The other plan put forth is by Commissioner Tim "Blow Hard" Hagan and Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones -- this plan would elect a panel of 15 people to study, have community input, formulate a plan for reform and put it up for a vote of the county. Two seperate slates of candidates have been placed on the ballot for voters to choose from. One is mostly Democrats the other is mostly Republicans.
This weekend we will have a more in-depth post on the details of both reform plans. In this post, I will only concentrate on the hypocrisy of the latest PD article detailing these competing reform issues and who is backing what. Until then, you just got to love the spin and lies on this one.
Putting their arguments before the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, the two sides squared off on which reform should be listed first on the election day ballot....
Attorney Steven Kaufman argued that New Cuyahoga Now filed petitions first and therefore should get the top spot on the ballot. He also argued that the commissioners' issue, which never appeared on an agenda or was debated publicly, was not complete until supporters filed petitions on Aug. 20. (PD)
I don't understand why Mr. Kaufman is so upset and, though true, I find it intentionally misleading that he would slam the commissioners reform proposal for not being publicly debated.
Why? Forgoing the fact that Mason/Zasnotti & the GCP have been intimately responsible for the failures of Cuyahoga County -- the Mason/Zasnotti/GCP plan "New Cuyahoga Now" had not only NO community input, but it had NO input from any of the surrounding suburbs or the City of Cleveland. In fact, the commissioners reform proposal will allow for community input whereas the "New Cuyahoga Now" reform plan offer no chance of community input.
Stay tuned this for the upcoming post on the Cuyahoga County Reform. as both slates will be reviewed and the plans will be exposed for what they are -- lipstick on a pig and nothing more than a cosmetic change.
Ralph - thanks for writing about this topic. I know you often have accused me of being derelict in not writing about county gov't issues more and I also know you know that when I have written about it, it's usually critical. So I think we're pretty sympatico on this topic.
ReplyDeleteMy solution for this "who gets listed first" would be to list them side by side. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Hi there stranger! Thanks Jill.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me how they will fight like children over what plan is listed first. If they worked on informing the voters -- maybe merit would be more important than what place they are listed.
It is beyond me, with the corruption scandal taking place, that anybody would be a big enough idiot to think having an appointed sheriff would be a good idea. An appointed sheriff gives me visions of Dukes of Hazzard.
ANyway, I will be posting about this more this weekend. It would be great if maybe we did something together on this. I don't know what plan you support, if it is the Hagan/Jones one we can post how we agree (newsworthy in and of itself LOL) if you agree with the Mason plan we could give both sides of the debate.