Jeff Johnson wants to be mayor; Nina Turner says, 'Never say never'

“If somebody asks me, ‘Would you like to be mayor of Cleveland?’ I tell them, ‘Yes, I would,’ ” city councilman Jeff Johnson says in my new profile of him. “The best thing I can do is do a good job in Ward 10 [and] be rewarded with serious consideration.”

Johnson has pulled off the biggest comeback in Cleveland politics since Dennis Kucinich went to Congress. In 1999, an extortion conviction seemed to end his career. But he’s worked his way back to city council and won reelection in November, defying gerrymandered ward lines that threatened to do him in.

In the January issue of Cleveland Magazine, Johnson, 55, talks with me about his past, his future, and how city council and the East Side are different now than in the ‘80s. You can read my profile of Johnson here.

Cleveland isn’t looking for a new mayor, of course. Frank Jackson was sworn in for a third term yesterday. But Jackson, 67, told me last year, “I would have retired but for the school effort.” Few expect him to run for a fourth term in 2017. So who are the younger politicians who could step into leadership?

Elsewhere in the January issue, I ask state senator Nina Turner if she, too, would like to be mayor someday. “Never say never!” she says. “I love the city of Cleveland. I’m a daughter of the city.” Any 2017 ambitions are far away for her; she’s already running for Ohio secretary of state this year against Jon Husted. But if she loses that race, Turner, 46, could be free to take a shot at succeeding Jackson. And my guess is she’d be more likely than Johnson to get Jackson’s endorsement.

Turner’s one of our Most Interesting People for 2014. In this issue, I also talk with her about her family, the history classes she teaches at Cuyahoga Community College, and her co-sponsorship of Jackson’s plan to reform the Cleveland schools. You can read my piece about her here.

What new city-county deal means for downtown

The city and county's new convention center deal tinkers with a lot of stuff downtown. Some interesting details I noticed in today's Plain Dealer story:

-Mall B may look really weird in a few years. The city will let MMPI raise the convention center's ceiling as high as it thinks it has to -- even if that means it pops up from underground and pushes Mall B, the plaza between St. Clair and Lakeside, above street level.

The good news is, MMPI has hired first-rate talent to make the best of the situation: local nonprofit ParkWorks and a renowned architectural firm from Seattle are in charge of planning how to remake the malls. Mall C, north of Lakeside, can only go a foot higher than it is now -- a sign that City Hall wants to preserve the lakefront views over the bluff.

-Separating Public Auditorium from the new convention center is going to cost the county $8 million. Taxpayers probably shouldn't fret, since MMPI has pledged to pay for any cost overruns on the development, but let's hope the rising site costs don't tempt MMPI to scale back its ambitions for the Medical Mart and convention center designs.

-The county will still pay the city $20 million for the convention center site, even though Public Auditorium isn't part of the deal. No surprise: it looked like a unique asset a year ago, but it looks like a money pit now. So the city is promising the county it'll spend some of the $20 million on renovating the 1920s landmark.

-{Update, 5/18: I've gotten a copy of the agreement, and last year's deal to spend some of the cash on Perk Plaza is still in there. "The County urges the City to apply $2,500,000 of the Purchase Price to the restoration of Perk Park in downtown Cleveland," the agreement says. It doesn't obligate the city; it's just a recommendation.}

Perk Plaza is already being renovated no matter what -- the basic work of converting it from concrete maze to green lawn is already underway. But without the convention center money, Perk would have to do without some of the innovations that would make it more of a respite for East 12th Street apartment-dwellers: a fountain for kids to play in, a space for concerts, a heated trellis to make the park more comfortable in spring and fall.

-The deal revives a question I blogged about a lot last year: whether Positively Cleveland's funding will be cut to help pay for the Medical Mart and convention center. The sales tax earmarked for the project raises almost, but not quite, enough to fund it. The county hotel-room tax may have to make up the rest.

"The document also calls for the county to retain control of the amount of county bed tax revenue that goes to Positively Cleveland," the PD story says. That means the city's attempt to argue Positively Cleveland's case in the negotiations didn't get anywhere.

That must make it an unnerving week for the town's convention and visitor's bureau. Today's PD also says it and other tenants may have to move out of the Higbee building to make way for a temporary casino. But with sales-tax cash piling up in the bank until construction starts in October, the county won't have to solve the bed-tax dilemma for a while. It's one more thing to add to the new charter government's to-do list.

Patmon gets newspaper endorsement -- from Renner's Independent

"Bill Patmon Must Win!" shouts the cover of The Independent, the new alternative newspaper from ex-Scene writer James Renner. I'm sure the mayoral challenger would rather have gotten endorsed by the Plain Dealer or Crain's or the Call & Post -- Renner's endorsement editorial, titled "How you should vote if you're not a total d-bag," is unlikely to pop up on billpatmonformayor.com. {Update, 10/29: Wrong!}

Still, it must have cheered Patmon up to travel the city this week and see his proud, slightly smiling face next to the cover type, "Why this man should be Cleveland's next mayor." (The October issue, available at several bars and bookstores, is the third edition of the alternative monthly, which includes lots of cheeky political coverage and the whodunit crime investigations Renner's best known for.)

Jackson, Renner argues, has "fumbled away any real involvement in the Med Mart deal, a development opportunity the city should have had a say in." Patmon, he says, "has a plan, in fact several, for Cleveland ... real, doable improvements." The challenger outlines a few in an interview with the paper: using Cleveland Public Power to create green jobs, creating an immigrant welcome center, and breaking the school system into five sub-districts.

Two weeks before Election Day, Patmon is tearing into Jackson on the Cleveland schools, calling his education record "a dismal failure." Patmon has an op-ed in Sunday's Plain Dealer that notes the city's schools have a much lower graduation rate than any other big Ohio school district. Cleveland's district has more administrators and pays its top administrators more than the Columbus school district, which has more students enrolled, he adds.

I'd link to Patmon's op-ed, but it hasn't been posted on cleveland.com. His op-ed from last weekend, criticizing the plan to move the port, is online, along with the mayor's pro-port op-ed.