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.

Mason to return or donate up to $100,000 in employee contributions

Seeking to end this week's controversy over county reform and money in local politics, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason says he'll return campaign contributions he's taken from his own employees. If an employee doesn't want the money back, he'll donate it to charity.

Mason could give up as much as $100,000 in campaign contributions -- that's how much he got from prosecutor's office employees between 2004 and 2008.

If Issue 6 passes, Mason added, he'll set up a panel to write campaign finance reform rules for the proposed new Cuyahoga County government. "We will... deliver provisions that can be considered and acted upon as soon as the new county government is formed," his Saturday e-mail to the Plain Dealer said.

This is an important promise. Take a look at Saturday's letter to the editor from Ohio Citizen Action's Catherine Turcer:

1) There are no limits on campaign contributions to candidates for county-level office; 2) employees are permitted to contribute to their bosses, reinforcing patronage; 3) pay-to-play limits affect only those with unbid contracts and are hard to enforce; and 4) campaign contribution information for candidates for county office and public officials is not available online, which is the very definition of transparency today.

By addressing the issue, Mason is trying to stop a strong counterattack from Issue 5 supporters. Tarred as defenders of the status quo in Cuyahoga County, this week they grabbed campaign finance reform to try to position themselves as bolder reformers than the Issue 6 side. The Issue 5 side attacked Mason for taking checks from his employees, then declared that their campaign wouldn't take any donations from county workers and promised that the pro-5 charter commission slate would address campaign finance reform. Issue 6's proposed charter doesn't include any new campaign finance rules.

Mason's two moves should neutralize this attack. The 5 side will probably say, "How do we know that we'll get campaign finance reform if 6 passes?" -- but the obvious counterattack from the 6 side will be, "How do we know what kind of reform we'll get on any subject if 5 passes?" Issue 5 would set up a charter commission, and the pro-5 charter commission slate has said little about what kind of charter they'd write if elected -- they just promise an open process.

One more Mason note: meanwhile, he's quarrelling with the PD because the paper is questioning his hiring of campaign donor Bobby DiGeronimo's daughter-in-law.

me on Feagler re Issues 5 and 6, Obama, First Energy

I'm a guest on WVIZ's Feagler & Friends this weekend, talking about Issues 5 and 6, President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize and the war in Afghanistan, Ohio executions, and the botched First Energy light bulb plan.

The show airs tonight at 8:30 pm and Sunday at 11:30 am. Also talking with host Dick Feagler are Ohio Magazine publisher Rich Osborne and radio reporter Greg Saber.

Issue 5 vs. 6: the reform duel gets nasty

It's 26 days before Cuyahoga County chooses among the dueling reform plans, and the fight has gotten nasty.

The huge Plain Dealer headline today started the brawl: "Issue 5 supporters call on Mason to return donations." Bill Mason, Issue 6 co-architect and the only county official whose job wouldn't be wiped out by his ballot proposal, got $102,000 in contributions from his own employees over the last five years.

The Issue 5 people want him to return it all. They're also arguing that 6 should be shot down because it doesn't include campaign finance reform that makes it illegal for county officials to get employee donations.

"He's put together a plan that essentially fosters corruption," Issue 5 spokesman Brian Wright tells the PD.

False: it only leaves the same campaign finance rules in place. {Update, 11/1: I originally wrote that we don't know if we'll get campaign finance reform if 5 passes either. Still technically correct, but most of the pro-5 Real Reform Done Right charter commission slate has since said they'd include it in a new charter.}

But the 5 supporters' attack is shrewd. It puts the spotlight on Mason, an aspiring reformer, yet someone known for embracing some old-school political tactics.

Mason fought back. He asked whether Issue 5 supporters Jim Rokakis, Peter Lawson Jones, Frank Jackson and Marcia Fudge will return their donations from employees.

Oops: Rokakis doesn't take any. Fudge can't, by law, and didn't when she was a mayor -- she fired off a press release saying so this afternoon. {Update, 10/9: The PD's story says Jackson got only $150 from city employees last year. Jones has taken $13,000 from county workers in two years. "You have to balance employees' First Amendment rights with not putting them in a position where they feel pressured to give," Jones says.}

An hour ago, the 6 campaign struck back, with Martin Zanotti, Joe Cimperman, and Nina Turner all offering scathing quotes. Since it's not online, I'll paste it below.

By "lie and smears," I'm guessing Zanotti means the false argument I mentioned above, though Mason's employees' (legal) contributions are a matter of record.

Also, I picked up a flyer today from an Issue 5 supporter. That's the front side of it at the top of this post. Here's the other side:



It's intended for union members -- hence its claim that Issue 6 is the "big business/Republican reform plan," though the 6 effort also includes many prominent Democrats. Also, it's funny how it uses a Plain Dealer quote to make 6 sound bad -- when the paper's editorial page is very pro-6.

Dueling reforms? This is no gentlemanly contest: it's a bare-fisted brawl.

==
Press release from Issue 6 campaign:
--
County politicians will say anything to stop real reform

Blasting back against the rank hypocrisy and unfounded slurs against County Prosecutor and Issue 6 co-chair Bill Mason, other Issue 6 co-chairs called on Issue 5 supporters to admit their role in causing the crisis that makes real county reform a necessity.

“The lie and smears coming from the Issue 5 campaign are really stunning, and the voters of Cuyahoga County aren’t going to buy what they’re selling,” said Parma Hts. Mayor and Issue 6 co-chair Marty Zanotti. “Why are they going after County Prosecutor Mason? It’s simple: because he’s actually standing up for real reform. Why didn’t they ask for donation returns from themselves? Dimora, Russo, Hagan, and Jones are the reason we need reform in the first place.”

“We’ve seen this all before,” continued Zanotti. “Reform has been debated and killed for decades in this county. Entrenched political interests refuse to give up their fiefdoms. This flailing by the Issue 5 campaign is just meant to confuse voters, just like Issue 5 itself is meant to confuse voters. When they are really scared, they start with the personal attacks, as we’ve now seen with their attempts to discredit Prosecutor Mason. He’s tough enough to stand up to them, and county voters are smart enough not to fall for their lies and tricks.”

Cleveland City Councilman and Issue 6 co-chair Joe Cimperman said, “Issue 6 means real reform, real checks and balances, and a real chance to turn our county around. Our opponents are trying everything they can to derail real reform. More than 50,000 signed a petition to put Issue 6 on the ballot. We won’t rest until county residents know that that the way to real reform is No on 5, Yes on 6.”

State Senator and Issue 6 co-chair Nina Turner said, “Don’t be fooled: this is the last gasp of a dying political cabal clinging to its final breath. It won’t work. Cuyahoga County residents are sick of the crime, corruption, and cronyism of the past. We all deserve better, and we aim to get it with Issue 6. This is our golden hour – the point where we have a real chance to enact change in this county. We need to take advantage of this chance and pass Issue 6.”

Brewer: "That is me in those pictures"

"That is me in those pictures," Eric Brewer said on Inside Edition yesterday.

A week after losing his re-election bid, the East Cleveland mayor says the infamous boudoir photos of him in women's lingerie "were taken by a female friend of mine."

The pictures, a subject of rumors in East Cleveland for some time, were broadcast on WKYC TV-3 six days before the mayoral election. Brewer again blamed them for his defeat (a question I considered in this post last week).

"I myself heard someone say that they were voting for the mayor who wore pants, and one lady said that she did not want to vote for a mayor who would compete with her for wearing her panties," Brewer says.

Inside Edition also interviewed mayor-elect Gary Norton. "No one in my campaign had anything to do with the release of those photos," Norton said.

Brewer said his 23-year-old son Chase has "been relentless in teasing me. I'm dad, I'm mom. He hasn't called me Tootsie yet."

"I love my father regardless. And whatever he does...that's his business, I'm going to support him," says Chase.

The Plain Dealer reports that East Cleveland city council member Mildred Brewer (no relation) is calling for Brewer's resignation: "We have been disgraced nationally," she said. "I think a man should be a man, and a woman should be a woman."

Another councilman, Nathaniel Martin, says the mayor should not resign. "If it is him, it is his private life, and it doesn't take away from his abilities to do his job," Martin told the PD.

Update, 11:30 a.m.: What will Brewer do after politics? Mansfield Frazier at coolcleveland.com has some ideas. In a funny yet fairly sympathetic column, he advises:

Likely, ... he will go back to what he knows and start up another newsmagazine that he can use to blast everyone he can think of, [which] might be temporarily satisfying, but is exactly the wrong thing to do. ... Besides writing a book and erecting a website, as one experienced TV producer recently said to me, Brewer needs to develop a cable TV show where he debates with himself.

FitzGerald: "I may be appointed county auditor"

The Frank Russo resignation watch is heating up. Thursday afternoon, Lakewood Mayor Ed FitzGerald posted this on lakewoodbuzz.com:

It's possible that I may be appointed County Auditor due to the emergency situation currently involving that office. I'm sure some people won't like that, and some will be happy about it. I have no plans to move out of the city my family has called home since 1929. I own a home here, I'm raising my kids here, and I'm staying here.

Seven hours later, a guy with the screen name "Eugmc" posted this on clevelandleader.com:

A source has informed The Cleveland Leader that embattled Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo will be stepping down from office in the very near future. Edward Fitzgerald, currently the Mayor of the City of Lakewood, will assume the role of County Auditor, the source added. The replacement for the Mayor of Lakewood would be a high level official in the suburb.

FitzGerald's announcement is no surprise: He's been running for Russo's job all year, lobbying the party insiders who vote on mid-term appointments. But why's he going public with it now? Maybe he thinks he has the job locked up. (Mark Naymik thinks he's close.) And maybe he hears Russo's leaving soon.

I wonder if the Leader rumor came from FitzGerald's camp. Hard to say how reliable it is.

No one can make Russo leave. But the heat on him must be getting unbearable. He knows the feds think he stole $1.2 million in cash. The attorney general and state auditor are both going to pore over his office's books. Former allies want him gone. Clinging to his job until trial might have seemed easy this winter, but not so today.

FitzGerald's making a shrewd move. He's a former FBI agent, so he's attractive to Democrats who want to purge corruption before it taints the party further. FitzGerald even called attorney general Richard Cordray last month to press him to investigate Russo.

An aggressive campaigner, FitzGerald ran former mayor Tom George out of office in 2007 with a tough, scary message portraying Lakewood as a suburb on the brink, threatened by crime and aging homes. Running on the slogan "Vote like your neighborhood depended on it" (that's approximate -- I'm writing from memory here), FitzGerald won twice as many votes as George.

Earlier this year, one party insider told me FitzGerald was running too hard for Russo's job, as if the mayor's ambition was coming off as unseemly. But now it's sounding like his tenacity will pay off.

East Cleveland voters unseat Brewer: Was it the pictures?

Did the racy pictures take him down?

East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer was thrown out of office Tuesday, six days after WKYC TV 3 broadcasted photos purported to be of the mayor in women's lingerie.

Last Wednesday must've been the worst day of Brewer's life: the TV report came out only hours after his father, Harold Pride Brewer, died. At a press conference the next day, Brewer wouldn't confirm or deny the photos were of him. But in his classic combative style, he tried to turn the scandal into a jujitsu counterattack. He accused city cops and his election opponent, city council president Gary Norton, of passing the photos around. Norton has repeatedly denied this; the head of the police union denied it too.

Once WKYC ran the cross-dressing boudoir photos, the other local TV stations got a hold of their own copies and ran 'em too. Now they've gone viral, inspiring a snarky post from celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and jokes on the Late Late Show (which inspired this blog post about transgendered rights).

Tuesday night, Brewer lost, attracting only 36 percent of the vote. He blamed the photo scandal. "The reality is the only thing that got [Norton] over was the media broadcasting the information, pictures that had not been authenticated," Brewer told Fox 8 reporter Kevin Freeman.

Phillip Morris will have none of that. East Cleveland voters "did themselves a tremendous public service," he writes in his Plain Dealer column today. He quotes Norton as saying: "By electing me, voters have said they want a mayor who operates from a different set of values and tactics. They want a consensus builder -- not a destroyer."

I heard that line -- destroyer -- while reporting for my May 2006 profile of Brewer, "Ready to Rumble." The mayor, a longtime muckraking journalist, has a knack for tearing his enemies apart. That's actually one reason voters elected him mayor in 2005: I think they agreed with his judgments of former mayor Saratha Goggins, whom he unseated after writing about her manslaughter conviction, and his archenemy, previous mayor Emmanuel Onunwor, who ended up in federal prison for taking bribes from Nate Gray. Norton gave Brewer less to work with: The mayor's newspaper-style campaign literature tried to make the challenger sound dangerous by reporting on his bad grades in college.

Still, even the Plain Dealer editorial page, which endorsed Norton, had to admit Brewer delivered on some key issues. He added cops to the police force, the crime rate has fallen under his leadership, and he kept his biggest campaign promise: he lowered water rates, thanks to a new deal with Cleveland's water department.

So how would the election have gone without the photos? I don't think anyone polled East Cleveland during the race, so I drove through the city last week, conducting my own Extremely Scientific Lawn Sign Poll.

By my count, Norton's red signs outnumbered Brewer's green, but not by a lot. Brewer seemed to have almost as many supporters as Norton in some neighborhoods just north and south of Euclid Avenue. But Norton's slim sign advantage got stronger when I drove up the hill to the middle-class neighborhood next to Cleveland Heights that includes some Rockefeller homes.

{My guess is, without the photo scandal, Norton would've have won, but the race would've been pretty close.} Update, 10/29: A closer look at the election results proves this wrong.

Brewer got 37% at the polls on Election Day, and only 34% in early voting. The vast majority of early votes in East Cleveland -- 836 of 971 -- were already cast by Sept. 24, the day Brewer held his press conference about the photos.

The results before and after were almost the same: 2 to 1 against the mayor.

Why did the Lawn Sign Poll fail me? Take a look at the anonymous comment below for a possible reason: The foreclosure epidemic may throw it off.