Will unlimited donations flood county exec race?

How much money should a single wealthy person be allowed to give candidates for Cuyahoga County executive?

$1,000? $5,000? $12,000? $25,000?

How about $100,000? $300,000? Or $400,000?

Guess what? Due to a huge gap in the law, there’s no limit to what one person can donate to a candidate for county office.

This hole is big enough to buy a government through. It should’ve been plugged when we got a new county government. But proposals to fix it have gone nowhere.

Now, there’s finally some hope for change. Cuyahoga County’s charter review commission is considering two proposals to cut off the unlimited flow of money starting in 2014. It’s set to debate both ideas at its meeting Saturday morning, the 15th.*

It’s time for someone to act. Candidates are already running to succeed Ed FitzGerald next year – and right now, millionaires are free to invest five-figure or six-figure donations in them, in hopes of getting VIP access once they’re in office.

Races for federal, state, and Cleveland offices have sensible limits on one person’s ability to influence a candidate with donations. You can only give a candidate for president or Congress $2,600 a year. In Cleveland’s mayor and city council races, it’s $1,000. Ohio has much higher limits on donations to candidates for state office -- $12,300 this year – but that’s better than nothing.

The framers of the new county charter should have established limits on donations in 2009. But they didn’t. They unwisely punted the decision to the very elected leaders who stand to benefit from big donations.

During the transition to the new government, an advisory group suggested limits of $750 per election cycle to county council candidates and $1,000 to candidates for executive and prosecutor.

But the new county council failed to act. It debated whether to adopt the statewide limits of $12,300 as its own, or lower limits, but did neither.

Now, the charter review commission -- which has until July 1 to propose amendments to the county charter -- is considering two campaign finance reform ideas.

One proposed amendment would explicitly give the county council the power or duty to enact campaign finance laws, including limits on donations. That would prod the council to act.

The other comes from charter commission member William Tarter. He proposes amending the county charter to establish the same limit per donor in county races as in state races, $12,300.

Tarter says limits on huge contributions help empower smaller donors. “This is an opportunity for people to feel their contribution has a greater impact on the candidates,” he says.

Bruce Akers, chairman of the charter review commission, says the panel is “very divided” on the subject of campaign finance. Some members support Tarter’s idea. Others support new charter language that would nudge the council to act. One member is opposed to taking any action about campaign finance at all.

Citizens who want to limit big money’s influence on our local politics ought to get involved in this debate right away. But they face a dilemma. Should they back Tarter’s more specific proposal to link county donor limits to the state’s high limits? Or back an amendment that would put the issue back before the county council -- which might enact lower limits, but might enact none at all?

Tarter’s proposal would, at least, stop the biggest checks from flowing. And the last race for county executive proves it’s time to make a change.

In 2010, candidate Matt Dolan got contributions of $400,000 from his uncle, Charles Dolan of Cablevision, and $300,000 from his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan. The next six-figure donations may not be a family affair.

Big checks flowed to the old county government too. Before the late developer Dick Jacobs sold the Ameritrust complex to Cuyahoga County in 2005, he had a five-figure donor relationship with commissioners Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones. Jacobs seeded their first campaigns for commission seats, giving Dimora $36,000 in 1998 and Jones in 2002.

Maybe Jacobs’ donations had nothing to do with the county’s unwise purchase of the Ameritrust complex, which led to an $18 million loss for taxpayers. But it’s a spectacular example of why no single donor should dominate an elected leader’s campaign fund -- and why campaign finance limits are the Cuyahoga County reform effort's biggest unfinished business.

*Update, 6/10: I originally wrote that the charter commission would discuss campaign finance "this Saturday," meaning the 8th. The commission ended up not tackling it on the 8th.  It'll take up the question on the 15th.

FitzGerald names fiscal officer, setting stage for more reform

The people who warned it'd take two years to reform Cuyahoga County government have looked pretty smart lately. All the talk of Ed FitzGerald's first 100 days as county executive, and expectation that patronage hires' heads would roll, has given way to a slower pace.

Sure, the new government has set a new tone, with FitzGerald emerging as a regional peacemaker and he and the council scrutinizing stuff that went unquestioned before, like the palatial new juvenile justice center. But the big cuts to county government, the cost savings the charter's biggest supporters envisioned, haven't come yet.

Now I think they'll come pretty soon. Today FitzGerald announced his choice for chief fiscal officer. That's the accountant who'll take over and merge the auditor's and recorder's offices, sifting through the remnants of Frank Russo and Pat O'Malley's old political hires, to figure out who's really qualified and who the county really needs.

Fitz's choice is Wade Steen (pictured), a CPA with lots of experience, and none of it in Cuyahoga County.

“As we pursue efficiencies in our operations, Wade’s background and experience will be a major asset to our efforts,” FitzGerald said in the press release.

Steen, a city councilman in Upper Arlington, a Columbus suburb, was Franklin County treasurer for two years. So he has experience managing finances for a big urban county that runs more efficiently in some ways than Cuyahoga. He was also Jim Petro's assistant chief deputy auditor, a thoroughly confusing title that I think means he was the No. 3 guy in the state auditor's office. So he also has experience digging through cities' and counties' books and knowing when they look right and when they're revealing a mess.

Most interestingly, Steen is a Republican who quotes Ronald Reagan on his website. ("Reagan's underlying humor poked fun at excessive government regulation and taxation, but also the inflexibility of government to change and the habitual need to sustain 'the beast.'")

That makes him a shrewd choice on FitzGerald's part. Nominating Steen to remake the county's two most patronage-laden offices is a big bipartisan gesture. It strengthens FitzGerald's assertion that Democratic party patronage will have no part in who stays at the county and who goes.

Once the county council confirms Steen, I expect there'll be a quiet period as Steen digs into the books and gets advice from the interim guys who ran the offices for a few months. Then, if FitzGerald's intentions from his campaign are a guide, Steen and FitzGerald will unveil a reorganization that includes substantial layoffs and nudged-into-retirements.

Then we can start to total up the cost savings from the new reorganized government. We'll see if they measure up to FitzGerald's ambitions, the looming deficits, and, most of all, the very optimistic vision of cost savings that the charter's founders trumpeted.

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.

FitzGerald to county workers: resign from your political post or quit your job

County executive Ed FitzGerald just let all county workers under him know they can't be political and keep their jobs. Citing state law, FitzGerald says employees have a choice: resign from their partisan elected office or party position, or quit their county job.

FitzGerald's decision will wipe out the infamous patronage networks in the recorder and auditor's offices, which for years have been full of suburban city councilpeople and Democratic precinct committee-people. The independent elected officials' offices weren't part of the civil service in the old system, but the new charter makes them civil servants.

The new rule applies to anyone serving on a city council in a town with partisan elections. It also applies to anyone who has a position within the Democratic or Republican parties. It doesn't apply if a county worker serves on a city council in a town with nonpartisan elections -- {a distinction the county council may wipe out when it writes a permanent ethics code.}**

It doesn't apply to the prosecutor's office,* another haven of political activity, because Bill Mason doesn't answer to FitzGerald and the charter doesn't convert the prosecutor's office to civil service. It doesn't keep anyone from serving as a poll worker on election day, and I suspect it doesn't apply to the board of elections, which is explicitly bipartisan, not nonpartisan.

Here's the text of FitzGerald's press release. If you want to dig into the nitty-gritty of what a "classified" employee is, here's the state law and the county charter provision (scroll down to part 3).

*Update, 1/24: The Plain Dealer reports that Mason will also comply with the state law, but it's not clear how many of his employees would be classified as civil service.

**Update, 1/25: Turns out serving on non-partisan city councils while working for another government is protected by state law.

==
FitzGerald Sets Decision Point for Partisan Political Employees

CLEVELAND – Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald issued an order today requiring all county employees under his authority to report any elected or appointed political offices they hold to the Human Resources department, giving classified employees a choice to either resign from their partisan political office or resign from county employment.

“This is an obvious legal restriction for county employees that has been ignored in the past. We are compelled to take decisive action to comply with the statute,” said FitzGerald.

Ohio Revised Code section 124.57 prohibits classified public employees from holding partisan political office. County employees will be required to self-report any relevant political involvement and will be subject to discipline for failing to report any relevant activities in a timely fashion.

“Our classified employees who hold partisan offices will be given a choice – resign from political office, or resign from county employment,” said FitzGerald.

Dems, FitzGerald defy scandals, celebrate victory

“I was a little late coming down,” Ed FitzGerald told local Democrats at the downtown Doubletree hotel tonight, “because I couldn’t decide if I should change into my czar uniform.”

FitzGerald was joking about one of his top opponent’s attack ads, one volley in a barrage he’d withstood. Now, his czar moment was behind him. So was his PO14 moment. The Democrat had survived Republican attempts to tar him by association with Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo. He’d beaten Matt Dolan 45 percent to 31 percent to become the leader of Cuyahoga County’s new government.

“A stream of scandals were laid at our doorstep, whether it was fair or not,” FitzGerald said as 11 o’clock news cameras’ spotlights glowed white. “We had to deal with it over and over again. … We still won.”

Like Cleveland mayors on their victory nights, the county executive-elect declared that his campaign had bridged divides between the East and West sides, black and white — and urban and suburban, he added. “These divisions have held this county back. [Our campaign is] proof positive that we can shake off those old habits once and for all.”

FitzGerald acknowledged the need to shake off corruption’s damage. “Faith in county government has never been at such a low point,” he declared. “Speeches cannot fix that.” Instead, he said he’d tackle his agenda: restoring “the idea that public employment is a trust,” creating a jobs program, making higher education more affordable, caring for the poor and encouraging regional cooperation. “I want to make Cuyahoga County a national model for how to get things done,” he said.

As FitzGerald stepped down from the stage, Democratic chair Stuart Garson closed the speeches with a reminder of their party’s bad election night nationwide and a final nod to the scandals Cuyahoga Democrats had shaken off.

“Look what we do with a gale force in our face,” he said. “Imagine what we can do next year with a gentle breeze at our back.”

To read my coverage of FitzGerald in the September issue of Cleveland Magazine, click here.

FitzGerald heads toward victory against Dolan

It looks like Ed FitzGerald will be the first Cuyahoga County executive. He leads Matt Dolan, 43 percent to 33 percent, in the early voting results.

Independents Ken Lanci and Tim McCormack are third and fourth with 10 percent each.

The early voting results likely make up almost half of the votes cast in today’s election. So these results are likely a good indication of how things will look at the end of the night.

The last two months have battered FitzGerald, but not enough (it seems) to deny him victory. The Lakewood mayor went into the general election as the front-runner, thanks to a sharp campaign and the Democrats’ huge natural advantage in Cuyahoga County. His own poll showed him 17 points ahead of Dolan in early September.

Then came his cameo appearance as PO14 in the Jimmy Dimora indictment and Dolan’s fierce attack ads. They cut into his lead, but not by enough.

FitzGerald mounted a strong defense. He said Lakewood's lease of the Winterhurst ice rink to a now-indicted Dimora buddy had been above-board and benefited taxpayers. He couldn't compete with Dolan's $1 million-plus ad barrage, so he countered it with direct mail accusing Dolan of slinging mud.

Two viable independent candidates, Lanci and McCormack, made it hard for Dolan to win votes. Voters sick of Democrats had somewhere else to go. Dolan's 33 percent doesn't even reach Republicans' recent high-water mark in Cuyahoga County -- Debbie Sutherland's 38 percent in 2008 against Peter Lawson Jones.

If these results hold, plenty of Greater Clevelanders will complain about their fellow voters' loyalty to Democrats despite the scandals of the last three years. But FitzGerald tackled the integrity issue right away. Fighting corruption was a passion of his, he told me last December.

His experience as an FBI agent helped insulate him. So did his relative inexperience in politics. Dimora didn't try to befriend FitzGerald until he won the Lakewood mayor's race in 2007. The few ties between the two -- Dimora's phone call asking FitzGerald to return someone else's call, a few campaign contributions -- weren't enough to scare voters off.

Republicans will have a few results to console themselves with. Their candidate Michael Astrab is beating indicted judge Bridget McCafferty. Republicans Dave Greenspan, Michael Gallagher, and Jack Schron all have strong leads in the outer-ring suburbs' county council districts.

A year ago, I wrote that the Issue 6 framers had gerrymandered the council districts to elect four white Democrats, four black Democrats, and three Republicans. Looks like it worked. Democrats are headed for an 8-3 majority on council, but the three Republicans will bring two-party government back to Cuyahoga County for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Ken Lanci shows me his homework

Ken Lanci walked into the conference room looking very stern. He carried two bulky binders and few sheets of paper. He showed no sign of the smile he’s replicated on 75 buses. No diplomacy, just business.

Lanci set the binders and papers on the table in front of him. I recognized my blog’s logo on the top sheet and saw a single paragraph marked. I knew which one.

I first interviewed Lanci in January, a week after he announced his run for county executive. I slammed him on my blog for not knowing the county government well. I’d asked him to critique the county’s economic development department and he gave a maddening non-answer.

“There are a lot of things I can’t comment on without getting in the belly of the beast,” he said then. “I’m not promising anything until I get inside.”

I wrote: “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.”

Now, in our second interview, Lanci wanted to confront what I’d written. He turned one of my questions around and read my “Trust me” paragraph back to me.

“The challenge, I consider legitimate, a great question,” Lanci told me. “I answer it the way I’ve always done business. I look at the county as if I’m buying it.”

I don’t know if I’d nudged him to dig deeper, or if he’d meant to do it all along. But the guy had done his research.

“I’ve had about 60 agency visits, meeting with directors and with staff,” he said. “And as a result of that, I’ve put together my plan. Now, I’m not going to share the details with you because —

“There’s 60 of them,” I said.

“That wouldn’t be prudent at this time either, to lay out the plans for everyone else to take a look at.” (Meaning the other candidates, I assumed.)

He opened a binder. “I have each budget for each agency I reviewed. I have the director, a bio of the agency, as well as photos of directors.”

Lanci said he thought some county departments were working just fine, including Developmental Disability and, surprisingly, Children And Family Services. He defended Deborah Forkas, CFS’s embattled director, as a “professional of the highest standard,” unfairly blamed for abuse of kids in families the agency monitored. The law prefers that kids be reunited with their parents, Lanci noted. “It’s easy to say it’s the director’s fault. It’s not the director’s fault.”

He promised to reorganize the auditor’s and recorder’s offices, but wouldn’t tell me which other offices he thought needed improvement.

“The last thing you want to be perceived [as] is a bull in a china shop before you get there,” he said. “That’s not what I am. I don’t want people to anticipate things that aren’t real, just because I say, this department has issues.”

I suggested he was passing up a chance to show voters what sort of change he’d deliver.

“I’m schooled on the business of the county,” he replied. “They can trust that if I spent the time getting that information, I know which [agencies] are the tough ones, and the ones I need to deal with. … This is that part where you said ‘Trust me.’ I ask you to trust me not based on my statement, ‘Trust me.’ Trust me based on the work that I’ve done.”

I left full of conflicting thoughts about Lanci. By the interview’s end, he’d reinforced my feeling that he’d have trouble getting along with other elected officials. He told me he’d press Northeast Ohio’s congressional delegation to bring home more federal spending.

“Every one of these people are going to be called in and are going to be required to be part of the solution,” he declared: “Every other senator, every other [U.S.] representative, the governor, treasurer, everybody, has got to work for Cuyahoga County.”

To the best of my knowledge, county officials don’t “call in” governors, senators or congressmen. They have to ask them for help. Politely.

But addressing my criticism showed his willingness to tackle a challenge. And he proved this much: He’s worked hard to figure out county government in case voters choose him on Tuesday.

FitzGerald argues Dolan should bow out of major downtown development decisions

This weekend, Ed FitzGerald e-mailed me his letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission about Matt Dolan’s conflict of interest with the Indians. It argues that if Dolan is elected county executive, he should have to bow out of any decisions about the casino, the RTA, Public Square, or roads, bridges, or sewers downtown -- because they all “directly and uniquely impact the Cleveland Indians.”

The casino because it’ll be a block or two from the stadium, I assume. But the RTA? Because people take the Rapid to ball games, I guess?

Dolan told me last week that if he’s elected county executive, he’ll let the county council president take the lead on Indians matters and Gateway appointments. He asked the Ethics Commission to give him advice on his plans.

But FitzGerald, his main opponent, is pushing the commission to go way farther than that. He also wants it to rule on whether Dolan should return the huge campaign contributions from his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan, “to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.” FitzGerald’s letter, written Oct. 8, pegs the elder Dolan’s contribution at $280,000. On Thursday, we learned Larry Dolan’s now given a total of $630,000.

The Ethics Commission isn’t answering Dolan’s request until after the election. No wonder: It’ll also have to deal FitzGerald’s letter, which reads more like a political argument than a request for a legal opinion. At one point FitzGerald talks about “an assessment of the appropriateness of Mr. Dolan’s candidacy and potential service as County Executive.” That’s up to the voters, not the Ethics Commission.

But politically, FitzGerald’s playing an interesting card here. He’s saying taxpayers should trust him, not Dolan, to represent their interests on downtown development issues. He’s trying to tap into the mistrust of sports teams’ political influence in Cleveland, a concern that dates back at least to the Gateway project. And he’s again reminding voters that Dolan’s millionaire family is funding the TV attacks against him.

To read FitzGerald’s letter to the Ethics Commission, click here. To read Dolan’s letter, click here.

Dolan's Indians dilemma: How he'd avoid conflicts

I called Matt Dolan this week to ask him something I've wondered about for a while -- how he'll avoid dealing with the Cleveland Indians if he's elected county executive.

"If the Indians are involved," Dolan told me, "there will be program in place so I’m not involved in any decision-making." He says he'd ask the county council president to take the lead.

Dolan -- whose father, Larry Dolan, is the Indians' owner -- first addressed the issue this summer. It's a touchy subject, since Dolan's family is donating $1 million to his campaign. His main opponent, Ed FitzGerald, has needled him for the conflict of interest.

The thorniest challenge: The county executive will appoint three out of five board members of the Gateway Economic Development Corp., the Indians' and Cavs' landlord. Dolan wrote to the Ohio Ethics Commission on Sept. 27, asking for an advisory opinion on his plan to recuse himself from that decision. (To read a copy of his letter, click here.)

So I asked Dolan, how can an executive recuse himself from making an appointment? He said he'd pass the decision on to the county council president and a bipartisan advisory panel.

The panel is an idea he proposed in April. It would help the executive choose potential members for dozens of appointed boards and commissions. (See this page of his website.) "They would submit recommendations of who they’ve screened," Dolan said.

"For the Gateway appointment, they would submit it directly to the council president. The council president would make the appointment to council." Then council could approve or reject the person.

Dolan's answer fits what Jennifer Hardin, chief advisory attorney for the Ohio Ethics Commission, told me when I asked how other government executives recuse themselves from appointing someone.

"In most cases, where there are several branches of government involved, another branch may be able to substitute," Hardin said.

What about other decisions the county executive might have to make about the Indians? Say, if the Indians ask for money to renovate Progressive Field?

"If there's a scenario in which the Indians make a request on Gateway," Dolan said, "then the Gateway folks will be instructed to work directly with the council president." No such scenario has come up in the 11 years his family has owned the team, he added.

But the Indians began exploring possible upgrades to Progressive Field in May. The team's lease says Gateway has to pay for any "major" capital repairs costing more than $500,000. But Gateway is not flush with cash, so the team might ask the county and city, which control Gateway, to pay.

"I don't speak for the Indians," says Dolan. "They’re talking about doing renovations. There's no indication at all how Indians intend to finance it. My opponents just assume the county is going to pay for it. That's not accurate."

In 2006, the Cavaliers briefly floated the idea of having taxpayers spend $30 million to renovate Quicken Loans Arena. It fell to Jimmy Dimora, as a county commissioner, to shoot the idea down.

But the mayor of Cleveland would probably take the lead in dealing with any major renovations to the baseball stadium. Under Gateway's structure, the city is the contact for Progressive Field, Dolan notes, while the county is the contact for The Q.

Dolan's letter to the Ethics Commission asks for "a timely response," since "we are drawing constantly closer to the end of campaign season." But Hardin says the ethics commission won't respond until November or December, if Dolan wins.

Dolan's letter asks if recusing himself would be legal. But he says voters shouldn't be concerned that he won't get an answer by Nov. 2. He says he phrased the letter that way because having an advisory opinion backing him up would protect the county in case anyone filed a taxpayer's lawsuit to challenge a Gateway appointment.

"I’m doing the appropriate steps leaders do to prevent any problem in the future," he said.

To read my coverage of the county executive race in Cleveland Magazine, including pieces on the leading candidates, click here.

Dolan-FitzGerald, Lanci-Scipione feuds heat up at City Club debate

Matt Dolan and Ed FitzGerald fought the main bout while Ken Lanci and Don Scipione faced off on the undercard at the county executive candidates’ debate this week at the City Club.

FitzGerald, who's endured two weeks of brutal attack-ad beatings from Dolan, led with a classic political jujitsu move.

“Five out of the six candidates have run positive, issue-based, substantive campaigns,” he said. “Mr. Dolan is the quite clear exception to that. He ran an exceedingly negative primary campaign, and he’s run an exceedingly negative general election campaign. And you can’t change this county if you don’t ennoble this process by trying to be positive and tell people what it is you’re going to do differently.”

Dolan said voters need to know FitzGerald was among the “Democratic entrenched interests” who opposed Issue 6 and supported the “sham reform” Issue 5. Anticipating FitzGerald’s next move, Dolan disclosed that his relatives – including his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan -- are contributing more than $1 million to his campaign.

“Before I got into this race, I talked to Democrats and Republicans,” Dolan said. “I said, ‘What’s it going to take to win? What’s it going to take to beat the entrenched interests?’ They said, ‘It’s going to take about $2 million.’" He repeated his plans to recuse himself from Indians matters and create a bipartisan committee to advise him on appointments. {Update, 10/20: Here's my new post on how Dolan would handle this.}

FitzGerald said Dolan’s friends should have told him to run a positive campaign instead of “commercials that are showing me Photoshopped as a Russian monarch.” The ad's image -- accompanied by balalaikas, no less! -- refers to FitzGerald’s Oct. 2009 complaint that the county executive would be “a czar” who “will control just about everything in Cuyahoga County government.”

“I apologize for being out of uniform this afternoon,” FitzGerald joked.

“Issue 6 is a concentration of political power,” he continued, “but what aggravates that is if you have a concentration of economic power.” A wealthy family "spending money like it’s water" to "capture the most powerful local political office" is "the worst way possible to actually to reform this government. It can’t work.”

Ken Lanci, taking advantage of the latest Bill Mason controversies, tried to make the prosecutor a political bogeyman.

"Who's connected to what?" he asked. "You have Mr. Mason, who is a friend of Mr. Scipione’s, who worked on the charter with him. You have Mr. Mason, who is a friend of Mr. Fitzgerald. You have Mr. Mason, who is a friend of Martin Zanotti’s, who’s now a friend of Mr. Dolan’s. It’s anybody but Lanci! … Lanci is the only guy none of them can control!”

That roused Don Scipione, normally a quirky-scientist figure, the opposite of Lanci’s brawny CEO persona.

“This Mason stuff! Give me a break!” Scipione exclaimed. "The first time I met Bill Mason was a year and a half ago. … The only advice he gave me was not to run!

“Ken, give me a break! You did the pay-to-play with Zack Reed at Luke Easter Park to try to keep me from getting [petition] signatures! You filed a [complaint] at the Board Of Elections saying I was a Democrat, not an independent, and they voted 4-0 against you!

“We’re not going to split the Italian vote! I’m Italian in the vein of Marconi and Michelangelo and Galileo and Enrico Fermi! That’s my Italian heritage!

“What was I going to say before that? I forgot!” The audience cracked up.

A questioner tried to force decorum by asking the candidates which opponent they’d choose as a chief of staff. Dolan chose Scipione, David Ellison named Tim McCormack, and McCormack cited Dolan.

“I’d be tempted to choose some people just so I could fire them,” FitzGerald cracked before picking Scipione.

“I was going to say Mr. Scipione,” said Lanci, “but I can’t get past $200 million in savings without a plan.” (Scipione claims that he could reap vast savings by modernizing the county’s technology and systems. A county transition committee also claims the county could save huge sums that way. {Update, 10/21: See the Comments for more on this.)

Scipione deflected Lanci with more humor. “I would look at Ken, because at $1 a year—” The audience, who’d heard Lanci promise to work for a $1 salary, drowned him out with more laughter.

Dolan, FitzGerald exchange punches over corruption, family ties

Matt Dolan and Ed FitzGerald think they've found each others' weak spots.

Dolan's on the air with an attack ad that tries to tie FitzGerald, the Democratic front-runner for county executive, to the county corruption scandal.



Dolan's ad notes FitzGerald got campaign contributions from several figures in the scandal -- a fact first reported on this blog and in Cleveland Magazine's September-issue coverage of the county executive race. It doesn't say FitzGerald has given most of that money to charity. It cites FitzGerald's cameo appearance as PO14 in Dimora's indictment and slams him for opposing the new county charter.

FitzGerald has put out his own ad touting his anti-corruption bona fides as a former FBI agent.



He's also punching back. This morning he's holding a press conference at the county administration building, attacking Dolan, his Republican opponent, for a conflict of interest. Dolan's father owns the Indians, yet as county executive, Dolan would have to appoint members of the Gateway board, which oversees Progressive Field. From FitzGerald's press release:

Dolan has described his personal financial interest as being a "beneficiary to a trust" that owns a portion of the Cleveland Indians. The new County Executive will be involved in appointing 3 of the 5 members of the Gateway Economic Development Corporation, the landlord for the Indians and the Cavs. Gateway sets financial terms with the sports teams, often involving large sums of money. ... In addition, candidate Dolan has received $430,000 in campaign contributions from his father Larry, owner of the Indians, and uncle Charles Dolan.

Dolan has asked the Ohio Ethics Commission to offer advice on the Gateway issue. He's also said he'd recuse himself from Indians-related matters (which might not be easy). {Update, 10/20: Here's my new post about how Dolan says he'd handle this.} He went online Tuesday with a letter defending his family's donations to him.

County exec candidates talk corruption on Dimora’s day of reckoning

At the very moment Jimmy Dimora was pleading not guilty to 26 corruption charges on Wednesday, the six candidates for Cuyahoga County executive were sharing a stage at a forum in Lyndhurst. Moderator Steve Gleydura, Cleveland Magazine’s editor, asked them how they’d drive corruption out of the county government.

Lakewood Mayor Ed FitzGerald stressed his credentials as a former FBI agent investigating crooked Chicago-area politicians. He described feeling “déjà vu” while watching Dimora’s arrest on TV.

“Greed – that is the fundamental motivation behind these crimes,” the Democrat said. “You have people in leadership positions that either went into public service for the wrong reasons, or they forgot why they went into it in the first place. What happens when you set that example at the top is, it gives tacit permission for all kinds of misconduct below those levels.”

The FBI can’t clean up a dirty government by itself, he warned. “They pick out specific instances of federal violations, and that’s it. They don’t look at whether an employee is maybe cutting time on clock, or misusing a county computer, or just isn’t motivated or is going through the motions. Those things have to be done by management.”

FitzGerald said he’d set up a “completely transparent” hiring process the day after the election and fill the new county administration with people chosen for their knowledge, not connection. “If we set high ethical standards and bring the right team in, we can turn this situation around.”

The forum, held at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven, took place at lunchtime Wednesday. Most of the audience knew Dimora had been arrested early that morning, though news outlets were still sifting through the details of the 138-page indictment. Tim McCormack, on the other hand, sounded like he’d already read the indictment and noticed FitzGerald's cameo appearance as Public Official 14, taking a brief 2008 call from Dimora about the lease of Lakewood's Winterhurst ice rink.

“Bad people knew where there’s a weak spot,” McCormack said. “They do not approach and they don’t do business with bad administrations. You set that standard every single day in the way you use your voice, your telephone calls, your practices. It happens every hour of the day. That’s how you root [corruption] out and avoid it in the future.”

McCormack, who once served with Dimora on the county commission, made the startling suggestion that “hundreds of additional people” may have “paid bribes to secure county positions.” It was hard to tell whether to take the comment literally, since McCormack based his comment on “information” from a source he didn’t name. (He recently said the FBI asked him around 2000 about rumors of a jobs-for-bribes scheme in former auditor Frank Russo’s office.)

Republican candidate Matt Dolan also swiped at FitzGerald. Better ethics, he said, starts with not electing a county executive candidate who “stood shoulder to shoulder with the current establishment and did not support Issue 6 county reform.” Dolan described his proposal to establish a bipartisan committee to screen appointees for all county boards and commissions. The committee would set qualifications, sift resumes, and examine whether to abolish any boards or commissions entirely.

“We’re going to do something brand new, unfortunately, in this county: we’re going to require job descriptions for everyone,” Dolan added. “If you are not qualified to do the important work, you will be removed.” He also hinted at Russo’s recent reassignments of workers caught in the Board of Revision scandal. “We are not going to shift people around,” he said. “If you breach the public trust, you’re not qualified, you’re fired! No longer are we going to be moving them to back rooms.” Dolan also said he’d institute an ethics policy by executive order on his first day in office.

Independent Ken Lanci cited his proposals for employee ethics training and an office to regulate and register vendors, lobbyists and consultants doing business with the county. Stressing his experience as a business turnaround expert and his many recent conversations with county department heads, he also said the new executive would have to inspire the county’s ethical employees.

“Everybody thinks they’re corrupt,” he says. “I can tell you, there are a lot of extremely qualified, very good employees, in this county. So don’t be confused by what you saw this morning. There’s 8,000 people there, you probably have 7,500 people that are pretty honest. It’ll be up to the CEO to turn their attitude around, make them proud of the job that they have.”

Don Scipione, also an independent candidate and businessman, said he endorsed the recommendations of the county transition work groups on ethics and campaign finance reform: limits on campaign contributions to county candidates (none exist now), ethics training for county workers, and “online transparency of the relationship between vendors and campaign contributions.” (Scipione served on the campaign finance transition group before resigning to run for county executive.)

Green Party candidate David Ellison, the last to respond, changed the subject to encouraging collaborations among “all the people who have the answers.” He warned that the county faces a $19 million deficit, which could worsen if the state’s $8 billion budget shortfall causes it to cut funds to counties. “We may have to get rid of people we don’t want to get rid of,” he said. “We might be good, thorough house cleaners of the ethical problems and still have to get rid of more people.”

FitzGerald streaks toward victory over Brown

Ed FitzGerald jumped into the county executive race last December, when the rest of town was still arguing about the last election. While bigger names dithered and stepped back from the leap, he ran all out. He got a four-month head start on his Democratic opponent and never looked back.

Now FitzGerald looks like he’s heading to victory in the Democratic primary. He leads Terri Hamilton Brown, 50% to 30%, in the vote-by-mail results – which will probably be two-thirds of all the ballots cast in today’s election. It’s likely an insurmountable lead. Likewise for Republican Matt Dolan, who leads Victor Voinovich 70% to 18% so far.

FitzGerald’s quick move into the race, just eight weeks after Issue 6 passed, didn’t impress too many people. The Issue 6 crowd tried to call a foul, saying no one who campaigned against their reform should lead the new government. But by Christmas, FitzGerald had already perfected his answer: He thought the county executive too powerful, so if elected, he’d check his own power.

I remember one or two people scoffing. Being first didn’t matter, they said. But in this election, when bigger names shivered and stepped back from the diving board, FitzGerald’s early leap made a big difference. He had six months to line up endorsements. He churned out one position paper after another. Hearing him talk, I got a sense of restless motion. It’s a good vibe to give off in a reform election.

Tenacity stands out in a field of unknowns and little-knowns. So does poise. FitzGerald’s a better communicator than Brown and might be the best in the general election field.

Political instincts stand out too. FitzGerald sensed he was in the lead at the City Club debate. He ignored Brown’s jabs and called out the Republican candidates for jabbing each other. He took the high road because he knew he could afford to.

Now, Matt Dolan awaits, warmed up by some shadow-boxing with George Voinovich's brother. Also ready to fight FitzGerald is Ken Lanci, his name recognition swelled by ubiquitous bus ads. Both are wealthy men who'll outspend the Lakewood mayor. Tim McCormack, the old-school liberal, may hit FitzGerald hardest of all -- did you see his "deceit" quote last week?

It'll be a dramatic general election. But FitzGerald's got a running start. And he's probably already planned his next few moves.

Check out my coverage of the county executive race, "A Fresh Start," in the September issue of Cleveland Magazine or online here.

Leading county exec candidates in our Sept. issue (and one we left out)

“A Fresh Start,” my coverage of the Cuyahoga County executive race, is out now in the September issue of Cleveland Magazine. Fourteen smart Clevelanders, from Joe Cimperman to Jimmy Malone, talk about what they expect from Cuyahoga County’s future leader and what challenges they hope the new government will take on.

The five leading candidates for the executive job describe their new ideas for the county government, and I analyze the biggest question each has to face to get elected. Take a look at my coverage of candidates Ed FitzGerald and Terri Hamilton Brown if you’re trying to decide who to vote for in the Sept. 7 Democratic primary.

What about the Republicans, you may ask? I also spoke to former state rep Matt Dolan for the package. We decided to focus our coverage on the five candidates we thought had the best experience for the job and the best chance to win.

By those standards, we left out Republican Victor Voinovich, a real estate agent who declared bankruptcy in 2003 and is playing the ballot name game, trading on the reputation of his senator brother by adopting the slogan “The name you can trust.”

His campaign was, naturally, unhappy to see our Voinovich-less September issue. “Shame on you!” his treasurer, Holly Thacker, e-mailed us. “How could you not report on this true lifelong Cuyahogan, a businessman, entrepreneur family man with character who has a pull yourself up by the bootstrap American story?”

Voinovich called my editor, Steve Gleydura, with a similar message. “I think you’re going to be embarrassed,” he said, hinting he’s confident of a victory in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

Interestingly, his call came a day after Henry Gomez – who penned a less than flattering profile of Voinovich in July – reported the political newcomer has Dolan running scared (emphasis mine):

But before he can take on FitzGerald, Dolan must win his primary. It's not shaping up to be as easy as anyone thought. According to his most recent campaign finance report, Dolan spent more than $140,000 this month on postage and printing. The money helped fund a direct mail assault on his chief opponent, Victor Voinovich…

Dolan's internal polling data spooked him into the spending spree.

"Clearly, numbers showed that people thought I was running against George Voinovich," said Dolan, who has been endorsed by the county GOP.

If Voinovich proves us wrong and wins the primary, we’ll definitely cover him this fall. In the meantime, if you’re a Republican primary voter looking for information about him, check out his website, electvictor.com, which includes links to his economic plan and a 9-page bio, and his tense debate with Dolan at the City Club – hear the entire debate as a podcast here or WCPN’s coverage here.

FitzGerald donates $3,150 from Dimora, Russo & Co. to charity

Last month, Ed FitzGerald donated $3,150 from his county executive campaign to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a charity that funds rehab for wounded veterans. He was motivated by more than kindness. He was cleansing his campaign fund of 2½-year-old donations from Jimmy Dimora, Frank Russo, and other figures associated with the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal.

“We don’t want anything to do with those individuals,” FitzGerald says. “I’ve been very clear, I have no tolerance or acceptance of how they’ve behaved -- far from it.”

In December 2007 and April 2008, months before the FBI raids of their offices made them political pariahs, Dimora and Russo were among many local Democrats who made contributions to FitzGerald, the newly elected mayor of Lakewood. Dimora gave him $550, Russo $500. Vince Russo, the auditor’s son, gave FitzGerald $750. Ferris Kleem, a Berea contractor and friend of Dimora and Russo’s, gave $1,000. The contributions, an overture to FitzGerald after he’d unseated Democratic incumbent Tom George, helped FitzGerald pay off a $30,000 campaign debt.

FitzGerald says voters shouldn’t make anything of the contributions, since Dimora and Russo, as party leaders, used to donate to dozens of candidates a year. “It means that they contribute to people who were incumbent elected officials,” says FitzGerald. “When I ran in 2007, none of them supported me.”

By this summer, Vince Russo was defending himself against federal bribery and extortion charges. Kleem had pleaded guilty to bribing Dimora with a visit from a Vegas prostitute. (Dimora and Russo, still uncharged, still deny any wrongdoing.) Because Ohio law doesn’t allow candidates to return contributions, FitzGerald donated the money from them to the veteran’s charity instead. It’s the latest of several moves FitzGerald has made to distance himself from his party’s former leaders.

“I might have been the first public official to call on them to step down,” he says. “I actually asked my state senator to change the law so they could be recalled.”

With the whole town still waiting to see if the feds indict Dimora and Russo, all the candidates for the new county government want to be seen as reformers. That’s a special challenge for FitzGerald, even though he spent three years as an FBI agent investigating political corruption – an irony I’ve written about in my coverage of the county executive race, out now in the September issue of Cleveland Magazine. His opponents in the Sept. 7 primary and the general election question his reform credentials because he opposed Issue 6, which created the new county government. And with the Democrats’ former party chairman under investigation, the Democratic party’s endorsement is a mixed blessing for him.

By donating to Intrepid Fallen Heroes, FitzGerald seems to be inoculating himself from attacks by his opponents. If one of them still tries to use the Dimora and Russo donations against him, he’s got an answer ready.

“If somebody donates something and later that person gets into trouble, it isn’t fair criticism,” he says. “What’s fair is if you continue to receive [donations] from someone engaged in improper behavior, or if you receive them and don’t do anything about it.

“It’s impossible to predict the future.”

Update, 9/16: FitzGerald also donated $250 he received from William Neiheiser, who leased the Winterhurst ice rink from Lakewood. Neiheiser was indicted with Jimmy Dimora on corruption charges yesterday. FitzGerald appears briefly in the indictment as "Public Official 14" because of a phone call from Dimora, but prosecutors do not accuse FitzGerald of wrongdoing. “I think I handled it appropriately,” he told me yesterday. See my new blog post for more.

I've also posted about Dimora's indictment, not-guilty plea, and comments at the courthouse yesterday.

Brown punches, FitzGerald looks ahead at City Club debate

Ed FitzGerald acted like a front-runner in today’s City Club debate. He declined every opportunity to criticize Terri Hamilton Brown, his opponent in the Democratic primary for county executive. He kept his eye on the general election, even opening with a joke about a candidate he expects to face in November.

“I’m a little bit relieved,” he told the crowd. “I heard a rumor that Ken Lanci had purchased exclusive rights to speak here.”

Brown opened like a challenger finding her feet. She jabbed at FitzGerald in opening remarks, and when he declined to punch back, she followed with an uppercut.

She said she joined the race because other candidates “were lacking the broad experience needed to start our government off properly.” One candidate “talked about hiring economic development czars and an inspector general,” she said -- at this, FitzGerald nodded; the inspector general idea is his -- “to do what is essentially the county executive’s job.”

The new executive, Brown added, should be “someone who has actually cleaned up corruption and not just identified wrongdoing” -- meaning she thinks her work at the county’s public-housing agency trumps his years with the FBI as a reform credential.

After Brown talked, about the balance between the new government’s top goals, providing human services and spurring economic development, moderator Joe Frolik asked FitzGerald for his rebuttal.

“I don’t feel the need to rebut that statement,” FitzGerald replied, passing up the chance to fight back. “I’m almost 100 percent in agreement with it. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Terri’s record and resume and vision for the county.”

As if rebutting Republican frontrunner Matt Dolan instead, FitzGerald talked about why he became a Democrat. Like Robert F. Kennedy, he said, he believes “that government can be a positive force for changing people lives, that your final destination in life should not be dependent on the circumstances you’re born into.” Republicans, he argued, believe “it’s every person for themselves. If you’re doing well, good for you. If you’re not doing so well, it must somehow be your fault.”

Brown replied that she and FitzGerald agree on a lot -- “but this is a debate, and we are here to define the differences.” She hit FitzGerald for his ambition: he “sought three offices in three years” – Lakewood mayor, county auditor if Frank Russo resigned, now county executive – and he opposed Issue 6, but started running for the top job it created less than two months after it passed. “County executive is the only job I want,” Brown said, slyly implying FitzGerald wants more.

After that, peace prevailed. With the Brown campaign taking up five lunch tables at the City Club and FitzGerald’s four, I expected loaded, negative questions from the audience in the Q&A, but none came. Stuart Garson, the new county Democratic chair, asked both if the loser of the primary would support the winner in November. Both agreed they would. FitzGerald’s enthusiastic agreement sounded almost like an endorsement: “I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. Terri is a class act, a public servant in the best sense of the word.”

FitzGerald, the more seasoned politician, came up with most of the debate’s best quotes. Frolik asked him if being endorsed by the Democratic party and the AFL-CIO would make it harder to change the county government’s hiring-hall patronage culture.

“In my opinion, there’s three major parties in this county,” FitzGerald answered. “There is the Democratic party, and the Republican party, and there’s another party of people who are out for themselves. And some of the government officials and folks that have public contracts were not really interested in public service at all. … I’m going to do the same thing I did as mayor: you have to come in with the attitude that you’re going to do what’s right. If you lose some friends along the way, they probably were people that shouldn’t have been your friends in the first place.”

It was a good answer, with an opening line brilliant in its versatility. FitzGerald can use the “three parties” bit to distance himself from Jimmy Dimora, Frank Russo and company – and also turn it around on independent candidates such as Ken Lanci or Tim McCormack in the fall.

Brown couldn’t match FitzGerald’s gift for sound bites, but she stepped up her game today, sounding more succinct and focused than in earlier, less-inspired performances. She pitched herself as an experienced problem-solver who’d lead an “open, honest” government with no patronage or “sweetheart contracts.” With a state budget crisis looming, “the first county executive will have to be a chief lobbyist and advocate for the county,” she said. She’d go to Columbus to convince the legislature to keep Cuyahoga’s deep needs in mind.

FitzGerald, leading in fundraising and endorsements, seems to have decided he can afford to be gracious to Brown, that he can win the primary if the race keeps going as it has, and that not fighting her now will pay off when he needs her supporters’ votes in the fall. But Brown – whose recent endorsements from Frank Jackson, Marcia Fudge and Joe Cimperman have given her momentum -- did what she had to do today. She defined the differences between her and FitzGerald in a strong performance that’ll help address doubts about her campaigning skills. I didn’t see a turning point, but I felt the race tighten.

(For more coverage of the debate, see Henry Gomez's cleveland.com article -- or, listen to the City Club's podcast of it here.)

My live coverage of Dems' county executive debate

The leading Democratic candidates for county executive -- Ed FitzGerald and Terri Hamilton Brown -- are debating at 12:30 p.m. today at the City Club. (Minor candidates James F. Brown and Dianna Hill did not accept the club's invitation.) I'll be covering the debate live on Cleveland Magazine's Twitter feed and blogging about it this afternoon.

To read my tweets, click here.

Ken Lanci: Style in motion

“Are you bird-watching?” asked a co-worker who spied me, camera in hand, on East 14th Street this morning.

Why, yes, actually. I was hunting for Ken Lanci’s soaring white eagle, as easy to spot in Cleveland this season as a yellow warbler at Point Pelee in May.

The businessman and candidate for county executive dropped more than $200,000 on a six-month bus-ad lease. So Lanci’s ads now decorate 75 of RTA’s 348 buses -- 22 percent of the entire fleet. His smiling, tanned face and his ultra-American red-white-and-blue banners (a symbol of independence from the two-party system) will grace Greater Cleveland’s thoroughfares right up to Election Day. They’ve become the campaign’s signature visual statement, so over the top in their repetitive relentlessness, they’re a giant declaration of seriousness with unintended comic effects.

It’s hard to choose between laughter and disbelief at moments like the one I experienced this morning, when ten minutes’ rush-hour vigil brought me a bigger reward than I’d dared hope for: Not a sighting of a commonplace Lanci ad banner, but a rare, glorious Full Lanci (pictured above), one of five wrap-around makeovers alighting on our streets.

Viewed up close, the Full Lancis reveal several details about the candidate’s sartorial style.

“Lanci’s monogrammed French cuffs and golden tan were enough to make George Hamilton blush,” declares an anonymous blogger on the Cleveland SGS website, which marries a love of local commercial advertising with an affection for multilingual hip-hop and pissed-off cobras. “Lanci is solely responsible for reuniting fashion and politics in the Cleveland area.”

It’d be easy to dismiss the 75 Lancis-in-motion as expressions of a bus-sized wallet and ego. But they’ve given the once-unknown businessman the first essential thing many candidates crave and lack: name recognition. That means voters will at least hear Lanci out this fall when he tries to explain who he is and what he’d do as county executive.

Lanci seems quite aware of this: His video “Who R U?” features an indie-rock-sounding band called The Indies performing a song “about the importance of name recognition,” according to his website. “Who are you?/I think I saw your picture on the bus…” the band sings.

I think the transit-saturation foreshadows Lanci’s next big move: The guy who’s taken over our bus system is already starting to spend some wild multiple of that 200 large to take over our TV screens.

Brown: “You have to establish a new tone and culture”

Of all the candidates for Cuyahoga County executive, Terri Hamilton Brown has the most experience at one part of the new job: Cleaning house after a corruption scandal. She took over the county’s public housing agency in 1998 after Clare Freeman, her predecessor, was fired. Freeman later went to prison for theft in office. Brown cleaned up the mess.

“I used to describe it as being parachuted behind enemy territory with no map or compass,” Brown says. She fired staffers loyal to Freeman, not the organization. She hired a new financial officer, recruited an audit committee of outside advisers, and transformed the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority’s books from unauditable to clean. She cooperated with the FBI investigation — and learned that wasn’t enough.

“You have to look and make sure there aren’t other areas that they haven’t identified,” Brown says. If elected county executive, she says, “We would look for other areas where there may have been abuse, or just poor practices that would allow for abuse.” Like some of her opponents, she says she’d issue a new ethics policy on her first day in charge. “You have to establish a new tone and a culture,” she says, “and you have to lead by modeling it.”

Brown has never run for office before, but she has a lot of executive experience: former president of University Circle, community development director in Mike White’s City Hall, vice-president for corporate diversity at National City. Unlike her more polished opponents, such as Ed FitzGerald and Matt Dolan, Brown doesn’t speak in clear, catchy sound bites. Her longer answers show she’s new at campaigning, more used to the boardroom. She's thinking as she answers, figuring things out as she goes, weighing a bunch of factors, then naming her top priorities.

Brown says she voted for Issue 6 with reservations because she thought the county needed a single, strong leader. She was concerned that the county council, with 11 members elected by district, might act like Cleveland's city council in the 1990s, which sometimes wanted to split her department’s development money equally among all wards instead of tackling the greatest needs.

“I believe that would have disastrous effects if the county council viewed its role and viewed budget resources similarly,” she says. “What I know about needs and services at the county is that they’re not equal by districts and wards.”

Still, she voted for 6 because she thought the county commissioners’ decision-making on the Ameritrust Tower and Medical Mart revealed a need for a single executive. The commissioners spent $40 million on the Ameritrust Tower, disagreeing all the while on whether to move into it or tear it down -- then canceled the project. “That created a question: Are we using resources effectively? Are we good stewards of our tax dollars?” She felt the Medical Mart project suffered from the years-long debate on where to build it. “[In] economic development, time is money,” she says. She thinks a single executive could’ve moved faster. “It’s about being able to execute decisions and move decisively.”

That’s the sort of talk the new charter's supporters in the business community love to hear, though it may not go over well with the insiders who'll decide on the Democratic party endorsement next weekend. (Brown, running against two well-connected suburban mayors in the Democratic primary, has called on the party to endorse no one.) But she’ll probably be well-funded enough to get her message out. And she hardly lacks political connections: Her husband, Darnell Brown, is Mayor Frank Jackson’s chief operating officer. If she can communicate well with voters and combine business support with support in the city, she’s got a good chance.

To fulfill the charter's top goal, encouraging economic development, Brown says the new government should find a unique niche where it can be most helpful. She thinks that means doing more of what the county already does: “Creating places -- redevelopment sites -- acquiring, re-subdividing, identifying locations.” The new county land bank “would be an important tool to use strategically,” she says, to “set the table.”

Brown says creating places is her specialty. One of her first projects at City Hall, the Church Square shopping center and homes at Euclid Avenue and East 79th Street, was celebrated as a model of urban redevelopment. However, her three years as president of University Circle, Inc., 2002 to 2005, ended without spectacular new development in the neighborhood. Brown says she laid the groundwork for the still-anticipated Uptown project at Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road by buying property at the corner and attracting new businesses, including a Starbucks and a Charter One bank branch. She pushed for the Opportunity Corridor, a proposed boulevard to connect University Circle to I-490 -- a project she's also worked on for the Greater Cleveland Partnership. To bring more visitors to University Circle, she built a new stage in Wade Oval, created popular events such as Wade Oval Wednesdays and improved outreach to Glenville and other nearby neighborhoods.

“I’m passionate about things,” she says. “I think that passion can become contagious and invite others to join.” In her City Hall job, “I got really excited about rebuilding places. As I progressed in my career, it moved from bricks and mortar to investing in people, to helping people succeed. I think now it’s a mix of both.”

Welo: “I’m here to build the foundation”

Most of the candidates for Cuyahoga County executive try hard to pitch themselves as agents of change, contrasting themselves with the scandal-plagued, lame-duck county government. Not Georgine Welo.

The longtime Democrat carefully avoids criticizing anyone now in power. Instead, she’s running on her record as mayor of South Euclid, arguing she can turn around Cuyahoga County the same way she’s changed her East Side suburb of 22,000 people.

“I think we’re a microcosm of the county,” she says.

In Welo’s 6½ years as mayor, she says, South Euclid has fought the foreclosure crisis by remodeling vacant homes with green technology. It’s torn up an old concrete culvert into an urban marsh that’s attracted bird-watching homebuyers and a Bavarian tea house. “We are very, very diverse ethnically,” she says. “It’s helped fill our homes, our school district.” Most of all, her administration’s been aggressively business-friendly, Welo says, helping new businesses open and convincing manufacturers not to leave by shepherding them through their expansions.

“We have to compete constantly,” Welo says. “And you have to win. And you have to be able to show that no matter where you do business, you will never be treated better than here.”

That kind of talk appeals to the corporate leaders who bankrolled the county reform effort and will likely fund candidates’ campaigns this year. It fits the new county charter’s goal of encouraging job creation. Looking at Akron and Pittsburgh’s experience with county executives, Welo says the exec should be a “facilitator” who moves projects along and builds coalitions.

“I want the business community involved,” she says. “I want them at the table.”

Beyond that, Welo sometimes sounds like the establishment Democrats who proposed a more gradual approach to county reform last year. Welo opposed Issue 6, which created the new government she wants to lead. She thought the sheriff should be elected and all county races non-partisan, and she was upset that the initiative’s authors didn’t consult her.

If elected, Welo says she’d focus on social services, workforce training, and restoring trust. She wants to expand the county’s overworked economic development department – but she sounds skeptical of the idea that restructuring government will save money and help fund economic programs.

“Most of the money in the county [budget] is a pass-through for health and human services,” she says, echoing an argument used against Issue 6. “There’s a very small amount that can be used for other projects. That’s what hopefully we can grow. Some people are saying we’ll be able to grow that because we’ll have less employees, less leased buildings. But until you get in there and see it, it’s only words.”

Asked to judge the current government’s failures and successes, she offered only mild criticism.

“Looking at their financials, they’ve done very well in managing the money,” she says, mentioning buyouts that have shrunk the workforce. She hints at the Department of Children and Family Services’ recent failures, saying she’d ask Case Western’s Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences to figure out “how can we actually save more lives,” because “we continue to lose children.”

Surprisingly, Welo defends the county commissioners’ decision to buy the Ameritrust Tower, a miscalculation that’s cost the taxpayers $40 million and left the government owning an empty skyscraper.

“I also think they’ve been good in some other ways that maybe people think they have failed,” she says. “The county looked at the building at Euclid Avenue and Ninth Street. I think all the intentions were good. I think it was an exciting idea to try to start building.” A new county headquarters there would’ve unified and brought new life to Euclid Avenue, she says. “What happened? Don’t know. You really don’t know what happened after that.” (The commissioners figured out two years too late that they couldn’t afford their plans. See my June 2008 article “Tower Play” for the full story.)

Welo, 51, served as the Democratic Party’s co-executive director for two years in the late 1990s, during Jimmy Dimora’s early years as chairman. (“Jimmy didn’t ask me to take money from anybody,” she says. If he did anything unethical back then, “I never saw it.”)

Restoring public trust is her top priority, she says. That means leading by example. “If you go into the local restaurants, they’ll tell you I don’t take anything free,” she says. South Euclid City Hall stopped doing business with her husband’s hardware store when she became mayor. “We have policies: none of the elected officials’ family members in our city are allowed to work [for the government]. You’d have to put those same kind of policies and procedures in handbooks [at the county]. We have an ethics commission in our city. You could put an ethics commission in.”

Welo’s closing argument seems to position her against one Democratic primary opponent, Lakewood Mayor Ed FitzGerald, who’s developed a reputation for grand ambitions.

“I’m someone who’s going to put their political capital on the line,” she says. “I’m not going to run for congress, governor, senator. I don’t have young children. … I’m here to give you 12 to 14 hours a day. I’m here to build the foundation, to pass this county government on to a younger generation.”

Welo’s steady-hand pitch — she’ll adapt to the new system but not crusade to overturn the old — may help her attract allies among Democratic insiders who’ll decide the party and AFL-CIO endorsements and help get out the vote. Already, her work as chair of the First Suburbs Coalition has helped win her endorsements from seven mayors. But if Democratic primary voters go to the polls Sept. 7 looking for a reformer, Terri Hamilton Brown’s first-time candidacy or FitzGerald’s aggressive anti-corruption message may be more likely to catch on than Welo’s quieter approach.