Wednesday Politics RICHMOND HEIGHTS: Longtime mayor to face opposition

Wednesday Politics

RICHMOND HEIGHTS: Longtime mayor to face opposition

[Editor’s Note: Technical difficulties prevented our posting yesterday. We couldn’t get online.]

This is the first of a series of periodic snapshots on local 2013 municipal election campaigns.

This blog took a big leap forward in May 2011 when we followed our curiosity to Richmond Heights and its sociocultural struggles as they were being played out in its high school basketball program. Over the course of the following nine months some of our most widely read and circulated pieces covered key developments in the small but significant bedroom community [See here, here, and here].

Sometime this year we will return to the Richmond Heights school district to catch up on how the district is faring educationally. We can report today however that, thanks to a nearly complete turnover of the district school board, the costly shenanigans rooted in cronyism and race have pretty much disappeared. Only one member remains from the Board’s January 2011 organizational meeting.

Richmond Heights Board of Education, from left: Carmela Carter, Frank Barber, Linda Pliodzinkas, Tamitra Peavy and Bobby Jordan Sr. Jordan is president, Barber is vice president.

In reporting on Richmond Heights schools we came to understand the ways in which the district’s issues were only a part of the city’s underperformance. The city was in such financial straits that it would have been placed under fiscal watch in 2011 had the current standards of the State Auditor been in place at the time.

Perhaps this is the reason that the city’s longtime mayor, Daniel Ursu, in office since 1989, stopped giving "State of the City" addresses after 2010. His office told us today that he is working on an SOC this year.

Richmond Heights has four municipal races this year: mayor, council president, and the two council at large seats. These are held, respectively, by Ursu, David Roche, Miesha Wilson Headen, and Donald O’Toole.

Eloise Henry
Ward 3 Councilwoman

Miesha Wilson Headen
Councilwoman at Large

Whether Ursu pursues his seventh four year term may turn on whether he relishes a challenge from at least one and perhaps two or more city council members. While ward 3 councilwoman Eloise Henry is telling friends that she is in the race “no matter who else is running”, Headen faces a choice between running for reelection to the seat she won four years ago in her first try for public office, or going up against her colleague and perhaps others in a mayoral bid. The answer will likely depend on how much money she thinks she can raise.

Council president Roche told us that he is leaning towards running for re-election as opposed to seeking the mayor’s seat. Likewise, O'Toole says that he expects to run for re-election.

Ursu has yet to announce his plans.

Candidates can begin circulating petitions on June 8 and must file them by August 7. Richmond Heights offices are nonpartisan. The city has no primary.

Gender Gap between parties is growing

Prof. Karen Beckwith

Political scientist Karen Beckwith will lead a discussion this Friday on why Democratic women in Congress outnumber their Republican colleagues by such a hefty margin and what significance this may or may not have.

Beckwith, the Flora Stone Mather Professor of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University, will be the featured guest at this week’s Public Affairs Discussion Group from 12:30 to 1:30PM in the Kelvin Smith Library Dampeer Room. The library is adjacent to Severance Hall.

Eighty percent of female senators and more than 75 percent of female representatives are Democrats.

All-but announced 2013 State candidate Nina Turner to speak in Shaker Heights

State Senator and Minority Whip Nina Turner, D-25, who delivered impromptu remarks that fired up a diverse crowd of Democratic activists two weeks ago when state party chair Chris Redfern was in town, returns to the same location tomorrow. This time the microphone will have her name on it, though she didn’t need it last time.

Turner is the presumptive frontrunner as her party’s nominee to take on Secretary of State Jon Husted next year. Husted is a prime target for those upset by the restrictive voting procedures he has sought to impose since he won the seat in 2010. She is expected to talk about voting reforms but it’s a fair assumption that her talk will be anything but dry.

The program begins at 7PM at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Center, 3450 Lee Road.

The event is open to the public and refreshments will be provided. Sponsors include the Cuyahoga Democratic Women's Caucus, Beachwood-Woodmere Democratic Ward Club, Bedford/Walton Hills Democratic Party, Cleveland Stonewall Democrats, Ohioans for Democratic Values, Shaker Heights Democratic Club, South Euclid Democratic Club and University Heights Democratic Club.

Note to Republicans: we know some of you read these posts. We will be pleased to report your events in this space, as we have done in the past. Send your announcements to us here.

County Executive to speak in Cleveland Heights next week

Finally, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald will be at Grace Lutheran Church, 13001 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights, at 7PM next Thursday, February 28 for what sponsors Cleveland Stonewall Democrats and Cuyahoga Democratic Women’s Caucus are billing as a “conversation”.

Free; open; refreshments.

Rigging the Electoral Game

Chris Redfern, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, announced today that he would be filing a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the Congressional redistricting bill passed last week by the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly. Redfern denounced the legislation, House Bill 319, as “ a blatantly partisan congressional map that dilutes important Democratic constituencies and attacks the very foundation of our political process.”

It’s good to see the Democrats show some spunk. The Republican playbook seems to contain an injunction that if they gain an inch, they should transform it into two miles. I guess that’s what the party of corporate interests does in a capitalist society.

Ohio has long been regarded as a bellwether state in national elections, a barometer of political winds, if you will, that both forecasts and reflects short-term changes in the weather. The GOP is working to transform both Congressional and statehouse districts into cold-weather thermostats that will permanently freeze the range of choices available to voters. In the process, they have displayed ruthless zeal in carving up communities [examples: four different Congress people would represent a part of Cuyahoga County; Toledo would be split into three districts.].

The Republican message to Ohio voters of all parties or no party, of whatever county or color, is a paraphrase of Moe Greene's remark to Michael Corleone upon the latter's arrival in Las Vegas to buy controlling interest in the casino: " You think you can come to the polls and decide who you want to represent you? No! You don't elect me: I choose you."

• • •

GOP zeal in district distortion does not diminish the continued cunning use of racial elements in non-post racial America. While new Congressional districts increase chances for a Columbus-area African American congressional representative to be elected, the state district guidelines create ten majority-minority districts.

This is called having your cake and eating it too. The net effect of all this extensive gerrymandering may be to produce more black elected officials who will be consigned to irrelevance within the confines of a permanent minority party. The GOP is thus tempting black political officials with the opportunity to become bigger fish in the junior pond. 

What would C. J. McLin do?[1]

These black state reps would be further weakened if HB 194 — the ballot access-restriction measure— takes effect this week. Opponents of the measure must file 231,000 valid signatures with the Ohio Secretary of State by Thursday to delay its immediate implementation of that law and give Ohio voters a chance to ratify or reject it next year.

Careful readers will note that I wrote the “net effect of gerrymandering may produce more black elected officials who would be functionally irrelevant. Rendering impotent a core Democratic constituency is undoubtedly the GOP aim. For them only thing better is the possibility that some of these black officials would switch parties to enhance their effectiveness. The diabolical aspect of this possibility is that Republicans, who have been unable to win the hearts and minds of the black electorate by policy advocacy, would gain inroads into the black community by underhandedness.

While I denounce their tactics, the blame would belong elsewhere if they succeeded.

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[1] C. J. McLin Jr. (1921 - 1988) was elected an Ohio State Representative in 1966 and quickly became one of the most influential leaders in the history of Ohio. The Dayton area politician was a formidable legislator who achieved numerous victories during his 22 years in office. He was a founder of what is today known as the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and is enshrined in Ohio’s Civil Rights Hall of Fame.