Last week voters overwhelmingly approved Issue 6 — a charter to restructure county government – and unwittingly reinforced the jaded notion that money gets you everything in politics. Campaign fundraising wasn’t even close; corporate supporters of Issue 6 pitched in most of the $609,000 used in the winning campaign, compared to a meager $77,000 raised by the backers of competing Issue 5 (which called for continued study of county government reform).
It’s clear that the passage of Issue 6 benefits the area’s big-money
elite. The Greater Cleveland Partnership led the charge, paying
$100,000 for a paid petition drive to place Issue 6 on the ballot. The
list of corporate supporters for county restructuring included Parker
Hannifin Corp., National City Bank, Forest City Enterprises, Ernst and
Young, Cliffs Natural Resources, Baker Hostetler, KeyCorp, Sherwin
Williams Co., and the Eaton Corporation.
Days before the election, you couldn’t drive anywhere in Cleveland
without seeing a pro-Issue 6 sign. Combine that visibility with the
Plain Dealer‘s non-stop barrage of “county in crisis”
headlines, and Issue 6 was destined for victory, most observers
say.
Yet all the money in the world can’t guarantee a fix for the kind of
corruption the feds have unearthed in their lengthy investigation.
Voters in Cuyahoga County were taken in by big money’s big deception on
Issue 6: That it would address and clean up corruption in county
government. Nothing in the new charter can really prevent
corruption.
Only time will tell if our new government will give us the kind of
self-serving officials the “reformers” of Issue 6 rallied against. Here
are four things to watch for to tell if the new system will be as
easily influenced by money and favors as the one we’re scrapping.
A transition process dominated
by business interests
Issue 6 was written by a handful of never-identified people without
community involvement. When a broader, more representative second tier
of people was brought in, they were told that for all practical
purposes the work of creating a charter was done. Their presence was
simply to make the charter appear more widely supported.
So it’s hardly surprising that they launched the more representative
Issue 5 in response.
At least 34 of the 41 members of the Issue 6 co-chair committee are
connected to business, and there was little or no representation from
education, labor, social services, neighborhood groups, the faith
community and the Hispanic community, to name just a few. Most of the
endorsing mayors were either Republicans and/or represent tiny, white,
outer-ring enclaves. Donations to the campaign came in chunks that
would represent annual income for most of us (Eaton Corp. and Parker
Hannifin Corp. pitched in $50,000 apiece).
Now that 6 has passed, the county board of commissioners must assign
three high-ranking county administrators to oversee the transition.
They have yet to do so, but county administrator James McCafferty, the
county’s ranking bureaucrat, has taken on the responsibility. He’s
already working on a transition budget and will have to consider myriad
details about the makeover. When asked how much the transition is
expected to cost, McCafferty declined to give an estimate but noted,
“It’s going to cost something.”
Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones is already resigned to the fact that
his term as county commission has been truncated by the passage of
Issue 6. Jones, like Scene, has heard that some of the county’s
rank-and-file workers are fearful for their jobs. Jones says workers
— a force of 8,500 — must be kept in the loop on their
status. Considering the number of cuts in recent years, Jones sees
little room for downsizing. “I think all hands will be needed on deck,”
he says.
Jones says he’s committed to fighting for the continued existence of
programs he had a hand in, including family, arts and economic
development programs. Issue 6 focused primarily on economic
development. If those interests are not balanced in the transition,
look for continued emphasis on flashy pie-in-the-sky projects at the
expense of rebuilding our neighborhoods and developing our human
capital. That’s corruption of the most devastating sort.
Bill Mason’s next move
Will Bill Mason decline to continue as county prosecutor? This is
essential to avoid the appearance that the new government is
already compromised. Mason was one of the instigators of the
restructuring process, despite his lack of background or apparent prior
interest in government reform. He was the only current elected county
official involved in the process and conveniently, his was the only job
— and political power base — retained under the
restructuring.
Even if Mason were a saint, the temptation to abuse political power
in the absence of the competing power bases that he personally
eliminated would be strong. As it is, there are already questions about
Mason’s inappropriate exercise of power, questions The Plain
Dealer helpfully downplayed during the Issue 6 campaign. It’s hard
to see how the new government could be trusted if Mason has unchecked
political power.
A candidate for county executive receiving large donations from
the same big-business interests that poured money into passing the
issue
Already the names surfacing — like Chris Ronayne and David
Abbott — have tight ties with the corporate community and
experience (and good reputations) in big-project management, but little
involvement with the difficult social issues facing the region. Perhaps
such a candidate would show different colors in a campaign, refusing to
accept huge corporate donations and focusing as much on human needs as
on managing development. If so, they’d deserve a listen. If not, they’d
be troubling choices.
Harriet Applegate, executive director of the North Shore AFL-CIO and
a staunch opponent of Issue 6, said a desirable county executive is one
that understands the needs of all county residents, not just business
interests. “It’ll really have to be a renaissance person, somebody who
cares about everybody,” says Applegate. She’s wary of an out-of-town
CEO-type who doesn’t understand the needs of the community.
One name to surface is that of Republican State Rep. Matthew Dolan,
son of Indians owner Larry Dolan. Dolan says he’s considering leaving
his Geauga County home and moving to Cuyahoga to run for the office.
Dolan was at one point considered a shoo-in to be Speaker of the House
if the Republicans retained control after the November 2008 election;
but when they didn’t, he wasn’t even able to install himself as
minority leader. Is he looking for another position to launch himself
into higher office?
Many people are rightfully suspicious that no campaign finance
controls were written into the Issue 6 charter on purpose. If
big-business money flows to a particular candidate, their suspicions
will be confirmed.
Corporate cheerleading from
Ohio’s largest newspaper
Critics like Jones and Applegate continue to call out The Plain Dealer for its involvement in the county restructuring
debate, a two-pronged attack that combined unabashed pro-Issue 6
editorializing with reporting that played up the paper’s tiresome
“county in crisis” slogan. The newspaper never really spelled out the
political motives of the players behind Issue 6, leaving readers to try
to piece together the true story for themselves — a nearly
impossible task. That fueled charges that the paper acted as a shill
for the wealthy and privileged of Greater Cleveland. The day after the
election, the PD gloated in an editorial that voters “weren’t fooled.”
In fact, the PD was a key player in making sure they didn’t have the
information they needed to avoid being fooled.
Can the paper be trusted to watchdog the restructuring process, the
new government and a hierarchy it’s campaigned for? Applegate says the
paper has become “obsessed with being a big political player. It’s not
a paper, it’s propaganda. They talk about a one-party county —
what about [the dangers of] a one-newspaper town?”
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2009.