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.

Reform is dead

Oops, sorry. Less than two months ago, I predicted the movement to reform Cuyahoga County government would dominate Cleveland's headlines in 2009.

Actually, just before Christmas, the state legislature killed the idea. It took the Commission on Cuyahoga County Government Reform's proposal for a leaner, less costly government and threw it onto the shelf, where all such plans turn brittle yellow, then molder away. Someone's already pulled the plug on the commission's website (the lonely, barely Google-able ccgovreform.org), but here's another link to its proposal.

The legislature created the reform commission in June, so I naively figured it would let county residents vote on its plan. Guess not.

The state House backed the plan, but Republicans in the state Senate voted for a different proposal to replace the Cuyahoga County commissioners with an executive and nine-member council. Rather than write a compromise, the legislators let the idea die with the lame-duck session. Rep. Armond Budish, the new Speaker now that the Democrats control the House, said that in 2009, any reform ideas will have to apply to all 88 counties. That likely means reform will never happen -- it multiplies the number of vested interests motivated to stop it.

Killing reform was easy. Its champions aren't in positions of power. Once people started disagreeing about how far to go with it -- Louis Stokes vs. the rest of the commission, House Republicans vs. Senate Republicans -- doing nothing became the easiest option. Elected officials who benefit from the status quo only had to keep quiet for the idea to go away.

County treasurer Jim Rokakis, who supports reform, estimates the county government wastes $40 million to $60 million a year. The recorder's office, ripe for a $1 million budget cut, is just one example. But if Cuyahoga County taxpayers want change, the state legislature is not going to help. Voters will have to create a charter, like Summit County did years ago. It's not easy: it takes a petition drive and more than 45,000 signatures.

County reform: the plan

The Commission on Cuyahoga County Government Reform issued its proposal Friday. You might have missed the news, amid all the election coverage, but the reform plan is a big deal. It'll be at the center of our debate about our county government in the new year.

Here is the final report. It's 10 pages and worth reading.

The commission proposes to eliminate the elected jobs of auditor, recorder, treasurer, engineer, coroner, and clerk of courts. It'll combine the first three into a finance department with an appointed director. It'll keep the three-person county commission, but voters would choose a commission president who would be a quasi-executive: recommending budgets, appointing the county administrator and department directors, representing the county in major negotiations. The state legislature will decide whether to put the reform proposal up for a county-wide vote next year.

This plan is clearly a compromise between those who wanted a separate county executive and county council and those who didn't (Louis Stokes) because they worried minorities wouldn't get elected as often.

But here's an important detail: The report also points out that there are two ways to change the county government's structure: 1) the legislature puts a new government structure on the ballot, or 2) county residents themselves start a movement to create a county charter. A charter would give the county government new powers under Ohio's principle of home rule.

The reform commission itself expresses hope that Cuyahoga County citizens will go farther than the commission could, and organize and create a charter. And it says if we did, then the county's new powers would justify having a separate county executive and council.

Actually, a group is already pushing for a charter: the Citizens for Cuyahoga Success, which grew out of Forest City Enterprises co-chairman Sam Miller's March 2007 speech favoring county reform. Its website, cfcsuccess.com, has only posted a volunteer sign-up sheet so far. So the best sources for info about its proposal are this article and this follow-up from Inside Business. (Inside Business is owned by the same company as Cleveland Magazine, Great Lakes Publishing. The articles' author, Lute Harmon, Sr., is chairman of the company as well as a member of Citizens for Cuyahoga Success.)

What happens if two reform proposals both go before voters next year? I don't think anyone has thought that far ahead yet -- we'll see.

Two other details from the reform commission's proposal are worth mentioning. It recommends creating a county law department, instead of having the county prosecutor serve as county legal counsel, which sometimes creates conflicts of interest. Also, it would create a human resources commission that would set uniform standards for hiring in all departments, which would cut down on patronage.

Here are some key quotes from the reform commission's report (bolds are mine):

- "From any perspective – efficiency, fairness, accountability, effectiveness – the structure of Cuyahoga County government is letting us down."

- "Eight elected administrative officials operate with virtual autonomy. In practice, they each run their own hiring operations and effectively set their own budgets. Three County Commissioners have far less budget and administrative control than good governance demands."

- "The diffusion of power also means duplication of effort, inefficiency and waste of taxpayer dollars. Nearly all of the elected administrative officers have staff who separately perform basic functions such as human resources, public outreach, information technology and financial management."

-The county also suffers from a "lack of a clearly identifiable leader."

-"Streamlining Cuyahoga County government would make it far more efficient by eliminating unnecessary elective offices and by giving leadership authority to the President of the Board of County Commissioners. ... Millions of dollars could be saved each year."

-"Our community needs the County to be a more effective leader on regional issues, especially economic issues. A Board of County Commissioners led by a 'strong President' would be a nimble and effective actor in this arena."

The reform commission also interviewed almost all the current elected county officials to get their opinions on reform. The interview notes are online here. Highlights:

-Most of the eight elected administrative officials were skeptical of the reform proposals, though some (such as Prosecutor Bill Mason) were more enthusiastic about reform than others.

-Treasurer Jim Rokakis was strongly in favor of reform. He believes it could lead to a leaner government, which he estimated could save $40 to $60 million a year. Right now, he says, the commissioners don't question what the other elected officials spend.

-County commissioners Peter Lawson Jones and Tim Hagan (link is broken, sorry) both testified before the reform panel and supported making most of the elected positions appointed. Hagan was skeptical of a county executive and council plan. (It looks like Jimmy Dimora is the only elected county official who didn't talk to the reform panel.)