Who's Telling the Truth in Hough?

In America, the people are afraid of the government;
in France, the government is afraid of the people.

Is a lie no longer a lie because it's written on City Council stationary? Was it communist dictator Joseph Stalin who said, "A lie can be turned into the truth if it's repeated often enough by enough people"? These are the hard questions we residents of Ward 7 have to ask ourselves as we prepare to vote for the future of the Hough community on October 12.

The truth is, someone is lying on our esteemed, deceased Councilwoman Fannie M. Lewis. City Council President Martin Sweeny is stating — now in writing, on stationary that bears the seal of City Council — that Fannie wanted him to name Stephanie Howse to take Lewis' place on Council. However, our ward club president, Charles Demore, who was very close to Fannie for many, many years, steadfastly maintains that she made no such recommendation. In the presence of numerous witnesses, Fannie dictated her wishes to Jackie Mohammad, who was acting as the ward club secretary. (Click on the agenda for the August 8 ward club meeting, as well as the letter from City Council).

Fannie — in the presence of witnesses mind you — stated "If anyone wants to be councilperson of Ward 7, they have to go to the people and convince the people they are the best person for the job." Her exact words were read at the ward club meeting while Ms. Lewis was still alive; if they were not an accurate reflection of her intentions, she certainly would have made it known loud and clear. She never was known to bite her tongue.

Now, Sweeney was present at the ward club meeting when Fannie’s words were read, and he didn’t dispute or question their veracity at the time. In fact, he has never questioned the statement. Why? He didn't speak up and say that Fannie had told him something different a week prior to the meeting. Why? Why did he wait until after Fannie was dead before making his now fishy-sounding claim? Again, why?

Residents of Ward 7 showed up to the City Council session where Fannie's replacement was to be voted on in droves, petitions in hand. We were asking that an interim replacement be named until the Oct. 14 special election. In this manner no one candidate would be given the advantage of incumbency over others seeking the position. As Mayor Jackson stated to me the weekend before the meeting, the incumbent always wins.

Sweeney knew that he was stacking the deck for Howse, and when Demore presented the petitions (signed by virtually all of the precinct committeepersons in the ward) the council president gave them short-shrift indeed: He didn't even pretend to give them consideration — he never bothered to even glance at them — before moving on to the business of overriding the wishes of almost an entire community.

Let's revisit the period immediately before the councilwoman's death. Another of her colleagues on City Council, Zack Reed, stated that when he (along with his aide, who was a witness) visited Fannie the week prior to her death, she did not speak of a replacement; she spoke only of the inevitably of Council being reduced. "She said that if City Council doesn’t reduce itself by four seats, the voters would do it," said Reed. "She named the four seats she thought would be eliminated, and her ward was one of them."

This makes sense. If Fannie thought that her ward would be eliminated by Council being reduced, why would she make the futile effort of naming someone to take her place? The residents of Ward 7 have to decide whom to believe: Both versions can't be the truth.

It's really that simple. The future of Hough is at stake here, and that future is too important to us who live in Ward 7 for this issue to be determined by mendacity from the mouth of Martin Sweeney. We’re not about to roll over and play dead for City Council. Trust me, there’s more to come in regards to this issue... a lot more. Stay tuned as the residents of Hough show other communities how to take back control from City Council. We, the citizenry, run Ward 7 — not Sweeney.

Just watch.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com
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