Watching ‘The Last Dance’ • Recalling ‘The Shot’ • Appreciating a Local Giant

FRIDAY SPORTS | Brad Sellers on MJ, ‘The Last Dance’ and ‘The Shot’ • Ted Ginn Sr., others recall Leonard “Big Jack” Jackson

By R. T. Andrews

We haven’t watched the entire ten episodes of ‘The Last Dance’ that have saved ESPN’s bacon, been a godsend for its advertisers, and delivered an unexpected bonanza to sports junkies thirsting for something fresher and more domestic than last century’s NBA all-star games or South Korean baseball.

In sports, as in life and broadcasting, chance favors the prepared. So some folk at the network are likely getting bonuses for having the ten episodes ready to run when the NBA season and playoffs were halted, and major league baseball delayed.

Ex-Plain Dealer sportswriter Branson Wright, already into the next phase of his career as a filmmaker, reached into his network of local sports figures this month to produce some interesting programming on the Last Dance of the Bulls and the Final Dance of a titanic community figure, Leonard Jackson, who died April 30.

Almost ten minutes focused on an unforgettable six seconds

Warrensville Heights mayor Brad Sellers was a standout area high school basketball player who went on to star at Ohio State University and become a professional basketball player. He joined Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in 1982 as their first round draft choice, the ninth overall pick that year. Seven feet tall but weighing only 210 pounds, Sellers is listed by basketball-reference.com as both a power forward and a small forward.

Sellers played three years with Jordan — fellow Clevelander Charles Oakley was a teammate for the first two — before moving on to play for other teams in a six-year NBA career that eventually took him overseas to play for teams in France, Greece, Israel, and Spain. He knew Jordan as both teammate and opponent.

While his comments about Jordan are interesting, they are mostly politic, which is to say non-controversial and not especially insightful. But it’s the last third of nearly 30 minute chat that sparkles. And that almost ten minutes is focused on an unforgettable six or so seconds.

As any Clevelander of a certain age knows, those twelve seconds were the last moments of the winner-take-all Game 5 of the playoff series between the Cavaliers and the Bulls. The game was May 7, 1989 at the old Richfield Coliseum and Sellers talks about it as if it were last week.

For the disappointed 21,000-plus fans in attendance that day — I was one of them — we had no idea history was being made. Sellers, who inbounded the ball to Jordan for the most important assist of his life, lets us inside his head, the huddle and the play in a remarkably captivating manner.

It was the moment, he says, “where the folklore became real”. You can watch the video interview here.

• • •

Wright also does his bit to memorialize history by gathering three Cleveland sports figures to talk about former Cleveland Schools athletic commissioner Leonard Jackson. Coach Ted Ginn Sr.  and former scholastic stars Pierre Woods [Glenville HS, University of Michigan, New England Patriots] and Barb Turner [East Tech HS, 2002 state champs; UConn, 2003, 2004 national champs, and member, Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame]. The video, with all parties sheltered in place, reminds us of how important caring adults are to the development of young people.

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Sightings from Mt. Pleasant, Hough, Lee Harvard

​Zack Reed enters mayor's race from home plate; Hough council candidates use batboys to toss infield dirt at one another

I’m a little more than halfway through a marvelous book focused on a distinct group of Cleveland neighborhoods. I thought it was going to be about the Lee-Seville area on the city’s southeast side but it’s turned out to be so much richer, deeper and broader than I had anticipated. Look for my review in a couple of weeks.

Even those familiar with our city’s history are likely to seldom reflect that the confinement of black Clevelanders almost exclusively to the Central/Cedar neighborhood for about the first 150 years of Cleveland’s founding in 1796 has done much to shape our city. There were of course a few pioneers and outliers scattered here and there, but their presence and experience simply confirms the human condition; they were the exceptions that proved the rule.

Sheer population pressures after World War II forced expansion of the black community into the Hough, Glenville, Mt. Pleasant and Lee-Harvard neighborhoods at an accelerated pace. Learning about the histories of these communities can inform our understanding of the people who live there now, even if the denizens of those neighborhoods are unaware of the dynamics that foretold their arrival.

The neighborhood lens shapes and guides our local politics in many ways; the effects can be healthy or toxic. This is likely to be especially true in the next few years: almost every one of the city’s 17 wards and the mayor’s seat will likely see very competitive races this year. Next year will be a 2018 statewide election that will set the stage for what has become a hyper-contentious and almost criminal redistricting process following the latest decennial census results.

This backdrop had us looking with fresh eyes as we boarded the #14 bus from West Third and Frankfurt just off Public Square along a route initially as circuitous as the Cuyahoga River. We eventually sliced through Tri-C’s Metro campus and straightened out going eastbound on Woodland Ave. Soon we reached the intersection of 55^th and Woodland Ave., once the undeniable cultural and commercial heart of Cleveland’s black community. (One might ask if the “heart of Cleveland’s black community” still exists, and if so, where, and if not, why, and whether any of the answers represent progress.)

MT. PLEASANT

Eventually the bus got us onto the long stretch of Kinsman Road, still the undeniable main artery of the euphoniously named Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. Much of the street has a weary feel to it, as do lots of the other once vibrant thoroughfares that electrified mid-century Cleveland, carrying factory workers, students and shoppers all over town. For a long time Mt. Pleasant was one of the city’s model neighborhoods, full of Hungarian and Italian descendants, Jews, and blacks up from Alabama and Georgia.

I didn’t know it but when I got to the Murtis Taylor Services Center — a longstanding community anchor at 137^th and Kinsman — I would soon be listening to Warrensville Heights mayor Brad Sellers reminisce about growing up on the tail end of that era. “The Mt. Pleasant I know is vibrant”, he would recall. “It is rich in tradition. It is rich in people.”

Even as he moves through the neighborhood today, Sellers continued, he does not see decay.  “We [Ward 2 councilman Zack Reed and I] see a world of potential ready to be unleashed.”

Does the “heart of Cleveland’s black community” still exist? If so, where is it? If not, what happened to it? Is that progress?

Sellers was at Murtis Taylor to introduce Reed at the official launch of Reed’s entry into Cleveland’s 2017 mayoral race. Nodding at the oddity of his intrusion into another city’s politics, Sellers forthrightly observed, “Blood is thicker than water”. He and Reed are brothers. Though the legal status may actually be half-brothers, neither used that term and the warmth between them was clearly genuine.

The themes of home and family were clearly prevalent as Reed told the assembly that he was running for mayor and what he wanted to accomplish. Indeed, that sense of home and neighborhood was why he chose the Murtis Taylor venue for his announcement.

Outside the comforts of Mt. Pleasant, Reed may be best known for his three D.U.I. convictions, and he was not far into his relatively short speech before he addressed that issue. He acknowledged and apologized for the hurt, pain and embarrassment he had caused the community, his family and the city, and he averred that a period of self-reflection and treatment at the Cleveland Clinic had helped him get straight.

Reed talked about the city’s “depressed wards” — a phrase he used more than once — and talked about rebuilding neighborhoods. Key to accomplishing that, and anything else, Reed said, was public safety. He proposed adding 400 police officers trained in community policing. Reed also talked about job creation and youth services.

Reed said a couple of times that “this election is not about Frank Jackson” but about new leadership and new ideas. But he did take direct at the mayor when he referenced how one man without consultation or public discussion, “closed Public Square”.

HOUGH

Our political watch yesterday actually began at the County Board of Elections where a challenge to Basheer Jones as a lawful candidate for the Ward 7 was being heard. The challenge was filed by supporters of the incumbent, T. J. Dow, who won a second term by defeating Jones in November 2013. Dow won that election by fewer than 600 votes, a closer margin than one might expect, given that Jones was running for the first time. Jones had the endorsement of Congresswoman Marcia Fudge in that first campaign, and some observers were expecting an even closer race this year, even before Mansfield Frazier joined the already crowded field last week [see here and here].

Jones pulled his petitions to run on December 28, 2016 and filed them on March 7. Each time he listed his residential address as 6400 Whittier Ave. The Dow camp submitted documents indicating that the lienholder took title to that property last October and subsequently filed eviction papers against the occupants, including Jones’ surrogate father, Timothy Roberts. Heart-tugging tales were offered by the candidate’s side regarding how the house was lost [divorce, delay, miscommunication, “religious marriage”, etc.] all of which were irrelevant. A successful challenge hinged solely on proving by clear and convincing evidence that Jones did not consider the Whittier address his home and that had no intention to return there for domiciliary purposes.

When the challengers could offer no proof in this regard, the elections board voted 3-0 to dismiss the challenge. At least one board member was troubled by the fact that Jones obtained a new driver’s license after the challenge was filed. His new license shows the Whittier address; the old one, Jones admitted, bore the South Euclid address where Jones’ three children now live with their mother, from whom Jones is estranged.

Jones will need to update his license once again. He was scheduled to move today, along with his surrogate family, to a new home on East 74 Street near Superior, in the wake of the eviction proceedings.

Dow supporters had only a little time to gloat over how their lightweight maneuver vexed and embarrassed Jones. As we were leaving the Board meeting, we learned that only the day before, Clark Nelson of Lexington Ave. in Ward 7, had filed a challenge to Dow’s candidacy, “protesting the validity of his address and accusing Mr. Dow of voter fraud … and election falsification.”

The eagle-eyed Mr. Nelson noted — or was perhaps advised — that Mr. Dow’s Decker Ave. voting address differs from the address on a May 2014 traffic ticket issued to the councilman in Shaker Hts. The ticket hit the news when after news reports there was an active warrant out for the councilman for his failure to appear at a court hearing. He had apparently been cited “for improper use of earphones” while driving in that fair city.

We called Mr. Nelson to inquire as to his preference in this councilmanic [manic council?] contest but were unable to reach him by publication time.

LEE-HARVARD

Word on the street is that former Ward 1 councilman Joe Jones is circulating petitions to reclaim his old seat from incumbent Terrell Pruitt. Jones would be another strong candidate in the race that also includes Kimberly F. Brown, who has had Pruitt in her sights ever since he defeated her in 2013.

                                                                         • • •

The Kind of Endorsements That I Would Like to Read

Voting In-Person on November 8^th

• Find your polling location here.
• Polls are open from 6:30 am – 7:30 pm. 
• You will need identification: driver’s license, utility bill, paycheck, bank statement, or some government document with your name and address on it.

 • • •

In two days those of us who did not vote early but still intend to make our views count, will go the polls where, hopefully having educated ourselves on our respective local and statewide issues, we will carry out one of our solemn duties as citizens by casting well-reasoned votes for the “best” candidates and the “right” side of the issues.

Too many of us don’t vote. Reasons vary, but include mostly negative emotions like disillusionment, cynicism, hopelessness, disgust. Nonvoters ought to be fined for the disservice they do their communities, principally by giving direct license to public officials to be less accountable. But hey, that doesn’t apply to Real Deal readers, because if you visit this small corner of the web regularly, then you clearly have a keen interest in public affairs.

• • •

I’m going to be setting forth some nontraditional endorsements in this space today for selected contests in a number of communities — Euclid, Richmond Heights, Cleveland, East Cleveland, Warrensville Heights, Bedford Heights, and Oakwood Village. I’m also going to spend a paragraph or so on each of the three statewide issues, each of which should be rejected by voters.

I will not be endorsing any Cleveland Heights city council candidates because I know virtually all of them personally, count several as friends, and am an officer of a partisan group that has voted to support certain of the candidates. I will confess to a modest anti-incumbent bias because long-term incumbents tend to become inflated with an aura of their own indispensability. There is no reason for public officials to become public institutions where there is a strong supply of fresh and capable replacements.

I hope you found the previous paragraph refreshing for its candor because I am going to be putting the wood to the Sun Messenger in a separate post tomorrow for its thoroughly unprofessional endorsements in Richmond Heights. I encourage you to read it even if you are weary of my reports on that beleaguered community.

I struggle constantly in these posts to attain a balance of topics. Some people criticize me for writing too much about Richmond Heights in this space, but I think most of my readers appreciate that my reporting there is important, because nobody else is doing it with any sense of fairness.

Having started to write about what I saw when I first went there in May, I now feel an obligation to continue reporting what some all too clearly would prefer to remain hidden. And I promise faithful followers of that coverage this: some bombshells are coming soon, and better days ahead are coming into view.

A word or two about The Real Deal endorsement process for the sake of transparency, all the more important for when you learn about the Sun Messenger perversions [no, that’s not too strong a word]. My process is non-scientific. I don’t treat all candidates or communities alike for the same reason that an effective and sensible parent or teacher doesn’t treat all of their children alike except in fairness.

Generally, I wrote most every mayoral and legislative candidate months ago seeking basic information. Few supplied it. I went to a variety of council and school board meetings in almost all of the relevant communities. I studied websites and campaign literature. I spoke with some of the candidates and I spoke with community residents in every municipality.

Based on this work, The Real Deal recommends voting:

State Issues

Issue 1: NO

Issue 2: NO

Issue 3: NO

Local Issues

EAST CLEVELAND

Issue 49: NO [proposed charter amendment to eliminate traffic cameras]

Issue 50: NO [proposed charter amendment requiring approval of Council to appoint and/or remove the director of law and the director of finance.]

RICHMOND HEIGHTS

Issue 90: YES

Issue 91: NO

Local Mayors

Bedford Heights: Fletcher Berger

Euclid: Jack Johnson

Oakwood: Joe Fouche

Warrensville Heights: Brad Sellers

Local City Councils

East Cleveland: Barbara Thomas, Ward 2; Mildred Brewer, Ward 4

Richmond Heights: Carl Harmon, Ward 2; Nneka Slade Jackson, Ward 4

Area Boards of Education

Euclid Schools:

Evette Moton

Kathy DeAngelis

Richmond Heights Schools:

   Frank Barber Jr., Linda Pliodzinskas [Elect 2]

   Bobby Jordan [[Elect 1 for Unexpired Term Ending 12/31/2013]

Warrensville Heights Schools: [Elect 3]

   Harold L. Burks, Mary Pat Morris, June E. Taylor

Municipal Courts

Cleveland Municipal Court [term commencing Jan. 2, 2012: Edward Wade

Cleveland Municipal Court [term commencing Jan. 3, 2012: Pinkey S. Carr

East Cleveland Municipal Court: Sandra Walker

Euclid Municipal Court: Deborah A. LeBarron

South Euclid Municipal Court: Gayle Williams-Byers

Endorsement Notes

STATE ISSUES

NO on State Issue 1

The Ohio Constitution currently prohibits candidates who are 70 or older from running for judge. Almost half the states have age limits similar to Ohio. There is no shortage of qualified judicial candidates in Ohio and no clamor to change the Constitution except from the judges themselves, most of who could continue to serve by appointment even if forced by age to retire.

NO on State Issue 2

Ohio’s fiscal troubles could be improved to some degree by a modest adjustment in the power of the state’s public unions. But the General Assembly, a gross overreach of legislative power, rammed through Senate Bill 5 as part of a nationwide partisan campaign to render public unions as a way of establishing virtual one-party rule.

A no vote on Issue 2 would force Ohio’s governor and legislature to find a fairer way of improving the state’s governance and fiscal problems.

NO on State Issue 3

Issue 3 masquerades as a states’ rights plebiscite on federal health care. Its basic aim is to undermine Congressional passage in 2010 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, often derisively referred to as Obamacare. Passage of the issue would have dubious legal effect, and much more likely to harm health care for Ohio citizens than its defeat.

LOCAL COMMUNITIES

CITY OF BEDFORD HEIGHTS

Fletcher Berger has shown himself to be diligent, adaptable, and reasonable. He has earned re-election without question, especially given that his opponent, councilwoman Wendolyn Grant, is likely running primarily to establish her bona fides to run again in four years when Berger will be term limited.

CITY OF CLEVELAND

Cleveland Municipal Court: The Stokes name is the only qualification Ed Wade’s opponent has for the job. She has shown herself fully qualified for retirement. Wade has been an energetic and competent attorney for decades. Pinkey S. Carr has distinguished herself as county prosecutor and is ready for the bench.

CITY OF EAST CLEVELAND

City Council: It is little short of amazing that Mildred Brewer is council’s only true supporter of the city’s dynamic mayor, the most forward thinking leader that city has had in decades. Additionally, Brewer is an untiring advocate for Ward 4. Despite an over-the-top manner that occasionally channels her inner Dave Chappelle, she should be reelected.

Barbara Thomas should be retained in Ward 2.

East Cleveland Municipal Court: We like William Dawson and think he can one day be a fine judge. But incumbent Sandra L. Walker has given voters no reason to replace her and deserves a second term.

East Cleveland Board of Education [Elect 3]: This body is absolutely in need of regeneration.

The current all-female board for the most part exhibits an unwarranted loyalty towards the current administration. Abdul Shaheed Jabbaar knows what a successful school district requires. During his prior tenure on the board Jabbaar was instrumental in bringing on the current fiscal officer for the schools and promoting school uniforms. He understands the special issues that confront young black males in today’s society and how to support them without making excuses or lowering expectations. He also brings an understanding of what it takes to succeed in the business and corporate world and how to translate that to students.

Patricia A. Blochowiak is deserving of another term. She is hard working and conscientious. Because she is not a part of the old guard clique that runs the district, she asks questions and pushes for answers. She could be a formidable support for Jabbaar if she’s temperamentally up for it.

We do not endorse Una H. R. Keenon. The former judge is a community icon at this point and will likely win re-election on her name alone. But East Cleveland needs school board members with a drive and vision to match its new mayor. Jabbaar has those qualities to the degree that his supporters might consider voting only for him, to increase the likelihood of his rejoining the board.

Charter Amendments

Issue 49: NO [proposed charter amendment to eliminate traffic cameras]. This issue seems to have voters more hot and bothered than the races for school board or city council, despite the fact that 90% of the tickets generated by the city’s traffic cameras are reportedly written to nonresidents.

Part of the voters’ ire appears to result from camera malfunction. But, given that the cameras generate about $1.5 million to the bottom line of a city strapped for cash, that the cameras have likely contributed both directly and indirectly to a decline in the city’s crime rate, and that key safety and other forces will be laid off if the amendment passes, voters should vote no on Issue 49 and find other ways to express their displeasure that don’t involve cutting off much more than their noses.

Issue 50: NO [proposed charter amendment requiring approval of Council to appoint and/or remove the director of law and the director of finance.]

It is depressing when a legislative body with important work to do wastes its time and taxpayers’ money with silly measures that impede sound governmental practice while doing nothing to improve the community. No matter what council members may say, Issue 50 was conceived and put on the ballot because the Council majority doesn’t like the mayor. Passage of the issue would not likely be earth shattering, but it could encourage some council members to seek veto power over whether the mayor should part his hair, and on which side.

EUCLID

Mayor

In many ways this is one of the most interesting and significant races on the ballot in Greater Cleveland this year. There are three candidates with distinctly different personalities and track records. They offer Euclid residents very different visions of the city and approaches to governance.

Incumbent mayor Bill Cervenik is running for a third term, which would be a final term due to Euclid’s term limits. His tumultuous eight years in office have included historic litigation and a recall attempt. After a point he refused to oppose property development plans promoted by Provident Baptist Church that were upsetting to many Euclid residents as an unwanted challenge to an accepted way of life.

The city’s hostile reaction to the church likely intensified a US Department of Justice investigation into Euclid’s electoral apparatus. The Justice Department eventually determined that Euclid’s electoral protocol involving several at-large seats had become discriminatory in operation if not in design.

At a certain stage Cervenik’s pragmatic nature manifested itself as courage when he opposed those diehards who wished to challenge the Justice Department even unto municipal bankruptcy.

On Cervenik’s right flank is Charlene Mancuso, a veritable dynamo of energy and ideas, and an action-oriented, take-charge persona who pledges to drag Euclid into a new day.

There are a couple of flies in her prescriptive ointment, however. One is her history as champion of the city’s reactionary forces in the battles with the Justice Department and Provident Church, battles whose prolongation cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The other major concern is whether this city of raw nerves could hold together under a mayor whose personal style and public agenda seem more likely to incite virulence rather than camaraderie.

The third major contestant in the mayoral race is a black man, Jack Johnson, making his first entry ever into electoral politics. Johnson is a manager, a finance guy, a technician, an analyst. He was finance director in the Cervenik administration and a get it done guy for many municipal projects. He is now seeking to make the transformation from manager to leader.

After a slow campaign start, in which he seemed unsure whether he was actually running to win or just scratching an itch, Jackson seems to have found his political legs. Short on funds compared to Cervenik certainly and perhaps Mancuso as well, Jackson has taken to the web and churned out a daily series of email missives designed to show his ideas and leadership style.

Jackson is clearly the least polarizing of the three major candidates. He comes closest to being the right person at the right time to lead Euclid into a new era.

Jack Johnson should be Euclid’s next mayor.

Euclid School Board

Frankly the differences aren’t huge here among the three women candidates for school board. Kay Van Ho is a longtime incumbent who wants to be in office one more term to celebrate the dedication of Euclid’s new elementary schools. But we think fresh blood could help this challenged system, and under Van Ho’s watch hundreds of families have opted for charter schools. We would encourage Euclid voters to elect Evette Moton.

Our second choice would be Kathy DeAngelis, a mention made necessary because under the terms of the court order in the DOJ lawsuit, voters can select only one candidate even though there are two vacancies.

Euclid Municipal Court: Longtime lawyer and school board president Barry Sweet cited as one of his qualifications his eagerness to expel Euclid school students as the arbiter of last resort. Given the uneven record of Euclid school discipline, he should have been running away from that record instead of embracing it. Why would Euclid voters give this guy unbridled power? 

Judge Deborah A. LeBarron received excellent ratings from every bar association and should be retained.

RICHMOND HEIGHTS

City Council

The race in Ward 2 is between two political newcomers. Carl K. Harmon is a businessman with a sense of reasonableness and an understanding that change is needed at City Hall. Russell L. Johnson, a retired city of Cleveland police officer, is impatient with his city’s state of affairs.

It’s a close call but we favor Harmon’s more nuanced approach. Cool heads are certainly going to be needed at City Hall over the next few years.

Ward 4 is perhaps the marquee race in Richmond Heights this year. Nneka Slade Jackson became a household name in the city earlier this year for her persistent challenge to the status quo in Richmond Heights schools, initially but by no means exclusively around the crisis involving the unprofessional conduct of the boys high school basketball coach.

We think the young woman has exemplary leadership qualities. If she is able to secure the Ward 4 council seat from the incumbent, it will be a day of victory for the entire city.

Richmond Heights Board of Education

The appointment of Bobby Jordan to a vacant school board seat this past spring brought to light the need for serious change in the district. Jordan speaks softly but his habit of asking questions in public meetings has led to a harsh series of 3-2 votes. Jordan’s arrival seems to have rejuvenated veteran board member Linda Pliodzinskas, and she has joined Jordan in questioning many of the board majority’s puzzling personnel and financial decisions.

Jordan and Pliodzinskas should be returned to the Board. They should be joined by Frank Barber Jr., a college professor with a business bent. Together these three could begin to chart a return to excellence for the district without getting sidetracked by the cronyism and personal vendettas that seem to animate the current board majority.

Issues

Issue 90: YES. This is a no-brainer. This charter amendment will permit Richmond Heights to participate in joint service districts to share in service delivery of municipal services. It is the wave of the future.

Issue 91: NO. This proposed charter amendment reduces by 25% the tax credit a city resident gets for income taxes paid to another municipality. It amounts to a tax increase on Richmond Heights residents who work outside the city but not on those residents or nonresidents who work in the city.

The City Council has put this amendment on the ballot without adequate civic debate, perhaps because they have not wanted to force to address deficiencies found by state audits regarding missing funds and irregular reporting.

Richmond Heights leaders are going to have to deal with harsh realities soon in a city where both the government and the schools are short not just on funds but also plans, shared priorities, a sense of accountability and a necessary commitment to greater transparency.

SOUTH EUCLID

South Euclid Municipal Court: This court needs a judge equipped to deal with the dynamic range of issues in a transitional community. Gayle Williams-Byers possesses the temperament and the experience necessary for the job.

WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS

Mayor

This contest has taken on some unpleasant overtones with scurrilous material being circulated via the US mail and the Internet. [An anonymous letter arrived in our mailbox imploring us to ask a series of questions of presumptive frontrunner and hometown favorite Brad Sellers. We would have, if the questions had had any bearing on his fitness for office or his ability to do the job.]

Fact is, with or without a college degree or domestic bliss, Sellers is the most knowledgeable, capable, imaginative, self-confident, polished and well-spoken candidate in this three-way race for mayor. He has ideas, energy, and much useful experience. The realization of his potential could prove make him the best mayor in the city’s history.

Warrensville Heights Board of Education [Elect 3]: This district school board suffers from some of the same maladies as the Richmond Heights Local Schools, where a three-man coalition holds power, micromanages, undermines the superintendent, and generally runs amok. The battle lines are not as clear here, but the fingerprints are similar.

Warrensville Heights has a strong, talented, and dedicated superintendent who has accepted personal responsibility for improving the district’s substandard performance. She deserves and needs strong board support. Incumbents June E. Taylor and Mary Pat Morris are running as a team with Harold L. Burks to ensure that the superintendent gets that support. That’s enough to get our endorsement. [See clarification here.]

Oakwood Village

Mayor

I begin by declaring myself a Joe Fouche {“Fu Shea”] fan. I am a friend of Joe Fouche. We worked together briefly on a business venture that did not pan out but I discovered him to be a man of his word. He is candid, smart, and hard working, personable, and honest.

He’s a cop with compassion. He gets along with folks of all ages, persuasions and stripes but he does not suffer fools. He’s not impressed with how much money you have or don’t have.

On top of all that, he’s got a lot of ideas about how to make the village of his birth a better place. A former village councilman, he is one of the savviest political fellows around, knows everybody but chooses to work only with the straightest shooters.

He is decisive without being close-minded, confident without being cocky. Respectful of elders but attentive to the young.

Joe is also a successful businessman. He knows people, politics and government. He should be mayor of Oakwood. If you live in Oakwood Village, a vote for Joe Fouche is a vote for your present and your future.

Sellers is runaway winner in Warrensville mayoral debate

The mayor’s name appears on the sign identifying the premises as the Warrensville Heights Civic & Senior Center but the site for last night’s mayoral debate belonged to Brad Sellers in every other way last night, as the former hometown high school basketball star showed that he has game that transcends hardwood hoops.

When I arrived on the premises a full sixty minutes before the program started, Sellers was roaming the parking lot greeting debate goers as if they were being welcomed to his house. When I got to the entrance, there were five or six members of Team Brad in matching tee shirts and smiles, handing out professionally done campaign literature. Neither of the other candidates had either literature to distribute or a team of supporters in sight. During the course of the evening, with about 115 in attendance, I spotted one button for councilwoman Deborah A. Hill, who along with the incumbent Clinton Hall, seem to face an uphill battle against the seven foot tall Sellers. The mayor arrived only a few minutes before the debate kicked off. There was no evidence that he was running other than his presence.

The debate began on time with each candidate allotted time for an opening introduction. Hall spoke first and spent a good deal of his time talking about his family. He did say that in just under three years as mayor he had eliminated a $2.5 million projected deficit for 2010, absorbed $450 thousand in state budget cuts without laying off any employees, and that he had pushed through a new income tax and delivered on his promise of a new YMCA facility.

Deborah Hill, a member of city council and its past president, used her introduction to talk about the resilience of the city’s citizens. Somewhat defensively, she asserted, correctly, council’s role in the deficit elimination of which the mayor had spoken.

Sellers was the last to speak. He shared moving to the city in 1971, graduating from high school in 1981, and then going away and learning some skills. He said that he had walked every street and knocked on every door in the city since July. Speaking extemporaneously and with ease, he noted the city’s declining service level and failing school system and vowed improvements under his watch, suggesting that the brand new county library and YMCA were a precursor of better days ahead under his watch. He seemed to take credit for the new library and Y without doing so explicitly, undoubtedly because he had served as the city’s economic development director before resigning this summer to run against his former boss and Hill.

The debate, sponsored by the Warrensville Heights Area Chamber of Commerce, focused primarily on issues that most affect business, such as economic development, tax issues including tax abatement, the feasibility of merger with Highland Hills and North Randall, the city’s budget. Other questions referenced the school system, the challenge of the city’s vacant and foreclosed homes, and several stalled residential developments.

Many of these questions seemed to throw the incumbent for a loss, even though several have been longstanding issues during his administration. He clearly lost his train of thought several times, once so grievously that he admitted it after a substantial pause. More than once he cited the city’s inability to apply for certain funding, blaming Sellers for a failure to submit certain reports. Unfortunately for the mayor, since Sellers was employed by the Hall administration, the accusation aspersion cut two ways.

For her part, Hill seemed acerbic for much of the evening. She regularly allowed herself to be flummoxed by the inexperienced moderator, and far too often offered only bromides and platitudes in place of real answers. She spoke repeatedly of her passion for and dedication to the city, but seldom had a specific answer to any question.

By contrast, Sellers had done his homework and spoke forthrightly at every turn. He named problems — too few workers in the service department, the need to find a solution to the drag of Randall Park Mall, vacancies at the former Bass Chevrolet, Ellacott VW, and Corlett Lumber properties, the lack of infrastructure planning for several years. He proposed solutions— finding a real home for the Chamber of Commerce, having a real conversation about the type of school system the community wanted and needed, turning Randall Park into a job center, regional cooperation, being proactive, foreclosing on and then replacing residential developers.

Sellers’ rivals had memorable if somewhat awkward closing moments. Councilwoman Hill tried to claim the mantle of former mayor-turned-Congresswoman Marcia Fudge. Unfortunately for Hill, the Congresswoman has endorsed Sellers. The mayor acknowledged public speaking was his weakness and asserted a current surplus of $1.5 million in city coffers. Unfortunately, he followed that claim by unclear references to municipal debt retirement obligations, making it unclear how large any actual surplus might be.

Warrensville has about 350 businesses, including at least ten of substantial size. At the end of the evening, it was hard to envision very many of those business owners preferring another candidate to in the face of Sellers’ combination of candor, realism, decisiveness, and optimism.

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