Lucas County business leaders mulling reform plan, want details

It took heavy lifting by a business community in Cuyahoga County fed up with the high cost of political patronage to push that county's governmental reorganization over the goal line.

In Lucas County, business leaders contacted yesterday said they are open to reorganizing Lucas County government, but wanted to know more about the plan and how it would create jobs.

"The business community right now would get behind Attila the Hun if he would bring jobs," said Tom Schlachter, secretary-treasurer of the Moses-Schlachter Group Inc., a Sylvania Township-based real estate development firm.

County Commissioner Ben Konop on Wednesday announced he would support an effort to place a question on the Nov. 2 ballot to adopt the Cuyahoga County model of local government in Lucas County.

On the same day, County Commission President Pete Gerken announced the start of a different approach - putting an elected study commission on the Nov. 2 ballot that would recommend a county charter to be voted on in the next general election.

Steve Weathers, president and chief executive of the Regional Growth Partnership, said Lucas County has many similarities to Cuyahoga County.

For one, both counties have high unemployment rates that have grown in 12 months. Cuyahoga County's latest rate stood at 9.8 percent, compared to 9 percent last year. It's even higher in Lucas County at 12.8 percent, up from 11.5 percent.

Mr. Weathers said that he'd have to learn more to know whether the blueprint that won over voters in Cuyahoga County in November is a good fit for Lucas County.

"I think [the business community is] ready to become part of the effort, but I don't get the sense they are gravitating toward either one of them," Mr. Weathers said, referring to the two commissioners' approaches.

"They're going to look at anything that is going to help them in growing and expanding their business," he said. "If there is a structure that is a proven method of creating a better economic environment, the community would get behind it."

The business community of Cuyahoga County was largely in favor of the county government reorganization measure that won voter approval as Issue 6 last fall. That plan, set to go into effect Jan. 1, will replace the county's three commissioners and most of its other elected county officials with an executive and an 11-person council.

The council members would be paid $45,000 a year and the county executive would get $175,000 a year. The prosecutor still will be elected.

"The business community was almost unanimously behind Issue 6," Cuyahoga County Administrator Jim McCafferty said yesterday.

The area's chamber of commerce, the Greater Cleveland Partnership, was a strong advocate of the reorganization. And executives at several large Cleveland-area companies, including Eaton Corp., KeyCorp, and Forest City Enterprises, Inc., were also in strong support.

A Forest City spokesman, Jeff Linton, said the real estate company long has been in favor of a shakeup at the county level, as a number of in-depth studies indicated inefficiencies with the existing form of Cuyahoga County government.

The commissioners' form of government was heavily focused on social services but not focused enough in areas such as economic development and job creation, Mr. Linton said.

"We hoped for a form of government that was more representative of the residents of Cuyahoga County, that was more accountable, and that performed the function at a reduced cost," he said.

Kelly Jasko, a spokesman for the Eaton Corp., said, "We felt change was needed at the county level to focus more attention on job creation and economic development. We believe the new structure will accomplish this."

The reorganization effort, dubbed New Cuyahoga Now, proclaimed many potential economic benefits to an executive form of government, such as streamlined bureaucracy and more nimble decision-making.

"Decisive leadership for jobs growth and economic development must become a central responsibility of our county government," the group's purpose statement says. "Any county government reforms must be driven by the clear objectives of creating a structure that is a catalyst for meaningfully enhancing economic development and jobs creation."

In advocating the Cuyahoga model, Mr. Konop said a streamlined government with local home-rule power could act decisively to be in the forefront of economic growth.

Ray Medlin, business development director for Lathrop Construction Co., said there's a lot of thinking to be done before Lucas County's business community is ready to sign onto a specific plan.

"Change for change's sake is not a valid solution to a problem," Mr. Medlin said.

But he said one aspect of the Gerken plan bothers him - the number of signatures needed to get elected to the 15-member charter commission.

"It's more than you need for mayor. It doesn't seem right," he said.

The Ohio Constitution spells out a formula that in Lucas County equates to at least 1,429 valid signatures to run for a seat on the commission.

Mr. Konop has said few people from ordinary walks of life would have the time to get that many signatures. He predicted that the commission would be filled with people representing the elected officeholders who are interested in keeping their jobs.

Bruce Rumpf, president and chief executive officer of JOB1USA Inc., who has been active in downtown development efforts, including supporting a downtown arena, said the local business community hasn't heard enough details to join a campaign to put a question on the Nov. 2 ballot.

"We don't necessarily know the financial ramifications or potential upside of a government like this," Mr. Rumpf said.

"I think we need a business group like the chamber to step up, take a look at this, and make a recommendation."

Mark V'Soske, president of the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, was not available for comment.

Mr. Schlachter, of the Sylvania Township real estate development firm, led last year's effort to raise signatures to put a question on the ballot to recall then-Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. The group gathered more than 40,000 signatures, but the Ohio Supreme Court threw out the petitions, ruling that the language contained on them was flawed.

Mr. Schlachter said collecting the 14,289 signatures necessary to put the Cuyahoga plan on the Lucas County ballot could cost $120,000 to pay petition circulators.

Whether the business community would back it "depends on what is proposed."

Lucas County's business community also may not have the same level of discontent with county government that surfaced in Cuyahoga County.

"Too many businesspeople have too many ties to too many elected officers to throw them out willy-nilly, and so far none has expressed a willingness to go," he said.

Mr. Schlachter suggested learning from the Cuyahoga County transition rather than jumping immediately into the same format.

Contact Tom Troy at:

tomtroy@theblade.com

or 419-724-6058.