Linndale's mayor's court nears abolition; senator cites Cleveland Magazine

Could the Linndale speed trap be nearing its end?

Ohio's legislature voted this week to ban towns of less than 201 people from operating mayor's courts. It's a law aimed directly at Linndale, the microvillage that raises four-fifths of its $1 million budget  from tickets issued on its small stretch of I-71.

Sen. Tom Patton, the new rule's sponsor, says Cleveland Magazine's August 2011 story "Greetings From Linndale" helped him rally support.

"All of the facts you uncovered were facts we used to go along with some of the other data we had," Patton told me today.

My story, co-written with former Fox 8 investigator Mark DeMarino, revealed serious questions about the microvillage’s all-important population count in the 2010 U.S. Census. 

Cleveland Magazine reporters knocked on nearly every door in Linndale last year and discovered that the village's official census count of 179 people appeared inflated. That count was key to Linndale's future because state law already bans towns with less than 101 people from operating mayor's courts.

We discovered one block where nine phantom residents supposedly moved into an industrial zone, and a block that officially doubled in population but didn’t have nearly that many people a year later, and one block the census counted that’s not really in Linndale. Village officials should have notified the census about its mapping error, but didn't. A village official we interviewed said he wasn't sure where Linndale's western boundary was.

"When talked to my colleagues, I pointed out that the clerk of courts, he gets confused about boundaries," Patton said.

Linndale police officers personally encouraged residents to answer the census, the magazine found. The Census Bureau says police involvement in the census interferes with the census’s confidentiality and could intimidate people. That also came up in debate over Patton's bill.

"It has been reported that in a particular village, the officers assisted citizens in filling out census forms," Mark Drum, state secretary for the Fraternal Order of Police, said in his Senate testimony supporting Patton's bill. "It is difficult, if not impossible, for our members to understand what professional law enforcement purpose filling out census forms could possibly have.  This is the type of unprofessional behavior the FOP would like to see eradicated with [the bill]."

Patton noted that Linndale issued 2,800 traffic tickets per 100 residents in 2010. Strongsville, which also polices a stretch of I-71, issued eight per 100 residents.

"When you hide under a bridge in the shadows, instead of 'Protect and Serve' on the outside of your vehicle, it should be, 'Will that be cash or credit?'" Patton said.

Linndale's next move is unclear. In the 1990s, it took a different challenge to its speed trap all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court and won.

Linndale clerk of courts Mike Toczek told me and DeMarino last year that if the mayor's court were ever abolished, the village might approach Brooklyn's mayor's court about sharing court functions. Or it could cut down to basic services and patrols.  "We have always found a way to exist," he said.

To read Cleveland Magazine’s article, “Greetings from Linndale,” click here. To link to it on social media, use this shortlink: http://bit.ly/SqJWqk

FitzGerald plan: sell Ameritrust Tower for $27 million, have new county HQ built next door

The Ameritrust Tower and rotunda, ghosts on downtown Cleveland's landscape since 1996, could be revived if Ed FitzGerald gets his way.

Cuyahoga County's executive wants to sell the Brutalist high-rise and the classic bank building for $27 million to Geis Co., which would build a new county headquarters next to the tower and lease it to the county for about $6.5 million a year.

The new, eight-story headquarters at East 9th Street and Prospect Avenue would share two parking garages and a new pedestrian bridge with the 29-story tower, which would be converted into apartments. The rotunda would house stores and possibly a public space.

If the county council approves the deal next month, construction would start right away and could be finished by July 2014, FitzGerald says.

The Geis Co. proposal could exorcise a controversial deal that has haunted the county since 2005. The previous government bought the Ameritrust complex that year for about $22 million as a site for a county HQ, then spent an equal amount ridding it of asbestos, paying its broker and buying a second parking garage.

With the sale, the county would recoup more than half of its $45 million investment. It would also move out of the 1950s-era administration building at Lakeside and Ontario and other offices around town.

"The building we're in now is outdated, inefficient, and duplicative," FitzGerald said during an interview today. His consultants project that the county could lower its annual occupancy costs by $6 million by moving. So the county would recoup its losses on the Ameritrust complex over time.

In a way, FitzGerald is bringing the county full circle, back to East 9th and the same headquarters site that Jimmy Dimora, Tim Hagan, and Peter Lawson Jones picked in 2005. But there are big differences between the old and new plans.

Dimora and Hagan wanted to tear down the tower and build a much larger headquarters than the 222,000-square-foot building FitzGerald and Geis envision. The old plan also had the county constructing and owning the headquarters. Geis' offer is a sell-build-lease deal with an option to buy after 26 years.

FitzGerald is confident the county will lower the cost of government by moving. But that could depend on a lot of things going right. That includes his hopes of selling the current administration building site, which is right next to the medical mart and convention center, to a hotel developer.

But FitzGerald doesn't have a buyer for the site yet. He didn't get an offer he liked in this round of bidding. He hopes to try again in the new year, perhaps after the convention center opens.

The county has for-sale signs on 13 properties, including the old juvenile justice center and the county archives building in Ohio City. Announcements about the sale of several more should come in January or February, FitzGerald said.

The public will have about 45 days to examine the Ameritrust and headquarters deal and the alternatives the county rejected. County council president C. Ellen Connally says the council will hold meetings on the proposal tonight and Jan. 2, 8, and 22.

Last Man Standing: My interview with Bill Mason

Just before Bill Mason left the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office this fall, he and I sat down for a final interview.  It got tense.

Others had already asked Mason why he didn't catch Jimmy Dimora or Frank Russo in the act of pocketing bribes and exploiting their office.  So I drilled deeper.  I asked about the times Mason's name came up at the Dimora trial, the wrongdoing ex-sheriff Gerald McFaul carried out in the Justice Center (where Mason also had his office), and Mason's longstanding alliance and friendship with Pat O'Malley, the former county recorder who served federal prison time on an obscenity conviction.

Mason, I discovered, remains loyal to O'Malley even today. "I'm a pretty trustworthy and loyal guy," he said. "Period." Mason said he didn't know that sheriff's deputies were illegally selling tickets to McFaul's clambake fundraisers in the Justice Center. And he denied any involvement with Frank Russo's successful efforts to push J. Kevin Kelley out of the 2003 Parma mayor's race.

The interview ranged across Mason's 14 years in office and touched on his dual reputation as a tough law-and-order prosecutor and shrewd political insider.  We talked about Mason's aggressive pursuit of the death penalty, his work fighting mortgage fraud and child porn, and his memories of the 2000 Sam Sheppard case.  As the spotlight turns to his successor, Tim McGinty, my last talk with Mason provides a look at the state of the prosecutor's office during a time of transition.

You can read my interview with Mason, "Last Man Standing," here and in the December issue of Cleveland Magazine.

Fudge elected Congressional Black Caucus chair

Marcia Fudge is moving up on Capitol Hill. The Cleveland congresswoman was elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus for the next two years, increasing her visibility and maybe her clout.

As head of the caucus, Fudge will become a spokeswoman for black Americans in Congress and across the country. “It automatically gives her a leadership role in Congress,” Louis Stokes, the other Clevelander to have held the position, told the Plain Dealer.

Winning the post is a reversal of fortune for Fudge, who’s been in Congress since 2008. A year ago, she was facing an aggressive primary challenger, state Sen. Nina Turner. But Fudge wasn’t as weak as Turner thought; she announced her reelection campaign with most every big local Democrat united behind her, and Turner backed down.

Fudge sounded like Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson yesterday when she said the Black Caucus focuses on “the least of these,” meaning the needy – though they’re both referring to one of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew. The caucus, which held a job fair in Cleveland this summer as part of its focus on lowering unemployment, is expected to defend Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the upcoming negotiations on the fiscal cliff.

Speaking for the Black Caucus (which is growing from 40 to 43 members next year) will surely increase Fudge’s visibility, but what about her clout? Seniority matters a lot in Congress, and Fudge doesn’t have much of it. Will the chairmanship give her a shortcut to power, and influence on Cleveland’s behalf? Maybe, Fudge seems to think. “It puts me to some degree in position to talk to the leadership more often,” she told the PD’s Sabrina Eaton.

Links to our past coverage of Marcia Fudge:

-My Most Interesting People interview with her after her election to Congress.

-Mansfield Frazier’s 2010 commentary on her growing role as a player in local Democratic politics.

-Afi-Odelia Scruggs’ profile of Fudge from 2007, when she was mayor of Warrensville Heights.

Taxmageddon looms, but Voinovich sees a way out

Now that the election’s over, the country’s political conversation is changing fast. President Obama and Congress have less than two months to confront the budget crisis known as the fiscal cliff or, better yet, Taxmageddon. What will happen?

Former Sen. George Voinovich thinks it’s time for Obama and the Republicans to bargain: Medicare and Medicaid cuts in exchange for tax hikes on the wealthy.

“We’re trying to warn people about the cliff,” says Voinovich, the Ohio co-chair for Fix the Debt, a centrist group trying to lay the groundwork for compromise.

The Bush-era income tax cuts expire Dec. 31. So does the payroll tax holiday that boosted our paychecks two years ago. Big across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic spending are set to kick in Jan. 1. That double shock to the economy would probably plunge us into a new recession.

Confronting the cliff means confronting the parties’ 20-year disagreement on taxing the wealthy. Obama wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire for households making more than $250,000 a year. Republicans don’t. But Voinovich, a moderate Republican, thinks his party ought to strike a deal.

“[We have] to lay out the contours of reform of Medicare and Medicaid,” argues Voinovich. “Then we need tax reform, pro-growth, which would broaden the base, lower the rates, and raise revenues and reduce the deficit.”

But just when he starts sounding like Mitt Romney, Voinovich draws a distinction.

“That was one of the problems with Romney,” he says. “Romney said [tax reform would] be revenue-neutral. But most of us who’ve been around know that if you’re going to make cuts in spending, you also have to raise revenue. So those people in the higher bracket end up paying more money!

“Almost everyone I know that’s in that category says, ‘George, I’ll pay more taxes if you can guarantee me we’re going to get this ship back on an even keel.’ ”

During the campaign, Voinovich recorded a radio ad for Romney, in which he accused Obama of having a “deeply partisan vision” that kept him from working with Congress. But “neither party has clean hands,” he says now. Perhaps thinking of this Plain Dealer cartoon about his radio spot, Voinovich mentions Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

“I think McConnell made it clear he wanted to defeat the president,” he says. “He has not been as cooperative as he should be.”

Obama and House Speaker John Boehner came close last year to the sort of “grand bargain” Voinovich supports. Voinovich thinks Boehner will ultimately stand up to the tea party wing of his caucus to avoid the fiscal cliff, even at the risk of losing his job as speaker.

“I really believe John Boehner would have given up his leadership to do the right thing,” Voinovich says. “I think [he] will do the right thing. I think John knows how bad things are.”

Voinovich thinks confronting the fiscal cliff may mean limiting popular tax deductions for home mortgages, charitable giving and health insurance. It’s an austere vision.

But he believes momentum is building for a compromise. “There’s a deep feeling that people in Washington have got to get their act together and get something done,” he says. “With the right effort, I think we can.”

Protect your vote: How to make your ballot lawyer-proof

Four days until the election, and both sides are preparing for overtime.

The Democrats and Republicans have their legal teams on standby, just in case a swing state's vote falls inside the margin of litigation.  An NPR report this morning speculated that if Ohio is too close to call, the parties could wage a post-election battle here as fierce as Florida's in 2000.

The stakes are high, but you can protect your vote with a few simple steps.  Here's how to lawyer-proof your ballot and make sure it gets counted. (The links are for Cuyahoga County, but most of the advice applies anywhere in Ohio.)

If you voted by mail: track your ballot online.  Use the UPS-like Track Your Ballot page on the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website to make sure your ballot made it in.  If it says "Returned," it's in and accepted. 

If it says "Challenged," you're one of the less than 1 percent of mail-in voters who left some info off your ballot identification envelope.  You'll get a letter in the mail asking you to correct it by mail or in person at the Board of Elections office. You'll have until Nov. 16 to do it.

If you haven't sent in your mail-in ballot yet: Double-check that you followed all the directions. Be sure to include your name, signature, address, and ID number (driver's license, last four digits of SSN) on your ballot identification envelope. If not, your ballot will be challenged (see above).

Put your ballot in the identification envelope, seal it, and put the identification envelope in the larger mailing envelope. Then mail the ballot soon.  It has to be postmarked by Monday -- or dropped off at the Board of Elections by Tuesday.

If you're voting in person: Know your voting location and precinct number. They’re on your voter-registration card and other mailings from the Board of Elections. Or you can look them up here if you're in Cuyahoga County or here if you're anywhere in the state.

The precinct number tells you which line to get in. (Ballots cast in the right polling location but the wrong precinct line -- "right church, wrong pew" votes -- are hotly contested in election litigation.)

Bring photo ID -- a driver’s license, state ID or military ID. Or use a utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or government check with your name and current address.

Avoid the provisional ballot envelope, if you can. If a poll worker pulls out a yellow provisional ballot envelope, ask a lot of questions to be sure you need to use it. Try to solve the problem first.  If you forgot to bring your ID, go home to get it. If you’re not in the poll book, check your registration card or the wall maps to confirm you’re in the right precinct.

If you do vote provisionally, fill out the envelope carefully, and call the Board of Elections afterward to find out if your vote counted or if you need to follow up by visiting the office.

Mark your ballot carefully. Reread your ballot before you turn it in. Make sure you didn’t double-vote in any races, that you didn’t make stray marks, and that you filled in your choices completely. If you make a mistake, ask for a new ballot.

Update, 4 pm: The New York Times reports that the Democrats will have 600 lawyers in Greater Cleveland on Election Day, while the Republicans will have 70. "If it’s close, you will see both sides running to court," says Jeff Hastings, chair of the board of elections.

Stuart Garson and Rob Frost, the local Democratic and Republican chairs, are trading suspicions that the other side might be perpetrate some Election Day impropriety or deliberately spread misinformation or sow confusion.  They both sound alarmist, but who knows?  Another reason to follow the advice above -- and give yourself plenty of time to vote on Election Day.

Brown sweeps Ohio newspaper endorsements; papers call Mandel unprepared, and worse

Well, this doesn't happen too often.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has won the endorsement of every major daily newspaper in Ohio, shutting out Josh Mandel 7-0. Even the conservative editorial pages couldn't justify endorsing the senator's young challenger.

"Sherrod Brown has a record of working for Ohio jobs, workers, businesses and consumers," argues the Cincinnati Enquirer, which endorsed Mitt Romney for president. The Akron Beacon Journal, endorsing Brown for the first time, praises his "attention to what matters for Ohioans, from manufacturing and jobs to health care and farming."

Every editorial page -- from progressive (the Toledo Blade) to conservative (the Columbus Dispatch) to centrist pages that didn't endorse Brown in 2006 (The Plain Dealer) -- praised the senator's work in his first term.

But most striking is what the seven papers say about Mandel. Let's line them up to see the trend.

Akron Beacon Journal: "He isn’t ready for the job. It is apparent in his shallow positions, mostly the usual talking points of the far right. ... an ill-prepared candidate overmatched by his opponent."

Youngstown Vindicator: "Imaginary outsiders will say whatever they think the voters want to hear. If there were a dictionary entry for such political mendacity, it could carry the picture of Josh Mandel."

Plain Dealer: "Electing ... Josh Mandel would reward one of the nastiest campaigns ever waged in this state. It would reward a candidate who hasn't moved beyond partisan slogans and careful sound bites. It would reward ambition untethered to substance."

Toledo Blade: "Mr. Mandel has largely ignored basic duties of the treasurer. ... His stances on major issues rarely go beyond simple partisan slogans — Obamacare, bad; regulation, bad; tax cuts, good. ... Mr. Mandel has waged an unusually nasty campaign. Independent fact-checkers have cited him repeatedly for making false statements."

Canton Repository: "Mandel has plenty of sound bites — how many ways can a TV ad say 'Washington is broken'? — but offers little of substance. His calling Brown a liar in another recent debate was another low in a campaign chock full of lows — a campaign marked, ironically, by Mandel’s collecting numerous 'pants on fire' ratings from the PolitiFact fact-checkers."

Cincinnati Enquirer: "Mandel would continue to practice the politics of divisiveness. His campaign has focused on tearing down his opponent, calling him everything from a 'un-American' to 'a liar.' Mandel’s slash-and-burn campaign has been heavily funded by out-of-state interests. ... He showed little depth on the issues beyond his rehearsed talking points. Mandel, frankly, is not ready to represent Ohio in the United States Senate."

The Dayton Daily News doesn't endorse candidates anymore. That left Brown's shutout bid in the hands of the staunchly conservative Dispatch.

Finally, this morning, the Dispatch published a terse, backhanded endorsement of Brown. It complained that he's too liberal and supports Obama Administration policies, but called him "an accessible and tireless advocate for Ohio."

The Dispatch praised Mandel for "youthful energy" but said "his limited experience... can’t compare to the nearly four decades of public service that Brown brings to the job."

What good are newspaper endorsements anymore?

At least this: In a fiercely partisan time, they still warn voters when $20 million worth of catchy slogans and dirty campaigning make a shallow candidate look serious.