Why? I guess he's got a lot of time on his hands and he's bored. My understanding is his new wife [actress Kate Mulgrew] was very successful on Broadway with her Katherine Hepburn show, and she has a lot of work now, and he's home and needs something to do. Supposedly, corporate people, Republicans, have asked him to run against a Democrat. We've always had an incumbency rule to not run against a sitting Democrat. So he's listening to the corporate community instead of the Democratic party.
There are reports of business interests backing Hagan—who do you think is backing Hagan? Some of the corporate types in Cleveland Tomorrow & Growth Association. Joe Roman and Dennis Eckart would have a better idea. They said people in their organizations were unhappy- I don't' know what they are unhappy about. We put it [the convention center] on the ballet. [Mayor Jane] Campbell said she wouldn't support it, so we had to pull it off the ballot.
Why is Jones not being challenged? McCormack asked a lot of questions. Some of the corporate people didn't like the questions and delays. I guess that frustrated and perturbed them. We deal with McCormack on an every day basis, and that's how he is- he asks a lot of questions. Some people do, and some people don't. Maybe because they are CEOS and they don't get questioned in their daily jobs.
Any lessons learned from the failed convention center process? At the time we finally got to the ballot, the economy started to worsen. Economic conditions dictate how people are going to act. They get more anti-tax and closed-fisted. Timing is everything in this business. Gateway was 51/49, just a stroke of luck, skin of the teeth that it passed.
People have told me they are tired of the top-down, back-room approach and are looking for a new grass-roots approach. The only barometer or poll is the ballot. You can make announcements and do public hearings to put out the information to make the voters more educated or updated. I guess you could have more public hearings or more involvement. You can't have too much of that. It probably would have been better to go across the county to have more public meetings, to have more discussion and hear more public sentiment.
What's your opinion of the proposal to replace the 3 County Commissioners with a Chief Executive and an 11-member council? There's only one other county that has that form of government. It's been like that for over 20 years in Summit County. When you compare, they're not any better off than Cuyahoga County, financially, or for offering services. Not any better running, or more efficient, either. Why do you change something if it isn't broke? If it was such a good way to run county government, why aren't the other 87 counties using it after 20 years? My personal opinion is, there's personal agendas by Mike Wise and Trakas First, Mike Wise doesn't even live in Cuyahoga County; he lives in South Russell in Geauga County. The commissioners in that county spent over $1 million in legal fees in a spat over the jail. His agenda of personal reasons is because they can't get a Republican elected to a county-wide position. Trakas is term-limited out of state rep, this is his last two years in general assembly. The senator there is in for more four years. I think he's looking to get a job out of it.
Many people are suggesting that the reason the proposal for reform of the County government is lack of leadership. What is leadership and what's accountability? Every two years a commissioner is before the public. They have the opportunity to vote. We have a AAA bond rating. We have 1000 less employees than in 2002. We have a $100 million reserve fund. We're being recognized nationally for our childhood programs, and recognized across the state for our welfare reform success. I've got a report card that shows us pulling straight A's in Cuyahoga county. The commissioners didn't agree with the mayor and council president because we didn't want to give all the money away to one city [Cleveland], and that was why we wanted to split the funds 25% equally, instead of 10% to the arts, 30% to city neighborhoods, 25% to neighborhoods in the suburbs. To me that's leadership; we tried to fight for the county, since we're elected by the whole county. We tried to help them all equally and fairly. We have provided tremendous leadership and accountability. If we were in such bad condition and such bad public officials...
What do you think will happen with the election for Commissioner between Hagan and McCormack? I hope McCormack wins, I think he will. I don't see why not. He's raising money, he has a big fund raiser in February. It will be interesting to see what Trakas and Wise do. They had asked the bus community not to give money to Hagan, but to the county reform measure. That would put him in an awkward position. That gives McCormack a definite edge. I believe McCormack will get support from the unions, the building trades union.
Have you heard of any meetings scheduled to discuss this proposal? They haven't called anyone, they haven't done any community outreach. They want the 11-person county council members drawn up by the apportionate board, which is controlled by the republicans. That drew up a red flag in my opinion. They also mentioned minority representation. Now there is a one-third minority representation with Peter Lawson Jones, but in their proposal, only two districts would be minority. They didn't waste any time running Jamie Pilla against Jones. They say the Chief would run in a non-partisan general election, but they want to run primaries as either Democrat or Republican, then the general election without the party designation. But the parties will support their own candidates. I don't have a problem with reform. For example, the engineer could be appointed by the commissioners, the recorder could be rolled into the auditor position, I could be supportive if the community supports it. I know people don't like to lose the right to vote, so there's community input for any reform or change, especially when there's not pressing problems that come to the surface. People get confused that Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are the same government. I get letters about us laying off police and fire, and we don't have anything to do with that, because that's the city of Cleveland.
Have the Commissioners passed a resolution indicating how much of the money this levy raises would be dedicated to the arts & culture? Not yet, but we'll have it done by next week 1/15 or 1/16 we'll put a public plan out. It sounds like it will be half (for the arts). We're getting research and documentation showing what the money will be used for. We want to show in black and white where the money's going. We've asked people including [Community Partnership for Arts and Culture president Tom] Shorgl as to how the money will be spent. I'm pretty sure we're going to rubber stamp them as long as they look like they make sense and they're valid.
How much do you think it will take for a successful economic development/arts & culture levy campaign? I say a minimum of $500,000 would be enough, but others say $1 million. If you put $125,000 a week on in February, that should do it.
Is there a question as to whether the arts community can raise enough money? That's certainly important for the success of the levy. Because you can't put a question in front of the voters without educating them, or the natural reaction is to vote "no." We have our own Health and Human Services levy that we're raising money for. We can't take it for granted, and we have to raise money for that campaign. We're not raising any money for the econ development levy. That's the arts community. They knew that they would be the source of funding for that campaign.
It seems like this economic development/arts & culture levy came about unexpectedly. Because the convention center was a priority, then that dropped out, so we resurrected the arts levy and combined it with an economic development piece.
Some have said that the effect of this rushed effort for a levy so quickly is really an effort to push the idea of an arts levy aside, to let it fail at the ballot, then be able to claim that the arts weren't supported. We didn't make that decision - we let Shorgl and some of the arts community decide whether to put this on or not. We said we'd put it on if you get the money. At the County meeting, you had Bogolmony, the Orch PR person, they had a number of people from PHS, from the Art Museum. There was about 75-80 people from the arts in support of it.
What have commissioners done thus far to support the arts & economic development levy? We put out a news release, and whenever we're asked, we say we support it. We encourage people to vote for it. Our first priority is the Health and Human Services campaign. Our fund raising is going strictly towards that. The arts community was aware they would have to raise the money for the campaign.
Interview by Thomas Mulready
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