A moral compass won't lead you to Cleveland

AFTER PLEADING guilty to bribery last week, Santina Klimkowski, an upper-tier bureaucrat in Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo's office, told the Plain Dealer that her "moral compass" had failed her. That should explain everything.

There seem to be a lot of failed compasses going around in Cleveland these days as corrupt public employes and their enablers literally have been lining up to take a number to appear before the crowded court. There are enough people who have been either charged or convicted on the public payroll that a single indictment against the entire political culture would seem to be a modest beginning in cleaning up the mess.

Instead, there will be a couple of "reform" measures on the November ballot to change the structure of county government to make it more responsible for an honest day's work for a day's pay. But even those two issues bear the trademark of the city-county's eternal rivalries. One issue, supported by the mayor and county commissioners, is confusing enough in its wording that calls for a charter review commission to study the issue even more. In effect, it would give everybody on the cusp more time to find a good lawyer. The other ballot issue is supported by the "reformers" who figure you've got to start somewhere.

Taken together, the two measures represent how every political action causes a reaction by those who fear any change in the status quo would ill-serve their interests. Still, even if the second and most upheaving issue passes, where is the guarantee that a new cast of characters will bring new honor and light to Cleveland's political culture? Judging by tradition alone, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County politics (indistinguishable one from the other) have shown little willingness to subjugate individual interests to the public interest.

A bit of enlivening history:

Cleveland politics have long been battered by ethnic, racial, partisan, corporate and religious issues that have been passed down genetically from one generation to the next. Democrats have largely presided over this stricken scene, although they have often rivaled each other and crossed party lines to be joined by Republicans in sharing whatever largesse was available.

During Dennis Kucinich's mayor campaigns, it was not uncommon to hear Eastern Europeans complaining about the throngs of (x#&%*&!!) Irish in public office and running things "downtown." When Democrat Jack Gilligan was challenged by Republican Jim Rhodes in 1974, George Forbes, the powerful black Democratic councilman and Rhodes ally, was hardly seen in the campaign for Gilligan. Although the late Carl Stokes opposed Kucinich, his brother Lou, a congressman was at Kucinich's side.

Need more? Although Rhodes and pseudo Democrat Frank Lausche, had run one of the bloodiest campaigns against each other in the 1954 gubernatorial race, it was Lausche who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Rhodes in denouncing Gilligan in their match. And when I once reminded Ralph Perk that his mayoral campaign opponent, Kucinich, called himself the city's premiere ethnic candidate, Perk hastily offered the profound political insight for his city: "There are ethnics," he said sharply, "and there are ethnics!" Just to prove it, he allowed me to join him that evening to a Slavic event where he was hailed as The Ethnic Mayor.

The media's record has only served to emphasize the detente with powerful politicians and their corporate allies which, on one famous occasion, threw together a Forbes legal defense fund when he was charged with graft involving the church sponsors of street fairs. A nun then testified that Mr. Forbes was a wonderful person. On another occasion the Plain Dealer endorsed all three mayoral candidates, two in the primary without a single mention of the third and evenutal winning candidate in the general election, Kucinich. But after the primary, Publisher Tom Vail, who never saw a winner's circle that he didn't like, endorsed Kucinich, ushering him into the PD news room on election night with beaming compliments. Vail told me that the paper had learned more about Kucinich's street smarts after the primary and decided he was the one to lead the city into a progressive future.

We haven't even mentioned Art Modell's desertion to Baltimore by the light of the moon , later explaining that the city's movers and shakers hadn't been nice to him.

A little history can shed a bit more light on the horrendous corruption that has beset a slowly abandoned city that has long been at distrustful sixes and sevens with itself . I hope the reform issue on the ballot passes, but it is fair to wonder what would happen next to change a way of life that has dominated the city for many decades through a broadly defined political fraternity with so many moving parts that has enriched itself at public expense,

A headline in the Plain Dealer Monday reported: Cleveland seeing 14 pct. spike in home burglaries over '08. But with all of the failing moral compasses, that's only part of the story.

Cleveland's absence of dark matter

THERE WAS A picture in the Plain Dealer of the remarkable altar of  St. Casimir Church in Cleveland.  It is characteristic of the wonderfully ornate altars of churches, large and small, of Europe.  Although I am not a churchgoer, I have eagerly sought them out, from Notre Dame in Paris to the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua, Italy,  to pay homage to the sweeping architectural and spiritual genius that created these Old World buildings.  

For whatever your interest, you should take a good long look at them in Cleveland.  They might not be around for many more years.   St. Casimir's prominence in the PD this week was the result of a Page One death-watch story  headlined: Nationality parishes fight for survival in Cleveland. 

No city has been more possessive of its ethnic enclaves, all with their parish churches and their own native languages newspapers, that, at their peak, Balkanized the city into a mosaic of rivalries that arguably contributed to its rancorous political stress.  I recall how the late-Mayor Ralph Perk responded during his reelection campaign when I told him that his opponent, Dennis Kucinich, was casting himself as the city's "ethnic mayor".  Perk's expression darkened.  "He did, did he?  Well let me tell you:  There are ethnic mayors, and there are ethnic mayors."  Later, we whizzed along the expressway to a Lithuanian ball where Perk briskly entered the hall to be introduced to the throng as "Our ethnic mayor."  (C0me Election Day, the other ethnic mayor won.)

The demographics were further complicated by the Cuyahoga River that sliced through the city's midsection, separating whites and blacks. Communication between East Side and West Side, as well as the white nationality neighborhoods on the southeast side,  was never very good,  to say the least.  The city stumbled on many counts and nowhere were the rivalries more pronounced than within the  Democratic Party that  dominated the city. Even so,  the party became the touchstone of success - patronage , sly  deals, the glories of political favors that left just enough on the side for the minority Republicans to keep them in their place. The system rewarded the city across the state, providing Ohio over the past half-century with two governors (Celeste, Voinovich) and three U.S. senators (Metzenbaum, Lausche and Voinovich). It also elected the first African-American mayor (Carl Stokes) of a major American city.

So rich in political power was the city that Tom Vail, the top man at the Plain Dealer once thought it would be only proper if the Statehouse were moved to Cleveland.  Not to be outdone, Louis Seltzer, who headed a newspaper empire of Scripps-Howard papers in Ohio as well as a statewide news service for his and  other papers,  saw to it that Jim Rhodes would be elected governor.  Seltzer enjoyed his role of king-maker. 

But everything in Cleveland has come at a big price, often strangling any hope of progressive leadership, if only quasi-leadership.  There has even been a striking kinship between the front offices at city hall and the Cleveland Browns, each regularly trading in a mayor or coach without evidence of  benefits as the residents flee to higher ground beyond the city limits. .   The Plain Dealer has been whiplashing a couple of top Democrats and alleged beneficiaries of the political pot for corruption, but it may be a while, if ever, that anything comes of it. The city's bankrupt school system was handed off to state control in the 90s and later the mayor with recriminations against whatever school board was in place.   The county's Board of Elections had been put under administrative oversight by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner after a series of breakdowns.

Now, a proposal to build  a medical mart and convention center on the site of the old one has been kicked around by several interested parties, and may finally find daylight  in the hands of the county who would co-manage the $425 million project with Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.  Still, nothing is  ever certain in these squabbles.  

The city remains in distress, and what it doesn't need but is getting  - its share of recession-itus as population and jobs continue to shrink.   

Back to St. Casimir Church on the East side  - one of the city's 51 parishes of the Catholic diocese - and its vanishing numbers.  On the day the PD reporter visited the Polish mass, only 50 parishioners turned up in a church "that could hold a thousand." .  As I  noted earlier,  if you go there, take some good pictures to show to your grandchildren as an historical chapter on the city on the lake. 

In the same edition with the St. Casimir story,  John Mangels, the PD's science writer  offered a  first -rate  piece on the search for clues to something called "dark matter" in the universe in advance of  a workshop on the subject later this week.  Why should anybody care about this mysterious force that has yet to be visually detected by scientists?  The reason, Mangels explains, "is that dark matter is the glue that holds the  cosmos together."

Unfortunately, its binding effects have been of little help in pulling Cleveland together as a briskly functioning city.