Angry Lanci says mayor has “consistently failed”

Ken Lanci was mad. Really mad. Breathing heavily into the overamped mike mad.

“Let’s be honest: the quality of the residents’ lives is declining,” Lanci said. “Things are getting worse, not better.”

The hot-tempered millionaire announced he’s running for mayor against Frank Jackson today. His event, at his printing company building in AsiaTown, had a very different vibe than his 2010 campaign for Cuyahoga County executive. Then he was the turnaround specialist; now he’s the angry challenger.

“The voters of Cleveland will have a very stark choice,” Lanci said. “They can vote for mayor who has not delivered and consistently failed, or they can vote for a new direction, a new approach, a new day.”

Anyone who thinks real mayors use the bully pulpit to lead have their man in Lanci. He’s the big-stick podium-pounder personified. Those tired of Jackson’s introverted demeanor will get what they ask for in the fall election. Lanci runs as hot as Jackson runs cold.

Today, Lanci delivered the most overly intense political speech I’ve seen in town in more than a decade. He stalked through it, mad as hell at the state of Cleveland, then choked up as he thanked his late mother for being “the first woman to ever love me,” then swung back to anger.

Cleveland residents’ current quality of life “is unacceptable to me,” he said. “It is absolutely unacceptable.”

Sometimes the speech was effective. Lanci tore into Jackson’s record by quoting his pledges about education, safety and jobs from his 2006 State of the City address. He cited statistics to argue Jackson hasn't delivered.

Lanci went at Jackson especially hard on the Cleveland schools. The mayor is sure to run on the promise of his twin victories on school reform and the school levy last year. But Lanci is running on the results of the last eight years: the district met none of the state’s 26 standards in 2012.

Inevitably, Lanci used the mayor’s most underwhelming catch phrase against him.

“I think Frank Jackson is a good man. I also feel that he has done his best. However I feel that being involved in city politics for 30 years has given him a sense of, ‘It is what it is.’”

Ooh, some in the audience responded.

Lanci spoke from a stage in the middle of his Consolidated Graphics’ printing room. Several employees in work shirts sat atop the big Heidelberg Speedmaster presses for a better view, while dozens of people wearing Lanci stickers, dressed in everything from suits to business casual to working-class plaids, milled about between the rows of machinery.

African hand-drumming announced Lanci’s impending arrival onstage. The event seemed planned with acute awareness of the challenges facing a white challenger to a black mayor in a black-majority city.

But the invite list, while diverse, seemed filled out with a motley crew of gadflies. Black on Black Crime’s Art McKoy and black-trades activist Norman Edwards topped the list of recognizable figures. A guy sporting a New Black Panther Party jacket and pin managed to plant himself right behind Lanci during the candidate’s post-announcement press conference.

There, reporters asked for specifics lacking in Lanci’s speech. How would he bring more jobs to Cleveland? How would he change the schools reform plan?

“I can create more jobs by seeking out companies to come to Cleveland,” Lanci said, repeating the mantra of most businessmen-turned-candidates.

He didn’t critique the mayor’s plan for the schools. Instead, he said, “I can create a culture in the schools about caring, love, and opportunity. I’ve been in the schools 18 years. I’ve funded programs that do work.” (His campaign flyer mentions Project Love and Purple American, for at-risk teens.)

What makes Lanci run?

A lot of people wondered that when the orange-tanned businessman ran for county exec as an independent, spent $1 million of his own cash, covered the county with roving bus ads, and won 11 percent of the vote. A lot of people, especially Jackson supporters, will surely ask why he’s running now and why he moved from Brecksville to an East 12th Street apartment to do it.

A young Fox 8 reporter provoked Lanci: “To anyone who would say that you’re a guy who just has a lot of money and likes the attention, what would you say?”

Lanci responded by talking about his 2007 heart attack. “At 57 years old, I died. Through the grace of God, he brought me back. What did I need to come back for?” His answer: to use his talents to give back to the city.

Jackson should be able to dispatch this challenge by running on a few favorite themes: Others talk, I work. I have a plan; what’s his plan? He didn’t live here; why’s he a candidate? But if you want an aggressive challenger to the mayor, you’ve got him in Lanci, a temperamental opposite with drive and funds and fight to spare.

Can FitzGerald’s reformer persona work in governor’s race?

Ed FitzGerald has a gift for timing. He’s the Cuyahoga County executive today because he sensed the leadership vacuum left by the county corruption scandal and filled it. A former FBI agent as well as Lakewood mayor, he promised to restore honest government after the fall of Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo. The ambitious FitzGerald was the right candidate at the right time.

But yesterday, when FitzGerald announced he’ll challenge Gov. John Kasich, he took a big risk. Can he win a very different race with very different issues? Will his record as a reformer propel him past Kasich, or will the race transform him into a conventional Democratic politician?

Before a cheering crowd at the Hilton Garden Inn downtown, FitzGerald tried to take his reformer persona statewide and connect the job he holds with the job he seeks.

“As the first county executive, I helped to dismantle a corrupt patronage regime that was choking our county government,” he said. “The people in this county had lost faith that county government could be effective, efficient, transparent, and honest. And we did restore that faith.”

Boldly, FitzGerald then turned his reformer’s eye on Kasich. Ohio has been “on a much different path” than Cuyahoga County since Kasich’s election, he argued. “The pay-to-play system in state government is as bad as it’s ever been, with the governor’s lobbyist friends making millions.”

FitzGerald doesn’t have a corruption scandal to run against this time, so he’s trying to compare Kasich and Columbus lobbyists with Dimora and the contractors he partied with. Can FitzGerald make this stick? It’ll be interesting to see him try.

From there, FitzGerald made the turn to politics in ordinary times and the standard Democratic critiques of the governor. “The budget was balanced by making one of the worst decisions possible: defunding our local schools,” he said.

He denounced Kasich’s cuts to the local government fund, saying they’d led to police and firefighter layoffs. He attacked the failed Republican election law, HB 194, calling it the “voter suppression law.” He cast Kasich’s complex plan to expand the sales tax’s reach as a tax increase on poorer families. And, in one of the speech’s biggest applause lines, he claimed Kasich “attacked working people” by signing the voter-rejected Senate Bill 5.

In contrast, FitzGerald offered changes he’s implemented here as county executive: expansions of early childhood education and sheriff’s patrols, the new $100 million county job creation fund, and the county’s just-approved college education accounts for local youth. (A heckler pointed out each kid gets only $100.) He balanced the county’s budget without raising taxes or cutting education, he said, implying that he could manage the state’s budget better than Kasich, even in tough times.

But FitzGerald’s positive agenda, as he outlined it yesterday, showed little of the innovation he’s brought to Cuyahoga County (and his web site’s “issues” page doesn’t add much). It’s mostly a collection of Democratic grievances from the past two years: “respect all workers, not demonize them,” support the right to vote “instead of suppressing it,” “partner with cities and townships instead of using them as an ATM.”

FitzGerald said he wants to create a jobs strategy based on local businesses and high-wage jobs, “not corporate giveaways.” That suggests he’s going to run against parts of Kasich’s jobs strategy and vow to do better. He also says he wants to invest in early childhood education.

Where will he get the money to spend more and restore cuts, without raising taxes? His website says he’ll find strategic cuts in the state budget, as he did in Cuyahoga County’s. But if state government isn’t as bloated as the county was under the Dimora-Russo regime, that may not be so easy.

Yesterday, FitzGerald showed his political talents and appeal as a candidate: his record of accomplishment in his short time as county executive, his trustworthy biography (he investigated corruption while with the FBI). But many reasons he gave for running for governor will rally loyal Democrats more than independent voters. He can’t win just by re-fighting the battles against SB5 and the election law.

With his issues that do have broad appeal -- funding schools, encouraging job growth -- FitzGerald’s challenge is to explain exactly how he’ll do better than Kasich and why he’s the guy to do it. But his record as executive is incomplete, his jobs and education initiatives still new.

He has a year and a half to make his case, of course. But so far, it’s not clear that the governor’s race is the right fit for him.

100 Cleveland police officers may face discipline for November chase

The police cars flew by, one after another, a seemingly endless blur of blue and red lights. Watching the video in the Cleveland police command center today, city councilman Jeff Johnson whispered, “Wow,” under his breath and shook his head.

Today the Jackson Administration revealed its report on the Nov. 29 high-speed police chase and fatal shooting. Police commanders suggested that the chase will likely result in massive disciplinary action.  

Up to 100 police officers and six police supervisors may have violated the city’s vehicle pursuit policy while chasing driver Timothy Russell and passenger Malissa Williams into East Cleveland,  commander James Chura said today. The city allows only two police cars to pursue a fleeing suspect, unless supervisors give approval in unusual circumstances.

Up to 69 officers and five supervisors may have also violated the emergency driving policy, which says police cannot “unnecessarily endanger the public” while trying to capture a suspect. 

"If there's any vagueness in the general police order, the duty to protect the public comes first, rather than the law enforcement mission," Chura said.

Possible discipline, still to be determined by police chief Mike McGrath, ranges from a verbal reprimand to a 10-day or 30-day suspension to firing.  A review of the police use of deadly force against Russell and Williams will come later.

Reporters, city councilmen, and city staff watched a multimedia re-creation of the 63-car, 19-mile chase using GPS locators, police radio recordings and video camera footage.  The presentation revealed several new details about the chase beyond state Attorney General Mike DeWine’s February account.

-Supervisors in the 1st, 3rd and 5th police districts ordered all their officers to terminate pursuit. Some 3rd and 5th district police apparently ignored the order and pursued the suspects into East Cleveland.

-The 2nd district supervisors, some of whom were in the chase, apparently failed to take command. They didn’t enforce the police rule that only two cars should pursue a suspect except with a supervisor’s approval. “There were supervisors from the 2nd district that had very little communication among themselves or with the officers they were supervising,” McGrath said.

-Officers appear to have risked public safety in other ways during the chase. The chase not only reached a speed of 100 mph on I-90, but one officer’s speedometer hit 125. Earlier, one officer’s dashboard camera caught him driving on the wrong side of Clark Avenue with no lights on, speeding by an approaching car and pedestrians at 69 mph.

-A policeman’s warning that the passenger wasn’t armed was broadcast more widely than previously reported. The officer radioed that the passenger wasn’t holding a gun, as other officers had believed and reported. “He has a pair of black gloves on. He does not have a gun in his hand,” the officer broadcast on the 2nd district channel. “There’s a red pop can in his hands,” he added a minute later.

“Now stating he has a pop can in his hand,” the 3rd district dispatcher relayed. “It’s not a gun, it’s a pop can in his hand,” the 5th district dispatcher said.

No gun was found in Russell's car or along the chase route. So why did the officers at the scene of the shooting seven minutes later claim they thought the suspects were armed?

One possible reason: another radio report suggested that the passenger might be reaching down for a weapon. “They’re fumbling with something up in that front seat,” came a report, a minute after the pop can broadcast. “Looks like the passenger is possibly loading a weapon.”

McGrath said officers who violated policy will be “held accountable,” and he acknowledged the 200-plus police on duty that night who followed the rules. (Several officers from the 1st, 3rd, and 5th districts obeyed orders to quit the chase.)

“We recognize responsible decisions they made, particularly under the stressful circumstances of this incident,” the chief said.

A reporter asked McGrath if he agreed with police union president Jeffrey Follmer, who has called the Nov. 29 incident “the perfect chase.”

“What you saw on the screen is factual,” McGrath replied. “I wouldn’t call this a perfect chase, no.”

Today’s report, almost five months after the chase, again shows Mayor Frank Jackson’s response to crisis. He takes a slow, steady approach, in which he won’t let anyone rush him or prod him to respond quickly to events.

Even the fact that Jackson held his press briefing an hour and a half after Ed FitzGerald announced his candidacy for governor shows how little the mayor cares about the theater of news and politics. No way was he going to postpone his press briefing a day just so FitzGerald’s ambitions could dominate the headlines.

Three city councilmen attended the briefing. Jeff Johnson left just before it ended, but I spoke to Kevin Conwell and Zack Reed as they left.

“It’s very stunning and very telling,” Reed said. “But I’m glad that the truth is transparent, and that they continue to bring out the truth in a public light.”

“When you have so many cars, what is the end in mind?” asked Conwell, chair of council’s public safety committee. “Who’s going to be a supervisor when they get to the end of the line, to tell all the other police officers to stand down, and then we’ll have at least four to five active shooters, so that you don’t have 13 active shooters?”

No one was in charge of the chase, Conwell suggested. “Who’s going to be the head officer in control?” he asked. “We didn’t have that. And that’s what I’m disappointed about. And I’ll see the police chief about it.

“When we get to this end, who’s going to be controlling the end? Especially when you have 137 shots.”

McGinty revives corruption investigation with state charges against Calabrese

A weekend surprise: Tim McGinty, who promised to crack down on public corruption when he ran for Cuyahoga County prosecutor, is picking up some leads from the federal government’s six-year-old county corruption investigation. Just when you thought everyone had pleaded guilty, it looks like there's more to come.

Late today, a grand jury indicted attorney Anthony Calabrese III (pictured) on two counts of bribery and one charge of theft by deception. All three charges seem closely related to federal charges to which Calabrese has already pled guilty.

“Cuyahoga County Grand Jury Issues First Indictment for Corruption Related Offenses,” reads McGinty’s press release, which went out at 5:36 pm. And yes, that word “first” implies what you think it implies.

“There will be more indictments,” McGinty’s spokesperson, Maria Russo, said this evening. She wouldn’t elaborate.

Calabrese is charged with bribing Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, indirectly, by directing J. Kevin Kelley to pay for their tickets to Las Vegas in 2008, in order to get Dimora and Russo to help restore funding to Alternatives Agency, a nonprofit Calabrese represented as a lawyer. In the theft by deception charge, Calabrese is accused of getting Alternatives Agency to pay Kelley and Anthony Sinagra as consultants, even though they did no work.

But Calabrese has already pled guilty to federal charges involving the trip to Vegas and the consulting payments to Kelley and Sinagra – bribery, bribery conspiracy and mail fraud conspiracy, to be exact.

So what’s going on?

Today’s charges could be part of a mop-up operation, where McGinty looks at whether leads from the FBI investigation point to violations of state law. He may be looking to file direct charges of bribery and theft where the feds could only make conspiracy, wire fraud or mail fraud charges.

McGinty may also be taking over late-breaking leads in the corruption probe. Federal law has a five-year statute of limitations on bribery and similar crimes, so the U.S. Attorney’s time to file new charges from the corruption probe is running out. (The FBI raided the county building, breaking up the corruption regime, on July 28, 2008.) But Ohio has a six-year statute of limitations, so McGinty has more time.

What might the new lead be?

I wonder if McGinty is probing Calabrese and Kelley’s relationship because he wants to know if they corrupted the county’s 2005 purchase of the Ameritrust complex. County executive Ed FitzGerald told me in January that he’s asked McGinty to probe Calabrese’s relationship to the Ameritrust deal.

At one point last year, federal prosecutors alleged that Calabrese promised to reward Kelley if he successfully lobbied Jimmy Dimora to vote to buy the Ameritrust property. Two months after the sale, the feds claimed, Kelley received $70,000 and a company with a tie to Calabrese received $99,000 from unidentified sources.

But the feds aren’t pursuing that lead anymore. They included it in a witness tampering charge against Calabrese, but dropped that charge in exchange for Calabrese’s guilty plea on 18 other counts.

Calabrese, unlike the other federal corruption defendants, didn’t agree to cooperate with investigators when he pled guilty. So the new charges could increase the pressure on Calabrese to make a deal with McGinty. (Calabrese also faces charges in an unrelated case: he's charged with trying to bribe rape victims to change their testimony at a sentencing.)

Calabrese is the last big lead in the corruption probe.  What more might he know?

Update, 4/14: The Plain Dealer runs a front-page followup today that's basically an 1,120-word question mark. It quotes a bunch of people puzzled over what the hell McGinty's doing. The story says McGinty "stunned federal officials" by charging Calabrese, but doesn't give details.

If McGinty really is just going to pile state charges on top of everyone's federal charges, that's really weird.  I still think McGinty may be trying to work his way up to probing the Ameritrust scandal. But Jim Jenkins, attorney for corruption defendant Daniel Gallagher, offers the PD another theory: McGinty may be trying to go after the corrupt officials' pensions.

Linndale sues, holds mayors court one last time

{Updated, 3/27; see bottom of post.} 

A guy walked into Linndale’s tiny courtroom today, threw himself onto a seat, and held his head in his hands. His hair was uncombed, his stubble days-long, as if he’d almost slept through his 3:30 pm court date.

He contemplated the crumpled court papers in his hand and shook his head. He may have been one of Linndale’s last defendants ever. But if he knew that, it wasn’t consoling him.

The Linndale mayor’s court held an unusual Tuesday session today, blitzing through two weeks’ worth of scofflaws while it still could. On Friday,* a new state law makes mayor’s courts illegal in towns with less than 201 people.

Linndale, official population 179, is fighting back. The microvillage and operator of I-71’s most famous speed trap is suing to try to stop the law. A hearing on the challenge is set for tomorrow afternoon in Columbus.

Meanwhile, mayor’s court magistrate George Sadd conducted court today as he always has, with a quirky cheerfulness that reflects the ambience of Northeast Ohio’s quirkiest town.

A defendant rose, holding his year-old daughter. Dressed in pink, she hung onto her father’s shoulder and his black coat’s furry hood.

“You wanna talk?” Sadd asked her. “Wanna be his lawyer? Did he say he was guilty?”

Actually, Dad pled not guilty. He was cited for speeding while driving a ’91 Nissan. He actually drives a ’95 Ford Escort. Sadd dismissed his case.

The last few defendants sagged in their seats, wearing glum, chastened, about-to-be-fined looks.

“You should be very happy today,” Sadd told them. “This is the last day of winter!”

Tomorrow, the first day of spring, is also D-Day for Linndale.* TV news vans will likely descend on the town’s eight streets, driving a careful 25 mph, waiting to see if the new law will actually end the village’s 46-year-old speed trap.

Sadd turned to Mike Toczek, the clerk of courts and the town’s top civilian employee. “Mike, don’t let anybody rile you tomorrow,” he counseled. “Just answer questions to the best of your ability.”

Soon, Sadd saw my notebook and realized the media onslaught had already begun. While he waited for one last defendant’s lawyer to arrive, he started chatting.

“This is a good court,” Sadd told me. “I’m very good with the plea bargains here, trying to help everybody out.”

Linndale issues traffic tickets at a fantastic rate: about 2,700 annually per 100 residents, by far the highest ratio in Ohio. And the rate might even be higher than reported.

My 2011 article, “Greetings From Linndale,” co-written with Mark DeMarino, found strange discrepancies in Linndale’s official 2010 census count of 179: a block that's not really in Linndale, a block where 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. We also found that police went door-to-door, encouraging people to fill out census forms, a practice the Census Bureau said was inappropriate and could intimidate people.

The new law’s sponsor, Sen. Tom Patton, has argued that Linndale issues tickets disproportionately to fund the town budget. Sadd disagrees.

“What does the number of people in the village have to do with enforcement of traffic laws?” he asked. “Trained police officers issue tickets on highways. The residents sit at home and watch TV.”

Sadd heard 40 defendants’ cases today; 93 more have a court date on March 27. Will the court be open then, despite the law?

“Yes,” Sadd insisted. He invited me to come back. “We’ll have tea and doughnuts for you.”

*Update, 3/20: A judge has denied Linndale's request for a preliminary injunction, so the law is set to go into effect on Friday.

(The Ohio Supreme Court ordered Linndale and other tiny mayor's courts to cease operation as of March 20, which is 90 days after the governor signed the bill. But the law actually takes effect on the 22nd, 90 full days after it was filed with the Secretary of State.)

Update, 3/27: Linndale has won a stay of the mayor's court law pending an appeal. The tiny towns' lawyers and the state attorney general's office will face off at the appeals court this summer.  

Justice Department investigating Cleveland police

The debate over the Nov. 29 police chase and shooting got bigger today. A top civil rights lawyer for the Justice Department, with Mayor Frank Jackson at his side, announced an investigation into whether the Cleveland police have engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force.

It’s not a criminal investigation, but it could result in the federal government asking or demanding reforms in the police department. It’s not just about the November shooting, but that’s definitely part of it.

“We initiated our investigation after a careful, considered review process that spanned police activity over a number of years,” said Tom Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, at a morning press conference. U.S. Attorney Steve Dettelbach confirmed that the Nov. 29 shooting was part of the feds’ review.

Dettelbach said the preliminary inquiry was launched last year in response to requests from the mayor, U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, the NAACP, and local clergy. Those requests all came in December. Some specifically asked the feds to investigate the Nov. 29 shooting.

The announcement reframes the debate about Cleveland police’s use of force: It’s not just about one chase on one night, but a possible pattern. Dettelbach confirmed today that his office is still investigating the police use of force against Ernest Henderson after a high-speed chase in January 2011. (For a roundup of several recent allegations of excessive force in Cleveland, including the Henderson case, see this Plain Dealer article.)

Jackson’s presence at the press conference may also get the town beyond the debate it got stuck in last month, over whether the Nov. 29 chase was a “systemic failure in the Cleveland Police Department.” Mike DeWine, the state attorney general, said it was. Police chief Michael McGrath disagreed. Jackson left the question open. (See my new profile of Jackson for more on this.)

“[If] we need to do better in areas, then we will gladly change,” Jackson said today.

But I doubt that means the chief’s head on a platter, as some critics demanded last month. Jackson said today that he, McGrath and safety director Martin Flask have worked on maintaining trust between citizens and police for “all the time that I have been mayor, this chief has been chief, [and] this director has been director.”

Jackson values loyalty, and it sounds like he still views McGrath and Flask as loyal subordinates who are willing to go as far as he wants to change the department. That means the questions rebound on Jackson too. Has he done enough to discourage excessive force? And if no, what more must he do?

The Mayor’s next challenges: Between the lines at the State of the City

Mayor Frank Jackson’s State of the City talk today felt very friendly, a polite discourse replacing a long checklist speech. But if you listened carefully -- to the questions Jackson answered and the questions he didn’t -- you could hear hints of several big challenges the mayor has to tackle this year and beyond:

Vacant homes. “Fifteen thousand abandoned houses in Cleveland. The city is tearing down 2,000 a year,” TV anchor Leon Bibb said. “Can you increase that rate?”

Great question, one of Bibb’s most pointed of the day. And more important than maybe he knew. City Hall actually tore down only 728 vacant homes last year, down from a peak of 1,708 in 2009. Homeowners and the county land bank demolish the rest.

“We cannot afford to address all of what we need to address,” Jackson replied. “In six years, we’ve spent over $50 million, and we still have this problem.”

He’s right -- the problem is too big for the city to tackle alone. That’s why local congresspeople are trying to pass a bill to use federal money to demolish homes in Cleveland and other foreclosure-torn cities. But Jackson didn’t mention their effort.

Instead, he nodded toward councilman Jeff Johnson’s argument for demolishing fewer homes and preserving more -- without endorsing it. In the end, he said, “I believe Cleveland will be in a much better position to take that abandoned property that now has become vacant land and develop some redevelopment of Cleveland’s neighborhoods.” OK, but to go from abandoned home to vacant land, you need to tear stuff down!

The waterfront. Bibb asked what the city’s doing to better develop the riverfront and lakeshore. Jackson touted the Flats East Bank project, then said his waterfront task force is drafting a request for qualifications from developers interested in building along North Coast Harbor. The city’s Twitter feed sang backup –

Mayors advisory committee is preparing to issue a Request for Qualifications for developers this spring for Lakefront Development
— City of Cleveland (@CityofCleveland) March 13, 2013

Spring? This is taking a while. In a December interview, the mayor told me he expected the task force to deliver him a draft by January.

Jackson’s playing catch-up here – he lost four years of opportunity at the waterfront on a scuttled plan to move the port. While reporting my new profile of Jackson, I heard from Clevelanders who asked why he isn’t tackling the waterfront project with some of the urgency he applied to the schools.

“Developers actually see this as an opportunity,” Jackson told Bibb, “and I believe developers will come forward.” Let’s hope so.

The port. “The port authority levy went down,” Bibb noted. “What happens now with the port?” Good question. But then Bibb stepped on it by bringing up the waterfront plan again. Jackson responded to the second question but dodged the first.

The port’s future is a fair question to ask Jackson, who appoints six of the port board’s nine members. The November levy request would’ve addressed a big wish list on the lakefront and waterfront, including a pedestrian bridge from downtown to North Coast Harbor and a plan to shore up the eroding Irishtown Bend. Jackson and Ed FitzGerald’s administrations teamed up to write the wish list, but neither campaigned for the levy beyond putting their names on mass mailings.

Now it looks like the port will return to voters this year with a modest request for a renewal levy, not an increase. Which of those projects on the wish list will it still take on? And how will they be paid for?

The police shooting. Bibb politely asked Jackson for his thoughts on the November police chase and shooting, and Jackson again said he won’t make judgments until the city’s investigation is complete. He repeated his “inside the box, outside the box” metaphor, about whether officers followed the city’s policies and procedures.

“If people are within the box, and they’ve conducted themselves appropriately, they don’t have anything to worry about. If they have not, they do have something to worry about,” Jackson said. “It depends on how far outside and how severe [their] actions were.” Fair enough. But the attorney general says 60 police officers went “outside the box” to join a high-speed chase without permission. Will the mayor punish them all?

The schools. Bibb asked the mayor how to get more parental involvement in the schools. This is a polite way of bringing up the most cynical, sweeping critique of the mayor’s school reforms, the argument that no reforms will work if parents don’t parent.

Encouraging more involvement is part of the plan, Jackson said. But he also argued that more parents will get involved if they see the schools get better. “People have to believe things are relevant to them,” he said. “As we become more successful, I believe that will lead to greater participation.” He challenged parents and others to insist on better schools and a broader effort by business to help them improve. “The community should hold the public and private sector to a much higher level of expectation than they do now.”

Later, a retired teacher held Jackson accountable, asking him how the district will attract talented teachers if they may face classes with more than 40 or 50 students. Jackson partially dodged this one. “You mentioned 50-something kids in one class,” he replied. “I could probably tell you about another with less than 20.”

But Cleveland does have outrageous class sizes. Grades 4 through 12 average 40 to 41 students per class, schools CEO Eric Gordon told me this fall. (Grades K through 3 are OK, at 20 to 23.) Getting class sizes under control was a major argument for passing the school levy. Will Jackson and Gordon get it done?