Are We Safe With Zanotti Taking A Reform Lead?

You may have missed, as I did, an important profile of Martin Zanotti one of the leaders in the Cuyahoga County reform saga. Damian Guevara of the Scene gave us a revealing picture of the guy who has taken a lead in the transition stage for the new county government.

It's not a pretty picture he paints.

The Plain Dealer has been hammering away on the issue of transparency as revealed by the fact that there have been private meetings by those set up to facilitate the changeover. Presently, the County is governed by three County Commissioners. The new reform voted in last November has a County Executive and a legislative 11-member County Council.

Once again we have public business being conducted privately. The issue became front-page news after a WCPN-radio show talk revealed that transition meetings had been closed to the public and to reporters.

After bad publicity on the radio and in the Plain Dealer along with a threat by the ACLU of a suit, the transition folk backed off. It will now meet publicly.

Here's the link to the Zanotti story. It should be required reading for those following the reform move.

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.