I had a meeting with Robin Minter Smyers today, right before the public engagement committee meeting at COSE, which we both attended.   Robyn sits on the public engagement committee of the transition…er…thingy for Cuyahoga County.

First, I’m sure Robyn is in this for the right reasons.  However, I still don’t think Robyn is fully cognizant of what precisely she is, in fact, doing – governing.  Robyn, and the public engagement committee as a whole, still think they are engaged in a non-governmental activity.  I asked this point blank at today’s public engagement meeting.  Unanimously, the committee declared they are a non-governmental committee.

That is simply not true. They are implementing a charter authorized activity at the appointment of charter authorized appointments of the current government.  They get their entire authority to even meet from the charter.  The county holds all the data, there are paid county employees in charge of organizing and collecting that data.  In fact, the county’s own lawyer, none other than Bill Mason, declared that these meetings are subject to Ohio sunshine laws, only after protest.  I asked Mike Brickner, the Ohio ACLU rep at the meeting, if under Ohio law, the ACLU considered today’s meeting a governmental meeting.  He said, “yes.  This is a governmental body.”   I asked if I could quote him on that.  Mike said, “yes.”

This governmental meeting of a public engagement committee was held on private property, COSE’s downtown offices, whose doors were locked after hours, so if you wanted to enter this meeting of a governmental body (which went well past business hours) after the doors got locked by the private owners of the property, you would not get in.  I would still be amazed at the total ineptitude of this process, and how the tiniest layers of transparency somehow get lost, but it all makes sense now that it’s clear this…er…thingy is considered, incredibly, to be non-governmental by the people implementing it solely under governmental authority.

Now, my meeting with Robyn.  I asked Robyn for her support, and for the support of the people who backed Issue 6.  I even asked for a $50,000 donation from Joe Roman at the Greater Cleveland Partnership.  I asked for $50,000 from Joe Roman, or Eaton, or Thompson Hine, or GCP, or whoever, because I’m quite certain those folks will be cutting just such a check to somebody running for council – might as well be me!

We got to this discussion of $50,000, because Robyn kept saying over and over that this transition process will yield only “recommendations” that may be followed or may not.  At which point I noted that Joe Roman, or GCP, or Eaton, or Thompson Hine, or the backers of Issue 6, who will have an interest in seeing these recommendations implemented, will certainly be shopping for candidates who will promise just that.  Since I don’t make any deals (because lately, no one keeps up their end of deals with me), I thought I would note that if these money baggers’ interest really is transparency, well, I’m their guy.

I doubt I’ll be seeing the check.  If my opponents in District 7 want to get into a bidding war, be my guest.  See you on election day.

Tags: joe roman, public engagement committee, robyn minter smyers, transition

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 7:48 pm and is filed under Transparency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.