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An open letter to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson

Dear Mayor Jackson:

I wanted to touch base with you as you make the final arrangements for your second state of the city speech.  You’ve held the mayor’s office now for a little more than a year and while I have not been overly supportive of your administration, I do believe that I have given you and your staff the benefit of the doubt.  When people ask me what I think your greatest strength is, I typically respond by commenting on your reserved demeanor and plodding approach to issues.  This character trait has served you well with your critics and earned the subdued enthusiasm of your supporters.  If I were grading your performance, I’d give you a “C”, not bad, not good - just average.

When I poll my fellow Clevelanders about their grading of your performance almost uniformally they concur with my rating.  What’s unfortunate about this is that they provide this feedback with a level of chagrin and then follow-up by telling me that they’ve been pleasantly surprised by the mediocre dispatch of your duties.  As if to say that they anticipated you would do much worse and “damn if he didn’t go and surprise us and not flush the city down the toilet!”

Even though I didn’t think you’d provide the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District with a Guiness-book worthy sized piece of flotsam, I was confident that your performance (barring a major unanticipated crisis) would be what it has been - blah.

I’m willing to turn a blind-eye to the “forgotten triangle” project which was so aptly named in that you’ve conveniently forgotten your support (or lack thereof).  I’m not holding you accountable for the failure of the city to recognize the tax loophole implications that accompanied Steelyard Commons (hey it occurred on the previous mayor’s watch… even though you were the City Council president AND the Finance Committee chair at the time).  That’s old news and water… err politics under the Lorain-Carnegie bridge.

But blah is not good enough.  It may qualify as acceptable to those in the community’s intelligensia ranks who prefer to lord over this once proud city’s slow cancer-like death, losing a busload of people everyday to the suburbs and points beyond.  And hey, what do they care - they’ll be dead by the time we drop below 200,000 residents (and besides they don’t actually live in the city, they just occasionally work here).  They like blah.  It’s easy to manage city hall when you know exactly how it will perform.

Not me, I’m tired of blah. 

I want a bold mayor.  I want Mike White to come back.  I want a mayor who will kick down doors and not take crap.  I want a mayor who does piss people off.  I want a mayor

who will let his cronies rob and steal the city blind, because in the end they’ll get stuff done.

I want a Daley-like mayor (he of Chicago’s Meigs Field lore) who would take a backhoe and a bulldozer to Burke Lakefront Airport - RIGHT NOW.  I want a mayor with real vision AND THE ABILITY TO PUT THAT VISION INTO ACTION.  Don’t show me another plan, get started and get it done.

I want a mayor who will go to Columbus (how often have you actually visited the state capitol since you took office?) and demand that the state legislature and the new Democratic Governor take on Cleveland as a project to move Ohio forward.  Tell them that manufacturing is dying, but not dead and the state’s draconian tax laws are stifling innovation in our urban centers.  Get the support, get the money, get it done.

Tell ODOT that they can’t drag their feet any longer on the innerbelt project.  Tell them to turn the shoreway into a boulevard, reroute I90 through a connector from I490 to University Circle and beyond.  Establish the lakefront as a gem for Clevelanders and all Northeast Ohioans to face with pride instead of the industrial wasteland to which we now turn our backs.

Housing?  We don’t need any more stinking new housing.  Screw tax abatements and the leverage they provide builders to entice people to move into the city and buy bigger, more expensive houses.  Don’t give me that stuff about how they bring their high -salaried income tax dollars with them and that’s a trade-off for the loss of property taxes - they already work here and we are getting a share of that money now. 

If you want to solve the housing issue… FIX THE DAMN SCHOOLS!  That’ll solve the housing issue.  We’ve got a HUGE inventory of great housing and convertible building stock.  If the schools are decent, folks will be clamoring to buy those houses, fix them up, and live with their families in the city… and they’ll be paying property taxes.

Speaking of the schools, with all due respect to Dr. Sanders and the impossible job ahead of him, uniforms and a name change will not make our schools better.  Having your lazy-ass, breast-groping (allegedly) brother on the district’s payroll won’t either.  While Sanders was knocking on doors and reminding parents of the upcoming proficiency exams, where were you?  If the schools are one of your biggest priorities you should have been holding hands with him all weekend long.  Sure you’re a hands-off manager, but this isn’t about management - it’s about using your bully pulpit to make a difference.  Improving those test scores would go a long way towards demonstrating that our schools are getting better.   Oh and by the way, if the schools show they’re improving, those aforementioned families who bought and improved the exisiting housing stock will willingly support levies because their kids will be going to those schools.

What else?

Recognize that this city will never top 500,000 in population again - and accept it.  Tell the truth - the population models of 1950 don’t work in a modern society where transportation and technology have made commuting (whether physically or virtually) the way of this region.  Like it or not the suburbs that surround us are our partners (which by the way I will say you’ve done well to reach out to) and engage them in a strategy for stability and coordinated services that we can all embrace.  Sure we can be a “city of choice”, but as we move forward we must return to our status as the heart that pumps the region instead of the suction cup that sucks it down the drain.

Challenge city council.  You’re the mayor, not the 22nd councilman.  Be a leader who leads, and let Marty Sweeney work on building consensus.  Leaders need political enemies with whom they must spar.  History has shown us that the worst organizations are those where no one disagrees.  You need more than Mike Polensek as a foe.  With the advent of next year’s charter review, demand a reduction of council. 

Take on some more sacred cows like the CDC’s.  The source of federal funds for these organizations will continue to dry up and they will become more financially-reliant on the city.  You and I both know we don’t have the money to subsidize their activities.  Tell them to self-fund or die.

Finally set-up an effective liason relationship with the county.  The city and the county share appointing authority for many local boards (ie. the Port Authority).  Develop a strategy similar to the one you’re working on with the suburbs.  Have a plan that benefits the entire county in a regional manner and in the long run it will pay-off for the city.

That’s all for now.

Good luck tomorrow, and give me a call if you have any questions.