously. I’m trying to make people more cognizant of the fact that when you sign your signature or cast a vote, millions of dollars are appropriated. When you consider the enterprise funds and the general fund, we appropriate over $1 billion a year. That’s something we need to be aware of, and that’s why I insist everybody be at their seats when the roll is called.

There was not a lot of chatter during the legislative portion of the meeting. There was not a lot of roaming around. The directors have agreed to come to meetings 10 minutes early to discuss any issues councilmembers might have so that please don’t have to roam around during the meetings. Overall, these changes are being accepted by my colleagues.

CM: What do you think about talk of Cleveland and East Cleveland merging?

KK: We need to commission a study that will look at whether this makes sense for both communities. It’s an intriguing opportunity, but we need to look at the cost of providing services to East Cleveland. There’s a lot of risk, but a lot of opportunity. It’s too early to say whether it’s definitely something we should or should not do. We need to take a very sober, thoughtful approach to this.

CM: What are the risks for Cleveland?

KK: The risks are that our budget is very tight. There’s not a lot of extra money. Our biggest challenges are providing safety forces. They take up 55 percent of our budget. Are we able to extend that level of service to what would be a new part of the municipality? Are we able to deal with the infrastructure challenges that East Cleveland poses? We have our own infrastructure challenges, in terms of the conditions of our roadways.

CM: What are the opportunities for the city?

KK: The opportunities are, there’s a lot of gems in East Cleveland. There’s a lot of nice old houses, parks, industry — [GE’s] Nela Park is still there. They have big city problems on a small city budget. If we come together, and that helps our ability to bond projects, can we be better together because of our now increased population, income tax and property tax values?

When we look at the big-city problems some of our inner-ring suburbs are facing, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate to other communities that by coming together, we can solve these problems together. We can make this work, we can do a merger and keep the local character, but get the benefit of working together.

CM: Could this pave the way for other mergers in the future?

KK: If it’s determined that it’s in Cleveland’s interest, and it is done well, and it can demonstrate that because of its merger, East Cleveland is in a much better position and Cleveland is in a better position — then yes, it can be seen as a transformative step that other communities can take and [a way] we can build a better Greater Cleveland.

CM: What was it like to be Kevin J. Kelley when a J. Kevin Kelley in the town next door was indicted on corruption charges?

KK: That was an interesting time! When it first happened, there was quite a bit of confusion. A couple of callers to my office were “so disappointed” in me. It was a tough time. With each subsequent headline, the effect on me lessened a little bit. But every now and then, one of my friends’ moms would say, “Oh, I know Kevin’s going to be OK. I know he didn’t do anything.”

Scowling Sweeney strikes again

Like a glowering gnome, his eyes smoldering with hate for his enemies, Martin Sweeney lurks on the Plain Dealer's front page today. The paper looks gleeful at a chance to kick the hapless ex-city council president one last time.

Sweeney has ended his presidency with a final indulgence, and the file photo makes him look furious to be caught out.

Totally unsurprisingly, Sweeney retired for a few days to collect his pension -- the same cheesy double-dip he allowed Ken Johnson to pull last year. Then he rejoins council on Monday for another four years.

There ought to be a law against elected officials' week-long fake retirements, but there isn't. Double-dipping drains government pension systems of cash and credibility (take a look at Detroit to see how that ends). Yet Cleveland councilpeople have just made double-dipping even more a part of their insular culture, restoring double-dippers' ceremonial seniority honors. They meant to come back, council explains. Everyone knows their retirements are fake.

I still can't figure out how Sweeney lasted eight years as council president. He survived a sexual harassment allegation. He dodged multiple ethical questions arising from his friendships with Cuyahoga County corruption scandal figures. He never turned over those receipts for the work that Michael Forlani's company did on his house. He never explained the relationship between Forlani's fundraising for his council leadership fund and the contractor's wiretapped boast that he could count on 14 votes from the council majority.

Last year, Sweeney's ruthless gerrymandering backfired. His old majority too slim for comfort after the November election, he delivered a score-settling farewell and handed off the presidency.

"Let's move on," says Kevin J. Kelley, the council president-elect, "and deal with the vacant housing problem [and] the gun violence epidemic." Sounds good.

Update, 3 pm: Speaking of Kelley, he scolded council members at a retreat today to show up for meetings and pay attention. But many councilpeople weren't there to hear it -- they skipped the optional meeting. Cleveland.com says only 9 of the 17 council members came, though Joe Cimperman is also tweeting from it, so let's say 10.

Kelley said committee chairpersons and vice-chairs often ignore the mayor's cabinet members when they testify. “One of my personal pet peeves is when the chair is off talking to someone else or checking email, while the director is addressing the group and looking around for someone to make eye contact with,” he said.  No kidding!

Zack Reed, Jeff Johnson, Brian Cummins win city council primaries

Zack Reed may be spending 10 days in jail soon, but he beat his DUI conviction at the polls today. Voters in Cleveland Ward 2 rewarded the longtime councilman for his work instead of punishing him for drinking and driving. They gave him 83 percent of the vote in the city council primary election.

Jeff Johnson’s election gamble is paying off. He took 55 percent of the vote in northeast Cleveland’s Ward 10 against fellow councilman Eugene Miller, who got 39 percent.

Johnson, whose old ward was sliced up in redistricting, looks likely to thwart council president Martin Sweeney’s gerrymandering. Sweeney designed the awkwardly stretched-out Ward 10 to set up Miller for re-election. But Johnson, who served on council in the 1980s and returned in 2009, saw an opportunity to unseat the younger Miller.

The two councilmen, who will face off again in the Nov. 5 election, have both been damaged by scandal. Johnson’s political career seemed over when he served prison time for a 1998 extortion conviction, but voters seem to be accepting that he’s followed a path to rehabilitation. Miller’s troubles, smaller by comparison, are recent: an impaired-driving case, a voting-address snafu just referred to the county prosecutor, and embarrassing 911 calls.

Brian Cummins, councilman for the near West Side’s Ward 14, came out on top of a four-way race in first place with 31 percent of the vote. He’ll face challenger Brian Kazy, who got 26 percent.

Kazy edged out an aggressive candidate, Janet Garcia, for a spot in the runoff. Garcia, running in a ward that’s 41 percent Hispanic, argued for electing a Hispanic councilperson. She won the Democratic Party endorsement and campaigned in a white car covered with her name in giant letters. But another Hispanic candidate, former councilman Nelson Cintron, kept her from achieving critical mass. A pending felony case against her, in which she’s accused of assaulting a Westlake police officer, probably didn’t help either. (She has maintained she’ll be found not guilty.)

November victories by Reed, Johnson, and Cummins would shore up the opposition to Martin Sweeney's council majority. But in Hough’s Ward 7, a Sweeney supporter did better than some expected today.

Councilman T.J. Dow won 47 percent of the vote and will face an energetic challenger, Basheer Jones, in November. Jones, a former radio talk show host, poet and motivational speaker, got 27 percent, while former councilperson Stephanie Howse got 21 percent.

Will Zack Reed win reelection from jail?

So Zack Reed is guilty of his third DUI. His long reign as councilman for the Warehouse District has finally caught up to him. He’s headed to jail this time, for somewhere from 10 days to six months. He’ll be sentenced Sept. 5 – five days before the city council primary.

Is this the end of Reed’s political career? I don’t think so. We may be about to witness the spectacle of a popular city councilman getting reelected from the Cleveland House of Correction.

While he's still a free man, Reed’s running hard. Sunday, he tweeted that’s he’s got 500 yard signs planted in his ward. WKYC’s man-on-the-street interviews yesterday in Ward 2, on Cleveland’s far south side, found many residents ready to reelect him. People like his fiery, fighting style. His three challengers have nowhere near his name recognition.

“Drunk or not, Zack outworks the rest of them,” says local political activist and commentator Mansfield Frazier (who lives in Hough). “I’ve been to meetings at 7 a.m., and there’s Zack.”

Reed sounded contrite in an interview with WKYC’s Tom Beres. “I need to abstain from alcohol, and I will work to ensure that happens,” he said.

“The credibility of my family’s been lost. The credibility of my friends have been lost. And now the credibility of my constituents have been lost,” Reed said. “And now I’ve got to go back out to work to get that credibility back again.”

That humility is probably what his voters want to hear. Redemption stories play well in city politics.

City council president Martin Sweeney has called on Reed to resign. But Reed has no intention of quitting. So how much farther will Sweeney go?

The council can boot Reed out if he misses ten council and committee meetings for any reason, including an extended jail stay. But why kick him off council if voters are going to send him back in January?

Even if visiting judge Larry Allen gives Reed the maximum six months, would council kick him off twice, in 2013 and 2014? Not likely. Expelling a fellow member is a hard vote for a councilperson. It would bring up tough questions. Mike Polensek has already protested that other council members have skipped meetings without punishment. Others may ask why Sweeney ally Eugene Miller hasn’t been kicked off for his address snafu.

It looks like Reed will ride out his jail stint and stay on council through 2017 -- even if he has to get to City Hall by bus.

Council drama: Jeff Johnson vs. Eugene Miller, Brian Cummins vs. Garcia & Cintron, Zack Reed vs. DUI charge

Zack Reed's running for reelection to city council despite his latest drunk-driving charge. Brian Cummins faces two Hispanic challengers. And Jeff Johnson's run against Eugene Miller threatens Martin Sweeney's council leadership.

Those are the big storylines we'll see in this fall's Cleveland city council races -- set in motion today, the filing deadline for the city's September 10 primary.

"I am now an official candidate in the race to retain the Council seat in Cleveland Ward 2," Reed tweeted last night. His toughest opponents may not be his four challengers, but his own legal troubles.

Reed is set for trial August 15 on his third drunk-driving charge, this one based on a March arrest. He could lose his council seat if a long jail sentence prevents him from showing up to enough meetings.

But Reed, who's been on council since 2000, has survived adversity before. A blunt maverick who ignores council's peculiar rules of deference, he beat an 2009 attempt to gerrymander him out of a job. He ran in a new ward in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood and won 65 percent of the vote.

Brian Cummins, another maverick who beat a nasty gerrymander four years ago, faces a challenge of a different sort. He's a white guy in a ward redrawn this year to maximize the number of Hispanics in it.

Cummins' Ward 14 includes the Puerto Rican neighborhood around W. 25th St. and Clark Ave. The ward's political atmosphere is charged this summer because of the May 6 escape of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight from Ariel Castro's Seymour Ave. home. Hispanic activists want to redouble their efforts to improve the neighborhood to help move it beyond the Castro case's stigma. For some of them, electing a Hispanic councilman is part of the agenda.

Nelson Cintron, a former councilman with a checkered past, is running against Cummins. So is newcomer Janet Garcia, an insurance agent who seems to have a well-organized campaign. Cummins and Garcia both attended a Hispanic town hall meeting at Lincoln-West High School two weeks ago. After the meeting split into breakout sessions to brainstorm goals, Garcia spoke for her group and called for electing a Hispanic political leader. Cummins let someone else speak for his circle, but he, too, is paying attention to Latino issues, talking up plans to develop W. 25th and Clark into a "Hispanic Village," a destination built on ethnic stores and restaurants, like Little Italy.

In northeast Cleveland, Jeff Johnson aims to thwart council president Sweeney's redistricting map.  The new ward lines seemed to force Johnson into a race against fellow Glenville councilman Kevin Conwell.  Instead, Johnson is running in a weirdly drawn district that was stretched from South Collinwood through Glenville along St. Clair Avenue to try to set up Eugene Miller, a young Sweeney loyalist, with a safe seat.

The race is a high-risk, high-reward move for Johnson, who was considered Mayor Mike White's heir apparent until his 1998 extortion conviction and could be a mayoral contender again once Frank Jackson retires. (You can read Cleveland Magazine's 1999 profile, "The Rise and Fall of Jeff Johnson," here.)

Over in Hough's Ward 7, incumbent T. J. Dow faces a crowded field, including former interim councilwoman Stephanie Howse and Basheer Jones, a former radio host, poet and motivational speaker.

That race and the Johnson-Miller race could help determine whether the controversial Sweeney can remain council president -- or, whether Sweeney can successfully hand off the presidency to his top lieutenant, Kevin J. Kelley.

'What do I stand for?' City council's terrible week

Last Tuesday, the day after Cleveland City Council voted to un-retire colleague Ken Johnson and enable his double-dip, cleveland.com flashed this headine:

Cleveland City Council President Martin J. Sweeney comes up in FBI's Forlani wiretap

Two hours later, Councilman Joe Cimperman tweeted this:

I followed Cimperman's link to the lyrics of "Some Nights" by Fun -- an angsty pop hit that, in my fevered imagination, became a councilman's tormented lament at being strong-armed into a taxpayer-wrath-inducing vote by a council president whose links to corruption defendants keep embarrassing City Hall:
 

Oh, Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights I don't know anymore
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, oh...

So this is it. I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of that for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?

"Rough week to be a Cleveland city councilman, judging by these lyrics," I retweeted.

Cimperman, the tweetiest pol in town, answered in a half-hour. In 140 characters, he managed to explain that he'd actually spent the evening at a meeting about the Inner Belt in Tremont, which reminded him of how Tremont had been home to a Civil War camp, which reminded him of the video to "Some Nights":


It does have a very Civil-War Gothic vibe. And considering Cimperman's manic, beatific Twitter feed, regularly filled with Jesuit mysticism and patriotic rapture, his wild explanation actually makes sense.

So it's all me.  I was just imagining how a councilman ought to feel after walking the double-dip plank for Martin Sweeney.

 ==

Cleveland City Council is an ancient, self-absorbed institution with peculiar rules even more undemocratic than a U.S. Senate filibuster.  Sweeney, the council president, drove those rules to a new low last week.

Follow me, now: A city councilman "in good standing" can appoint his successor.  Decisions about council membership are subject to the "unit rule," which requires everyone in a legislative caucus or convention delegation to show support for the majority's decision.

Then last week, the "right" to name your successor became Ken Johnson's "right" to retire and reappoint himself, and collect a pension and a salary at the same time, and preserve cost-of-living pension increases that won't apply to future retirees, and have all of city council approve his double dip. All 19 city council members caucus with the Democrats, so Sweeney expected the vote to be unanimous.

Some councilpeople really, truly disagree with the idea that government pensions should go to public employees who've, you know, stopped working. City councilpeople are all public employees, see. They're outraged that the state changed the pension rules so quickly on Johnson, and on them. Fairness to their own tribe preoccupies them. Fairness to taxpayers, not so much.

Others, like Cimperman, voted reluctantly for Johnson's double-dip, fearing Sweeney's punishments, including hostile gerrymandering. Ward lines are being redrawn to eliminate two councilpeople this year.  So the no voters on Johnson's double-dip -- Dona Brady, Brian Cummins, and Mike Polensek (a double-dipper himself) are now the most likely to lose council's game of musical chairs.

Watching this all happen, I marvel at Sweeney's continued ability to whip votes and hold onto his job as council president.  To an outsider, he hardly looks like a strong leader.  New City Hall initiatives seem to come from Mayor Frank Jackson or from creative councilmen such as Cimperman or Matt Zone. And Sweeney's name keeps coming up a little too often for comfort in prosecutors' accounts of the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal.

 ==

Last week in court, the feds played a five-year-old wiretap of crooked contractor Michael Forlani claiming he'd funneled $20,000 to Sweeney's Council Leadership Fund. Forlani cynically calculated that the cash might've bought him several votes.

The council leadership fund is another tool a council president uses to reward allies and punish enemies. Its funds are dispersed to loyal councilpeople running for re-election.  Forlani may have been talking out of his ass, bragging about juice he didn't really have -- but it's at least plausible that a contractor could buy influence and legislation by contributing to the council leadership fund. It would work if (I'm talking theoretically here) the contractor had a council president willing to twist arms on his behalf. And if the money was passed through intermediaries, regular councilpeople might not even know why they were being told to vote a certain way. Their votes could be effectively bought without them knowing it.

So if I were a councilperson, the insinuation dropped by Forlani in that wiretap would infuriate me.  I would want to hear an explanation from Sweeney, a straight denial that Forlani had arranged with him for donations to the fund in exchange for any sort of understanding.  Instead, Sweeney's been very tight with his no-comments.

Sweeney's name has come up in federal subpoenas. It came up a few times at last year's Jimmy Dimora trial. In one wiretap, Sweeney told Dimora he'd helped answer Ferris Kleem's questions about an airport contract. (Kleem was one of the underwriters of Dimora's famed Vegas romp.) Sweeney made a mysterious appearance in the Dimora case closing argument, when the prosecutors included him in a 20-person pyramid of key players.  Most entertainingly, J. Kevin Kelley testified that Dimora's cronies considered Sweeney part of their "B Team," but not their "A Team."

After all that, it's easy to wonder how Sweeney manages to hold onto the council presidency.  Once-mighty politicians such as Bill Mason and Dean DePiero have seen their careers cut short by peripheral connections to the scandal, but Sweeney's presidency motors along.  One outraged local writer wants us to sign a petition calling on Sweeney to step down until his name is cleared.

There's just one problem: Cleared how?  Cleared of what?  No one can quite say.  Sweeney hasn't been accused or implicated in any wrongdoing.  Watchdogging the powerful is important, but so is avoiding guilt by association. [Update, 1/17: The petition has been rewritten to call for an ethics investigation, and for Sweeney to recuse himself from voting on contracts until it's finished.]

Forlani's brag could be based on a misunderstanding. Contractor Steve Pumper testified last week that Forlani was trying to help Pumper resolve a court case of his, but the settlement didn't actually need council's approval.  Sweeney's calls on Kleem's behalf may have just helped Kleem navigate red tape without anything in return ("You can take credit," Sweeney tells Dimora on the wiretap). Even being dubbed a member of Dimora's "B Team" may be a character witness of sorts -- yeah, we hung out with the guy, but we didn't share the take with him.

Just because Sweeney is the feds' Public Official 7 doesn't mean he did anything wrong.  Those code numbers are meant to protect the unindicted, not brand them.  To see the problem, consider Public Official 14, Ed FitzGerald.

 ==

Last week, an FBI agent mentioned FitzGerald, too, as a recipient of funneled Forlani money.  Suddenly, just as FitzGerald was ramping up to run for governor, he faced a serious threat: a campaign contribution in the name of a guy he says he didn't even know.  Rather than let a stray mention shake up a governor's race, chief corruption prosecutor Ann Rowland issued an unusual public exoneration:

Ed FitzGerald is not a target of the investigation... We have no evidence Ed FitzGerald knew Michael Forlani had anything to do with these contributions.

Rowland did not extend the same courtesy to Sweeney.  Does that mean something?  Or was the agent's mention of FitzGerald (himself a former FBI agent) simply an especially out-of-control example of several careless, career-damaging name-drops flying off the edges of the corruption investigation?

If the feds had something on Sweeney, they'd likely have charged him by now.  Their investigation focused on 2008, and it's 2013.  The statute of limitations, five years for the major federal corruption law, is about to run out.

 ==

Still, there's corruption, then there's bad government.  Federal prosecutors' sentencing memo for Forlani reused a classic quote from convicted former councilwoman Sabra Pierce Scott, who pleaded guilty to taking bribes to help Forlani with the VA expansion project in University Circle.

At a 2006 council committee meeting, Zack Reed questioned whether the VA project was using enough minority workers. Pierce Scott responded with this gem:

How dare you use your own approach to question a project in my ward without having a discussion with me first. You are out of line. And you will not continue to come to this table and get in other people’s ward business. I do not appreciate it and if you’ve got a problem with this project you should have said something to me. You have no right to sit here and question them. You don’t understand what it takes to get this done. And you’re wrong. I don’t appreciate it. And you’re not going to sit here and build a reputation off of me. I don’t mess with your projects and don’t you mess with mine.

The feds quoted Pierce Scott's attack because it was bought and paid for by Forlani's protection money.  But Pierce Scott was actually explaining the regular rules of business at Cleveland City Council. Her tongue-lashing of Reed was part of a hallowed council tradition.

The late Fannie Lewis once did the same to Cimperman, calling him a "judas goat" for questioning a building project in Hough. Daring to ask a policy question about a project in someone else's ward is an outrage in city council's arcane, undemocratic world.

Those old, unwritten rules are the real reason to hope for a change in leadership at city council.  When is someone going to open those creaky, cobwebbed windows and let some sunlight in?

Music clubs tax cut passes 19-0; 'big breakthrough,' says Beachland owner

The tweet hit my iPhone just before last night's Cloud Nothings and Herzog Rock Hall show: After a year of protest and lobbying by music fans, Cleveland City Council has slashed the admissions tax for small concert clubs.

Cleveland's 8 percent tax on ticket sales will be eliminated for music clubs that hold 150 people or less. It'll be cut in half for clubs that hold 151 to 750.

"It's a big breakthrough," said Beachland Ballroom owner Cindy Barber, who was at the Rock Hall's summer show in the plaza last night, looking happy and relieved. The tax cut will be a huge help for the Beachland, she said: its tavern holds 148 people, its ballroom 500.

The 19-0 vote breaks an impasse between the clubs and Mayor Frank Jackson, who started collecting the once-forgotten tax in 2009 and didn't want to give it up.

But city councilpeople are music fans too, it turns out.

"Everybody on council was talking about sneaking into the Agora underage," Barber said. "It was priceless."

Key to the compromise was city council president Martin Sweeney. Barber says Sweeney announced the two-tiered tax cut idea in Plain Dealer editorial writer Chris Evans' Tuesday column, after Evans put him on the spot with a phone call. The pen still has some power in Cleveland, it seems.

The Beachland and Peabody's still need to work out an agreement with City Hall over back taxes they didn't collect. The Beachland's tax bill stands at $400,000, about half of it penalties and interest.  Sweeney wants to work out a compromise on that too, Barber says.

Politically, the tax cut is significant because it's one of the few times City Council has defied Jackson during his 6 1/2 years as mayor.  The 19-0 vote is veto-proof.

Sweeney, normally a supporter of Jackson's agenda, gave the mayor some of what he wanted (the tax isn't gone). But he made Cleveland's clubs more competitive with those in Lakewood and Columbus (no tax) and Cleveland Heights (3 percent).

The tax cut will also boost the hipster cred of Joe Cimperman, Matt Zone, Jay Westbrook, and Mike Polensek, the four councilmen who sponsored admissions-tax legislation last year to support the clubs in their wards. "Thank you @clecitycouncil Marty Sweeney for this legislation passing common sense music venue taxes!" Cimperman tweeted triumphantly yesterday.

Update, 7/18: Roldo Bartimole, who has an elephant's memory about the city's tax earmarks, points out that the admissions tax went to 8 percent from 6 percent in the 1990s to help pay for Cleveland Browns Stadium.  He defends the new tax cut, arguing that small music clubs shouldn't subsidize stadium bonds.  (To read him, click here and scroll down to "Can We Remember What We Did Now That It Hurts.")

Roldo: Close vote near on lighting deal -- 'strong rebuke' to Jackson, Sweeney

Mayor Jackson may get his streetlight deal with a Chinese company through Cleveland city council, but just barely. It passed a council committee on Monday with a 7-3 vote -- but it's heading toward a full council vote next this week because it doesn't have two-thirds support for quicker passage.

Plain Dealer City Hall reporter Mark Gillispie predicts it'll pass. But Roldo Bartimole, on CoolCleveland.com, counts 8 no votes and one abstention. So the LED lighting deal could be approved by a sliver: 11-8 or 10-9. That's very unusual in the Frank Jackson-Martin Sweeney era.

"The large vote against should be a signal to take another good look," Roldo writes. "This seems a strong rebuke to City Hall leadership. It means almost a majority of the Council couldn’t swallow this deal."

Roldo also notes that the $86 million plan to modernize Cleveland's water department passed by only 12-7. "It is a warning sign that there is little confidence in Mayor Frank Jackson on some very important matters," he says. "It also shows weak Council and Mayor leadership."

Sweeney retains council presidency

Martin Sweeney will remain Cleveland city council president, Henry Gomez reports on cleveland.com.

Rival Matt Zone couldn't get the 10 votes needed to topple him. Sweeney, forcing Zone's hand, scheduled a council caucus today over lunch at the 100th Bomb Group restaurant. Going into the meeting knowing he didn't have the votes, Zone told Gomez that even he planned to vote for Sweeney.

That show of official fealty is customary once a winner becomes clear, I think. I seem to remember Mike Polensek officially ascending to the council presidency by unanimous vote in 1999, though the actual factional divide was 11-10. It also means Zone is not asking fence-sitters to take a losing stand with him -- he can save their goodwill for later, if Sweeney stumbles.

Quiet mayor wins landslide; Jeff Johnson's comeback complete; will Sweeney hold on as council president?

He is who he is, and that's fine with Cleveland voters: Mayor Frank Jackson, the quiet and workmanlike mayor, buried his challenger in a landslide yesterday, winning 78% of the vote.

It's been interesting, in the last year, to watch business and media elites accept the soft-spoken, unambitious, competent mayor and shed their yearning for a pulpit-pounding, charismatic strongman mayor (like, say, Akron's Don Plusquellic). Last week at the City Club debate, former councilman Bill Patmon did his best to project himself as the forceful-mayor type, to no avail. Jackson held his ground, explaining details of his work to deliver services and trim the budget.

Patmon may be right that Jackson will soon have to carry out the sort of sweeping budget cuts he campaigned on having avoided -- Henry Gomez predicts as much in the Plain Dealer today -- but voters trust Jackson to make those decisions. Meanwhile, the people who want mayors to use the bully pulpit to rally the region can turn their attention to who the first county executive will be.

In Glenville's Ward 8, voters returned Jeff Johnson to city council, 20 years after he left it to become a state senator, and 10 years after he left the state senate to serve a prison term for extortion. Johnson worked his way back to the public's trust by serving in Jane Campbell's administration and working for the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. Now, it seems, his rehabilitation is complete. (To read Cleveland Magazine's 1999 profile, "The Rise and Fall of Jeff Johnson," click here.)

Now, the political action at City Hall shifts to the council presidency. Johnson's election, and Zack Reed and Brian Cummins' victories in spite of redistricting, weaken Martin Sweeney's hold on the job. He and rival Matt Zone are competing for the 10 of 19 votes needed to be elected leader. The PD's Gomez has the news on this contest -- he reports that Sweeney got his council colleagues together at the Lancer Steakhouse last night, no doubt to try to consolidate support. A caucus vote on the presidency should come tomorrow; here's Gomez's handicapping.

Update, 11/5: Sweeney won.

Cleveland votes for mayor and city council tomorrow

Tomorrow, Cleveland will decide whether to replace Mayor Frank Jackson with challenger Bill Patmon. If you're looking for information about the candidates, here are some links:

-my coverage of their Wednesday debate
-a podcast of their appearance on WCPN last week
-the Plain Dealer's September analysis of Mayor Jackson's first term and the issues in the campaign
-the mayor's and Patmon's campaign websites

Voters in most city wards will cast a vote for city council too. The results may determine whether Jackson ally Martin Sweeney remains city council president, or whether Matt Zone, who would presumably lead council in a more independent direction, can unseat him. Henry Gomez's ward-by-ward look at who supports Sweeney and who may be a swing vote is interesting reading -- and one factor voters could look at as they decide which council candidate to choose in their ward.

The polls are open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. To look up your voting location and see a sample ballot for your precinct, click here.

Jeff Johnson: I'm neutral in mayor's race

Jeff Johnson, who's campaigning to return to city council, sent me an e-mail responding to my post about Bill Patmon.

I knew Johnson and Patmon used to be political allies and speculated they might support each other this year as Patmon runs to unseat Mayor Frank Jackson. Not so, Johnson says.

"I have no interest in getting involved in this year's Mayor's race," Johnson writes. "I have shared with both Bill and Frank that I will neither hurt them or help them."

Johnson, who served in Jane Campbell's mayoral administration, did acknowledge that Jackson and council president Martin Sweeney do not consider him an ally. "I am not part of any joint effort with Bill to bring back or create a political bloc to challenge the power brokers of Cleveland City Hall," he writes. "I don't consider myself an enemy of Jackson or Sweeney, despite their anticipated effort to stop me from winning the City Council position in Ward 8. I will answer whatever they choose to bring against me."

Johnson says he's running for council as an independent voice. If elected, he says, "I will use my experience and aggressive approach to policy development and issue advocacy to assist in finding solutions to our many problems in Cleveland."

Politics' spawn: the gerrymander lives in Cleveland!

You knew reducing the size of Cleveland City Council wouldn't be a simple act of good government. Now that council has approved a new ward map, we really know it.

First, when council president Martin Sweeney got the reduction plan onto November's ballot, we heard it would cut council from 21 members to 17. Then, by November, maybe 19, maybe 17. After the election, thanks to the fine print: nope, we're only reducing it to 19. (Henry Gomez's blog post is the only thing I've read that explains some of this sleight of hand.)

Then, councilpeople put in special requests. Ken Johnson wants the Ken Johnson Recreation Center to stay in his ward, so consultants drew one ward that looks like it's eating another. An old "scorpion tail" ward line around Clifton Blvd. remains there because Jay Westbrook and Dona Brady still can't resolve their turf war from eight years ago.

Next, we found out which two councilpeople got their wards chopped up. No surprise, it's not two Sweeney loyalists. It's mavericks Brian Cummins, who may be out of a job, and Zack Reed, who will have to scramble for another seat but may be able to win and stay on council. Bill Callahan, an Old Brooklyn resident, says Cummins got what he asked for, so Roldo defended him and said losing Cummins would be Cleveland's loss.

Sweeney and council's consultant denied redistricting to eliminate critics. (Here is the council majority's argument for the ward lines.) But some of the new lines look weird and raggedy, the classic sign of redistricting for political purposes. Parts of Slavic Village and Old Brooklyn are thrown into one ward, even though Newburgh Heights and Cuyahoga Heights are in between.

Cummins has taken to Brewed Fresh Daily to blog. An image is worth 1,000 words: he cleverly compares three new wards to the freaky lizard shape in Elbridge Gerry's 1812 redrawing of Massachusetts, which led to the coining of the term gerrymander (Gerry + salamander) -- a creepy animal, politics' spawn.

Council cash

Local pols have filed their 2008 campaign finance reports, and Henry Gomez has dug through Cleveland City Council's at his City Hall blog.

Highlights: Martin Sweeney has $313,000 in the fund he controls as council president and $141,000 in his own campaign fund (as of Jan. 1). No wonder the coup plot against him failed. His rival Matt Zone has $19,500.

Joe Cimperman collected $53,000 at a September fundraiser. Dona Brady has $103,000 (what's she going to do with it?). Zack Reed "spent more than $10,000 on other campaigns, cell phone bills and hotel rooms for conferences."

Meanwhile, Mayor Frank Jackson has a $633,000 war chest, just in case anyone decides to run against him.

New City Hall blog

Last month Roldo Bartimole pined for the long-gone days when reporters swarmed Cleveland City Hall, digging for news. He lamented that he heard the Plain Dealer was cutting back from two City Hall reporters to only one. Well, at least that one guy's working hard.

Henry Gomez, our daily's watchdog at 601 Lakeside, is now blogging daily from City Hall, passing on politics news with speed and webby verve. I've posted a link to his Inside City Hall blog on my blogroll of local politics sites (over there on the right).

Now anyone who's wondering, what the hell is Cleveland City Council doing lately? Anything? can find out daily. Sadly, Gomez's post today is about how few council members showed up for an major hearing about which big projects Mayor Frank Jackson will ask President Obama to fund. (Want to stimulate the Cleveland economy? Build us an Inner Belt Bridge that won't fall down!)

Nice use of the web by the Plain Dealer here. Sometimes it seems like cleveland.com thinks "blog" just means "page where we post the news we're printing tomorrow." This one's different. The editors are letting an ambitious reporter post newsy and observational stuff that won't make the paper and play with a voice that wouldn't fit the Metro section. It's a newspaper blog that reads like a blog.

Yes, it's sad more of what Gomez is doing can't make the print edition. His report last week about Matt Zone's failed council coup shouldn't have been hidden on page 3B. But newspapers and Cleveland are shrinking. The city has gone from 750,000 people in 1970 (when Roldo was a young reporter) to 444,000 or less today. Also, since Cleveland is poor, City Hall doesn't have much money to spend. So most political attention shifts to the county or Washington, and those of us who want more news about the Zone-Sweeney battle can go online.

Turns out, plenty of readers want a daily fix of City Hall news. In 11 hours, 26 people have commented on Gomez's post! I'm jealous!

PD's Sweeney deathwatch -- and a failed coup

Martin Sweeney, Cleveland's city council president, has been in the news a lot lately, and almost every time, the Plain Dealer speculates he's about to be deposed. But now, Sweeney's made a power play: he's banished Matt Zone from council's powerful finance committee for vying to unseat him.

Turns out Zone (photo at right) was trying all last year to get the 11 votes needed to replace Sweeney (at left) as council president. Then he spoke out publicly against Sweeney, saying the council was redrawing its ward map too secretly. So Sweeney gave Zone the boot.

"If you decide to oppose the direction of council leadership, you will also stand to lose plum committee assignments," Sweeney explained.

PD reporters must've known about Zone's efforts -- it'd explain their extended Martin Sweeney deathwatch throughout 2008. It's not over: Zone tells the paper the fall council elections could change the factions on council and depose Sweeney.

What would a change in leadership mean for Cleveland? Zone, who represents the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, is smart, independent, and assertive about issues he cares about, such as supporting arts and culture.

If he took over as leader, I think council would become more assertive, more of a check and balance on Mayor Frank Jackson's power.

Sweeney succeeded Jackson as council president because he was Jackson's top lieutenant. That's why council hasn't challenged the mayor on much at all in three years. Racking my brain, I can only think of a few newsworthy occasions when council has shown leadership independent of the mayor. One was on tax abatements for new homes -- Jackson wanted to cut back on them, but council convinced him not to. A second was the new domestic partner registry, designed to make Cleveland more gay-friendly -- that was council's idea. The third, which was symbolic, came when Jackson said little about the Kinsman shooting incident in 2007, so council stepped up.

Relations between Cleveland's mayor and council swing like a pendulum. When Mike White's term as mayor ended, Clevelanders wanted an end to the strife between him and Mike Polensek's council faction. (Polensek had taken power in a 1999 coup because council felt White was walking all over them.) Mayor Jane Campbell tried to usher in an era of peace, but her falling-out with Jackson led to his successful run to replace her. Now the pendulum has swung so far toward peace and cooperation that the council rarely challenges the mayor.

Sweeney's move shows he feels his hold on power is still strong, despite questions about his leadership and his name appearing on subpoenas connected to the county corruption probe. Just as in the recent special elections in Hough and the Lee-Harvard neighborhood, lots of council races this year will shape up as pro-Sweeney vs. anti-Sweeney races (which must be why the ward redistricting is so important to Zone).

What the elections will mean for the mayor, I'll get to next week.