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17 Responses to “Roldo on proposed Cuyahoga County reforms”

1. J Murray Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

   There has been a trend across the country to replace a multi-headed county commission with a single executive. The reasons for this include the dysfunction that occurs when there is no one person responsible and accountable for actions, and when there are three or more people each of whom has vague, overlapping, and often contradictory executive functions–like the current County Commission.

   Roldo seems to think that having the people running a county be elected is the key to accountability, in spite of much evidence that the current structure neither is working nor provides much accountability. A single executive would have clear authority, would be exposed for good and bad actions, and would be subject to replacement if results were not delivered.

   Voters continue to return to office–over and over again–people who clearly are not performing effectively in office, but who are good at getting elected. Skill at getting elected (which is really a popularity contest, after all) is not a precursor to good executive management; indeed, there is lots of evidence to suggest that there is a negative correlation between the two.

   Roldo also seems to think that a legislature somehow improves executive functioning–in the face of clear evidence that legislators (again who are good at getting elected) are fractious, subject to pressure from special interests, and demagogic.

   The best solution would have been the one that Cuyahoga County found to be politically unacceptable–because of Mayor Jackson’s objection: a single county executive.

   The real problem here isn’t the work that Abbott and Hagan did, but that Mayor Jackson stymied consideration of the solution that counties around the country have adopted to streamline and focus executive decisionmaking. Divided rule is ineffective. Cleveland is showing itself, again, to be parochial and uninterested in learning from progress that is being made in the world around us. Direct some of your outrage there.

2. roldo bartimole Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

   The plan keeps three county commissioners, gives all the power to one and without any monitoring other than an election. A single executive – as typical with other levels of government – with a legislative process to keep the powerful executive under some restraint and monitoring makes sense to me.

   Even under this plan there are some elected officials.

   I think an elected official in charge of the treasurer, auditor and recorder offices also makes some sense.

   Would J like to be rid of the Senate and House and allow the President to make all decisions with no alternative other than a four-year election?

3. John Ettorre Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 2:37 pm

   Jonathan, being “fractious and subject to pressure from special interests” has another name. It’s called democracy. You may want to impose the private sector’s clean efficiency on the public sector, but that’s always at war with the necessary messiness of governing big, disparate places full of competing interests. It’s just in the nature of the beast, and there’s no getting around some of that messiness.

4. J Murray Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

   Roldo, please explain to me why it makes sense to elect a treasurer, auditor, and recorder? These are functional jobs, not political ones, intended to provide professional service to the public. Having them be elected positions results in bloated staffs full of campaign loyalists, cronies, and families of the people elected to those positions–not professionals oriented to serving the public. Didn’t the recent series in the Plain Dealer make this clear? Someone’s favorite lap dancer on the public payroll? Come on.

   I wouldn’t do away with the Senate and the House, but I would make them part-time positions. This would require legislators to get real jobs, meet payroll, and live under the fakokta set of laws they make the rest of us operate under. I think this would greatly improve government.

   John, then you have no right to complain about the results–or lack thereof. The current structure got us where we are today, and can’t get us somewhere else. The watered-down “reform” that is politically acceptable will not generate the desired result.

5. Ed Morrison Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

   Jonathan:

   The core problem in Cuyahoga County is the number of government employees per capita. That’s what’s driving costs upward.

   I do not see much in the reform proposals that addresses these imbalances which, as we illustrated at REI, are severe. http://lin.cr/9vi

6. Ed Morrison Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

   The current government reform talk in Cuyahoga County misses the point of open innovation in government. http://lin.cr/9vn

7. roldo bartimole Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 4:55 pm

   No. I said one person in charge of the three offices.
   For one thing, that person would have the stature and voice to be a competitive officer to a single county executive. Competition is good.

   I find it a bit ironic that I’m apparently siding with the two Republicans on the study committee who voted against the final report. That’s Mayor Burce Akers and Mayor Jerry Hruby and Jonathan sides with the Democratic majority.

   I wouldn’t argue that some offices are overstaffed and that’s not good. But Jonathan I’d like to hear you on the tens of millions of dollars the county has spent on Gateway and other projects and in particular the messup on the convention center deal and the E.9th deal. Those are costing taxpayers much more than bloated budgets especially since they are combined with city subsidies of all kinds, including tax abatement and tax incremental financing, which comes most heavily from the Cleveland public schools.

8. Gloria Ferris Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 5:18 pm

   I for one see no good outcome to having the treasurer APPOINTED.

   What happens to the checks and balances need?

   If you have the very people overseeing the appointment of the person in charge of the county coffers, how does that make it a better system?

   We think that the process is not open and transparent now. How does making less people accountable to the voting public a better way to go?

   Granted, I would say that our voters have not done the best job of voting for competent administrators but have gone with party politics and name recognition, but how does changing our form of government change that outcome?

   From my point of view, voting in fewer elected officials only undermines the voting public and the check and balances that are needed so that government can work.

   Just because it doesn’t work in Cuyahoga County doesn’t mean that it can’t.

   And why were all the models investigated those that have SMALLER legislative bodies. Were Pittsburgh and Summit County considered?

   And Roldo, I guess that ironically the phrase politics makes for odd bedfellows is proven in this instance in regard to J. Murray and you.

9. roldo bartimole Says:
   November 14th, 2008 at 5:54 pm

   Yes, Gloria, although I admit the reasons the mayors opposed do differ from mine. It appears the Republicans are shut out again. It’s really not healthy, as we can see from County government not, not to have some opposition party to keep the Dems honest.

10. Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    The Republicans could start by actually running candidates for office here, even if they lose big.

    I think they should be kicked off the ballot line if they won’t use it. Perhaps the Libertarians, Greens, or Communists want to be our local opposition party.

11. J Murray Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

    Ed, yes, there are too many public employees–because they are given staff jobs with salaries but no public service role in between the campaigns that is their real function. Reduce the number of elected positions–such as treasurer, recorder, and auditor–and you will automatically reduce staffs, because the elected people now filling those offices and staffing them with their incompetent cronies would be out, and professionals who would staff those positions with other professionals would be in. If they were accountable for their budgets and head counts to a single executive, it would be even better because accountability would be better.

    Roldo, I think the Republicans voted against the final report because they wanted a single county executive, not because they favor electing all these positions.

    I do not and never will defend Gateway and its associated projects and arguments. Sports stadia create many fewer permanent, good paying jobs than their advocates claim. I don’t think their “costing” as much as you claim, though, but that’s because you and I have different world views. I do not count revenues that governments could have gotten in some theoretical world but didn’t get because of tax breaks as “cost” or “lost.” Without the project, those revenues would have been zero.

    You still haven’t explained why treasurer, recorder, and auditor should be elective positions.

    Gloria, nice idea in theory, but in practice Hah! The people who run for office are politicians, not auditors, treasurers, or administrators. They win elections by being good at winning elections. Competent professionals are not attracted by having to win elections. So, it’s a nice pipe dream to live in the fantasy world that electing these officials improves something–accountability you call it–but the reality is that we get politicians and their cronies performing critical functions that serve the public. I’m all for transparency and accountability, but those objectives are seldom achieved through the ballot box.

12. steve stepak Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 9:07 pm

    Some counties have 4 or 5 commissioners and 6 serving as chair.

    Each of the 4 or 5 are elected by region/ward within the county. The chair is elected the all regions in an “at-large” position.

    The elections are non-partisan. What wrong with that?

13. roldo bartimole Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    J – thought I explained it above. All three would be under one elected official.

    We differ on the hundreds of millions spent on the two stadiums and arena and the tens of million not paid in property taxes as they are all tax exempt.

    Why shouldn’t the teams pay the cost?

    Don’t you pay for your home, your office?

    The Republicans, I believe, voted against because there
    was no body elected from districts around the county, which would have given Republicans a chance to win some of the seats.

14. Gloria Ferris Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

    WHy is it a pipe dream to believe that elected officials should want to serve the public? I would say that that cyncism of politicians running only to get elected would extend all the way up the ladder. Can we really be saying here that less checks and balances less elected positions and more appointed positions by that fewer number of “elected” officials woud be a better way to govern?

    That would be like saying the GCP should run the world. I am not ready for that kind of governance, are you?

15. J Murray Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Steve, there’s nothing wrong with anything, if your measure of success is electoral process. If your measure of success, however, is productivity, the ratio of public workers per citizen, or some other meaningful measure of the burden of the public sector on private citizens, who care about electoral process? See Ed’s posts.

    Roldo, so you are suggesting that there be a unitary executive elected by the public, and he would then hire professionals? Right. He would hire his cronies, which is little different from the current situation. County jobs are currently heavily weighted towards being staffed by the people who staff the campaigns of elected officials. How will your proposal alter this?

16. roldo bartimole Says:
    November 14th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    NO, no, no, J. Didn’t you read the piece. That is essentially what the plan calls for – one boss without any conterveiling balance. There would be three commissioners but ONE would be king. That’s what the plan asks. ANd, please, read the report itself.

17. J Murray Says:
    November 15th, 2008 at 12:08 am

    Roldo, I’m advocating a hired chief executive, not an elected official, even if there is one of three that, on paper, dominates. In practice, we’re still in a political world. I did, of course, read the report.