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Aug
6
Last night, at the Pepper Pike Democratic Club, Peter Lawson Jones, one of the three Cuyahoga County Commissioners, addressed the group. He spoke about the two county government reform efforts that will be on the ballot for county residents this November.
He is an excellent speaker and I’ve appreciated that, from time to time at least, he has not voted in lockstep. When the tax for the MedMart project was being spirited through in short order two years ago, he was the one commissioner who supported the county residents who wanted to vote on whether the tax should be imposed or not. He did not shy away from the public taking to forums and addressing the inadequacies and, frankly, anger, many residents felt due to the patriarchal way Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora treated what they viewed as their right to initiate a tax so long as it was under a certain amount. The entire petition process to get such a tax hike on the ballot is another issue, but at least Jones didn’t just go along.
Last night, Jones described both ballot initiatives but he made the case for the commissioner-sponsored ballot effort. Their proposal would result in the formation of a charter commission that would make a recommendation that would then be implemented. He said that the commissioners themselves would have no control over the proposal produced by the commission. (Names of 15 potential members of the charter commission are to be released on Tuesday, according to this WCPN article from yesterday.)
The non-commissioner endorsed effort which really doesn’t seem to have a name that I’ve seen except if you call it by the names of the people working on it, would scrap the commissioners and other elected roles, and swap in a county executive who would be elected county-wide and then cut the county into 11 wards or districts.
Jones made the fiefdom argument and frankly, I can imagine what that could lead to, seeing how it is in the city of Cleveland and other locales. I thought his argument about how when you have to run county-wide, you have to know all of the county and be responsible to all of the county.
On the other hand, I asked him about essentially one-party rule in the county right now and he responded by talking about some of the GOP commissioners we’ve had in the past and the result of some of the times when GOP candidates have run and outspent him and have still been unable to draw enough votes to win – county-wide, the implication being that if they had the support and a good candidate, with all the money and the effort that should go with it, they should and would win – if they had what voters want.
Honestly – I’m not sure which I’m going to vote for. I think the charge of patronage in the current system being solved by the non-commissioner proposal is bunk. It’s not going to be solved and we’re being naîve if we think otherwise.
I’m not sure I’m entirely against their being wards that would then allow for some GOP-leaning districts to get GOP people into the council system because again, you would hope, that if the candidate is still no good, regardless of being outspent, the Dem could win.
Hmm – have we read whether these will be non-partisan ward races? Not that that would necessarily make a difference.
I don’t know – what do you think? Which proposal will you be voting for?
The most interesting question of the night had to do with what could happen if both ballot issues pass – would they both go into effect or would just one, under some formula gleaned from current case law?
Again – what do you think, Cuyahoga County residents?
Oh – the other thing Jones talked about: this has nothing to do with regionalism in his opinion. And I tend to agree – but he says that some of the proponents of the non-commissioner plan say it does push the envelope on regionalism – I don’t see it in the logic. You?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:58 pm August 6th, 2009 in Cleveland+, Government, Ohio, Pepper Pike, Politics
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8 Responses to “Peter Lawson Jones on Cuyahoga County Reform”
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I think the proposal cooked up by a handful of the region’s elite behind closed doors with no public input is very very bad, and I’m disappointed to see a lot of normally pretty plugged-in people supporting it just because they’re disgusted with the way some people in office have behaved and because the proponents have coopted certain popular individuals like Judy Rawson. I think they’re being played for suckers. You don’t scrap a system and railroad through another system in a huge hurry without public discussion because some people corrupted the system. People can corrupt any system.
This new system they are proposing functioning effectively depends on several things which are just as likely not to happen as they are to happen. First, you are investing almost unprecedented and unchecked power in a single individual — much more so than most of the other county executive governments I’ve looked at, including Summit County’s, the only Ohio county that doesn’t have the commissioner system. So that individual has to be brilliant, forward-thinking, dynamic, persuasive and uncorruptible. But — given human failings — he’s just as likely, if not more likely, not to be, especially since the position will be so powerful and such a springboard to state office — the only one left in Cuyahoga County with the other countywide offices gone — that it will be prohibitively expensive to run for and a successful candidate will almost certainly have to be in the pockets of big business and the downtown interests in order to raise campaign cash. Without serious campaign finance reform, it could easily have a bad outcome.
Then you will have a weak council of parttime members divided into fieffdoms. The only job they will have the time and energy for is to fight for their little scraps. In the system as it’s being proposed — take it or leave it, no changes — they don’t really have much power, and they’ll spend what little political capital they have looking after parochial interests.
I discount the old Plain Dealer line of “things would be so much more accountable if we only elected some Republicans.” MOST counties in this state are overwhelmingly one-party rule — mostly Republican. Simply electing a few people of the opposite party doesn’t automatically make good things happen; that’s propaganda from the right. I’ve never heard them suggest the reverse. Anyway, Marty Zanotti and Bill Mason, the main “Democrats” in the clique that cooked this up, really are clandestine Republicans. Our job is to elect good people, not assume that any artificial balance of party labels is in any way going to improve the situation.
What you are likely to have is a single, all-powerful individual controlled by the county’s wealthy and powerful and looking out for their interests, and it does’t matter what party tag this person has.
I don’t mind the proposal to convene a county reform commission to hold public hearings early next year and come up with an alternative proposal. In fact, I’m circulating petitions for it. But my real belief is we don’t NEED to reform the system, a system that works fine almost everywhere, including most of Ohio’s other counties. We need to get rid of the individuals that have corrupted this system — and would corrupt any other system they were part of.
Anastasia . . . wow . . . Bill Mason a clandestine Republican? No thanks. The Democrats can keep him.
Otherwise, I agree that both these proposals are being ramrodded through by elites without input from ordinary folk, and I also agree that these individuals that we’re talking about could corrupt any system that they’re part of.
A remedy I recommended on my own blog was changing the statewide election calendar so that county commissioner elections across the whole state would be held in odd-numbered years. Cuyahoga County, being overwhelmingly Democrat, would likely continue to elect Democrats as commissioners, but the big difference would be that they would be running at the top of the ticket in odd-numbered years, thereby receiving much more public scrutiny in the years they stand for election. By running in even-numbered years, these scoundrels hide in the coat-tails of presidential and gubernatorial races, with all media scrutiny directed at the top of the ticket, while the local candidates ride the party bandwagon encouraging voters to vote a straight party ticket.
If the scoundrels had to stand on their own two feet with no coat-tails to hide behind, I bet they’d fear the voters much more than they do now.
[...] Jill Miller-Zimon at Writes Like She Talks takes some time off from her Pepper Pike council campaign to give her account of County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones’ account of the two upcoming county refo…. [...]
This is like going to voting booth and seeing a choice between Jimmy Dimora or Tim Hagan. Neither are really looking out for you, your better off not putting anything down.
One proposal that we residents had no say, the other a stalling tactic. It’s our own county version of “shock doctrine”
Aw – this is the worst! I had 11,000 spam comments to get rid of and out of the corner of my eye just as I was hitting delete I saw one from a human – I am so sorry – I think it was Some Guy on Maple Dale or vale? ?
I know who you are – I apologize! Gawd I hate spam catching!
Steve – I feel your pain – if you’re feeling it from what you describe – I agree – you do a great job describing the situation. I just don’t know why with as many good souls as we have here that we end up this way. It makes no sense, defies logic, truly. Thanks for commenting.
I am ok with the proposal, and only because it allows for changes to the defined districts boundaries.
Ideally (IMO) the county would be divided up into districts that represented a potential for consolidation of municipal governments. I believe that those would be more cost effective having less bureaucracy. However they need to be all bounded to each other so some aspects would be county administered.
Consider one executive and one council for the county. However each council would be the chief executive of a district, then each district would also have its own council. The latter being combined municipalities within a district.
The central chief executive could have a functional cabinet that would over see each divisions districts common functions. For instance each district having its own school district, then they all are held accountable to the cabinets executive of education. The state and federal funding would come from or through a central regional executives administration.
That’s about a tiered system with separate budgets that are monitored through a central executive and cabinets and also a central council.
It’s about consolidating municipal governments into regional districts.
The county should monitor the statistics and apply intergovernmental funding though councils recommendations to meet defined goals.
So yes with the boundaries being flexible, the proposal could grow into a regional government.
Regionalism in Columbus changed the appearance of it demographics, that is what investor rely on, those values. I believe doing that and also addressing the values sincerely with that positive aspect could result in a compounding positive effect.
I still think the historic township boundaries are and should be the goal for districts and the consolidation of municipalities within them.
Jenifer Brunner is very sharp, she picked up on the conflict very quickly.
If you took the taxes paid towards education in a newly defined district and then the average spent per student with each current municipality within, then that would be interesting to evaluate. Then subtract the redundant costs of administration it should either offer more funding or less taxes. The same for fire and police….
In this day and age all the numbers could be feed into a software program and then define optimal boundaries and consolidations. Or you could define the boundaries then seek economic initiatives to meet target goals.
Altz iz gut,
Halevai
For over 10 years i have had the run around by the child support agency. Now i am to understand that nothing will be investigated on a child support payement until 10 days has gone by. Its bad enough that my ex-husband has been allowed to cheet the system and the government of his responsebilitys, and the system lets him get away with murder. I hope that the system gets better for future single moms trying to support there children in this bad economy.