Frosty the Melting RPCC Chairman

Republican Party of Cuyahoga County (RPCC) Chairman Rob Frost has emailed a letter to RPCC members giving his version of the PD article regarding the recent exodus of 5 GOP Mayors and a Juvenile Judge from the RPCC to the Cuyahoga County Democrat Party.

In trying to further his charade as an effective RPCC Chairman, Frost tries “spinning” the events too make the RPCC look good while portraying him as an effective and strong leader. Spin is to be expected from a party chairman, but being deceitful, misrepresenting the truth and conveniently leaving out information - will no longer be tolerated. If our party is ever going to rise above the basement dwelling results we so readily accept, this behavior cannot and will not be tolerated.

In the response Frost takes pride that none of these Mayors had the RPCC endorsement in the last election cycle. Frost tries to explain away the Mayors leaving the RPCC as inconsequential.
Truth is Mayor Lansky refused the RPCC endorsement during his last election. In Patton’s last election, 2 yrs ago, he did receive a contested party endorsement over a good long time loyal party member. Frost supported Patton’s endorsement over this long time member. *** Note also how Frost points out Patton supported a Democrat over State Representative Josh Mandel two years ago also. ***

Frost takes pride in stating 84% of our RPCC endorsed candidates won office in 2007. By not giving supporting documentation, this is nothing more than creative math from a desperate chairman. I would be more than happy to see the phantom formula and which races he used to create this percentage. I will guarantee it is not reflective of, and does not include, races in which we did not have a candidate and does include races where our endorsed candidate had no opposition.

Looking at this years upcoming county judicial races - if every one of our candidates is elected the best we can achieve is a 30% success rate. Why? Because we only have candidates running for 5 of the 17 judicial races. So before the first ballot is cast in November - we are already 0-12.

Performance output such as this and purposely skewing the numbers in attempts to mislead Central Committee & Executive Committee members should not be rewarded, but a reference for reprimand.

Noting there are 41 Democrat Mayors and only 16 Republicans Mayors in Cuyahoga County, Democrat Party Chairman Jimmy Dimora is quoted in the PD article describing Frost as… “ineffective and probably the worst chairman the RPCC ever had.”

Unable to cite any of his accomplishments in his four years of floundering as RPCC Chairman, Frosty is relegated to citing problems in the State & National Democrat Party, the democrat presidential candidates and the less than stellar performance of Kucinich in the 10th District Primary.

But it gets much worse....

Frost has allowed and has REFUSED to address these same issues in his own party. His superstar candidate for Commissioner, Mayor Sutherland, against the wishes of the RPCC rank & file members publicly supported the forced sales tax increase of the Democrat County Commissioners for the ill-fated Med Mart project. In fact most of the Republican Mayors in Cuyahoga County endorsed the Med Mart sales tax increase - against the wishes of most RPCC members.

Candidate for County Recorder and North Royalton Mayor at the time, Cathy Luks, publicly supported a democrat over an endorsed RPCC candidate in the past election for Parma Municipal Court. This was known to Frost - but he did nothing!

A letter was sent on February 6, 2008 asking Frost, as our Chairman, to support motions of censure on several people in our party for donating to Democrats in violation of the RPCC by laws. While taking issue with Dimora for this behavior in his party, the letter sits unanswered.

In fairness to the people about to be named, I attempted to privately discuss this with Frost several times but was rebuked.

So I ask - Chairman Frost, if Zannoti supporting Sutherland means the Democrat Party is in disarray, how would you describe your derelict reign of the RPCC knowing the following individuals are supporting Democrats?

• Richard Pogue (Executive Committee, Finance Committee - Chairman) for donating $2000 to democrat candidate Joe Cimperman and $4600 to Barbra Ferris. Plus a handful of Democrat judges over the years.

• Bill Summers (Executive Committee, Finance Committee - Vice Chair) Donated $2000 to Cimperman.

• Domenic Visconsi (Executive Committee) for donating $2000 to democrat candidate Joe Cimperman.

• Dave Gunning (Executive Committee, Central Committee, Rules Committee -Chairman, Governance Committee - Vice Chair, State Central Committee District 21, RPCC Central Committee) for donating $2300 to democrat candidate Joe Cimperman.

• Mal Mixon (Executive Committee / Candidate Central Committee) Routinely gives money to HARRY RIED & CHARLIE WRANGEL!

• Roger Synenberg - (Executive Committee, Legal Counsel for Central Committee, Former Executive Director of BOE, Former RPCC Chairman) - Has given MANY donation to Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Dennis Kucinich, Ken Yuko, along with Marc Dann & Jennifer Brunner during their last election Has also given to many democrat judges.

• Judge Joan Synenberg - (Cuyahoga County Judge) - given to Dennis & Stephanie Tubbs. Claim this money was for their support in judge race.

• Dave Harbarger (Vice Chair Executive Committee, Central Committee, Former Lakewood Mayor, Parliamentarian for RPCC Meetings) Gave $500 to Sherrod Brown during his last election.

• Cathy Luks (Former North Royalton Mayor, Executive & Central Committee, and Candidate for County Recorder) Publicly endorsed democrat candidate for judge in Parma this last election over an endorsed RPCC candidate.

These donations can be verified at - Open Secrets & The Federal Election Commission.

Mr. Chairman - the floor is yours...