Renovations for new government come in at $1.3 million

Used furniture helped keep down the $300,000 cost of renovated offices for the Cuyahoga County executive and council, while high costs for electrical installations helped drive up the cost of the new council chambers to almost $1 million.

This winter, a tipster suggested I look at the cost of county executive Ed FitzGerald’s new office, to see if he was being frugal in the face of the county's budget shortage. It took about two months to get a full accounting of the renovations (some of which were ongoing) from FitzGerald’s staff, but they seem proud of the end result.

The county commissioners budgeted about $200,000 for fourth floor renovations before they left office, FitzGerald spokesman John Kohlstrand told me. FitzGerald’s administration added about $89,000 in spending in January, including $16,000 for carpeting to cover 60-year-old floor tile and $18,000 to improve a new meeting room that will be used for press conferences and some council committee hearings.

“We have attempted to be very modest in our overall approach to creating our office space on the 4th Floor,” wrote Kohlstrand in an e-mail. “The layout does not really lend itself to the requirements identified for the new government, but we have tried to make the most of it on a shoestring budget.”

Nearly all the new offices were furnished with all used furniture, including FitzGerald’s office, according to Kohlstrand. (FitzGerald is reportedly using Jim Rokakis’ old desk.) “At this point, the only new furniture expense was $5,572 to purchase 63 portable chairs for the multipurpose room," Kohlstrand wrote. The administration also spent about $50,000 for office equipment and fixtures.

To judge the renovations’ cost, I ran the expenses past Martin Zanotti, one of the main leaders of the movement to create the new government. Zanotti has overseen construction budgets as the former mayor of Parma Heights and CEO of Republic Alternative Technologies.

“With their critical eye on the juvenile justice center, they held themselves to the same threshold,” Zanotti says of FitzGerald and his staff. “It’s a very proper tone to set,” Zanotti says.

Shrewd, too: Re-using old county furniture highlights the contrast between FitzGerald and the juvenile court judges’ infamous $23,000 conference table.

The charter created an 11-member council but left the old government and the transition team with the task of figuring out where the council would meet. Last summer, the transition group chose to renovate the old Justice Center auditorium. The less expensive alternative, renovating the commissioners’ old chambers, would have created only half as many seats for the public. And it might not have lasted as long, since the county administration building may be torn down in the future, if the new Medical Mart and convention center project succeeds and needs to expand. The Justice Center isn’t going anywhere.

Preliminary estimates priced the cost of the new chamber at $888,000. The commissioners budgeted $680,000 in August. Instead, the final cost of the council chambers came in at $980,000, including $272,000 for electrical work.

The electrical expense “struck me as being a high price, though God knows what they ran into,” Zanotti says. “Nothing else seemed grossly out of line to me. It was a reasonable amount.”

Still, to the layman, nearly a million dollars may sound like a lot of money to spend on a single room. It makes somewhat more sense if you saw the auditorium before and after. When I visited last year for a sheriff’s auction, it looked looked exactly like what it was: the end-of-the-line room where a hard-luck county’s tax-foreclosed properties were sold for cheap. It was ugly and cramped, with low ceilings and an awkward layout facing a more awkward stage. Now it’s bright, spacious, equipped with modern communications, a place for a new start, not a space people want to flee. I don’t think the council had anything to do with outfitting the council chamber; it was ready for them when they were sworn in Jan. 3.

The cost of both renovations was paid out of a $7 million transition fund the commissioners authorized. About half of the fund went to the cost of holding the Sept. and Nov. 2010 elections to choose the executive and council. Kohlstrand says about $1.37 million is left for other priorities, including the potential cost of ethics training for county employees.

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.

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.

Zanotti, Jones debate Issues 5, 6

Could a new Cuyahoga County government do more to spark economic development? That question led to the most intense exchange between Peter Lawson Jones and Martin Zanotti at their City Club debate today.

The county commissioner and Parma Heights mayor dueled over Issues 5 and 6, the two county reform plans on the November ballot.

Zanotti said Issue 6 -- which would create a new county government led by an executive and council -- would make economic development a top priority. Jones defended the county's economic development record while arguing for Issue 5, which would create a county charter commission to write an alternate reform plan.

“Our county government today has no long-term economic plan, because it’s not its mission,” Zanotti argued. “Issue 6 is the only true reform measure on the ballot this November that will offer concrete plans to meet our challenges head on.”

Zanotti explained how the county charter proposed in Issue 6 would create a new economic development commission to help the new government write a five-year economic plan. (Here's the proposed charter -- details are in Section 7.)

Jones, who’s pushed hard for the county to do more for economic development, said Zanotti's proposal wouldn't add much. “Issue 6 says we'll have a director of development,” Jones countered. “We already have that. Issue 6 says, we'll have a department of development. We already have that. It says we’ll have an economic development commission. … We already have something called CuyahogaNext Advisers, that’s been active for the last five years, advising the county government how to spend our funds [to encourage] economic development, and that has created such projects as innovation zones and the North Coast Technologies Opportunity Fund.”

Almost half of the county’s discretionary funds go to economic development already, Jones said. County government can't do much more because almost all of its funds are earmarked by the state for social services and the justice system. In Ohio’s government structure, “Health and human services is the primary function of county government,” Jones argued. “We’re doing as best we can in economic development, in terms of setting aside discretionary dollars.”

“So, Mayor Zanotti,” said moderator Dan Moulthrop, “much of that couldn’t really change.” That set Zanotti off.

“Wrong. I don’t agree with that for a minute,” Zanotti said. There are 5,800 employees that work for the county.” (Actually, it’s 8,500, Jones corrected him.) “Are they all working in the right department? Are they all necessary? ... The patronage that is rampant throughout Cuyahoga County right now is at the core of what needs to be changed, and [that’s] how we will come up with the funds necessary to provide for critical economic development opportunities.”

The Issue 6 charter would replace patronage and duplicated positions with standard hiring practices and a county-wide human resources department, he said. “We’ve got to take those savings and invest it in health and human services and economic development.”

Jones said Issue 6 supporters have failed to say how much money their plan would save."“I don't think I’ve seen an election yet where one side hasn’t said, 'If you just let me in, I’m going to slash the number of [employees],'" he said. The county government is already about to reduce its work force to the lowest level in 20 years, Jones said.

When attention turned to Issue 5, the debate got more vague. Jones' plan would set up a commission to write a charter, and though the slate of commission candidates Jones supports has criticized Issue 6, they've said little about what reforms they’d prefer. The uncertainty seemed to frustrate the moderator.

“What guarantees are there for voters that passing Issue 5 will improve the climate of accountability and transparency in government?” Moulthrop asked.

“Of the slate members I happen to be supporting," Jones replied, "13 of them have already pledged that county government campaign finance reform will be one of first things they tackle, and it will be in the charter." Later, Jones added that the Real Reform Done Right slate has pledged to fulfill their duties in the state constitution by writing a charter next year and putting it on the Nov. 2010 ballot – and they’ve promised to hold multiple meetings across the county, address economic development in the charter, and not to run for any of the offices the charter would create.

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.

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.”

PD's inside story on dueling reforms: Who looks good, who looks bad

Dan Moulthrop of WCPN posted this on Facebook today: "Just finished reading Amanda Garrett's Sunday piece on the politics behind the dueling county reform measures. I've gotta say, if what she writes is true, some of our local leaders look pretty unimpressive. Others look pretty great. Your thoughts?"

I agree. That's one reason Garrett's story is a must-read: her intimate narrative of the politics behind the two ballot measures reveals a lot about how Cleveland's politicians think and act.

Lillian Greene, the county recorder, looks the worst. She comes off as an obstructionist who only joined Martin Zanotti's reform meetings to disrupt them. She walked out of one meeting after giving an angry speech.

Greene's office is the most obvious one to eliminate if you're trying to make county government more efficient -- do we really need to elect someone just to record deeds? But even though the Issue 6 group painstakingly gerrymandered the county council map to create four black-majority districts, Greene thinks she owes it to black voters to hang onto her job:

"Why would the black community go backward when never before in the more than 200-year history of the county have we had two countywide elected officials!" Greene recounted in an e-mail to The Plain Dealer, referring to herself and Peter Lawson Jones. ...

Greene said she told the reform group a story about an older black woman who had recently approached her. The woman asked Greene who she was and when Greene told her, the woman told Greene how proud she was of her being in office.

"That was the final piece that solidified my position on this 'reform,' " Greene said.

State Sen. Nina Turner looks put-upon and courageous in the story. The 2nd graf describes the reaction when Turner signed on to the Issue 6 effort to create a county executive and council:

Several operatives for Cleveland's most powerful black Democrats -- many of whom Turner had looked up to -- telephoned the young black Democrat with this dire warning: They would ruin her if she didn't reconsider, Turner said.

How dare she break ranks with black leaders, they admonished, according to Turner.

Harriet Applegate, the local AFL-CIO head, looks indecisive and defensive of the status quo -- or undercut by her union's rank and file. She surprises Zanotti by e-mailing him a draft of a (never-issued) press release that tenatively praises the Issue 6 group's efforts:

The county reform proposal being released today represents good progress in the hammering out of a consensus document. ... The result is a proposal that addresses the concerns raised by critics over the years as well as the current need for better facilitation of economic development.

But five days later, Applegate's union votes against the reform plan. Here's her explanation:

Applegate said recently that it took some distance from the group to realize that the reform plan was wrong. "We met people so involved, so committed, so passionate about their project that it was hard to say no to them," she said.

Zanotti claims she told him something different:

Applegate later called to explain, Zanotti said. "She basically said the unions were concerned about protecting their friends -- Jimmy [Commissioner Dimora] and Frank [Auditor Russo] -- and the other elected officials."

That's a third-hand account -- union members to Applegate to Zanotti to Garrett -- filtered through Zanotti's bias. But it's still damning, if true.

Zanotti is clearly a key source for Garrett's story. The online version says the reporter spoke to two dozen people, but Zanotti, the public face of the Issue 6 effort, emerges as the main character of the narrative. (He also seems to be Garrett's likely source for the Applegate e-mail.)

So Issue 6 opponents will probably dismiss Garrett's story as biased. They think a county executive and council are a bad idea, so surely they're glad that the effort led to "political turmoil"! But they'll probably like a few parts of the story, including the way it describes county prosecutor Bill Mason:

The Parma native is an insider's insider in the county Democratic Party. Why would he want to change a government he helped foster?

Mason has a simple answer -- to save a dying region. Doubters suspect otherwise.

As the FBI snoops through the homes and offices of Cuyahoga County Democrats looking for corruption, the doubters say Mason may want to shed his party insider image and rebrand himself a reformer who crosses party lines.

Issue 6's opponents will likely scoff at Zanotti's failed attempts to get political organizer Arnold Pinkney to round up black support for the proposal:

Zanotti wanted Pinkney to help break through the fear. As Zanotti tells it, he told Pinkney that reform must move forward but that it couldn't if the change was seen as racially divisive. ... He asked Pinkney to act as a sounding board for the black community and as a catalyst to bring its leadership to the table.

Finally, opponents will note that the story includes the names of three wealthy Republican political donors -- Umberto Fedeli, Mal Mixon, and Ed Crawford -- involved in the Issue 6 charter group. This is only the second PD story to mention Fedeli and Mixon's involvement. Opponents love to call Issue 6 the "Zanotti-Mason-Republican effort," to try to discredit it with Democratic voters.

Issue 6 opponents won't like one part of the story at all: the line where Garrett falls back on a biased bad habit the Plain Dealer has picked up. The paper, echoing Issue 6 supporters, keeps saying the charter commission proposed in Issue 5 would only "study" reform:

Instead of putting forward a specific plan, the commissioners asked voters to create a 15-member charter review commission that would study reform -- again.

I've written about this before. Peter Lawson Jones is right, and the Issue 6 supporters wrong: the Ohio Constitution would require the charter commission to write a charter and put it on the ballot next year.

The real question is, what would the charter commission propose -- major changes to county government or minor fixes? Applegate and the slate of charter commission candidates she heads won't say. You can bet they won't create a county executive, though.

At the City Club debate last month, the ever-shifting Applegate sounded like she might be willing to eliminate some of the many elected offices in county government (like coroner, recorder, engineer, etc.). But this spring, Garrett's story says, Applegate sent a memo to AFL-CIO supporters complaining about Mason getting involved in reform:

The memo included a half-dozen points, including Mason involving Republicans in reform and the possible elimination of "elected offices in a county which is the largest and most solidly Democratic Party in Ohio."

Most county reform ideas address three questions: Should we have an executive and council, or keep the three commissioners? Should some elected offices become appointed? And should some of those offices be merged?

Applegate's April memo makes it sound like she's against all three of those possible changes. So does she really want a charter commission to change anything?

A county executive, or not?: the City Club debate

“A single county executive will provide us with leadership and direction that we so sorely need,” Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti said at today’s City Club forum about the opposing paths to county reform.

Zanotti has a plan: he helped draft a proposed charter for Cuyahoga County, on the November ballot, that would replace the three commissioners with a county executive and council and make several elected officials appointed. “To suggest there are checks and balances in the current system — they’re just not there,” he said. “The county is the only form of government with no separation between the executive and legislature.”

Harriet Applegate, the local AFL-CIO head, is against Zanotti’s idea. “It gives too much power to one person,” she said. The county council would be weak compared to the executive, she argued: “They, at best, could serve as an adviser to this very powerful executive who hires, fires, and decides rates of pay.”

Applegate’s running for a proposed charter commission that would draft a second proposal and put it before voters next year. But she won’t take a position on how to change the government, leaving Zanotti shadowboxing an invisible idea.

“We don’t have a proposal — We have a process,” Applegate said. Her slate promises to write a charter that will create “real, substantive change” and “facilitate economic development,” then put it before the voters in 2010. It’ll base its work on public input, while the proposal Zanotti backs was written by a small group, she argues.

“The worst time to come up with a new form of government is in the heat of a crisis,” Applegate said. “If you feel betrayed by your office holders, you don’t just throw out the entire system and pick up the first alternative that comes along.”

Rob Frost, county Republican chair, argued for action, not process. Cuyahoga County has seen failed efforts to create a charter in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1969, 1970, and 1980, he said, and none resulted in change.

Eric Brewer, who sounded like he didn’t want a charter at all, was the forum’s wild card. He debated in his usual style, throwing out a flurry of facts and figures faster than his opponents could respond. He, like Applegate, spent more time addressing the county corruption investigation than Zanotti or Frost did.

“As mayor of East Cleveland, a city that’s had 18 elected and appointed officials go to jail between 1995 and 2005, I think that we are well aware of what corruption does to a community,” Brewer says. Creating a county executive form of government is no guarantee against corruption, he argued, naming several counties nationwide with county executives and corruption scandals, including Summit County a decade ago.

Supporters of the county executive plan seemed to outnumber the charter commission supporters at the City Club — or, at least, they were louder. Applause broke out twice, once when Frost defended the county executive plan. “What we have here is a plan that calls for greater efficiency and a more accountable and transparent government,” he said. “I would say that the signatures of 80,000 people of this county to put this on the ballot speaks more loudly than the votes of two commissioners to put the alternative proposal on the ballot.”

The other big crowd reaction came when Joe Amschlinger, head of the Cuyahoga County Young Republicans, challenged Applegate’s assertion that the current government has checks and balances.

“The FBI is not listed in anywhere in the county charter,” Amschlinger said, “and far as I can see, they’re the only checks and balances we’ve seen in years!” The crowd laughed and clapped.

“One check and balance you have is three commissioners,” Applegate replied. “I don’t want to defend the status quo necessarily, but three people is a check and balance. I think it’s superior to one, under the two proposals, if you compare that. That’s a check and balance right there. Even some of the independence of the row officers — which, there’s lots of things to say for, and many more to say against — but they’re independent.”

By row officers, Applegate means the other elected officials: recorder, auditor, treasurer, sheriff, clerk of courts, et cetera. Her quote is somewhat confusing, but it gives us some sense of what we'll get if voters reject the charter proposed by Zanotti's group and elect Applegate's slate to a charter commission instead.

If you want a county executive and council, vote for the charter Zanotti’s group has put on the ballot.

If you like having the three commissioners in charge, but want some elected officials to become appointed, you might get that from the county commission process Applegate supports.

County reform debate today at City Club

Pistols at 50 paces: The dueling reformers are taking their battle over how to change county government to a showdown at the City Club today. I'll post a report this afternoon.

Fighting for a county executive and council: Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti, part of the group that wrote the proposed charter on the November ballot, and county Republican chair Rob Frost.

Firing back against it: Harriet Applegate, local AFL-CIO head, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer. If we're lucky, Brewer will repeat his accusation that the county executive plan would leave us defenseless against "political thuggery."

I profiled Frost in 2007 ("Pork Roast") and Brewer in 2006 ("Ready To Rumble"). I got to question Applegate on WCPN last week -- and discovered that although she's running for charter commission, she is not taking a position on what county government should look like.

Dan Moulthrop of WCPN will referee the fight. No kidney punches, no rabbit punches...

Dueling reforms: Hagan, Jones place charter commission on ballot

County commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones voted today to give the Go Cuyahoga reform proposal some competition.

Voters will decide in November whether to create a commission to write a charter for the county -- at the same time they may be asked to approve the proposed charter Go Cuyahoga has already written!

"I think it's necessary because a real reform process should be open and inclusive, not behind closed doors," Jones said at the commissioners' meeting today. Jones and Hagan repeatedly contrasted Go Cuyahoga's charter-writing effort, which involved a small group of local political and business leaders meeting privately, with the openness of a charter commission.

Jimmy Dimora returned to work today, taking part in most of the commissioners' meeting. However, he left before the charter commission vote. He told reporters later that he didn't want the effort to be hurt by any accusations it was his idea.

Here's what's going to happen now: People who want to be on the charter commission -- which would be Cuyahoga County's version of a constitutional convention -- have until August 20 to collect signatures to get on the ballot. In November, county voters will vote yes or no to the question, "Shall a county charter commission be established?" At the same time, they'll choose 15 people for the commission. The commission will meet in 2010 and write a new charter.

Meanwhile, the proposed charter written by the Go Cuyahoga group, which would create a county executive and county council, may well be on this November's ballot too. Jones and Hagan clearly want voters to say yes to a charter commission and no to the county executive idea.

But what if voters say yes to both? Lawyers may have to sort that out. (Here is the section of the Ohio constitution that deals with writing charters.) Jones said, "The product of the charter review commission must be placed on the ballot ... in 2010," which would be "at the same time as the changes proposed by the Zanotti-Mason-Republican plan go into effect."

So if I understood Jones right, if we approve a charter and a charter commission this November, we could end up in a weird form of limbo. We'd vote on candidates for county executive and council in a September 2010 primary, then vote on them again in the November 2010 general election -- at the same time we vote on whether to approve a newer charter that wipes out their jobs before they even start!

Here's a law that says some more about charter commissions. Up to 4 of the 15 charter commission members can be currently elected officials.

Harriet Applegate, local head of the AFL-CIO, spoke in favor of the charter commission at the commissioners' meeting today. Letters supporting it were signed by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, county treasurer Jim Rokakis, and several other local elected officials.

Go Cuyahoga charter effort turns in 79,000 signatures, but may need more

Go Cuyahoga, the effort to enact a charter for a new Cuyahoga County government, turned in 79,255 signatures to the Board of Elections this afternoon. But their press release says they may need more, and they'll continue their petition drive.

Meanwhile, commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones announced yesterday that they plan to offer a competing proposal for restructuring the county on the November ballot.

The Go Cuyahoga group wants to replace the county commissioners with an 11-member council and a county executive who would appoint several county officials who are now elected. It wants to put its proposed charter (click here to read it as a Word document) on the Nov. 3 ballot.

"Our work is the result of over 20 years of analysis," Parma Heights Mayor and Go Cuyahoga organizer Martin Zanotti told me this afternoon, referring to previous studies of possible county reforms. Zanotti said the proposed charter, developed this year by a group of local politicians and businessmen, would reorganize the county around the goals of "jobs, equity, and economic development."

The law says the group had to turn in at least 45,458 signatures by July 13. Now, the board of elections has until July 21 to examine Go Cuyahoga's petitions and decide whether 45,458 of its 79,255 signatures are valid. If they aren't, the group can embark on a second round of signature-gathering, with a Sept. 4 deadline.

“We expect that we will need more signatures," county prosecutor Bill Mason, a Go Cuyahoga member, said in the press release, "but today is a positive step toward putting this charter on the ballot."

That's a sign that the group knows many of its signatures may not be valid -- because of incomplete information, signers not being registered to vote at the address they give, all sorts of reasons. This is common in petition drives. A very similar effort in 2004 turned in 74,000 signatures -- yet so many were invalidated, it fell sort of making the ballot by 2,700 signatures in the first round and 153 signatures short after the second round.

The charter plan may face competition. Hagan and Jones said yesterday that they plan to put a competing proposal for restructuring the county on the November ballot. Their plan isn't written yet, though Hagan said he agreed that some elected county officials should be appointed instead.

Hagan and Jones argued against an executive-council form of government, with Jones saying a county council elected by districts would encourage parochialism instead of regionalism, while Hagan questioned the $175,000 salary proposed for a county executive.

"We will offer options in terms of county government restructuring," Jones said. "We could not in good conscience permit [the charter proposal to go on the ballot] unchecked and unopposed."

Poll shows support* for reform

*Kind of.


Check out the Plain Dealer front page today and you'll see a sidebar with some eye-popping poll results. It says 75 percent of Cuyahoga County voters would definitely or probably vote to approve a new charter for county government.

That convinced the Greater Cleveland Partnership, which hired the pollster, to support the county charter petition drive with $100,000.

But I can see at least three reasons to attach big asterisks to the results.

The first reason is right in the 2nd paragraph of the story:

"Slightly more than half of the 400 people surveyed... said they favor the Go Cuyahoga reform plan. The approval rate jumped to 75 percent after respondents were asked seven questions that outlined the plan's goals."

The "slightly more than half" number is the one I'd trust. Polls commonly start with a neutral question, then ask leading, one-sided questions to see if they change people's minds. It's a way of testing possible campaign messages.

But during an election, the other side will counter with its own message. Fund-raising will determine which message voters hear more often.

So imagine how that "slightly more than half" figure would decline if another poll used just one of the common arguments against the reform plan: "Opponents say the new county charter would concentrate too much power in the hands of one person, who would appoint almost all other officials in the government. Now how would you vote?"

(The proposed charter would replace the current county government with a county executive and 11-person county council. Here is the proposal as a Word document.)

Another reason for skepticism: only 13 percent of those surveyed were black, even though Cuyahoga County is 29 percent black. Attracting black voters is one of the reformers' biggest challenges, since most black political leaders in town, including U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, oppose a charter.

Brent Larkin, who's read the poll, reported in his Sunday column, "Among black voters, results differed only slightly from the total numbers." But the reformers will have to work hard to hold onto black voters' support if Jackson and Fudge hit the airwaves to urge a no vote.

Finally, getting on the ballot can be as hard as winning on Election Day. Go Cuyahoga has until Monday to get 45,458 signatures. (If some of those signatures are ruled invalid, they would have a chance to collect more.) Parma Heights Mayor and Go Cuyahoga leader Martin Zanotti says he's confident the petition drive will succeed. But a similar county charter effort in 2004 turned in 74,000 signatures -- yet so many were invalidated, it fell 153 signatures short of making the ballot.

Dimora "attacking my integrity," says Zanotti

How does Martin Zanotti feel about making it onto Jimmy Dimora's enemies list?

"Why he brings me into his conspiracy theory is beyond me," Zanotti said yesterday. "The only reason I can assume Jimmy is doing this is because he was trying to get at county reform by attacking my integrity."

I called Zanotti for two reasons. One was to get an update on the petition drive for a new county charter. The other was to see how the Parma Heights mayor would respond to Dimora's recent accusations against him.

Zanotti is pushing for a new county government, and he's dissed Dimora while doing it. So Dimora lashed out at Zanotti during his angry comments last Thursday and this Monday. Dimora, whose April 2008 Las Vegas trip with J. Kevin Kelley is a subject of the federal criminal case against Kelley, prodded the media to look into whether Zanotti had gambled with Kelley as well.

"Marty Zanotti admitted to one trip, to Las Vegas or Detroit, he’s not sure which, with Kevin Kelley," Dimora said at last week's commissioner's meeting. "I think if pressed, if the media cares about that, it would be more than one trip. It could be many trips over the years, along with other Republicans, along in the car ride."

I asked Zanotti if that was true. "I have gone to Detroit on my own with a group of guys a couple times," he said. "One time, a few years ago, Kevin Kelley went with us to Detroit."

Zanotti later said Kelley (the former president of the Parma school board) might have joined him in Detroit "once or twice." He said he thinks Kelley came to Detroit to meet him and his friends from Johnson's Island, where Kelley had a second home.

"I wonder what those conversations were like?" Dimora asked Thursday. "I wonder if there were gaming chips exchanged? I wonder who paid for the meals?"

So I asked Zanotti: Did anyone other than you pay for your trip, meals, or gaming chips? "Not in a million years," Zanotti replied. He said he didn't make any deals about public business with Kelley during the trip, and that none of the others he traveled with were public officials.

At his Monday press conference, Dimora accused Zanotti of joining with former state Republican chairman Bob Bennett and current county Republican chair Rob Frost on the county reform effort.

"I've met Rob Frost one time for 30 seconds," Zanotti responded. "I wouldn’t know Bob Bennett if walked up to me and hit me with a two-by-four."

Zanotti predicts reformers will submit 70,000 signatures by deadline

Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti predicts the county reform effort will gather more than enough signatures to get a proposed charter on the November ballot.

"We expect to submit 70,000 signatures by the deadline," Zanotti told me yesterday.

The county reform group, now called Go Cuyahoga, wants to replace the current county government with a county executive and an 11-member county council. If it turns in 45,458 valid signatures by Monday, July 13, then county residents will vote on the proposal on November 3. (If they turn in 45,458 but some get declared invalid, they'll have until Sept. 4 to gather more and make up the difference. Zanotti's goal of 70,000 suggests they want to build up a cushion and get certified in the first round.)

Here is the proposed charter as a Word document.

Zanotti says Go Cuyahoga has 35 to 50 volunteer petition gatherers and another 35 or so paid signature-gatherers on the streets. The group hired National Petition Management, a petition-signature-gathering company, about two weeks ago. It's using a $100,000 donation it received last week from the Greater Cleveland Partnership (the regional chamber of commerce) to help pay NPM. That was a big help to the reformers, who had raised only $20,000 as of June 9.

Zanotti wouldn't say how many signatures they've collected so far. But the petition drive seems to be gaining momentum. I saw a couple of signature gatherers at the Waterloo Arts Festival on Saturday. This morning, a bunch of NPM workers were gathering signatures outside the county administration building and Justice Center.

Zanotti: expect reform announcement next week

I just had a quick talk with Martin Zanotti, mayor of Parma Heights and a major player in the county reform effort. An announcement should come next week about whether the reforms will launch a petition drive this year.

"I believe we’re very close to being complete with our work," he says. "I would think that if we’re going to be in a position to move forward, we would know that next week." If they decide they're not prepared to make reform happen this year, they'll announce that too.

The goal is to produce a charter for Cuyahoga County, which would create a new government with expanded powers. Reformers have been talking about creating a county executive and county council and making several elected officials (recorder, treasurer, etc.) appointed positions instead.

"If we're successful, we hope to announce we're going forward with a comprehensive inclusive effort to get a petition drive moving immediately toward a November ballot issue," Zanotti says.

That would mean producing a proposed charter by next week. "We know what the rules are. If [we're] passing a petition, charter language [has] to go with it."

Then they'd have until July 13 to get 45,458 signatures.

Reform deadline: July 13

July 13 is the deadline for reformers to petition for a new county government, the Board of Elections tells me. That's only 6 1/2 weeks to write a charter, circulate petitions with the proposed charter attached, and get 45,458 Cuyahoga County residents to sign.

If they can do it, they'll get the proposed charter on the November 3 ballot. Otherwise, they'll have to wait until next year.

Forty-seven days is not much time at all. Martin Zanotti, Marcia Fudge, Bill Mason, and everyone else involved need to make some decisions fast, or aim for a vote in 2010.

Their other option is to get Sen. Tim Grendell or another interested legislator to put their proposal into a bill and pass it before the legislature's summer break. Then they wouldn't need petition signatures, just support in the House and Senate. But they only have about a month to do that.

Reform is still alive, but the clock is ticking

We still might get to vote on creating a new Cuyahoga County government this year. But time is running short.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge convened a meeting last Monday to talk about how to reform county government, the Plain Dealer reports. She's joined forces with Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti and other suburban mayors who've been talking about the idea for months. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson is also involved in the talks, and prosecutor Bill Mason seems to be too.

If the group can agree on a new form of government, they'll draft a charter for the county. If they want to put their proposal on the November 3 ballot, they have until July to get 46,000 petition signatures.

This new coalition solves the reform effort's biggest problem. To put it bluntly, the leading reformers were all white, and they hadn't tried to get black support. (They had talked about the need to reach out to black voters and political leaders, but they hadn't actually done it.) Fudge called them out on that this spring.

Now, they have a new problem: time. A month or two is not a lot when you have to draft a charter, organize a petition drive, and get 46,000 people to sign.

I cannot figure out the exact deadline. A petition for a county charter has to be certified by the board of elections 95 days before the vote, according to the Ohio Constitution. That's July 31. But how long does it take to certify a petition that big? The board of elections hasn't dealt with a county charter proposal before. They're getting back to me on Tuesday.

Arcane Game: the old machine has to go, our columnist says

"Our public officials’ corruption, political ineptness, hubris, incompetence and lethargy have created a crisis," writes Michael D. Roberts in his latest column, "Arcane Game," in the April issue of Cleveland Magazine.

"The county commissioners deal with major decisions as if they were playing a pinball machine. They flip and flap at answers, buzz and bing for the public and light and lurch for the developers. They like the lights and noise, but never know the score. An ever-wary media reports another 'Tilt!'"

Roberts wants us to retire the antique machine. "County or regional government reform would save millions in tax money by doing away with redundant layers of government and institute checks and balances that currently do not exist."

We'll soon see if Roberts gets his wish. As I reported in February (here, here, and here), Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti and county prosecutor Bill Mason are both shopping reform proposals around town. The Plain Dealer updates us today. Some people once allied with Zanotti have split with him over strategic differences, slowing down that effort. Mason has embraced the idea of a county council as well as an executive.

The two groups meet today to try to unite. They aren't far apart. If they come together, their next task is forming a coalition with black political leaders. Since Louis Stokes killed a similar reform idea last year, the reformers know they need to address concerns about minority representation in a new government.

Mason talks reform

Prosecutor Bill Mason wants to play a part in reforming Cuyahoga County government. He’s been meeting with interested people since the first of the year to talk about it.

“Reform would be a good thing, to reform that government and make us more competitive in the marketplace,” Mason told me today.

The prosecutor’s group is separate from the reform effort I’ve already written about, which includes Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti and other politicians and businessmen (including Lute Harmon, Sr., founder of Cleveland Magazine). Mason is not ready to say who else is in his group yet, but I hear it also includes prominent businesspeople.

Mason, one of the county's most powerful office-holders, is entering a debate that outsiders have mostly driven lately. That could lead to conflict -- or to a creative tension.

I asked him if his group and Zanotti's might join forces. “We have to,” he said. “You can’t have multiple plans.” Dueling reforms would fail at the ballot box. “We need to come to one thought, and make it work.”

Mason says he likes the Zanotti group’s idea of having a single county executive oversee the government. He’s undecided about their proposal to create a county council elected mostly by district.

“I favor one person being in charge,” he says. “But after that, [we should look at] what anyone else is doing — what Louisville is doing, what Indianapolis is doing — to be more competitive.”

Reform is “all about jobs,” says Mason, who laments that his nephews are leaving town to pursue their careers. He feels a stronger county could unify the region around a single economic strategy. (Louisville and Indianapolis actually merged their city and county governments to create a single metro government, but Mason seems to be focusing on county government’s structure.)

“The three commissioners, and six other elected officials, all have their own silos in which they operate,” he complains. “You don’t have one place to go if you want to [build] a factory in town. [You need] somebody in charge, pushing the agenda for the region.”

Mason says the revamped county should have an elected fiscal officer to keep watch on government finances, a check on the county executive. He thinks his job should remain elected for the same reason: a boss shouldn’t tell the prosecutor which felonies to prosecute or what legal advice to give other county officials. “Though you might say, [as] prosecutor, what I say doesn’t matter,” he adds — in other words, he has an obvious self-interest, so others’ opinions will carry more weight.

He says he's open-minded about the details of reform. “I could be persuaded it has to be this way, [or] could be persuaded one way or another,” he says.

Zanotti talks reform

More on the county reform effort I reported on last week, from cleveland.com today. Martin Zanotti (pictured), Parma Heights mayor and co-chair of the reform group, says the ballot drive for a county executive and council will launch April 1.

Funniest line: "Zanotti, a Democrat, said he is hopeful Dimora and Russo will not support his plan because he believes their backing would hurt its chances."

Zanotti doesn't have to worry. "Destin Ramsey, Russo's chief operating officer, said the auditor favors streamlining county government, but would not support this plan because it was drafted without officeholder input."