CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland’s business community pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign to restructure Cuyahoga County government, giving the effort nearly eight times as much money as a competing plan that would delay reform.
Backers of Issue 6 contributed $609,000 to the effort to replace the three commissioners with an elected county executive and 11-member council. The measure also would eliminate several elected offices beginning in 2011.
In contrast, Issue 5 supporters raised $77,000, mostly from big labor, the Democratic Party and politicians who would lose their jobs if Issue 6 passes. Issue 5 would create a 15-person elected panel to recommend changes to voters in November 2010.
The two campaigns filed their finance reports by Thursday’s deadline, just 12 days before county voters decide the fates of both issues. Advocates say some type of reform is likely because of 16 months of steady news about a wide-ranging federal corruption investigation of county government.
The bulk of Issue 6 contributions came from Cleveland’s biggest corporate institutions, such as Eaton Corp., KeyCorp, Parker Hannifin Corp. and Sherwin-Williams Co. Several executives from top companies also personally contributed thousands of dollars, including Sam Miller, co-chairman of Forest City Enterprises Inc., who donated $15,000.
The sizable donations show that Cleveland’s corporate leaders are willing to break from some of their longtime political friends — Commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson — who back Issue 5.
“The general feeling [in the business community] is that this is a referendum on the future of the county,” said economist Edward “Ned” Hill, dean of the urban affairs college at Cleveland State University. “It’s gone beyond just political reform itself.”
The Issue 5 campaign’s biggest single contributor was the Drive Committee, the Teamsters’ Washington, D.C.-based political action committee, which gave $10,000. Harriet Applegate, head of the North Shore Federation of Labor in Cleveland and Issue 5’s chief spokeswoman, personally contributed $5,000.
Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts Gerald Fuerst and Treasurer Jim Rokakis, who would lose their jobs if Issue 6 passes, also contributed to Issue 5 from their campaign accounts. Fuerst gave $5,000 and Rokakis, $2,500.
Hagan and Jones, who also would lose their jobs if Issue 6 passes, did not contribute to Issue 5 even though they voted the measure into existence to counter Issue 6.
The primary authors of Issue 6, County Prosecutor Bill Mason and Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti, lent $5,000 each to the cause.
The pattern of contributions to each campaign has only reinforced the battle lines and heated rhetoric surrounding county reform.
Issue 5 supporters called a news conference on Thursday to attack the corporate interests even before Issue 6 backers filed their report. When Issue 5 leaders got the Issue 6 report minutes before their event, they quickly checked off the names of big corporate donors with a smile.
Applegate said the battle “feels like David and Goliath” and charged that the corporate community wants its own “go-to person” in county government, referring to Issue 6’s proposal to elect a single top executive.
Expanding on the anti-corporate theme, Issue 5 consultant Brian Wright likened Issue 6’s proposed government structure to that of a CEO backed by 11 corporate board members.
Applegate also complained that Issue 6’s plan to create a department focused on economic development will shift the county’s focus from social services.
But Cleveland’s corporate community has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to causes championed by unions and other Issue 5 supporters.
While the corporate community has not been this active in a political issue since it pushed for the Gateway stadium projects in the early 1990s, it joined the unions in 2001 to help pass Issue 14, a critical $380 million bond issue for the Cleveland schools. The same corporations backing Issue 6 made similar-sized donations to that campaign. Corporations also significantly fund the county’s health and human services levy campaigns.
Zanotti, the chief spokesman for Issue 6, eagerly defended the campaign’s donations from businesses.
“Of course the business community is behind it,” he said. “It recognizes that things are broken and we need a better future.”
Zanotti said the charge that the county will abandon social services “doesn’t pass the smell test.” He touted an endorsement Thursday from the Center for Community Solutions, an influential policy-oriented advocate for the poor that works closely with county officials.
At the same time, Issue 6 supporters acknowledged that corporate money could be used against them in the battle for the Democratic base. That’s why the campaign tried to paint its own support as reflecting the county’s diversity, noting that donations ranged from $5 and up and the average donation was $75.
But such figures do little to soften the impact of the corporate community, which contributed around 90 percent of the money collected by Issue 6.
Article courtesy of: cleveland.com
