A new county HQ: Will FitzGerald and council do better than the old regime?

Ed FitzGerald is itching to move out of the county administration building, the drab ’50s offices at Lakeside and Ontario. He’s about to start hunting for a new county headquarters site. The county council wants in on the decision.

That means the executive and council will have to succeed where their predecessors -- Jimmy Dimora, Tim Hagan, and Peter Lawson Jones -- failed. They’ll have to choose a new headquarters location wisely, negotiate a good deal, and save money while doing it.

They’ll have to be tough, shrewd negotiators, even when they sit across the table from downtown real estate interests, some of whom like to fund politicians’ campaigns. And without giving away their negotiating positions, they’ll have to be open enough about their decisions to show the taxpayers that the move makes sense.

That’s all going to be a lot harder than investigating their predecessors’ failures, as FitzGerald is doing. It’s easy to find fault with the last administration, harder to do better next time.

FitzGerald and his real estate consultant say the government could save $56 million over 10 years by moving out of the administration building and some of its other offices around town. He wants to choose a new headquarters location this year and move by 2014.

The administration building “isn’t a modern work space,” FitzGerald told me earlier this year. He thinks the site could become a hotel or parking structure for the Medical Mart and convention center.

The county basically faces three choices if it moves: Lease space in an existing building, buy a building and move in, or buy land and build a new headquarters. FitzGerald sounds like he’s leaning toward a lease.

“Under the previous administration, there were elected officials philosophically opposed to leasing,” FitzGerald told me. (He means Hagan, who told me in my 2008 Ameritrust Tower story that he didn’t want the county to be “subservient” to a landlord.)

“I don’t have that point of view,” FitzGerald said. “I’m totally open to leasing.”

The county is looking for 300,000 square feet of office space — which narrows its options.

The leading contender for a new county HQ seems to be the former Huntington Building at East 9th and Euclid.  Built in the 1920s for the Union Commerce Bank, the place almost looks like a government headquarters already, with Roman columns on the façade and a soaring lobby with beautiful murals. Other contenders are the old May Co. building and Eaton Center, once Eaton moves to Beachwood.

But FitzGerald and the county council need to answer a lot of questions before they commit to a new headquarters. After all, the old government failed at precisely the same task, spending $45 million on the Ameritrust Tower, the albatross skyscraper and superhero-battle stage that the new government is getting ready to sell at a loss.

So far, the FitzGerald Administration hasn’t even proven that the county needs to move.  It’s only asserted it.

Allegro Realty Advisors, FitzGerald’s consultant, says the county should sell 22 buildings, including the administration building and the Ameritrust Tower, and upgrade 15 buildings, including the Justice Center. Allegro estimates its strategy would save the county $56 million over 10 years and $84 million over 20 years.

But Allegro’s assumptions about the cost of leases, maintenance and renovations aren’t available to the public. The county has only given out an 18-page PowerPoint presentation and an eight-page list of county properties, with very little financial information.

I asked for the Allegro report’s two appendices and got a phone call from FitzGerald instead. He asserts that the appendices aren’t a public record.

“It’s trade secret information,” he claimed. Releasing the property evaluation would be “giving away our negotiating position with the private sector when negotiating prices,” he argued.

This is a very fishy interpretation of Ohio’s public records law. But it’s true that as taxpayers, we don’t want our government negotiating with all its cards on the table.

“Before we engage in the actual property transaction, we’ll have a very public conversation about why it makes economic sense,” FitzGerald told me.

We’ll need to see a lot more detail. The Ameritrust Tower debacle proved that rosy financial assumptions and a lack of attention to mundane occupancy costs like repairs, maintenance, and utilities can make a bad real-estate deal look good.

Thankfully, the county council has formed a special committee to look at the real estate transactions. Council president C. Ellen Connally says it’ll look at the short-term and long-term benefits of moving.  That’s key, because the question isn’t just whether the county can make some one-time money in a sale.  It’s also, will it be cheaper to operate the government after the move?

FitzGerald says yes, but he isn’t showing us the numbers to prove it.  Allegro’s estimated savings don’t distinguish between one-time cash and long-term savings.

The press and the public will need to make sure the new government doesn’t blunder into some awful sequel to the Ameritrust affair. Three pages in a PowerPoint isn’t enough proof.

How Hagan & Co. cut Staubach loose from Ameritrust deal

Yesterday, I blogged about how Cuyahoga County’s former government committed to a big consulting contract with The Staubach Co. worth more than $4 million as part of its ill-fated search for a new county headquarters. Today, the story continues with the contract’s undignified end: the county rejecting parts of Staubach’s advice and cutting it loose for $3 million.

One more person on the county’s side, besides Neil Dick and Jay Ross, objected to the Staubach contract’s cost: Tim Hagan, who replaced Tim McCormack on the county commission in January 2005.

“I would not have consummated that contract,” Hagan told me in a 2008 interview about the Ameritrust affair. “I thought [the price] was too much. I didn’t like the terms of it.” He began looking for a way to sever the contract.

In January 2005, Staubach recommended that the county lease the Ameritrust complex from the Jacobs Group. That March, after negotiations, Staubach told the commissioners that Jacobs had improved its offer: it had agreed to include a large parking garage and build a second tower alongside the Ameritrust Tower.  (See the design sketch above.)

Staubach has been criticized for recommending the Ameritrust site. It’s not a sought-after location for offices because the tower is so thin. Rob Roe, former managing partner of Staubach, says the second tower was meant to address that.

“We understood that the floor plan of the tower was too small to accommodate their use,” Roe says. “The tower was always built to have a mate.”

The above design sketch shows the new tower that never came to be: about half the height of the Ameritrust Tower and touching it on one end, suggesting that the two towers’ floors could’ve been linked together.

Hagan, like Staubach, liked the Ameritrust complex’s location and its historic bank rotunda. But he thought the Ameritrust Tower was a blight on downtown’s skyline. He also felt a government shouldn’t lease its main offices.

“You can’t be entangled with a private enterprise if the future of a building might be in question,” Hagan told me in 2008. “The public [should] not have to ask anybody for permission to do whatever they wanted within their public building.”

Also, Hagan told me, he didn’t trust Staubach’s advice.

“I didn’t take their advice because that advice might have been in their own best interest, to be quite candid about it!” Hagan said. He didn’t elaborate. “I wanted to sever the relationship with Staubach and we did.”

(Roe doesn’t know what to make of Hagan’s comment. He says Staubach, now merged with Jones Lang Lasalle, has negotiated other deals with the Jacobs Group, but has never been hired by it. His company represents real estate users, not developers.)

Hagan and Dimora decided to buy the complex from Jacobs and tear down the Ameritrust Tower -- ignoring Staubach’s advice that “totally new construction” would not be “fiscally responsible.” (For more on this, see my 2008 story, “Tower Play.”)

The county cut Staubach out of the loop and negotiated directly with The Jacobs Group.

“We didn’t really need [Staubach] to do that negotiation,” says Dave Lambert of the prosecutor’s office. “Therefore, the commissioners asked me to get us out of the contract.

“They brought their lawyer in. The decision was made to cut our losses, cut Staubach out of the process and move on.”

In September 2005, the county bought the Ameritrust complex as is for $21.7 million. The purchase agreement specifically required the county, not Jacobs, to pay Staubach’s broker’s fee.

“The county wanted to negotiate our final fee down from what was in the contract,” Roe says. “They felt it was easier to control the payment of that fee.”

Staubach’s contract had promised a fee of $6.85 per square foot for its role in choosing the 641,000-square-foot Ameritrust complex. That would’ve added up to $4.4 million.

Instead, Lambert and Staubach attorney Anthony O. Calabrese III negotiated a $2.6 million final payment to Staubach. Add in its initial fee, and Staubach got an even $3 million.

Calabrese’s role brings up one last unanswered question about the Ameritrust affair. Calabrese faces trial in September on charges stemming from the county corruption probe. Federal prosecutors claim that by 2004 and 2005, Calabrese was engaged in a racketeering conspiracy with former county employee and Dimora crony J. Kevin Kelley to “give things of value to public officials and their designees” in return for favors to Calabrese, his law firm and their clients. (The specific charges dating back that far involve the nonprofit Alternatives Agency.)

Calabrese appears only once in public records about the Staubach contract, in a mid-negotiation email in 2004 about how to define “rentable area,” the measure by which Staubach insisted on being paid. Lambert says Calabrese never mentioned any relationships with county employees during settlement negotiations, and never did anything that gives him pause in retrospect.

The county’s inspector general and law department surely want to know if Calabrese’s role in the Staubach contract was clean. But they may not be able to answer the question without subpoena power. That may be one reason why the inspector general is, I’ve been told, cooperating with the FBI.

Update, 6/7: Calabrese asked Kelley to lobby Dimora to buy the Ameritrust Tower, according to a new indictment of Calabrese. The FBI and IRS examined five-figure payments that Kelley and a company linked to Calabrese received in fall 2005, after the building was purchased and Staubach got paid, the indictment says. Hagan makes a flattering cameo appearance in the filing as the public official who questioned the Staubach contract. See my new post here. 

How the county spent $3 million on Staubach’s Ameritrust contract

Jimmy Dimora, Peter Lawson Jones, and Tim McCormack were thinking big when they set out on their quest for a new county headquarters in 2004 -- a journey that ended in the $45 million Ameritrust Tower debacle.

They decided they needed a lot of advice to pull off their plan to move the Cuyahoga County government into enormous new offices of 600,000 square feet or more.

They signed a big, sprawling, 26-point contract with a big, sprawling team of consultants headed by real estate company The Staubach Co. Despite advice to scale back the contract, the county commissioners promised the consultants they’d get paid $4 million to $5 million out of the final deal. A year later, the county got out of the contract for $3 million.

That’s some of what I’ve discovered by reading public records, interviewing people on both sides of the negotiations, and reviewing interviews I conducted in 2008 about the Ameritrust Tower.

The 2004 Staubach contract is back in the news because Cuyahoga County’s inspector general and law department are reexamining it as part of their inquiries into the Ameritrust affair. County executive Ed FitzGerald is talking about suing the former Staubach, which has merged with Jones Lang Lasalle. My requests for public records about the contract led me to the inspector general’s office, where I looked through the same documents her staff is examining.

I discovered that a consultant, Neil Dick of the Dick Group in Shaker Heights, warned Cuyahoga County’s government not to pay The Staubach Co. any more than $400,000 to help acquire a headquarters site.

Ever since the Ameritrust deal went bad, Dick has been waiting for a call.

“Three million dollars to do that work is beyond anything that’s reasonable,” Dick says now.

Dick was hired in 2004 to help Cuyahoga County choose a real estate consultant team. The county wanted the team to provide a vast range of services. They would evaluate several developers’ proposals for the headquarters project and recommend a site. The county also wanted the consultants to confirm the government’s current space needs and give advice on the new headquarters’ space planning, design, architecture and engineering. It wanted advice about financing the deal and on move management.

Eight consulting teams who wanted the job responded with a wide range of pitches. One company, Allegro, offered to simply evaluate the developers’ proposed sites for $190,000 to $220,000. County staff rejected Allegro for responding too narrowly to its request. (Allegro recently worked for the FitzGerald administration. It was paid $220,000 to evaluate all of the county’s property holdings.)

Another team that didn’t make the final cut, headed by the Oliver Design Group, offered to provide all the services the county wanted for about $1.9 million to $2.2 million.

The three teams chosen as finalists had different approaches to charging for all those services. They all offered to do the first two phases of work -- recommending a site and negotiating with the chosen developer -- for between $390,000 and $500,000.

The third phase, the project’s implementation, proved harder to price.

The Staubach Co. said it wanted an initial fee of $396,000 for phases one and two -- which it would pay back if it received a brokerage commission as part of the county’s final development deal. Staubach originally proposed a commission of $5.85 per square foot of space in the new building. Since the county commissioners wanted a 600,000 to 700,000 square-foot headquarters, that meant $3.5 million to $4 million.

Dick noted in his July 2004 evaluation that Staubach was well-qualified for the job, but its fee proposal was the most expensive. Staubach, unlike the other finalists, was offering “the option of re-evaluating the entire process and development direction” for the headquarters project, he wrote.

Staubach was “offering to provide services that may be redundant and costly,” Dick warned.

“I was raising the issue of, for that high a fee, even with those additional services, are they really needed?” Dick recalls. “And what can the county really afford?”

But county staffers agreed that Staubach was one of the better-qualified firms. That July, the county commissioners -- Dimora, Jones, and McCormack -- authorized the staff to begin negotiations with Staubach.

In August, Staubach sent the county its proposed terms. The company had raised its price: it now wanted $6.85 per square foot, or $4.1 million to $4.8 million. Dick objected.

“Staubach’s charge of $6.85 [per square foot] with third party unacceptable. This should not be part of this agreement,” he wrote in 2004. “Brokerage commission – this is not a traditional approach and not appropriate.”

Jay Ross, then the county’s director of central services, also objected to Staubach’s fee proposal. “NO,” read repeated notations on it in Ross’ handwriting. County staff created a counter-proposal that would’ve capped Staubach’s fees at $390,000.

==

Formrer Staubach managing partner Rob Roe, in his first interview on the Ameritrust affair in years, argues that the company’s fee was a fair-market cost for the vast range of services its team provided.

“We supported our fee proposal with other contracts and similar types of things we had done with other municipal and federal and city governments,” says Roe, now managing partner at Jones Lang Lasalle. “The fee was shared amongst somewhere in the neighborhood of nine companies.”

Roe argues that observers who think the Staubach team was overpaid don’t understand the wide scope of its contract.

“A deal of this nature is not a traditional deal in the city of Cleveland,” Roe says. “You can’t look at it in just the microscope of Cleveland, Ohio. [It’s] a national, significant, headquarter-caliber transaction.”

The price dispute fell to lawyers for the county and Staubach to resolve. The question boiled down to this: Should Staubach be paid like an owner’s representative reviewing proposals? Or like a real estate broker, who lines up tenants to fill a building and is paid by the landlord?

The county’s lawyer was Kathleen Martin, then the head of the prosecutor’s office’s civil division. (Martin is now deceased.) Staubach was represented by two lawyers from the law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease, including Anthony O. Calabrese III, now a defendant in the county corruption case.

Calabrese’s role in the Staubach contract has raised alarms for FitzGerald, who ordered the two new inquiries into the Ameritrust affair. Calabrese’s federal indictment claims that by summer and fall 2004 -- the time when Calabrese was negotiating for Staubach -- he was already engaged in a racketeering conspiracy with Dimora crony J. Kevin Kelley involving the nonprofit Alternatives Agency.

Roe says that nothing about Calabrese’s conduct while representing him appeared improper or gave him pause, and that Calabrese never talked about using any connections in county government to help with the contract.

Staubach’s fee proposal won out. All the developers contending for the headquarters project signed agreements promising to pay Staubach $6.85 per square foot as part of a final lease deal, according to Roe. Martin’s successor at the county, David Lambert confirmed this after reviewing a file from the negotiations.

In October 2004, Dimora, Jones and McCormack approved the contract, including the fees Staubach wanted. McCormack told the Plain Dealer in 2009 that he liked Staubach’s proposal because the developer, not the county, would’ve paid in the end.

Actually, the developer would’ve likely rolled the cost of Staubach’s fee into the county’s lease payments, for the county to pay over the course of 20 or 30 years.

It didn’t work out that way. Tomorrow, I’ll post about how the county’s relationship with Staubach ended.

Update, 6/7: The FBI and IRS investigated the Ameritrust Tower purchase and the Staubach contract as part of the county corruption investigation, according to a new indictment of Calabrese. See my new post here. 

(photo from clevelandskyscrapers.com)

What about campaign finance reform?

Ed FitzGerald and the county council want to make 10 changes in Cuyahoga County's charter, and they want to do it soon.

They want to write the inspector general into the charter (good idea), give the law department more power (a revival of their turf war with prosecutor Bill Mason), put the fiscal officer in charge of the treasurer's office (OK), and make some minor shifts in who does what. They aim to put all their ideas on the ballot this fall. 

But one big issue is missing from their to-do list.  What about campaign finance reform?

Political donors face limits on how much money they can give to federal candidates, state candidates, and candidates for Cleveland mayor and city council.  But there are no limits for giving to candidates for county-wide office.

That's why the late Dick Jacobs was able to donate $36,000 to Jimmy Dimora's first campaign for county commissioner in 1998, and give Peter Lawson Jones $25,000 when he ran for commission in 2002.  Dimora, Jones, and Tim Hagan then bought the Ameritrust complex from Jacobs in 2005 for $21.7 million. It was the unwise purchase of the decade.

Maybe gratitude for that early seed money played no part in the Ameritrust decision.  But isn't it at least a cautionary tale about how no one person should play such a dominant role in a politician's campaign fund?

The big money got even bigger in 2010. Matt Dolan, Republican candidate for county executive, got contributions of $400,000 and $300,000 from his uncle, Charles Dolan of Cablevision, and his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan. 

The charter's framers should have created campaign finance limits up front, rather than leave it to politicians who rely on contributions to run for re-election.  They didn't.

How about contribution limits of $750 per election cycle to county council candidates and $1,000 to candidates for executive and prosecutor? That's what an advisory group working on the charter transition proposed. The idea went nowhere.

Instead, county councilman David Greenspan proposed an ordinance in July that would set the contribution limit really high -- at $12,000.  And even that extremely mild reform has been languishing in the rules committee, which Greenspan chairs, ever since.

You would think that FitzGerald would push for campaign contribution limits, if only to protect himself from a financial assault similar to Dolan's in 2014.  Not so.

If FitzGerald and the council don't take action, citizens will have to.  Campaign finance reform should be the first thing the charter review commission tackles when it convenes in September.

Can FitzGerald sue Staubach over Ameritrust Tower?

Ed FitzGerald is mad. He wants to unload the Ameritrust Tower, Cuyahoga County’s $45 million albatross and skyline ghost. He knows he’ll have to sell the empty high-rise for less than the county put into it. Taxpayers are likely to lose more than $20 million.

So the county executive wants to sue The Staubach Co., the real estate consultant that recommended the Ameritrust complex as the best site for a new county headquarters in 2005 and got paid $3 million.

Is FitzGerald grandstanding, like Mayor Frank Jackson did with his lawsuit against subprime lenders? Or does he have a case?

FitzGerald told me he wants to know whether “a contract violation or fraud” occurred. When his law director finishes his investigation, we may know more about whether anything improper happened when lawyer Anthony O. Calabrese III — now a defendant in the county corruption investigation — negotiated the county contract on Staubach’s behalf. We may also find out why the county paid Staubach (now owned by Jones Lang LaSalle) so much money for the job.

But if FitzGerald tries to argue that Staubach’s advice was so bad, it shares responsibility for the Ameritrust debacle, I think he’ll have a hard time. That’s because the county didn’t make the deal Staubach recommended.

I unearthed Staubach’s final recommendation to the county while working on “Tower Play,” my 2008 story on the Ameritrust Tower affair. Staubach recommended the Ameritrust complex, but it didn’t advise the county to buy the site. It negotiated a lease deal that would’ve obligated the owner, The Jacobs Group, to build a new, second tower next door.

“We believe the Jacobs proposal … is the best overall offer,” Staubach wrote to the county commissioners on March 31, 2005. “The existing tower’s high-rise identity and historic rotunda are unmatched by the other submittals.”

Staubach recommended that the county lease the Ameritrust Tower, the Cleveland Trust rotunda, an attached parking garage and a second tower Jacobs had agreed to build for about $120 million to $125 million. The report says Staubach’s negotiations with Jacobs had gotten the company to add the garage and the new tower to the deal, “neither of which were previously offered.”

The second tower seems to have been an echo of Marcel Breuer’s original plan to build two Ameritrust towers. “The overall structure will effectively accommodate all targeted County functions,” Staubach wrote -- perhaps implying that the existing tower, standing alone, would not.

But Jimmy Dimora, Tim Hagan, and Peter Lawson Jones accepted part of Staubach’s advice and disregarded the rest. They bought the Ameritrust Tower directly from The Jacobs Group for $21.6 million in September 2005, without Staubach as a negotiator.

And Dimora and Hagan didn’t buy the tower to move into it. They bought it to tear it down — a path Staubach had warned against.

“We do not believe a totally new construction alternative would be fiscally responsible at this point in time,” its report added.

Two years later, that line in Staubach’s report was proven right. The commissioners halted the project in fall 2007 after realizing they couldn’t afford it. (You can read my full account of the project in my “Tower Play” story.)

FitzGerald’s administration could still argue that Staubach never should’ve recommended the Ameritrust site at all. In a previous phase of the search, Staubach had named its top four sites, including the Ameritrust complex, but noted drawbacks to each. The Ameritrust Tower’s flaws included its small floor plate — one of the reasons the tower isn't desirable office space today.

But if FitzGerald sues, the former Staubach could argue the county’s real losses came when Dimora, Hagan and Jones bought the tower instead of taking the lease deal. In the end, Staubach could deploy an argument most everyone in town accepts -- that Dimora, Hagan, and Jones are ultimately responsible for the taxpayers’ loss on the Ameritrust Tower.

(photo from clevelandskyscrapers.com)

Dimora, commissioners say goodbye today

As the town braces for the post-traumatic return of LeBron James, a figure already receding into our past, a similar drama is taking place more quietly at the county building. Today, Jimmy Dimora will cast his last vote as an elected official. It's likely his last public appearance until his next federal court hearing and his trial.

Yes, the county commissioners are holding their last meeting today.

So it's probably also Peter Lawson Jones' last moment in public until his cameo on Detroit 187. And Tim Hagan's last, until the next party or cast photo with his wife, Capt. Janeway.

It's a severe anti-climax, what with county executive-elect Ed FitzGerald practically governing already. But the Big Three are pounding through a month's worth of stuff in one day, nailing down unfinished business before the new county council arrives and has to figure it all out for the first time.

They're casting 86 votes on an agenda twice that size: one vote will approve 86 more agreements, contracts, etc. Most are routine: an environmental agreement on a piece of the Flats East Bank project, renovations of the jail kitchen. A few catch the eye: $150,000 to design a bridge connecting Whiskey Island's Wendy Park to the Flats West Bank, $60,000 to Richard Blake for legal services related to the county corruption investigation.

After that comes the commissioners' last chance to talk before the cameras and, if Jimmy and Tim revert to old habits, scold the reporters in the room.

Will Dimora offer one last roaring self-defense? Will Hagan offer one last angry defense of the old county government's work? If cleveland.com is true to form, they'll post video of the commissioners' swan songs this afternoon. Update, 12/3: Here's the video.

Dimora will be spared the cavalcade of boos LeBron faces tonight. The commissioners' meeting room holds several dozen people, not 20,000, and a gavel can restore order. The two men have something in common: Clevelanders feel they betrayed the town. There's a difference, though: No one was rooting for LeBron to go away.

Update, 4:05 p.m.: Nope, no melodrama. "County commissioners bow out gracefully before governmental change," reads the headline on Jay Miller's Crain's story.

"I won't say that the two years have been hell," Jones said as the meeting ended. “What we had was a challenge."

"I resent very much Dimora and Russo," Hagan said in a press conference afterward. "I believe public service is an honorable profession." Hagan called the aides who worked for the commissioners "good and honorable people."

Dimora kept silent except to vote. As the meeting ended, he left through a side door.

Peter Lawson Jones co-stars, dances in drag in Karamu’s Great White Hope

Peter Lawson Jones’ bio in the playbill for The Great White Hope doesn’t mention that he’s a Cuyahoga County commissioner. It doesn’t even say he’s a lawyer. The Peter Lawson Jones in Karamu House’s latest play is a Jones from the alternate universe of theater. “In addition to doing voice-over and commercial work, Peter is a playwright,” the cast bio says demurely.

I went to see The Great White Hope last night to enjoy the absolutely fascinating story of Jack Johnson, the fearless, cocky, skirt-chasing provocateur who became the first black heavyweight boxing champion in 1908. But I also got a good look at Jones immersed in his other great passion, the theater, and how he integrates it with his political life.

Jones plays Tick, who trains Jack Jefferson, the play’s fictionalized version of Johnson. This is no cameo. Jones is onstage more than anyone except the actors who portray Johnson and his girlfriend.

He proves he’s got acting talent. I didn’t see the Jones I’m used to: The formal lawyer, so careful and precise with his words he can sometimes seem stiff. Jones gives Tick a turn-of-the-20th-century drawl and a physical wiliness, slipping out of the boxer’s way at one moment, getting between him and trouble the next. He’s funny and folksy, wise but reticent.

This is Jones’ third acting gig in two years: He’s appeared in Karamu’s A House With No Walls and the Cleveland Play House’s Bourbon at the Border. He was active in student theater at Harvard, and wrote a play back then, The Family Line, which Karamu produced in 2005. He’s also writing another play, Bloodless Jungle, about a politician torn between friendship and civic duty (timely, huh?). He’s a board member at Karamu, the 95-year-old multicultural theater Langston Hughes once wrote for. He told Mike McIntyre of the Plain Dealer that if he leaves politics, he may well take a shot at professional acting.

Don’t count him out as a lame duck just yet, though. Jones hosted a fundraiser for his campaign committee before last night’s performance. Guests — including prominent county contractor Dominic Ozanne — also got tickets to the play. It’s something Jones has done along with all three of his local acting appearances, he told me after the show.

How was the play? I agree with the theater critics (see the Plain Dealer, Scene, and Rave and Pan): The main actors are great. Anthony Elfonzia Nickerson-El plays Jefferson with the ferocious charisma and dignified rage the part demands. Ursula Cataan is passionate, gorgeous, and graceful as Eleanor Bachman, the white woman Jefferson risks his career for. They and Jones make the play worthwhile. But the 1968 play is too long at three hours, with too many over-the-top scenes that don’t include the main characters. An abridged production would’ve packed more punch.

Still, Clevelanders into both politics and theater will be jaw-hanging shocked at one scene: A purposely awkward play-within-a-play staging of a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin — with Jones as Topsy(!), dancing goofily, arms flailing, in a gingham dress and pigtails.

Watching Jones’ spectacularly ridiculous moment, his total letting-go for comedy’s sake, a thought came into my head: Tim Hagan would never do this.

But Jimmy Dimora might.

--

The Great White Hope runs at Karamu House through Sunday, March 14, then moves to Akron’s Weathervane Playhouse April 1-18. If you’re interested in Jack Johnson’s life, the PBS documentary by Ken Burns, Unforgivable Blackness, is required Netflix-ing.

A stubborn question: Will county reform benefit minorities?

You may think this debate is over. Or that it's old news, the complaints of the defeated.

But the question of whether Cuyahoga County's new charter will benefit black residents is not going away. That's clear from the debate about the Call & Post's angry attacks on Nina Turner, and from the public forum this month about opportunities for young black leaders in the new system, which devolved into complaints about Issue 6 instead.

Yes, most political conversation in town has moved on since Issue 6's two-to-one victory Nov. 3. We're turning to new, forward-looking questions, like what kind of leader we want as the first county executive. But the debate about black participation in the new government is going to come back in the September and November 2010 elections and when the new leaders are seated in 2011.

It also came up earlier this month on WCPN's The Sound of Ideas, when several guests were talking about the Call & Post attack on Turner, and former Plain Dealer columnist Afi-Odelia Scruggs called in. She claimed host Dan Moulthrop and the guests were reacting to spot news, not the deeper issue. On the air, Scruggs challenged several specific media outlets and reporters -- including me -- to do stories on why there was such "deep antipathy" in the black community toward Issue 6.

My first reaction was to challenge Scruggs' entire premise. Black voters don't dislike Issue 6.

Voting returns in black communities -- Cleveland's black-majority wards, mostly black cities such as East Cleveland and Warrensville Heights -- almost all show narrow majorities for the new county charter.

Interestingly, those communities also gave narrow majorities to Issue 5, the competing reform measure that lost. So black voters appear to have split evenly between 6 and 5, while a few cast a double-yes vote. Though the few precincts anywhere in the county that went against 6 were in black neighborhoods, the voting returns prove there's no single "black" position on reform and suggest that the new government has majority support in the black community.

But if I rewrite Scruggs' question to ask why there was such deep opposition to the new charter among established black political leaders, then we're getting somewhere. Sen. Turner was almost the only black elected official to support 6. (Earl Williams, a Shaker Heights councilman, is the only other one I know of.) Cleveland's activist black ministers, a powerful political force, opposed 6 as well. Dismissing the opponents as out of touch is easy, but doesn't really answer the question.

On WCPN, Scruggs suggested black antipathy toward 6 had to do with the "struggle for political power African-Americans have gone through," and the fear that African-Americans' "power base is so tenuous that county restructuring would destroy the power [we've] fought for."

However, not all of the black leaders who opposed 6 did so for race-conscious reasons. For instance, county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, who led the argument against 6, offered race-neutral arguments that white and black officials on the pro-5 side embraced.

Gary Norton, East Cleveland's mayor-elect, opposed 6 for reasons similar to Jones': concern that the charter wasn't drafted in public, fear that the county executive would be too powerful and the county council too weak.

"What I never understood about the opposition to Issue 6 was why folks said it would diminish African-American power," Norton said when I posed Scruggs' question to him. Cuyahoga County's old government structure has been around for 200 years, and only four black officials were ever elected under it, he pointed out. Norton says arguments about black political power came up because "folks were trying to spook people." He's not sure why.

Still, Norton tried to summarize others' arguments. "Some of the racial angst might be, African-Americans might never get that seat with tremendous power. They'd get the rubber-stamp seats." (Cuyahoga County is 29 percent black, so black county executive candidates could face an uphill battle.) Cleveland, a black-majority city, now controls many of the region's assets, Norton adds. "Perhaps there's fear of competition between the county executive and mayor."

By contrast, Cleveland city councilman Zack Reed reacted to Scruggs' question this way: "There’s nothing in Issue 6 that benefits black folks. There’s nothing there!"

Reed says he's concerned that the business community's push for the new charter, which names economic development as the new government's top priority, will mean less spending on social services. "If we take those moneys away from social services to do what they call economic development, then the social fabric and the safety net that’s already fragile now will collapse," he says. I could call that a race-neutral argument, except that the need for social services is often strongest in black neighborhoods such as Reed's ward.

Reed is also worried that the new government may not offer minorities as much opportunity as the current one.

"What the county was becoming was a minor-league system for minorities to move up [to become] political, social, and corporate leaders in this city," he says. He points to Norton and new county land bank head Dennis Roberts, who both worked under Jones, as well as deputy county administrator Lee Trotter and former procurement and diversity director Adrian Maldonado, now a construction contractor.

"That whole system just got collapsed," Reed says. The new government may not be as open to minorities, he fears, depending on who the county executive chooses for his or her cabinet. "If those individuals who make up the cabinet have no association with or are unsympathetic to minority community ... then the issues that face the minority community are going to be lost."

That leads Reed to offer a thought that's deeply unfashionable in December 2009: praise for Jones, Jimmy Dimora and Tim Hagan.

"All three were sympathetic to issues that faced the minority community," he says (talking in the past tense about the lame-duck commissioners). "All had a relationship with the minority community." Though they all lived in the suburbs, "they still looked out for the city." He fears the new county council, elected by districts, could engage in parochial and competitive thinking instead.

But Reed's praise for Dimora and Hagan cuts both ways: It turns the focus back to the county executive, who will also be elected countywide, as the commissioners were. So the candidates for the top job will all need to court the support of black voters, a quarter of the electorate.

That's why this issue isn't dead, and why Issue 6 opponents, who seem obstinate and vanquished today, will become relevant again in the new year. How will the new government benefit black residents? is a legitimate question every county executive candidate will have to confront on the campaign trail -- and a question the winner will have to address on the new government's first day.

The Issue 5 dilemma: You don't know what you'll get

I think Issue 5 supporters have made a big mistake, and I suspect they're going to pay for it at the polls next week. Their charter commission candidates, the "Real Reform Done Right" slate, won't say what kind of new government they want for Cuyahoga County.

I've gone to all three City Club debates about Issues 5 and 6 (see here and here), and I've talked to Peter Lawson Jones and interviewed slate members Harriet Applegate and Ron Johnson -- and still, I can only guess at what kind of government we'll likely end up with if the pro-5 side wins. They've been maddeningly vague.

Whatever your opinion about Issue 6, it has the advantage of clarity. You know what you're getting if it passes next Tuesday: a county executive and an 11-member council elected by district. You can read the 11,700-word proposed charter. (And I can satirically summarize it.)

In theory, the charter commission Issue 5 proposes is a perfectly respectable way to create a new government. It's like a constitutional convention for Cuyahoga County: We vote for 15 well-regarded citizens to write a charter for us, then vote yes or no on their proposal next year.

The problem is, Issue 5 was explicitly placed on the ballot as an alternative to Issue 6. So the Yes on 5, No on 6 supporters owe it to us to say not just what kind of government they're against, but what kind of government they're for.

Their slate should've run on a platform sketching out an outline of a government that they think would be better than both the current government and the Issue 6 charter. Then we would've had two new ideas to choose from, rather than a county executive form of government versus a foggy, uncertain promise of change.

That's why 6 supporters deride the charter commission as a "study group," and why a Plain Dealer editorial called "Real Reform Done Right" an Orwellian phrase. When they accuse the 5 side of trying to dilute or scuttle change, 5 supporters can't prove otherwise, because they can't answer this question: what do they mean by "real reform"?

After last week’s City Club debate between candidates from the two charter commission slates, I asked Ron Johnson of Real Reform Done Right how his slate wants to restructure the government.

“We’re not sure,” Johnson said. “We all have different ideas of what the structure should look like.” The slate wants a new charter to address ethics reform and economic development, he said, and create a structure that minimizes politics and includes checks and balances. “Is that a nine-member council and county executive? Or an 11-member council and an appointed county executive? We’re not sure yet.”

I asked Johnson if he supports the three-commissioner form of county government. “It isn't necessarily a bad format,” he said. But he did criticize the current system for its eight elected officials (auditor, treasurer, etc.) who run their own departments with “complete autonomy.” He seems to want to eliminate some elected offices. He says the slate wants to consolidate some of their functions, such as the elected officials’ separate human resources departments.

In an interview yesterday, Peter Lawson Jones offered a few clues about where reform might go if Issue 5 passes. (Jones voted to put 5 on the ballot and helped assemble the Real Reform Done Right slate, so his views would probably be influential.)

“I think some elements in Issue 6 should find way into a charter,” Jones told me. He says he agrees with eliminating some elected offices, agrees with giving voters the right to recall county officials, and agrees the county should have a five-year strategic economic plan.

I asked Jones to respond to the criticism that no one knows what sort of new government the charter commission will produce.

“But here’s the good news,” Jones said: A charter created under 5 will be “the result of numerous community-wide meetings, conducted in public. And in November 2010, voters will have their say.” (That is, we’d have another charter proposal to vote on a year from now.)

The pro-5 side is all about process. They say a charter commission with open meetings is a better way to create a new government than the initiative petition that put 6 on the ballot. I’m sure they would say that running for charter commission with concrete ideas on how to restructure the government would be like saying they won’t listen to the public at all those meetings.

But the Citizens Reform Association candidates I talked to handle that dilemma just fine. They state their ideas about which government structures work best, while leaving room to be persuaded about details.

“If elected, it only makes sense to start with the existing framework of the [Issue 6] charter proposal,” Tom Kelly told me after last week’s debate. “A great deal of it would appear in any charter.” He adds he wouldn’t make up his mind completely “until every citizen has their say." As for the slate as a whole, “Most of our candidates do support 6,” Kelly says. “They see 6 as good and necessary start that cannot be delayed.”

“I don’t believe the current structure is best for Cuyahoga County,” charter commission candidate Angela Thi Bennett told me. “However, I’m a little reluctant to say what I believe is the exact ideal structure. I’m in favor of a more balanced structure, such as an executive-council form of government. But if elected to the charter review commission, I would look at successful models around [the country] and also at the same time look at the mechanics of our own county government, and from that make a recommendation.”

So what's a voter to do? Read the Issue 6 charter. (Or, at least, the pro-6 side's two-page summary.)

If you like it, vote Yes on 6 and No on 5 -- and, just in case 5 passes anyway, vote for the charter commission candidates on the Citizens Reform Association list.

If you don't like 6, but you want reform, vote No on 6, Yes on 5 -- then split your vote between the two slates. If the two sides have to write a charter together, the Citizens Reform candidates, who want to go farther with reform, will push the vaguer candidates from Real Reform Done Right to propose major change.

Zanotti, Jones debate Issues 5, 6

Could a new Cuyahoga County government do more to spark economic development? That question led to the most intense exchange between Peter Lawson Jones and Martin Zanotti at their City Club debate today.

The county commissioner and Parma Heights mayor dueled over Issues 5 and 6, the two county reform plans on the November ballot.

Zanotti said Issue 6 -- which would create a new county government led by an executive and council -- would make economic development a top priority. Jones defended the county's economic development record while arguing for Issue 5, which would create a county charter commission to write an alternate reform plan.

“Our county government today has no long-term economic plan, because it’s not its mission,” Zanotti argued. “Issue 6 is the only true reform measure on the ballot this November that will offer concrete plans to meet our challenges head on.”

Zanotti explained how the county charter proposed in Issue 6 would create a new economic development commission to help the new government write a five-year economic plan. (Here's the proposed charter -- details are in Section 7.)

Jones, who’s pushed hard for the county to do more for economic development, said Zanotti's proposal wouldn't add much. “Issue 6 says we'll have a director of development,” Jones countered. “We already have that. Issue 6 says, we'll have a department of development. We already have that. It says we’ll have an economic development commission. … We already have something called CuyahogaNext Advisers, that’s been active for the last five years, advising the county government how to spend our funds [to encourage] economic development, and that has created such projects as innovation zones and the North Coast Technologies Opportunity Fund.”

Almost half of the county’s discretionary funds go to economic development already, Jones said. County government can't do much more because almost all of its funds are earmarked by the state for social services and the justice system. In Ohio’s government structure, “Health and human services is the primary function of county government,” Jones argued. “We’re doing as best we can in economic development, in terms of setting aside discretionary dollars.”

“So, Mayor Zanotti,” said moderator Dan Moulthrop, “much of that couldn’t really change.” That set Zanotti off.

“Wrong. I don’t agree with that for a minute,” Zanotti said. There are 5,800 employees that work for the county.” (Actually, it’s 8,500, Jones corrected him.) “Are they all working in the right department? Are they all necessary? ... The patronage that is rampant throughout Cuyahoga County right now is at the core of what needs to be changed, and [that’s] how we will come up with the funds necessary to provide for critical economic development opportunities.”

The Issue 6 charter would replace patronage and duplicated positions with standard hiring practices and a county-wide human resources department, he said. “We’ve got to take those savings and invest it in health and human services and economic development.”

Jones said Issue 6 supporters have failed to say how much money their plan would save."“I don't think I’ve seen an election yet where one side hasn’t said, 'If you just let me in, I’m going to slash the number of [employees],'" he said. The county government is already about to reduce its work force to the lowest level in 20 years, Jones said.

When attention turned to Issue 5, the debate got more vague. Jones' plan would set up a commission to write a charter, and though the slate of commission candidates Jones supports has criticized Issue 6, they've said little about what reforms they’d prefer. The uncertainty seemed to frustrate the moderator.

“What guarantees are there for voters that passing Issue 5 will improve the climate of accountability and transparency in government?” Moulthrop asked.

“Of the slate members I happen to be supporting," Jones replied, "13 of them have already pledged that county government campaign finance reform will be one of first things they tackle, and it will be in the charter." Later, Jones added that the Real Reform Done Right slate has pledged to fulfill their duties in the state constitution by writing a charter next year and putting it on the Nov. 2010 ballot – and they’ve promised to hold multiple meetings across the county, address economic development in the charter, and not to run for any of the offices the charter would create.

City Club announces debates for mayor, ballot issues

The City Club announced its election debates today.

-Tomorrow, Wed., Oct. 14, county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones and Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti debate Issues 5 and 6, the county reform plans.

-Mon., Oct. 19, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams debate Issue 3, the casino proposal. (Gilbert plans to open a casino in Cleveland if 3 passes; Williams is against 3.)

-Wed., Oct. 21, radio host Tom Kelly and attorney Ron Johnson debate Issues 5 and 6. Both represent slates running for the county charter review commission that Issue 5 would create. Kelly is with the Citizens Reform Association slate, which supports Issue 6's idea of a county executive form of government. Johnson is part of the Real Reform Done Right slate, which opposes 6.

-Wed., Oct. 28, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson debates his opponent, former city councilman Bill Patmon.

The events kick off at noon with lunch. The debates start at 12:30 pm. They're all going to be broadcast live on WCPN, 90.3 FM. They should also be available online as live webcasts and as podcasts afterward.

I plan to blog about the Jones-Zanotti debate and the Jackson-Patmon debate.

Lanigan & Malone on new reform plan: "Absolute insanity"

Lanigan and Malone, WMJI's morning show hosts, talked this morning about Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones' new reform plan. They don't like it.

"Absolute insanity," Jimmy Malone said.

Malone was trying to get his head around Hagan and Jones' decision to ask voters to approve a charter review commission in November. It's meant to compete with the Go Cuyahoga plan, which would replace Hagan, Jones, and Jimmy Dimora with a county executive and council.

The radio guys focused on how the charter review commission would be chosen: people who want to be on it will have to collect 10,000 signatures by August 20. [Update, 8/5: The secretary of state now says they'll need 5,000.]

"How are we supposed to know anything about these people to vote on them?" Lanigan asked. "The idea sounds good until you find out they need 10,000 signatures."

The charter commissioners will all be politically connected, Malone said. No one else will be organized enough to circulate that many petitions. "It'll cost money," Lanigan added.

"They must be afraid of reform," said Chip Kullik.

Lanigan and Malone, one of Cleveland's top-rated morning shows, often invites local politicians on the air as guests. This morning, Malone sounded exasperated with frequent guest Tim Hagan -- "who I still consider a friend," he said. The hosts said they were surprised to see three other politicians they admire -- Frank Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, and Jim Rokakis -- on the list of supporters.

It sounded like they'd read the spitting-mad editorial in Sunday's Plain Dealer, which lists the supporters of a charter review commission, assumes the worst about their motives, and labels them all "co-conspirators in confusion."

Malone tried to explain what happens if both reform proposals pass: how we might vote next year on a county executive and council and vote on whether to wipe out their jobs before they start. (Here's my attempt to explain it last week.)

Malone added he isn't endorsing the Go Cuyahoga proposal. "I'm not saying Bill Mason's plan is the answer," he said. "I really don't know. But this is so confusing."

Dueling reforms: Hagan, Jones place charter commission on ballot

County commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones voted today to give the Go Cuyahoga reform proposal some competition.

Voters will decide in November whether to create a commission to write a charter for the county -- at the same time they may be asked to approve the proposed charter Go Cuyahoga has already written!

"I think it's necessary because a real reform process should be open and inclusive, not behind closed doors," Jones said at the commissioners' meeting today. Jones and Hagan repeatedly contrasted Go Cuyahoga's charter-writing effort, which involved a small group of local political and business leaders meeting privately, with the openness of a charter commission.

Jimmy Dimora returned to work today, taking part in most of the commissioners' meeting. However, he left before the charter commission vote. He told reporters later that he didn't want the effort to be hurt by any accusations it was his idea.

Here's what's going to happen now: People who want to be on the charter commission -- which would be Cuyahoga County's version of a constitutional convention -- have until August 20 to collect signatures to get on the ballot. In November, county voters will vote yes or no to the question, "Shall a county charter commission be established?" At the same time, they'll choose 15 people for the commission. The commission will meet in 2010 and write a new charter.

Meanwhile, the proposed charter written by the Go Cuyahoga group, which would create a county executive and county council, may well be on this November's ballot too. Jones and Hagan clearly want voters to say yes to a charter commission and no to the county executive idea.

But what if voters say yes to both? Lawyers may have to sort that out. (Here is the section of the Ohio constitution that deals with writing charters.) Jones said, "The product of the charter review commission must be placed on the ballot ... in 2010," which would be "at the same time as the changes proposed by the Zanotti-Mason-Republican plan go into effect."

So if I understood Jones right, if we approve a charter and a charter commission this November, we could end up in a weird form of limbo. We'd vote on candidates for county executive and council in a September 2010 primary, then vote on them again in the November 2010 general election -- at the same time we vote on whether to approve a newer charter that wipes out their jobs before they even start!

Here's a law that says some more about charter commissions. Up to 4 of the 15 charter commission members can be currently elected officials.

Harriet Applegate, local head of the AFL-CIO, spoke in favor of the charter commission at the commissioners' meeting today. Letters supporting it were signed by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, county treasurer Jim Rokakis, and several other local elected officials.

Go Cuyahoga charter effort turns in 79,000 signatures, but may need more

Go Cuyahoga, the effort to enact a charter for a new Cuyahoga County government, turned in 79,255 signatures to the Board of Elections this afternoon. But their press release says they may need more, and they'll continue their petition drive.

Meanwhile, commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones announced yesterday that they plan to offer a competing proposal for restructuring the county on the November ballot.

The Go Cuyahoga group wants to replace the county commissioners with an 11-member council and a county executive who would appoint several county officials who are now elected. It wants to put its proposed charter (click here to read it as a Word document) on the Nov. 3 ballot.

"Our work is the result of over 20 years of analysis," Parma Heights Mayor and Go Cuyahoga organizer Martin Zanotti told me this afternoon, referring to previous studies of possible county reforms. Zanotti said the proposed charter, developed this year by a group of local politicians and businessmen, would reorganize the county around the goals of "jobs, equity, and economic development."

The law says the group had to turn in at least 45,458 signatures by July 13. Now, the board of elections has until July 21 to examine Go Cuyahoga's petitions and decide whether 45,458 of its 79,255 signatures are valid. If they aren't, the group can embark on a second round of signature-gathering, with a Sept. 4 deadline.

“We expect that we will need more signatures," county prosecutor Bill Mason, a Go Cuyahoga member, said in the press release, "but today is a positive step toward putting this charter on the ballot."

That's a sign that the group knows many of its signatures may not be valid -- because of incomplete information, signers not being registered to vote at the address they give, all sorts of reasons. This is common in petition drives. A very similar effort in 2004 turned in 74,000 signatures -- yet so many were invalidated, it fell sort of making the ballot by 2,700 signatures in the first round and 153 signatures short after the second round.

The charter plan may face competition. Hagan and Jones said yesterday that they plan to put a competing proposal for restructuring the county on the November ballot. Their plan isn't written yet, though Hagan said he agreed that some elected county officials should be appointed instead.

Hagan and Jones argued against an executive-council form of government, with Jones saying a county council elected by districts would encourage parochialism instead of regionalism, while Hagan questioned the $175,000 salary proposed for a county executive.

"We will offer options in terms of county government restructuring," Jones said. "We could not in good conscience permit [the charter proposal to go on the ballot] unchecked and unopposed."

Dimora a no-show; Hagan, Jones call for him to take leave of absence

Jimmy Dimora didn't show up at the county commissioners' meeting today, and his colleagues, Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones, called on him to take a 60-day leave of absence.

"We believe that the work of this county is important, and to be distracted during the most difficult economic times that we're confronted with is really a strain on our staff," Hagan said. "We would hope the public understands we are doing everything we can to do their work."

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Jones and Hagan both expressed their anger about Dimora's alleged conduct. Hagan criticized Dimora's statements at his press conference last week. It sounds like Dimora has lost their confidence and patience.

Jones said he and Hagan decided to ask Dimora to take a leave last night after reading the federal charges filed yesterday against Steve Pumper. The former contractor is accused of bribing Dimora with $97,000 in cash, gifts, and work on his home in exchange for at least eight official favors. Pumper issued a statement yesterday admitting wrongdoing.

"If the allegations .... are true, then we have all been betrayed," Jones said. "We have been betrayed as colleagues. We have been betrayed as long-time friends and associates of Jimmy Dimora."

Hagan called the conduct alleged in the filing "abhorrent" and "disgusting," though he said the allegations should be judged in court. "Peter and I know we have to maintain some decorum here. We've indicated how angry we are. We are very angry, believe me," Hagan said.

Hagan also criticized Dimora's claim last week that the federal investigation is politically motivated.

"The integrity of the federal court and federal prosecutor should not be in question," Hagan said. "Those who serve, whether at the United States government or Cuyahoga County, are public people who serve with real integrity in purpose. ... We need to be very careful, in my view, of guilt by association and wild comments. This board -- at least the two of us -- will refrain from conversation and comments that we think diminish those who serve."

Later, I asked Hagan if those comments referred in part to Dimora's press conference. Yes, he said.

Hagan said he and Jones plan to never allow Dimora to be the deciding vote on an issue before the board. If the two disagree on something, they just won't move forward. "Commissioner Jones and I will vote in the majority on issues before this board," Hagan said. "Neither of us will vote in a majority with Dimora [alone]. Why? Because we're doing the investigation."

The county's internal inquiry into all the contracts mentioned in the federal charges and subpoenas will continue, and broaden to include yesterday's filing, Hagan and Jones said. David Lambert of the county prosecutor's office, the commission's counsel, is involved in that effort. An outside attorney, Richard Blake, may be officially hired at next week's meeting.

The two commissioners said they had meant to ask Dimora to go on leave in person today. But with Dimora a no-show, they had to communicate their request to his staff. They haven't heard back yet. "Peter and I are as surprised as anyone that he didn't show up today," Hagan said. They are suggesting a 60-day leave, Jones explained, because a commissioner can be removed for abandoning his job if he is absent for more than 90 days straight.

A Fox 8 reporter asked Hagan and Jones: "Your anger, your exasperation, has it pushed either one of you to consider resigning yourselves, because you just don't want to be associated with this any longer?"

"We are not Sarah Palin," Jones said. "We aren't bailing."

"It's crossed my mind," Hagan said. "Why put up with it? But on the other hand, public life is an honorable thing. And I'm not going to let this define my service to the community."

Jones: County will investigate all contracts cited in federal charges

Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones says the county is reexamining all contracts mentioned in the corruption charges filed Friday.

After the commission meeting this morning, I asked Jones to reiterate why the change order for Phoenix Cement was removed from the agenda.

"Phoneix Cement, though not expressly named, one can clearly conclude they were noted and referred to in the indictment through information," Jones said. "I thought we needed more time to undertake a thorough investigation of the circumstances to make sure nothing illegal or improper occurred." He added, "I have a feeling, when all is said and done, we’ll be able to move forward in that matter." (See this post for the reasons the Phoenix contract and change order appear legitimate on the face of it.)

I asked if the county would reexamine the awarding of the original Phoenix contract as well as the change order. He said yes.

I asked whether that would include an inquiry into whether Jimmy Dimora went to Las Vegas with a Phoenix executive and whether he accepted gifts from him there. Jones looked a little surprised but said, "We’re going to have to explore all the circumstances, to the extent that we can internally, to ascertain that that bid was not at all problematic." He said the results would be made public.

However, it will be hard for the commissioners to reject the change order. "My understanding is, the work has already been done, and they're merely waiting to be paid," Jones said.

What will happen when other contracts questioned in the prosecutor's charges come up?

"We are undertaking a review of all the contracts and companies that were referenced directly or could be clearly identified in the indictment by information filed last week," Jones said. County administrator Jim McCafferty and deputy administrators Lee Trotter and Rick Werner are conducting the inquiry.

I asked whether Jones and Hagan would specifically ask Dimora to recuse himself from voting on those issues. Jones said he and Hagan have a continuing objection to Dimora voting at all.

He told another reporter he was "disappointed" that Dimora did not take their advice to recuse himself from all votes.

Republican chair challenges Dimora at meeting

County Republican chairman Rob Frost appeared at the county commission meeting today and publicly challenged Jimmy Dimora.

When the commissioners prepared to approve several amendments to contracts, including one to the juvenile justice center, Frost asked to speak. He cited the federal prosecutors' allegation that "public tax dollars [are] being diverted to personal gain" and asked the other commissioners, Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan, if they would ask for Dimora's resignation.

Hagan replied at length that Dimora, like anyone, is innocent unless proven guilty. He did acknowledge that "this board has expressed its concern about the integrity of the system with respect to voting" -- an apparent reference to his and Jones' suggestion that Dimora recuse himself from all votes on county business. But Hagan added, "My colleague has every right to his day in court."

Then Frost tried to address Dimora. Dimora turned to Hagan, who was presiding over the meeting, to cut him off. "Are we going to get into personal attacks and issues on individual commission members?" Dimora asked Hagan. Hagan told Frost to address the agenda item, the amendments.

Frost cited the Plain Dealer story about Hagan and Jones asking Dimora to recuse himself. He mentioned Jones' characterization of Dimora's response, which was that not voting would be an admission of guilt.

"That is not my quote," Dimora answered. "My quote is, I’m doing my job that I was elected to do. If I don’t do my job, then you’ll be up here saying, 'He should be removed for not doing his job.'"

"Do you feel you are able to vote on the juvenile justice center?" Frost asked.

"Yes, I do," Dimora said.

A minute later, he did: approving a list of 29 agreements, contracts, and amendments, including one expanding the steel contract at the juvenile justice center.

Removed from that list was an expansion of the concrete contract on the project. Unexplained at the meeting was the reason it was removed. According to Jones' comments in the PD yesterday, it's because the contract is mentioned in Friday's federal charges.

Republican chair: Dimora, Klaiber should resign

Rob Frost, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Republicans, is calling for commissioner Jimmy Dimora and engineer Robert Klaiber to resign. Here is the party's press release.

Frost asks citizens to call commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones, U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Marcia Fudge, Gov. Ted Strickland, and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and demand that they call for Dimora and Klaiber's resignations.

The call for Klaiber to resign is interesting. The engineer has not been implicated in the corruption scandal. However, his former chief of staff, Kevin Payne, and former employee J. Kevin Kelley, were among those charged with bribery Friday. Klaiber held a wrenching press conference Monday. "I had trust and confidence in these people and that trust was, ultimately, betrayed," he said then. Klaiber announced he would not seek re-election in 2012.

Frost says Klaiber's press conference showed that "he has, at a minimum, failed as an administrator and manager and is not fit to continue as our County Engineer." He calls on citizens to attend tomorrow's 10 a.m. county commission meeting and call for Dimora's resignation.

Commissioners voted to expand contract the day before federal prosecutors questioned it

No wonder Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones don't want Jimmy Dimora to vote on county business anymore. A contract they all voted to expand on Thursday was cited in the prosecutor's charges against J. Kevin Kelley and others on Friday.

On Thursday, the three commissioners voted to approve large change orders expanding three contracts at the juvenile justice center project. Phoenix Cement, which is handling the concrete job, got its $4,576,000 contract increased by $459,000, to $5 million. News reports had already suggested that Phoenix Cement was under scrutiny by federal investigators as part of the county corruption probe.

{Update, 6/18: The commissioners authorized staff to prepare the Phoenix change order on the 11th, meaning it was a preliminary approval, not a final approval. I've changed the headline of this post to reflect that. Peter Lawson Jones now says the final vote on the change order, scheduled for today, will be postponed because the Phoenix contract was named in the corruption charges.}

Then, on Friday the 12th, the prosecutors' filing said this:

On or about March 20, 2008, the County Commissioners awarded Business 4 a $4,576,000 contract for the cement portion of the JJC project, PO1 having taken an official act to assist Business 4 in securing this contract.

An officer of Phoenix Cement allegedly paid for part of PO1's trip to Las Vegas. The dates of the Vegas trip in the court filing match a Vegas trip Dimora took (click here; scroll down to 3rd item).

Now, I should note that the feds' questioning of the concrete contract is not the strongest part of their charges. Phoenix seems to have won the concrete contract legitimately -- it was the low bidder. The prosecutor's filing never explains the "official act" that PO1 -- who is pretty clearly Dimora -- allegedly took to help Phoenix. (Earlier in the filing, it's alleged that PO1 asked county employees to assist Business Executive 1's companies, but the bid that was in trouble then was for another contract, from Phoenix's sister company, Blaze Building. Blaze didn't get that contract.)

Still, the Friday filing casts the debate at Thursday's meeting in a different light. The commissioners were poised to vote to approve the change orders without explanation when Perry Roberts -- a member of the Black Contractors Group, a frequent critic of county contracting decisions -- questioned the changes. Some contractors, he claimed, repeatedly bid low to get a job and file change orders later.

Hagan grew furious at Roberts. He dared him to go to the county prosecutor's office if he thought the change orders weren't legitimate. When Roberts suggested that not enough minorities are working on the juvenile justice center project, Hagan got hot again. He offered to resign if Roberts could prove county staff was turning in false numbers about the project's workforce. (Crain's wrote about Hagan's argument with Roberts here, while the Plain Dealer wrote about the change orders here.)

Jones and Dimora, trying to defuse the argument, politely justified the change orders to Roberts.
"We added an additional building, additional square footage,” Dimora said. "We enlarged the project, so that's what's creating some of the change orders on this project." (The additional building is the juvenile court tower, which will go next to the juvenile detention center.)

I'm not saying Phoenix got the contract or the change order in a shady manner. There are legitimate explanations for both decisions.

But imagine how angry Hagan and Jones must have felt when they read the federal charges and saw the contract they had just voted to expand in there. Or when they read, on the same page, an allegation that an executive with that contractor gave Dimora free casino chips in Vegas two weeks after the contract was approved.

In the 11 months since the FBI raids on the county building, Hagan has expressed plenty of public outrage when he thought critics or the press were "questioning the integrity" of county officials or staff. He angrily scolded the press for its coverage of the raids, citing the justice system's presumption of innocence. He expressed very little anger (in public, at least) over the possibility that the feds might've been on to something, that the county government might have actually been corrupted.

I'm curious to see how he reacts to the prosecutors' charges at the commissioner's meeting this Thursday.

Update, 6/17: Hagan sure sounds different in the print edition of the Plain Dealer's Dimora story this morning. He even uses the word "outrage."

"I made a strong case that it would be in the best interest of the county government to have him recuse himself until the resolution of this investigation," Hagan told the PD's Joe Guillen. "I think what Peter and I are expressing is the outrage that everybody feels about what has been so far put on the public record. If it's true, it's a damning indictment of people who have lost their moral compass."

Jones says Dimora should recuse himself to address public skepticism about "whether or not Jimmy, for example, has any improper interest in any of the issues or contracts that are under consideration."

For instance, the Phoenix contract?

Update, 6/18: Yes, Jones has the Phoenix contract in mind.

Jones, Hagan ask Dimora to stop voting; Dimora refuses

Check out this story on cleveland.com: Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan have asked Jimmy Dimora to recuse himself from voting on all county business while he is a target of the federal investigation.

Dimora refused, saying it would look like an admission of guilt.

"It's his neck on the chopping block," Jones says of Dimora.

Update, 6/17: Here is the print edition version of the story, with quotes from Hagan and more from Jones.