Editorial: Cuyahoga County politicians unwittingly bolster case for reform

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

CLEVELAND — The news that in recent months the Cuyahoga County commissioners spent twice as much time doing the public’s business behind closed doors as they did in public fuels the imperative for a sensible change in how the county’s leadership operates.

The Board of Commissioners suffers from overlapping and sometimes conflicting roles: It makes policy and allocates money like a legislative body, and also functions as an administrative body, handling things like personnel and legal matters, or real estate transactions. One result of that duality is a habit of long executive sessions and relatively perfunctory public meetings.

A coalition of bipartisan reformers has drafted a charter that would restructure county government for the better: A single elected executive would handle administrative matters, with an 11-member elected council functioning as the legislative branch.

It would provide the checks and balances Americans have embraced at other levels of government, add accountability and transparency, create clear lines of authority and responsibility, and discourage the patronage and cronyism that have made today’s county government the epicenter of a far-reaching public corruption probe.

The proposed reform would bring county government decisions into the light. Legislation and contracts would be presented to the council for a vote, allowing for public debate. Department heads, most of whom would be subject to the direct authority of the executive, would also be subject to the council’s oversight and its questions — asked in public.

Today’s outdated county oligarchy asks such questions in private, and can avoid them altogether. Some states require that minutes be kept in at least some closed meetings, and made public after the issues are resolved or are no longer considered sensitive. Ohio, unfortunately, isn’t one of them.

Supporters of county government reform want to get their plan on the November ballot — a task that will require the signatures of 45,000 registered voters by July 13.

The time for change is now.

The current system of county government has lost its credibility, and not just because of the corruption investigation in which Commissioner Jimmy Dimora figures as “Public Official 1,” and county Auditor Frank Russo as “Public Official 2.” Whether either is ever charged with a crime is a side issue.

The real issue is that, no matter who is in office, the government’s very structure invites the kind of abuse that serves the selfish interests of elected officials and bureaucrats at the expense of the people of Cuyahoga County.

Some public officials who feel comfortable with county government as it is are resisting the proposed changes.

In separate events Monday, Dimora and fellow Commissioner Tim Hagan lashed out at this newspaper for doing its job.

Hagan bristled at a news story detailing the commissioners’ frequent retreats into closed session. His overwrought, self-serving outburst merely underlined the need for a structural change that would allow the county’s leaders to do the public’s business in public view.

Dimora, meanwhile, accused The Plain Dealer and the U.S. Department of Justice of participating in a Republican-driven conspiracy against him, with the ultimate goal of weakening the Democratic Party in Cuyahoga County so as to defeat Barack Obama last November.

He did not explain how The Plain Dealer’s endorsements of Obama in both the March primary and the November general election fit into the grand scheme.

But these are merely distractions and delusions. They are important only as evidence of the need for improvements in the structure of county government — a cause this newspaper will continue to support enthusiastically.

Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland.com, Wednesday, July 01, 2009.

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