Angry Lanci says mayor has “consistently failed”

Ken Lanci was mad. Really mad. Breathing heavily into the overamped mike mad.

“Let’s be honest: the quality of the residents’ lives is declining,” Lanci said. “Things are getting worse, not better.”

The hot-tempered millionaire announced he’s running for mayor against Frank Jackson today. His event, at his printing company building in AsiaTown, had a very different vibe than his 2010 campaign for Cuyahoga County executive. Then he was the turnaround specialist; now he’s the angry challenger.

“The voters of Cleveland will have a very stark choice,” Lanci said. “They can vote for mayor who has not delivered and consistently failed, or they can vote for a new direction, a new approach, a new day.”

Anyone who thinks real mayors use the bully pulpit to lead have their man in Lanci. He’s the big-stick podium-pounder personified. Those tired of Jackson’s introverted demeanor will get what they ask for in the fall election. Lanci runs as hot as Jackson runs cold.

Today, Lanci delivered the most overly intense political speech I’ve seen in town in more than a decade. He stalked through it, mad as hell at the state of Cleveland, then choked up as he thanked his late mother for being “the first woman to ever love me,” then swung back to anger.

Cleveland residents’ current quality of life “is unacceptable to me,” he said. “It is absolutely unacceptable.”

Sometimes the speech was effective. Lanci tore into Jackson’s record by quoting his pledges about education, safety and jobs from his 2006 State of the City address. He cited statistics to argue Jackson hasn't delivered.

Lanci went at Jackson especially hard on the Cleveland schools. The mayor is sure to run on the promise of his twin victories on school reform and the school levy last year. But Lanci is running on the results of the last eight years: the district met none of the state’s 26 standards in 2012.

Inevitably, Lanci used the mayor’s most underwhelming catch phrase against him.

“I think Frank Jackson is a good man. I also feel that he has done his best. However I feel that being involved in city politics for 30 years has given him a sense of, ‘It is what it is.’”

Ooh, some in the audience responded.

Lanci spoke from a stage in the middle of his Consolidated Graphics’ printing room. Several employees in work shirts sat atop the big Heidelberg Speedmaster presses for a better view, while dozens of people wearing Lanci stickers, dressed in everything from suits to business casual to working-class plaids, milled about between the rows of machinery.

African hand-drumming announced Lanci’s impending arrival onstage. The event seemed planned with acute awareness of the challenges facing a white challenger to a black mayor in a black-majority city.

But the invite list, while diverse, seemed filled out with a motley crew of gadflies. Black on Black Crime’s Art McKoy and black-trades activist Norman Edwards topped the list of recognizable figures. A guy sporting a New Black Panther Party jacket and pin managed to plant himself right behind Lanci during the candidate’s post-announcement press conference.

There, reporters asked for specifics lacking in Lanci’s speech. How would he bring more jobs to Cleveland? How would he change the schools reform plan?

“I can create more jobs by seeking out companies to come to Cleveland,” Lanci said, repeating the mantra of most businessmen-turned-candidates.

He didn’t critique the mayor’s plan for the schools. Instead, he said, “I can create a culture in the schools about caring, love, and opportunity. I’ve been in the schools 18 years. I’ve funded programs that do work.” (His campaign flyer mentions Project Love and Purple American, for at-risk teens.)

What makes Lanci run?

A lot of people wondered that when the orange-tanned businessman ran for county exec as an independent, spent $1 million of his own cash, covered the county with roving bus ads, and won 11 percent of the vote. A lot of people, especially Jackson supporters, will surely ask why he’s running now and why he moved from Brecksville to an East 12th Street apartment to do it.

A young Fox 8 reporter provoked Lanci: “To anyone who would say that you’re a guy who just has a lot of money and likes the attention, what would you say?”

Lanci responded by talking about his 2007 heart attack. “At 57 years old, I died. Through the grace of God, he brought me back. What did I need to come back for?” His answer: to use his talents to give back to the city.

Jackson should be able to dispatch this challenge by running on a few favorite themes: Others talk, I work. I have a plan; what’s his plan? He didn’t live here; why’s he a candidate? But if you want an aggressive challenger to the mayor, you’ve got him in Lanci, a temperamental opposite with drive and funds and fight to spare.

Who will like the city-county deal, who won't

After reading the city and county's $20 million deal for the convention center and Public Auditorium, here's who I think will like the deal and who won't:

Activists and bloggers who hate tax abatements won't like this deal one bit. The city pledges to support any county requests for tax abatements for the project. (The county has already promised to cover any taxes imposed on MMPI.) Also, the city promises to make up the tax revenue the Cleveland schools will lose if, as planned, the county buys three private properties at St. Clair and Ontario for the site of the Medical Mart building.

Film industry supporters will be sad to lose the old convention center as a potential soundstage. But Nehst Creations, the film company that signed a lease to move into the center, will be able to stay at least a year.

Fans of the downtown Mall will be nervous, but maybe also hopeful. The deal acknowledges that the Mall will have to be raised a few feet higher to give the new convention center the ceiling height that convention planners want. But the county says MMPI will pledge to create a new park there that's at least as good as the current one. MMPI's Mark Falanga has told me the company wants the Mall to be an attractive gathering place for Clevelanders, like Millennium Park in Chicago.

Minority-hiring activists should be pretty happy. The deal requires MMPI to require the contractor who builds the new convention center and Medical Mart to "utilize good faith efforts" to do two things:
-subcontract 25% of the job to county-certified small businesses
-hire a workforce made up of 40% county residents, including 20% Cleveland residents

The county will monitor the project to see if the contractor is meeting those goals.

The word "minority" never appears in the agreement, because the county can't require private contractors to meet racial hiring quotas. But about 60 percent of Clevelanders are black and Hispanic, and the county's small-business program for subcontractors includes a lot of minority-owned and female-owned businesses. MMPI will also work with the Cleveland schools to establish construction training programs that will lead to jobs on the project for the trainees.

Norman Edwards, the mercurial activist who shows up at nearly every county meeting to argue for more minority hiring on county projects (and who now faces a ban from the meetings for abusive behavior), may not be satisfied with this, but it seems to go about as far as the law allows.

Those who want to bring non-medical conventions back to Cleveland will be moderately happy. The deal includes language about booking non-medical events that benefit Cleveland's economic development, even if they aren't profitable to MMPI(!). If a scheduling conflict arises between two possible events, MMPI still gets to make the final decision, but the county says MMPI will consult with Positively Cleveland before deciding what to book.

Supporters of Positively Cleveland will still be uneasy. The city got the county to agree that the convention and visitor's bureau "provides significant assistance to the entire region," and to give it a role in resolving scheduling conflicts. But the city backed off and acknowledged that "The amount of county bed tax that goes to fund Positively Cleveland in the future will be determined solely by the county."