County transition team will open up all its meetings

If you act like a government, you've got to open up like a government should. That's the lesson Martin Zanotti and Jim McCafferty learned this week.

Cleveland.com just reported that Cuyahoga County's transition advisory group will hold all its committee meetings in public. The decision comes three days after Zanotti and McCafferty, who are shepherding the switch to charter government, went on WCPN on Tuesday and got an earful.

Host Dan Moulthrop and his listeners asked: Why aren't the transition team's meetings open to the public? The Plain Dealer amplified the questions with a story. County executive candidate Ed FitzGerald joined the chorus. {Update, 2/13: So did Scene and candidate Matt Dolan.} Yesterday, the ACLU threatened to sue.

At first, McCafferty, the county administrator, and Zanotti, a leader of the charter reform effort, argued that holding some public forums would be enough. The transition committees didn't have to open all their meetings, they argued, because they aren't government bodies, just advisers. The volunteers on the committees ought to be able to talk about layoffs and other sensitive issues without fear of upsetting anyone, they argued.

Problem was, closed meetings were one reason voters turned against McCafferty's bosses, the county commissioners, and voted for Issue 6. At the same time, the most piercing criticism of Zanotti and the other Issue 6 reformers was that they'd written the charter in private. So a fight to keep the meeting doors closed threatened to revive all that distrust and hurt the new government's credibility.

Besides, the transition group has expanded way beyond what the charter calls for, from a little committee of three county employees into an ambitious partnership including the current government, Issue 6's framers, and top public officials and business executives. And it's not just making little recommendations, like a place for the new county council to meet. It's proposing huge changes in county government's priorities. Last month, Zanotti and McCafferty declared that the new government should cut spending 15 percent and start a $50 million economic development fund -- changes much bigger than the current, lame-duck government ever contemplated.

The transition group is acting like a government, even though it wasn't elected. The public needs some way to hold it accountable. Watching it work is the best solution.

Today's decision doesn't resolve county executive candidates Ken Lanci and Ed FitzGerald's complaints that they should be included in the transition effort. But Zanotti and others decided to exclude candidates to keep the transition free of politics. Now, Lanci, FitzGerald, and any other interested candidates can attend the committee meetings, learn what's going on, and talk about it if they want. That's better than taking a risk that some candidates would turn the committees into stages for their campaigns.

Traficant threatens reporter with rash, promises run for Congress

After seven years without Jim Traficant's hammy, bullying comedy act, it's disturbingly fun to read about him again. So Stephanie Warsmith of the Akron Beacon Journal proved when she dropped by Tangier in Akron to see Jimbo rant at a Libertarian candidate's sparsely attended fundraiser.

Highlights:

Traficant sat down with the Beacon Journal ... only after railing about the newspaper not writing anything positive about him in 30 years and threatening that another negative article would result in this reporter contracting a rash in her private parts.

Sitting at Rockne's restaurant, sipping Diet Coke after Diet Coke, Traficant seemed bitter but not defeated. He wore a gray turtleneck, black dress pants and his well-known fuzzy gray toupee, which he declined to talk about.

He might run for Congress against Tim Ryan, his former Youngstown protege, or Charlie Wilson, whose district hugs the Ohio River valley. Both are Democrats. Traficant might go third-party.

''The Democrat and Republican parties have failed,'' he said. ''Both are as worthless as tits on a bullfrog.''

Laughing at Traficant these days is like laughing at Soviet kitsch: His tackiness is harmless now that he's out of power. He's a retro-fun sideshow, a VH1 I Love the '80s with one-liners instead of music (but with just as much bad hair).

''Stimulate this!'' he said at one point — his newest catchphrase.

But when he was still in Congress, shaming Youngstown, wallowing in corruption, and accepting bribes in the form of horse-farm favors, laughing at Traficant only made him stronger. The attention fed his weird cult of personality, his outlaw shtick.

So if he chases Ryan or Wilson across eastern Ohio this summer and fall, he might be worth a few more laughs -- as long as his polling numbers linger around 10 percent or so. Youngstown is smarter than Jimbo now, right?

Russo considered, rejected civil-service move for employees

County auditor Frank Russo considered extending civil-service protection to all his employees after Issue 6 passed, but he has decided against it, says Destin Ramsey, the auditor's chief operating officer.

“We had thought about that, but we clearly don’t think it’s going to make a difference,” Ramsey told me today. “With the whole scheme of things, with the reform coming in, it would take too long.”

Russo considered the move to give his employees more job security, Ramsey says. “He came up with the idea of looking into it, and we did.” But the staff determined that civil-service protection would not prevent the new government from instituting layoffs.

“It didn’t make much difference, especially when it comes to the new government coming in — it’s going to make its own [decisions],” Ramsey says. The new charter calls for the auditor’s and recorder’s offices to merge in January 2011. The county executive will appoint a chief fiscal officer to run the new department.

The auditor’s and recorder’s offices are top targets of reformers who say patronage and corruption have bloated the county payroll. Federal prosecutors claim some auditor’s employees obtained their jobs thanks to bribery-and-favors schemes involving Russo, though he has not been charged with a crime.

County executive candidate Ken Lanci publicized the possible move to extend civil-service protection at the county in his Jan. 13 campaign announcement. Ramsey’s acknowledgment is the first confirmation that a county official considered the idea.

Around New Year’s, Russo decided not to pursue the civil-service idea, Ramsey says. One-fourth of the auditor’s staff took the recent county buyout, so the office is busy reorganizing. It’s also responding to a performance audit by state auditor Mary Taylor’s office and subpoenas from federal investigators, and may have to cope with a possible pending audit by state attorney general Richard Cordray. Extending civil-service protection involves a long process, Ramsey says — and Russo and his staff calculated they couldn’t get it and everything else done this year.

“It’s too much of a undertaking to engage in that at this time,” Ramsey says. “In light of all our responsibilities, it wouldn’t be productive for us.”

Retired reporter still gets tips: Wagner's digging at the county building

Joe Wagner retired from the Plain Dealer late last year, but he still gets reporting tips. Sources who didn’t know he'd left the paper called him recently to tell him they’d heard county auditor Frank Russo and recorder Lillian Greene might extend civil service protection to some of their employees.

So Wagner, now a spokesman for county executive candidate Ken Lanci, took the news to his new boss. Lanci mentioned it in his Jan. 13 campaign announcement (see video here).

“I’m troubled by comments that there are efforts to reclassify many county employees as civil service workers,” Lanci said. “That’s not reform, that’s political patronage again. And it’s not what we voted for.” Lanci said he’d sent the county a public records request to find out if the tips were true. “I urge the transition team to make sure no actions are taken that limit our opportunities to remake government in this new era,” he said.

Usually, creating a civil service is meant to prevent patronage. Giving government employees job security protects them from depending on their boss’s re-election. But reclassifying a patronage-laden workforce as civil service just before leaving office would have the opposite effect -- it’d make it hard for the new county executive to cut spending and fire the least-qualified employees. Wagner, author of the Plain Dealer’s 2008 “Payroll and Politics” exposés of the auditor’s and recorder’s offices, was naturally interested in the warnings. So was Lanci.

“It happened by happenstance,” Wagner says. “My sources over at the county who still thought I was there, they called me on my cell phone: ‘Did you hear that?’ ‘Well, I hadn’t, but I guess I just did!’ ”

Will any county officials try this move before the new government takes over? Or is it a false alarm? Calls I placed to the recorder’s and auditor’s offices yesterday were not returned.

{Update, 7 p.m.: Russo staffer Destin Ramsey confirms that Russo considered giving all his employees civil-service protection, but decided against it. See this new post.}

Lanci and Wagner say they’re starting to receive documents from some county agencies, but they’re still reviewing them; other county offices haven’t responded yet. “The Plain Dealer’s made a big records request over there too, on the same subject,” Wagner says. So watch for more news on this soon.

Ken Lanci: Only an independent can change the county

Ken Lanci says he’s running for Cuyahoga County executive because neither Democrats nor Republicans can reform county government.

“If people really want to see change, you cannot put in a Democrat or a Republican, because it’s all about the party,” the independent candidate argues. “As much as somebody will sit and tell you, ‘I will go down the middle and work for the people,’ the party that gave the money to that individual is going to get that marker cashed. There’s going to be things he can’t fight for, because he’s going to be told, ‘If you think you’ve got a career, this could be your last job.’”

Lanci, 59, a printing company owner and business turnaround expert, says he can use his talents to turn Cuyahoga County around. “The experience I have was gained over 40 years,” he says. “If I can make money from nothing and be successful, I should be able to go in and help the people of the county as well.”

He’s owned 20 companies, all startups or turnarounds. “I don’t think I can remember having purchased a company that was doing very well.” Starting with his father’s company when he was 19, he’s brought back several companies from the brink of death, from Northeast Wine Distributors to a division of the Cleveland Paper Company. National City sometimes turned to him to help salvage failing companies that couldn’t repay loans.

Today, Lanci owns two companies on Cleveland’s near East Side, including printing company Consolidated Graphics Group. He says he’ll work for $1 a year if elected, as a way of giving back.

Lanci says job growth would be his top priority by far. He wants to work closely with the developers of the Medical Mart, the casino, and the $150 million renovation of St. Vincent Charity Hospital to develop training programs for local workers that fit the employers’ needs. He praises the current county government’s efforts to build the Medical Mart, calling it “the cornerstone of Cleveland’s future.” Beyond that, he says the county needs to say yes to business deals, not throw up obstacles.

Candidates like Lanci flare up in politics now and then: Centrist businessmen who run against both parties, appealing to voters who distrust politicians and think government needs more financial discipline. But the CEO candidates’ big challenge is to prove they understand how government works.

Judging by my interview with Lanci, he’s not there yet. I asked him to critique the performance of the county’s economic development department. He said he couldn’t.

“There are a lot of things I can’t comment on without getting in the belly of the beast,” he said. “I’m not promising anything until I get inside. But when I get inside, I will report on a regular basis what we find and how it’s going.”

He said he’s reviewed the county government’s 2009 and 2010 budgets, but can’t tell if its spending is well-disciplined: “I don’t know how much effort really goes into the individual departments to see the efficiencies.”

This sounds too much like, Trust me, I'll figure it out. Before voters can trust him as a turnaround expert, Lanci needs to show that his business turnaround experience is relevant to county government: He needs to apply his expertise to the county's challenges and tell voters what he'll do if elected.

The new county council will approve the county executive’s budget and appointments. That could be an adjustment for Lanci, a private-company CEO. I asked Lanci what relevant experience he had at needing approval from people who don’t work for him. His answer suggested he expects conflict, not cooperation.

“In government, I am working for the people; so are they,” he says. “They just need to be held accountable to work for the people, not the parties anymore. That’s what I plan on doing.”

Starting new companies has taught Lanci the importance of inspirational leadership, he says. “The employees of any company or any government are the backbone. If you don’t get buy-in from the people that are working with you, then you can’t do anything.” He suggests the new county exec will have to balance house-cleaning after scandal with retaining the government’s best talent. “There’s no secret there’s been a lot of patronage over the years,” he said, but added: “I have to believe there’s a lot of very capable, qualified people out of the 7,500 that are still there. … This is not going to be a wholesale firing.”

I asked Lanci about the fears that the new county government would not address minorities’ concerns. He said he was skeptical about “set-aside” programs, but wasn’t inclined to alter the county’s small business enterprise program, which benefits many minority contractors. At Lanci’s companies, minorities are about 29 out of 150 employees, he says. He’s set up a small apprenticeship program with the Cleveland schools for students interested in the graphic arts. His biggest philanthropic efforts, Project Love and Gift of Sight, focus their efforts in the city, he says.

Lanci’s political donations have covered both parties: He gave to Joe Cimperman’s 2008 Democratic primary campaign for Congress against Dennis Kucinich, Lee Fisher’s current Democratic primary run for U.S. Senate; Republican Ken Blackwell’s 2006 campaign for governor, and the McCain campaign and the Ohio Republican Party in fall 2008. He says he likes Cimperman’s energy, Fisher’s experience, Blackwell’s support for small business, and Sarah Palin’s advocacy for special-needs children.

Lanci’s biography includes an unusual family tie: his older brother, Thomas Lanci, was convicted of bribery and racketeering in federal court and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in state court in connection with the 1977 bombing death of Danny Greene – the most legendary organized-crime murder in Cleveland’s recent history. (Thomas Lanci now lives outside Ohio and does not talk to reporters, Ken says.)

Lanci says he’s often had to address his brother’s crimes in his professional life. “If you can imagine walking with a ball and chain for a while, that’s how I would describe it.” In the late 1970s, the FBI spent a few days at Lanci’s printing business to ascertain that it had no financial ties to his brother. Lanci says he later passed rigorous federal-government background checks before assuming control of Northeast Wine Distributors and becoming a director of Independence Bank. “If everybody was disqualified for family relationships, we’d have a lot of openings all over the place,” he says.

Lanci says he’ll refuse donations from county employees and political action committees and all donations above $250. Since the new charter doesn’t include campaign finance limits, “I decided to start my own campaign reform,” he says. “Somebody’s got to take the lead. And because I can, I am.” If donations don’t raise enough, Lanci says he’ll personally spend what’s necessary to be competitive. Political veterans tell him he’ll need $1.5 million.

County transition team promises big spending cuts, job growth fund

Cuyahoga County's transition team just announced an ambitious goal: It wants to cut county spending 15 percent and use $50 million of the savings for economic development programs. It's also set up several advisory committees, full of influential names, to give the county some guidance until the new government gets elected and settles in.

The news shows that power at the county is already shifting toward the reformers, 11 months before the new charter takes full effect. Today's announcement comes from Martin Zanotti, the Issue 6 reform leader, and the commissioners' top employee, county administrator Jim McCafferty. They're co-chairs of the transition group.

That $50 million goal for new jobs programs goes way beyond what the county's doing now: it would quadruple $16 million for economic development in the county's 2010 recommended budget. The spending-cut goals are also ambitious: The county has already cut its staffing from 9,500 employees in 2008 to 8,000 this year, and it already planned to cut general fund spending to $310 million this year, down from $330 million in 2009 and $360 million in 2008.

The list of advisory committees is an interesting mix of prominent names from politics and business and from last year's pro-Issue 6 and anti-6 camps. The transition executive committee includes seven people:
-co-chairs Zanotti and McCafferty
-Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
-Eaton Corp. CEO Sandy Cutler (a top fundraiser for Issue 6)
-Tri-C president Jerry Sue Thornton
-University Hospitals CEO Tom Zenty
-Randell McShepard, head of the Policy Bridge think tank.

(Incidentally, Jackson, Thornton, Zenty and Cutler all made the top 25 in Inside Business' Power 100.)

The three picks for the all-important economic development committee are:
-Sandra Pianalto, the powerful president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
-Judy Rawson, former Shaker Heights mayor and Issue 6 co-framer
-Lee Trotter, recently retired deputy county administrator.

A public engagement committee includes both Harriet Applegate, who helped lead the campaign against the new charter, and Robyn Minter Smyers, a Thompson Hine attorney and Issue 6 co-chair.

“We are not fighting battles from yesterday or last year," McCafferty said in the press release. "We are looking toward tomorrow and next year."

The transition team also announced that Tim Hagan and KeyCorp CEO Henry Meyer III will co-chair the campaign to pass the county health and human services levy on May 4. It'll be interesting to see what Meyer and other business leaders do to support the levy campaign. Hagan is known as a champion of social services on the commission, but this year, with trust in county government at a low point, the commissioners will need people outside the county building to vouch for them and the levy.

What about campaign finance reform? Issue 6 supporters have pledged to come up with proposals for the new government to implement in 2011 -- too late for this year's county election, which won't have limits on individual campaign contributions, as critics have pointed out (see this week's Scene article). Today's press release says New Cuyahoga Now, Zanotti's pro-6 group, will contribute campaign finance reform proposals and a recommended code of ethics to the transition team's final report.

Update, 2/3: Scene, which opposed Issue 6, criticizes the transition team as wielding too much unaccountable power. The most interesting part of its story: it draws connections between the list of committee members and the Issue 6 campaign's donor list.

Ronayne vs. Brady race tops county council races so far

Chris Ronayne isn't running for county executive -- he's taking a shot at joining the county council instead. The former City Hall chief of staff has decided to run for the part-time council, as I suggested he would a couple of weeks ago, so he can remain president of University Circle, Inc.

But Ronayne will hardly have an easy path to the new council. He's running against Dan Brady, the former state senator, in the most dramatic matchup so far in the 11 new county council districts.

It'll be a generational battle of sorts: the new guy with new ideas versus the old-school veteran. You could call both men "progressives," but with two different meanings of the word: Ronayne, a favorite of the young, professional, believe-in-Cleveland crowd, and Brady, a classic pro-labor liberal.

Brady moved up from Cleveland city council to the state house to the state senate in the 1990s, then aimed at Mike White in 2001, running for mayor when most people thought the embattled White would run for a fourth term. I remember the Free Times running a cover story on him and his candidacy, a hopeful profile by Roldo Bartimole. Once White left and the mayoral race got crowded, Brady tried to stand out with a left-of-everyone pitch that he'd lead a "labor government" at City Hall. The pitch fizzled: he finished with 2 percent of the vote.

Still, Brady was easily re-elected to his senate seat in 2002. His biggest strengths are his experience and knowledge of the district he's running in (the light green one on this map): it's Cleveland's middle-west side, neighborhoods he represented in the senate. (His wife, Dona Brady, represents part of the area on city council.)

Brady is about to launch a campaign website: I'll link to it once I get the address. He spoke with me for my October profile of Jimmy Dimora: click here to read it.

Nelson Cintron, the controversial former city councilman, also plans to run in the same district. He finished fourth in his attempt to rejoin council last year, so it's hard to imagine him beating Ronayne or Brady. But that makes three interesting personalities in one race.

The other races look less exciting so far. Well-known names include state Sen. Dale Miller, who's running for the Lakewood/Brook Park/West Park district, and Parma's former mayor, Gerald Boldt, and city council president, Chuck Germana, running in district 4.

To me, the most interesting candidate in the other races is C. Ellen Connally, the former Cleveland Municipal Court judge. (She's running in a district that sweeps from Shaker Heights and Cleveland's far-southeast wards to Orange and Bedford.) She wrote a feisty op-ed piece in August calling George Forbes an "out-of-touch, salty-mouthed curmudgeon" who overplays the race card (and that was before the Call & Post's Jemima-gate!). It's one of several entertaining missives Connally has sent to the Plain Dealer opinions page. (See my August blog post, full of links to her writing.) Weird trivia about Connally: She figures prominently (through no fault of her own) in a bizarre left-wing conspiracy theory about the 2004 election in Ohio.

Backgrounding all the county council candidates is too big a task for my little blog, but the Plain Dealer's county politics reporters are on the case: Henry Gomez surveys the field in this post at the Cuyahoga County Insider blog. Ohio Daily Blog has also been reporting on some new candidacies. To see the board of elections' list of early petition-pullers, click here. (Here's the district map again.) But it's a long way to the June filing deadline -- lots more people will probably take a shot.