- [Announcer] Production and distribution of City Club Forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by: PNC, and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(invigorating music) (audience chattering indistinctly) (bell dings) - Welcome to the 2022 Cuyahoga County Executive Candidates Debate.

It's Tuesday, September 20th, and I'm Kristen Baird Adams, President of the Board of Directors of The City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to convening conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

That certainly is the case today as we near a critically important race here in Cuyahoga County.

It's been eight years since Cuyahoga County elected a new county executive and more than a decade since voters created the office for which the candidates are vying.

Whomever is elected on November 8th will serve 1.2 million Cuyahoga County residents, oversee a budget of roughly $1.5 billion and navigate a multitude of challenges and opportunities, many of which the candidates will address today by way of questions that come directly from residents of Cuyahoga County.

Neither candidate has reviewed these questions in advance.

Today's debate will be moderated by Ideastream Public Media, politics and government reporter and editor, or reporter and producer, Nick Castele, who may pose follow-up questions to the candidates.

In just a moment, Nick will introduce the candidates and review the rules of today's debate.

But first, I'd like to take a moment to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to our partners at The Cleveland Foundation, The Gund Foundation, and Ideastream Public Media for their partnership in helping convene this debate.

Additionally, we'd like to thank the Sisters of Charity Foundation and Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer for their support.

With that, City Club members, friends, and guests, please join me in welcoming today's moderator, Ideastream Public Media's Nick Castele.

(audience applauds) - Thank you very much, Kristen.

I am glad to be here.

It is an honor to moderate this important debate for the residents of Cuyahoga County.

Before we get started though, I have a very important announcement to make.

If you have parked illegally in the valet, your car may be about to be towed.

So if that applies to you, I'd encourage you to go check it out.

Thank you very much.

Now let me explain the rules of this debate, which were agreed to by both candidates.

Candidates will each have 90 seconds for opening and closing statements.

The candidate who goes first in the opening statements will also go first in the closing statements, and the order was determined by a coin flip earlier today.

As you've heard, questions are coming directly from the voters.

These questions may be directed to both or to a specific candidate, and the candidate will have 60 seconds to respond.

At my discretion, candidates will be allowed 30-second rebuttals, and I may have follow-up questions.

In order to get as much substantive debate as possible, we will ask you all to refrain from your applause, except at this moment when we welcome the candidates.

Members and friends of The City Club, your candidates for Cuyahoga County Executive, Democrat Chris Ronayne and Republican Lee Weingart.

(audience applauds) - [Chris] Thank you so much.

- Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Thank you for being here and making the time for this debate.

We will begin with our opening statements.

Each candidate has 90 seconds for these.

The order, as I said, was determined by a coin flip earlier today, and Mr. Weingart, you'll go first.

- Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, I'm Lee Weingart, and I'm running for county executive.

I'm running to fix a county that has lost its way and forgotten its purpose.

In the last 25 years, we've lost population, and we've lost jobs.

We have the highest taxes in Ohio and high unemployment, poverty and crime.

I have a bold vision to fix that, and it starts with economic development.

I wanna help 10,000 families become private homeowners, help create 4,000 new good paying jobs in Cuya County.

That's how we create wealth that starts and stays in the urban core.

My plan to unify local income taxes under the county will simplify your taxes, will end RITA, and will make the county more competitive and more unified.

My rollback and freeze program for senior citizens on fixed incomes will freeze their property taxes and keep them in their homes longer.

I'll work with nonprofit organizations to ensure the health and safety of our most vulnerable citizens, our children, and our seniors.

I'll create more opportunities in county government for minority contracting.

This is an ambitious agenda, but I have the experience as county commissioner and the private sector to make it happen.

I'm running to reestablish public faith in county government to make Cuya County a better place to live, work, raise a family, and retire for all of us.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

And I will hear from Mr. Ronayne.

- Thank you, Nick, and I wanna wish Dan Moulthrop a happy birthday today.

Happy birthday, Dan.

(audience applauds) Thanks for all you do.

I'm Chris Ronayne.

I'm running for Cuyahoga County Executive as well.

I am running on a healthy Cuyahoga County agenda.

A healthy Cuyahoga to me means healthy communities for the long haul.

It means a healthy economy that's all in participation, and it means a healthy government that's working for you.

Folks, in our communities, we know the disparities that face us.

Too often, our zip code is the determinant of our outcome and our longevity.

In our workforce, we've got great things going for us, but not enough people participating all in in our economy.

And we need to retool, upskill, and bring workers to the prosperity of today and tomorrow.

In government, we need to function well enough.

Again, we need to be in your communities.

We need to be on Main Street.

I propose neighborhood family service centers in your communities.

Folks, you know me.

You know me from University Circle where I built 2,500 units of housing, worked with tens of thousands of kids in experiential learning, built small business connections.

You know me from the port where we reached Europe with the Cleveland-Europe Express.

You know me from Canalway Partners.

You know that we just finished the Towpath Trail through Cuyahoga County.

You know me from the City of Cleveland where I served as a Chief Development Officer, and I will work with mayors to see their towns develop.

Our waterfront plan really renewed faith in where our region can go.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Ronayne.

We will now go to questions directly from Cuyahoga County voters.

As a reminder, our candidates will have timed responses of 60 seconds, and I will allow 30-second rebuttals at my discretion.

May we have the first question please?

- Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Becky Ruppert McMahon.

I live in Westlake, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.

It's beyond debate that renovating or building the next generation justice system in Cuyahoga County is one of the, if not the most, important issues facing our region today.

In 2018, following years of discussions about structural and procedural deficiencies inside The Justice Center and the jail, Executive Budish, and then Common Pleas Administrative Judge John Russo signed a memorandum of understanding, outlining a process that would be used to determine whether our justice complex should be renovated or replaced.

Today, nearly five years later, we are a long, long way from a comprehensive strategic and financial plan, let alone an actual decision as to whether to renovate or relocate.

Since 2018, 14 people have died in custody while in the jail.

Public officials have come and gone from the 12-person Justice Center Steering Committee.

More than $2 million have been spent on consultants, with more to come, and the cost of doing anything construction related continues to skyrocket.

We've had plenty of public officials involved in these prolonged discussions, but no clear leadership.

My question is, if successful in the election, what will each of you do specifically during your first year in office to lead our community through this quagmire?

- Thank you very much for your question.

We'll begin with Mr. Ronayne.

- Thank you for your question.

First, we will robustly review the renovation plan for the current facility, because no matter what gets built, we need to make sure that those in detention now are well taken care of.

Secondly, we will completely revisit the issue of area sites.

I do not believe that this site is a worthy site, given the toxicity already discovered on the grounds.

I do believe that we need a justice system, not just a jail, so we will be looking into, as I tour the Diversion Center, why it's empty.

It's a good idea, but we need to fill it.

We need to fill our treatment beds.

We need to look comprehensively at a justice system that is a justice system, not just a jail.

We'll do that under my watch, and we will take the time necessary for what is a 50-to-100-year decision.

My goal is to bring down the prison population.

My goal is to rehabilitate and stabilize communities.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you, Mr. Ronayne.

Mr. Weingart, you'll have 60 seconds on the same question.

- Well, thank you, Becky, for your question.

I have opposed this new jail from the very beginning when it was 500 million, and now it's 750 million.

If the county buys the land for the jail, I will sell it.

If the county signs contracts on the jail project, I will cancel them.

If the county tries to extend the temporary sales tax to pay for the jail, I'll do everything in my power to stop that extension.

I believe we need a smaller jail, not a bigger jail.

So I wanna look at renovating one of the downtown jails, Jail II, to about 500 beds, and then building a smaller jail somewhere downtown or outside of downtown.

This is what Franklin County did.

They built two jails with a 1,000 capacity for $360 million.

If it works in Franklin County, it should work in Cuya County.

I wanna move toward a smaller jail system, also relying on diversion and treatment for those who are not dangerous, who are arrested, they should be diverted and treated, not put in the county jail.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

And can we have our next question from the audience?

- Good afternoon.

My name is Chanel Moon, and I am a resident of Warrensville Heights, and I am the Director of Youth Programs at Merrick House in Tremont.

Although Cuyahoga County spans beyond Cleveland, most resources go to Cleveland first.

As county executive, how will you approach getting more resources, funding and programs to inner-ring suburbs like Warrensville Heights, Maple Heights, Garfield Heights, and so on?

- Thank you very much for your question.

Mr. Weingart, we'll start with you.

- (indistinct) question.

So my focus is on community investment.

My 10,000 homes initiative will help 10,000 families become private homeowners, bringing security and wealth to those families and safety to the neighborhoods.

My 4,000 job initiative will create jobs and internships for children who are in the suburbs and in the city of Cleveland.

I want to shrink county government and invest in the suburbs, first-ring suburbs and in the neighborhoods of Cleveland.

So for example, I want to sell the Hilton Hotel, and I want to sell the Medical Mart.

That will save $50 million a year out of our general fund.

That $50 million goes right back into my initiatives to create private housing, more jobs, and more small businesses.

It's time to stop growing county government, time to start growing Cuya County.

Invest in people, do not invest in government.

- Mr. Ronayne, same question.

- Chanel, thanks, and thanks for what you do at Merrick House.

There are a number of mayors here today, many from the inner-ring suburbs.

I cannot wait to work with you.

We will work to match in the county Mayor Bibb's Center City $50 million housing fund.

We will work to match that in Cuyahoga County at large.

We will bring an industrial commercial land bank to bear where we will be working with our first-ring suburbs to create job sites and centers within Cuyahoga County and also working with our regional counties around the horn so that the next intel lands here.

I authored a Community Health Equity Fund in the last six weeks.

It was with the cities of Richmond Heights and Bedford in mind, with the closure of those two hospitals, so also went million dollars out of their budgets.

We need to think about impacted cities who lose.

We need to think more about tax-based sharing.

We could have in that case shared those taxes with the cities that received those hospitals.

But we also need to think about seniors who need to get healthcare access.

We will be working aggressively in the 59 communities of Cuyahoga County, thank you.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Ronayne.

And we will go to our next question.

I do just wanna note briefly, candidates, if you do have a rebuttal you'd like to offer, just give a sign, and I'd love to have the conversation.

We'll now go to our next question, please.

Oh, no, excuse me.

Our next question actually comes from someone who could not be here today, and so I will be reading it.

This next question comes from Mark Ross of the Edgewater neighborhood in Cleveland.

He, as I said, wasn't able to be here, so I will be the one posing it to the candidates.

He asks, "Many residents of Cuyahoga County have some of the highest property tax rates in the country, and also pay local tax to both RITA and CCA due in part to the continual population decline of the region and the continuity of the many municipalities in the county.

What are your plans to address this issue, either through government simplification or otherwise?"

Mr. Weingart, we'll mix up the order a little bit because I know this speaks to an issue you have been talking about in your campaign, a unified tax system for municipal income taxes.

But I do wanna add a question to that, which is how will you get all of these 59 municipalities on board with this idea?

- Which question shall I answer, yours or his?

- [Nick] (chuckles) Well, I think they both go together.

- In 60 seconds, so I have announced a plan to unify income tax collection under Cuya County to make it simpler for you to pay your taxes and to end RITA and double local income taxes, like Mr. Ross was referring to.

It also helps keep our cities safe by securing their revenue sources.

They're losing money because of remote work, makes our county more competitive.

No longer will cities be competing against each other to bring in jobs that will all work together to bring those jobs into Cuya County.

Now, it will require a vote of the people under the Ohio Constitution.

It'll appear on the ballot that the county will have the exclusive authority to collect and distribute income taxes back to the municipalities.

But what it will really say in the advertising is, this is a vote to end RITA, which is unfair.

It taxes us twice if we live in different communities from where we work.

So I wanna make your taxes simpler, I wanna end RITA, I wanna make sure we get good jobs in Cuya County, and we do that with my plan.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Ronayne, you have 60 seconds on this issue too.

- Thank you, I guess I'll go to both questions.

Relative to a central collection agency, I think the mayors, many of whom are out here today, need to be listened to and spoken with first.

They've already authored this week the Mayors and Managers Association a letter with significant concerns.

So my leadership style is collaborative, listener, leader.

On the property tax mark, I know where you live, you're always gonna be proportionally higher as you look out over the lake, but I will say that you make a point about property taxes generally.

The way to do this is go for growth.

We've got a city in the City of Cleveland that is a third of its former size.

We've had flat growth for decades in Cuyahoga County.

We have land with a land bank, both residential and commercially, to build on to generate more growth, which we see as an opportunity to serve more of our schools, parks and infrastructure, which in the long haul, Cuyahoga County, being its position on the Great Lake, it is poised for growth.

Let's go for growth and ultimately take that proportional property tax to a level we can all handle.

- Thank you, Mr. Ronayne.

And I wanna stay with you here for another question that I'll be asking because we had a chance to talk about Mr. Weingart's proposal.

I wanna ask you about your tax idea too.

You have proposed having the hospital systems make a payment in lieu of the property taxes that they currently get a break on.

Can you answer for us, how do you get these hospitals to the table to have that discussion about paying money that they don't have to pay?

- I've been working with them for years.

I appreciate the income tax they generate in this community, and I appreciate what they do in terms of employment, and most importantly, patient care.

But the essence of the Community Health Equity Fund is this, 200 metropolitans across the country have already exercised these, most recently of this in Pittsburgh.

There is $114 million of taxable land on the table that is not being taxed now.

As the industry grows, so grows our need to have some recapture to support schools, to support parks and infrastructure.

So my specific proposal is that 35% of that 114 million is gross to us, which is 38 million.

We can put this together with two hospitals specifically that are the largest employers in the region.

Again, we come at this with an open mind.

We come at this with we have needs, and we need to make sure that we have healthcare access, transportation too, and many of our other community needs are addressed as this industry grows.

- Thank you, and Mr. Weingart, I'll give you 60 seconds on the same issue, this topic of hospitals and property taxes.

- As I recall, Chris, you did not consult with either CEO of UH or the clinic before rolling out your chef program.

Had you done that, you might have found out what I learned, which is that one CEO under no circumstance will make a payment as you are suggesting.

Now, closing the gap on health disparities is of course very important, but I don't think we do it by appointing another committee that will have on it experts like county council members who have discretionary funds at their availability to spend.

We saw what happened the last time we gave discretionary funds to the county council.

$66 million of illegal spending, what I see is illegal spending.

So I don't think it's a good idea.

I would rather work with the hospital systems rather than announce a plan and then go back and ask them for their support.

Work with the CEOs of both hospital systems, come up with a plan that we can use to close the health disparity gap, which is a critical problem in Cuya County.

- Rebuttal.

- Thank you very much.

Mr. Ronayne, 30 seconds for rebuttal.

- Lee, I'm glad you've become the shuttle diplomat to the hospital, but I will say we have three new CEOs coming in.

We have three hospitals that just closed.

You talk about picking up the phone, I picked up the phone and called Mayor Kim Thomas in Richmond.

I called the city manager of Bedford, because that's what leaders do.

What I would've done is a tax-sharing arrangement with Beachwood who's receiving the employees and said, "Let's level the playing field for these impacted communities."

That's how leaders lead.

We step up, and I stood out in front of a 100-year-old hospital in Bedford that closed.

We need to do something about this.

- Thank you.

30 seconds if you want it.

- Well, my point, Chris, is you didn't call the people you're gonna ask the money for, the CEO, if you oversee hospitals, and the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic.

Had you called them, they would've told you we're not gonna do that, because right now the hospitals are on their backs financially, because of supply chain challenges, inflation and staffing.

They are really hurting.

I'm not here to defend the hospitals, but it's a terrible time to ask them to give more money when they're already putting up $1.4 billion a year in charity, care and philanthropic support.

So it's bad timing, and it's a bad idea.

- Thank you, gentlemen, for this exchange.

While we're on this topic of health, we want to turn to another one that speaks to the health and wellbeing of Cuyahoga County residents.

Our next few questions will address some of these issues.

Can we have the next question, please?

- Hello, my name is Tracy Giovannis, and I live in Fairview Park.

and my question is specifically how will you immediately address the foster care youth crisis in our county, specifically housing children with needs at Jane Edna?

Then these same children are put through our broken juvenile system and treated as adults without needs.

When will the task force focus on all the urgent needs?

- [Nick] Mr. Weingart, we'll start with you.

- I met with a six foster care parents last week, six dedicated families to fostering children in our system.

They've gotten terrible treatment from our department, and I'm gonna reform that department from the bottom up.

As you probably also know, the county is warehousing children in the Jane Edna Hunter building because they won't pay an appropriate reimbursement rate to OhioGuidestone and Bellefaire and others who have slots available but can't hire staff 'cause the county is being too cheap.

I will raise a reimbursement rate so they can hire staff and keep these children in an appropriate setting.

I will also fire the top leadership at HHS in Cuya County.

My opponent won't do that.

They have failed the children of this county.

They need to be removed from office.

And I will end this nefarious practice of placing our children outside of the county, even outside of the state.

We need to attract more social workers.

I'll do that through scholarships in college and helping pay student debt.

I've got a reform plan to keep our children in Cuya County safe.

- [Nick] Thank you very much.

Mr. Ronayne.

- We agree we have a crisis on our hands.

Thank you for the question.

One of the issues we have to address immediately is the vacancy of 200 case worker jobs at Cuyahoga County.

I've already put forth a plan to pay, to recruit, to retain workers.

When you have a worker that is working with kids that's making 15, $16 an hour and could walk over to Target and make $20 an hour, we have an upside down issue.

We have got to pay our workers.

I am very glad that the AFSCME workers here in this room today are serving, but they need brothers and sisters working with them at their side, they are down 200.

Try being a teacher teaching 50 kids at a time.

Try being a coach coaching 50 kids at a time.

The caseloads are too big.

That's the starting point.

I also met with foster care parents last week.

Absolutely, the system is broken relative to serving foster care parents who are just simply trying to help kids.

We need to work with them to make sure that that parent network is strongly speaking with Cuyahoga County, but let's make sure that we hire up to be successful.

- Thank you very much.

(audience applauds) And we'll move on now to our next question.

- Hi, my name is Elaine.

My pronouns are she/her/hers, and I'm a queer community organizer living in Cleveland.

Cuyahoga County has a once-in-a-generation chance right now with ARPA and opioid settlement money to reinvest significantly in public health and public safety, especially in light of the closure at St. Vincent's.

How will you work to expand the availability of high-quality crisis care beyond what police officers can do for the county, as we continue to see the number of mental health crisis calls, substance use crisis calls, suicide calls, and other behavioral health emergencies in Cuyahoga rise year over year over year?

- [Nick] Mr. Ronayne, you can start with this one.

60 seconds.

- Thanks for that question.

This is an incredibly complex system that needs to be fixed.

The issues in front of us start with incident management.

A care team approach that I'm beginning to see in Shaker Heights working needs to work everywhere.

We need to make sure that when an incident occurs, we have the right professionals routing persons to the right place, to mental healthcare facilities, to treatment beds, working in the system with judges, working in the system with law enforcement and our community specialists.

I want to thank Sister Judith Karam for all she does in this community here today from St. Vincent's and the Sisters, thank you.

Thank you for what you do.

But again, the point I'm making about health equity is institutions cannot just simply shoulder all of this on their own.

We've gotta work as a community partnership.

I see the new public-private-nonprofit partnership working first and foremost on that care approach, that we're making sure our people are well, that they're getting treatment, and that we are downsizing the population in the jail because people have found the doorway to what they need, which is treatment and mental health services.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

Mr. Weingart.

- I am concerned that our county government has taken a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, first with the CARES Act and now with ARPA to waste that money, not invest it the right way.

I was the only candidate to call out the slush funds for what they were, illegal spending.

My opponent laterly came to the same conclusion that I did.

There'll be $54 million left when I become county executive.

We will invest that in our communities, in my private housing initiative in the inner cities.

We will invest it in job creation and, of course, in healthcare.

We need to fix the St. Vincent's problem immediately.

It's the only downtown emergency room.

It's one of two inpatient psychiatric care clinics in the state of Ohio.

And if that inpatient service goes away, we'll have a major problem in Cuya County.

So I want to unite the hospital systems together, UH, the clinic and metro to address the hole we now see by the absence of St. Vincent's in a critical neighborhood in the city of Cleveland.

- Thank you, Mr. Weingart.

Mr. Ronayne, you were mentioned, if you want 30 seconds to rebut, you can.

- I just want to say that I think our biggest problem is over-reliance on ARPA, period.

It's a one-time source of funds that, yes, I would've systemically made sure that it was catalytic in nature.

My monies would've gone on workforce, on housing, on transportation, the barriers to getting to and from jobs and to getting ready for a job.

I hope with what remaining funds are allegedly there, that's where those dollars will go.

If there's any money left under my plan, that is where they will go.

- Mr. Weingart, 30 seconds if you'd like it.

- I'm good.

- All right.

We'll move on.

- I stand with what I said.

- That's just fine.

We've got many more questions to get to.

And we'll go to our next one now.

- Hi, my name is Melaak Rashid.

I am a Development Director at Smart Development serving refugees and immigrants, and I am from the West Park neighborhood.

I'm here representing the Cleveland Caucus as a co-lead for Opal, a grassroots community organization for social justice, and elevates the voices and visibility of progressive leaders in the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community.

There are over, combined with the Arab-American and the Asian-American, Pacific Islander community across Cuyahoga County, on 100,000 plus individuals in this community.

With Cuyahoga County now being in progress to be a certified welcoming county, when elected, what do you both plan to do to tackle the lack of language access across the county and across the various departments within the county?

And how will you work to increase the amount of disaggregated data that can help the county ensure that they're properly representing and making available resources, not just included, but inclusive to the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community?

- Mr. Weingart, we'll start with you.

- Cuya County and Cleveland are communities of immigrants.

We've welcomed immigrants into our neighborhoods for hundreds of years.

I'm glad to see the Asian community stepping up today to ask an important question.

We need to have the county government be more responsive and more open to the needs of immigrants coming into Cuya County.

We need to grow our population again.

We're losing population, one of the few major counties in America to do that the last 10 years.

I wanna work with the Asian community and other immigrant communities to make sure we have a welcoming Cuya County, that our websites are in native languages they can understand so they can maximize getting benefits from the county.

I also wanna bring into the county government people who look like the community.

So this will be a county administration that reflects every aspect of Cuya County.

That's my goal as county executive.

That's what I'll do when I become your next county executive.

- [Nick] Thank you very much.

And Mr. Ronayne.

- I think we need to go further.

When I was at Global Cleveland in the forum this past Monday night, I announced an Office of International Affairs at the county, with a first generation fund working out of economic development.

Why, because metros that are welcoming of immigrants, intentionally in the public sector, working with private sector, see good things happen and businesses grow.

20% of our American businesses were started by first-generation Americans.

That's also a number we want to reach and exceed in Cuyahoga County.

There are 33,000 small businesses here, I want to grow it.

So right out of the gates, rational self-economic interest is one reason to support the Office of International Affairs, but thank you for what you do in the refugee response.

We need to get people stable in our community.

We have room to grow and welcome, and so I will be a proponent for making sure that our international community that comes here, like my father-in-law, Gus Saikaly, who's here today, made a go of it, and 40 years later, he's a resident right here in Ohio.

Thanks for being here today, Gus.

We need more of you.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Ronayne.

Our next question comes from Sharon Milligan from the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood in Cleveland, who is not able to be here today, but she does ask, "How will the county address the issue of supportive housing for the young persons who are disabled and their families?

I'm aware of public housing, however, I know it is not adequate to meet the need."

Mr. Ronayne.

- Thanks for the question, and thanks for what you do in Buckeye.

I wanna say that the issues facing our mobility-impaired disabled community need to be addressed.

It's something I worked on in University Circle, and something I'll work on in the county.

Our zoning is often exclusionary to those who have special housing needs.

Our building codes are not up to speed.

We need a universal design zoning code that we mayors can work on together to make sure that we welcome, because, but for an incident and accident or anything else in life, it could be us.

We need to look out for our brothers and sisters who have those challenges.

I want to see complete streets in the county, ones where we're not just only streets reserved for driving, but wheels, cycling, but also persons in wheelchairs with wider sidewalks.

We need to start thinking about designing for 21st century, as they do all over the world.

We also need to think about a housing affordability plan for those who are disabled, working with organizations like Maximum Accessible Housing to get it done.

We can do this, it'll be a part of our housing fund to help those who need us first.

- [Nick] Thank you.

Mr. Weingart.

- What we need to do is get more people into homes that they own, that's my agenda.

10,000 homes for Cuya County, and Buckeye-Woodhill is a good example of that.

In 2016, if you took a heat map of crime in Buckeye-Woodhill, you would've seen enormous areas of high crime throughout that neighborhood.

Over the following four years, Habitat Humanity built over 100 homes in that neighborhood.

So that same heat map in 2020 showed very few areas of high crime and large areas of no crime because we know that neighborhoods with high incidences of home ownership are safer and have less crime.

That's why I'm so focused on bringing a program to help 10,000 families become private homeowners, to bring security for their family, to bring wealth for their family, and to bring safety for their neighborhood.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

Our next question will touch on equity in arts and culture, specifically Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, which receives its revenue from the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County.

May we have the next question?

- Yes, thanks, Nick.

My name is Carmen Lane, I'm an artist, and I'm a steward of an artist-run space in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood called ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership.

While Cuyahoga Arts & Culture is a resource for the arts and culture sector in this community, the data, the national data, says that less than 6% of all arts funding is given to BIPOC-led organizations.

And by BIPOC, black, indigenous, people of color.

The leadership for years at Cuyahoga Arts & Culture has been predominantly white.

What are you willing to do to not only change this for our community, but also increase the leadership capacity within the arts with less red tape to access funding?

- Mr. Weingart, you have 60 seconds.

- I have been for a long time supportive of public funding of the arts.

We have wonderful institutions in University Circle, the art museum, the orchestra, and others.

They've all got major endowments, and I'm glad that they do.

We should be giving our arts dollars to those individual artists and those smaller organizations that don't have the endowments that our major institutions do.

So I would ensure going forward that a much larger percentage of the tax dollars that are raised go to individual artists and small artists organizations.

That's where I would put my time and your money.

Now, I wanna expand and change the way that that group is led.

In fact, as I said earlier, my administration will reflect the community, and every part will reflect the community.

So we wanna make sure that Cuya Arts & Culture reflects the community, the artist community, particularly small and minority artists.

- [Nick] Thank you, Mr. Weingart.

And Mr. Ronayne, same question.

- Thank you very much, and it's a great question.

I want to point out one of the institutions in University Circle that flies a little under the radar, but does amazing things with principally kids of color, Center for Arts-Inspired Learning.

They grew out of University Circle, grew further into the Glenville neighborhood, and they continue to inspire me.

But you're right, we need to get more dollars to more people, particularly across the races here in Cuyahoga County.

One, I do think the cigarette tax is a very fleeting source.

Hopefully it will be.

That's now sourcing Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, so I think we need to rethink this entire system of arts-based supportive funding.

I want to thank Matt Zone who's out here today who started with the Percent for the Arts legislation, got the conversation going in the ball rolling at the City of Cleveland, but we need to keep that going.

One of the things I wanna work on is a rule of 30 in Cuyahoga County where contracts that go, for artists included, go proportionally to persons of color because that's 30% of our county.

Look for the rule of 30, but look for an entire overhaul of a art system and how we're actually gonna fund it and get it out to artists of color in our community.

Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

We'll be moving on now to a few questions on a variety of different issues including economic development, county administration, and criminal justice, and we'll go to our next question now.

- Good afternoon, candidates.

My name is Juan Pena.

I am the investor relations coordinator at Team NEO.

I live in Cleveland's Jefferson neighborhood.

My question is, what are the top three critical issues you see on the horizon for Cuyahoga County from a business perspective over the next 10 years, and how will you prepare for that?

Thank you.

- Mr. Ronayne, what are the top business issues that you see facing Cuyahoga County?

You'll have a minute.

- Talent, talent and talent development, but I'll also say, just expounding on that, we need to really rethink our workforce system.

I like what I'm seeing with Dr. Michael Bass in the new Tri-C President when he is talking about workforce innovation as much as workforce development.

We need to continue to look at what employers need, but how within an employee do we help them grow into not just a job, but a career.

That's the workforce side.

On the site side, I've talked to you guys quite a bit at NEO.

We need to be ready, we need when that next intel comes around to be ready to roll.

We have not been, and we've seen 'em go off to places like Lincoln County that was ready.

So working with you on site development, we will do that.

And finally, I wanna say to adult, I won't even say dislocated workers, just people who need a shot back in.

We need to find ways to get our adults retooled and reskilled and upskilled for this new economy.

Yes, we talk manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, healthcare IT in the water economy, but what's it mean for all of us, right?

In all of our community?

Are we training to that skillset?

Working with partners like Tri-C, Y.O.U.

and plenty of others, we're gonna make it happen in this nonprofit-public partnership.

- Mr. Weingart, you have a minute too.

How will you help Cuyahoga County prepare for the business challenges to come in the next decade?

- We have very high taxes in Cuya County.

We need to figure out a way to bring tax relief in Cuya County.

My plan to unify income tax under the county will do that by eliminating RITA and having a single local income tax.

We need a county executive who will roll up his sleeves and make phone calls.

I talked to the Clean Water Alliance about Lake Erie and what they were doing to try and bring companies to Cleveland in Cuya County that were water innovative and water intensive.

I didn't hear a plan.

My plan would be this, give me 500 CEOs of water-intensive and water-innovative companies, and I will call every one of them, invite them to Cleveland to see our Great Lake, and to figure out how we can bring their facility here.

We need to leverage our health institutions, metro, UH, the clinic to create biotech opportunities, and we need to play on our historic excellence in manufacturing to bring in advanced manufacturing to Cuya County.

If we do this, we will grow our economy and get our people working again.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

We will now go to our next, pardon?

If you like 30 seconds to a rebut, please.

- Because I think the Cleveland Water Alliance does have a plan and I thank Bryan Stubbs for sharing it.

You know, too often are we as public sector leaders really listening to what our nonprofits need?

He is talking about business development, test beds, which immediately I started talking to the St. Clair Superior Community Development Corporation about would we have sites available both onshore and offshore.

We need to be thinking about those that are ahead of the curve in our nonprofit and business sectors and how public sector can blow wind in their sails.

But I think Cleveland Water Alliance does have a plan in there freshwater capital that we will be.

- Mr. Weingart, if you'd like a response, you may.

- My point, Chris, was that there was no plan to reach out and attract CEOs to come to Cleveland because the administration that currently is exists and under Mr. Ronayne doesn't value jobs, doesn't understand the impact of working in the private sector.

(audience chattering) I understand that.

I've been in the private sector for the last 20 years.

I've been helping to bring jobs to Cuya County, and I'll continue doing that as county executive.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

We'll now move to our next question about county administration.

- (chuckles) Good afternoon, my name is Dan Langshon, I'm from North Royalton.

I have served about a decade in elected office in my community, and something I've experienced, and I know there's many elected officials in this room, have experienced in the 59 different municipalities here in Cuya County is.

The county's not doing enough to work regionally and being active collaborators and addressing urgent needs we have, especially in suburban communities like mine.

What will either of you do when elected as our next county executive to improve the Department of Regional Collaboration to make it more effective and not just another level of ineffective bureaucracy that a currently is?

Thank you.

- Mr. Weingart, we'll begin with you.

How do you make the county government more efficient and more regional?

- This is the problem with county government.

It is very inefficient and very ineffective.

We need personal leadership from the county executive.

So I've said when I'm executive, I'll have lunch twice a month with Mayor Justin Bibb, and at least once a month with the mayors and city council members throughout the county so I can sit and listen and hear what their concerns are.

Now, I think that my plan to unify income tax under the county is a regional plan.

We need to stop the fighting within our cities to attract jobs to Cuya County.

One city offers a 50% tax abatement, some 100%, and then we're bringing in jobs without any attendant local income tax.

Under my system, because we eliminate municipal income taxes, we eliminate tax abatements as well.

If we decide as a community, as a county, we want to attract a new company, we offer tax abatement, but that is shared across the county, both the benefit and the burden.

We need to think in a more regional way when it comes to economic development, and I'll work with the mayors to do that.

- Thank you very much.

Mr. Ronayne.

- One of the defining themes of my campaign is I've been there, I've worked with you.

Lee, I sometimes wonder where you've been these last 20 years, but I'm gonna say to you, to say that I'm not pro jobs.

I dedicated this campaign to my mother who passed away just before our campaign, and for 35 years, her proudest piece of the business that she worked in was employing six other women that she paid throughout their entire career.

My mother taught me to value jobs.

We do value jobs.

When Alexander Mann was looking with your operation, NEO, at a new place in the states, I was one of your chief salespeople, and I followed up when I was over in Europe on a personal trip to see the CEO, Rosalind Blair, to make sure that we had a connection.

They came here and they just celebrated their 10th anniversary.

As far as your question, Dan, tax share, land share, service share is where it's at.

We did this with the OfficeMax development that went to Chicago, but we got UH on Warrensville Center Road, and Cleveland and Shaker shared taxes.

That's economic development at work today.

- [Nick] Mr. Weingart, 30 seconds, please.

- Thank you.

I didn't wait to become county executive to start my vision of creating and saving jobs in Cuya County.

Last year, we helped eight black-owned restaurants secure pandemic relief funding, critical money for their business to move forward.

One of the business owners is taking the money and taking a product of hers to the national level.

No longer selling it just in Glenville or Cleveland, but across the country.

I've been focused on jobs for a long time, and I'll be more focused when I'm your county executive.

- Mr. Ronayne, if you have 30 seconds, if you'd like it, so if everyone has equal time.

- We too were in University Circle focused on jobs.

Our next step program worked with area businesses to try to develop supply chain relationships.

I do see our work with the hospitals ahead as exciting, $4 billion in spend annually on operating.

And what our focus was is how do we get in on the success chain and grow this economy together.

In our next step program, 60% of our businesses were businesses of of color, and they grew, and they're thriving, and one of 'em is a tenant in University Circle today, so we are about pro-jobs.

Thank you.

- We'll now move on to another question from the audience, please.

- Hi, my name is Larry Heller.

I'm from Euclid.

Many people repeatedly recycle through our correctional system.

Some of the greatest barriers to successful reentry include housing, employment, and transportation.

What are your specific plans to help create a new environment for successful reentry and to reverse the trend of repeatedly recycling through our criminal justice and correctional systems?

Specifically, what will you do to address the need for reentry housing, for employment support, and for transportation assistance for people in reentry?

Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

Mr. Ronayne, we'll begin with you on this one.

- Larry, it was good to speak with you on Zoom about the idea you offered of reentry villages.

I believe very much in the concept that you brought forth.

I have been taken at issue for the idea of a separate housing and a separate transportation department within Cuya County, but it's intentionally proposed to connect with the very people that you brought forth.

The idea that people can't get to a job and therefore can't have that job is ludicrous.

We've gotta work on getting that handled.

We've gotta make sure that returning citizens do have housing in our community.

The name of the game is about stabilization of communities.

Somebody said to me at Luther Metropolitan Ministries the other day, "Stop just saying second chance, start talking about a first chance," and this was a person who's back in the workforce after being convicted but is back saying, "I didn't have that first chance and now I got a chance."

Let's give him a first chance with a Reentry Village Strategy and transportation and housing to back it up.

(audience applauds) Thank you.

- Thank you, Mr. Ronayne, Mr. Weingart, you'll have 60 seconds.

- Larry, thanks.

I got three answers for you.

First, housing.

I'm not witty on housing.

Last year I worked with a guy called Fred Ward on a house off of 10-5 in Glenville that was gonna be demolished.

We raised $100,000.

It's gonna be permanent supportive housing for four women coming outta the state prison system, so they have an address.

We also need jobs.

We have EDWINS Institute, which is doing excellent work in the culinary arts.

Why not do the same thing in landscaping and finance and IT, other industries that don't require a college degree, just require some training?

But then most importantly at all, something I learned from Mr. Ward, 35 years ago, he came out of federal prison.

We couldn't get him to sign a permit on this house we were doing because of his record 35 years ago.

We need an expungement court, a full-time expungement court to ensure that those who have paid their duty society have a chance to get back in society and be full citizens again.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

We'll now move on to another question, our final question from the audience.

- Hello, my name is Barry Doggett.

I'm from Shaker Heights.

In an increasingly polarized political environment, what will you and your administration do to bring cooperation and collaboration across party lines, hopefully as an example to those in Columbus and Washington?

- Thank you very much for the question.

We will begin with Mr. Weingart on that one.

- Thanks, Barry.

For the last 20 years, I've run a firm called LNE Group, a government relations firm, or a lobbying firm, as it sometimes called.

I've been successful because I've worked across the aisle in Washington, DC and Columbus.

I work with Sherrod Brown.

I work with Tim Ryan.

I work with Dave Joyce.

I've done that for 20 years, bringing $100 million back to Cuya County.

I will do that as your county executive.

Now, I've got a better chance to get things done in Columbus than my opponent does, because as you know, Republicans control the General Assembly and very likely the governor's office after November 8th.

I'll be able to go to Columbus and get changes that we need in Cuya County.

I'll be able to get more money for transportation and housing and other important initiatives because it's my party in Columbus that is controlling the state budget.

So if we wanna get more of our state tax dollars back to Cuya County, I'm your man.

If you want more federal tax dollars, I'm your man.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

Mr. Ronayne, same question.

- I'm your candidate who's been there.

Barry, great question.

I'm your candidate who went to Washington as a Democrat to meet with a Republican, rest in peace, named Steven LaTourette.

Steven LaTourette helped us bring home $50 million for the West Shoreway for the lakefront plan, and he said, "Give the credit to George Voinovich and Stephanie Tubbs Jones."

That's a collaborator we want to continue to work with, right, those kinds of collaborators.

I'd been there, been doing this work in Columbus and in DC.

Yes, the job of a county exec is to walk into those cities and say, "We need more from you here."

I'll tell you a story quickly about a young lady that graduated from our Future Connections program and went on to college in southern Ohio.

I asked, "What were the big three issues facing us?"

She said, "Mental health, domestic violence, and gun violence."

She called me in the fall, she had lost a family member at 38th and Woodland where she grew up to gun violence.

I said, "What were the problems?"

She said, "Columbus needs to better understand there's not a one-size-fits-all solution in Ohio."

Let's get to this issue and say that our issues that confound us need to be discussed between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents for what communities need tailored to their specific community, thank you.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Ronayne.

I'm looking at my timekeepers here.

They're telling us we have time for another question, which I will be asking myself.

We've all seen the news this week that St. Vincent Charity Medical Center announced the closure of inpatient services and moving toward a more outpatient model.

This puts a new focus on St. Vincent's psych ER, which is a major resource in this community, I think.

Anyone in law enforcement or EMS knows that if someone is in trouble, you can take 'em to St. Vincent's psych ER.

What will you do, gentlemen, as county executive to ensure that these critical mental health services are available in Cuyahoga County for people who are in crisis?

And Mr. Ronayne, we'll begin with you.

- I have a meeting scheduled with Sister Judith Karam tomorrow for this very subject.

Leaders lead and they reach out.

When St. Vincent's closed, I reached out to Sister Judith and her team.

As far as this goes, we need to marry population with facilities, point blank.

It's not for lack of facilities that are out there.

It's for lack of utilization and deployment of those facilities.

We will very quickly, under our administration, map the landscape of mental health, behavioral health systems as assistance and where we can go.

It's again, not for lack of the facilities.

It's about not connecting people to the proper facilities.

It's also about culture changes, as you said, in management, ER, incident management.

Too often law enforcement is dropping somebody off at the door of a hospital when they should be given more resources and places to take people.

This is about communication, and we will work on that together.

And I need your help, our nonprofit partners out there.

I'm starting with Sister Judith at St. Vincent Charity tomorrow, thank you.

- Thank you, Mr. Ronayne.

Mr. Weingart, the same question.

How do you keep these mental health services here?

- Thanks, Nick, and I raised this issue earlier today.

We cannot afford to not have an inpatient psych ward in Cuya County.

With a spike in mental health incidents because of the pandemic and other issues, we simply can't afford to be bare on this issue.

So if in fact that psych unit closes, I wanna reach out to the CEOs of the major hospital systems to put together a plan to keep it funded and keep it open.

If that means that the county's gotta supplement those services, then I am in favor of supplementing those services.

On a larger scale, I wanna make sure that your mental health dollars are being spent the right way.

I wanna make sure the ADAMHS Board is giving contracts to organizations that are solving problems.

We need to expand the number of organizations that are minority led, getting mental health dollars.

We are low in that area, and I want to increase it.

So I wanna bring some rigor and routine to our expenditure of public funds on mental health, and I'll do that as your county executive.

- Thank you very much, Mr. Weingart.

We'll now move on to our closing statements.

As at the beginning of this debate, each candidate will have 90 seconds.

The order will be the same as the opening statements determined by the coin toss.

So Mr. Weingart, you will begin.

- Well, thank you for coming today.

Thank you, Nick, for being the moderator.

Thank you to The City Club for hosting us.

You heard today that we agree on many of the problems and challenges facing Cuya County.

Where we disagree is how we solve those problems and solve those challenges to bring security and safety to the people of this county.

My opponent wants to add at least four new departments to county government, hundreds or millions of dollars a year in new costs to you.

I wanna invest in our communities, creating wealth through home ownership and new jobs.

My opponent opposes my property and income tax ideas, reform ideas.

I think we need a property tax freeze for senior citizens.

I think we need to end RITA and make your taxes simpler.

My opponent thinks that non-citizens should be voting, making your vote worth less.

I think voting is a privilege of citizens of the United States, and I'll protect your vote under any circumstance.

So if you want a county executive who's gonna grow the county government by millions of dollars a year, who wants to keep RITA and wants to let non-citizens vote, he's your man.

If you want someone like me who will invest in the community, end RITA and protect your vote, I ask for it.

I'm running for county executive on November 8th.

I'm Lee Weingart.

I would like your vote.

Thank you very much.

(audience applauds) - Thank you, Mr. Weingart.

And Mr. Ronayne, we will now move to you for your closing statements.

- Thank you again for your time today.

Thank you, Nick.

Yes, there is a difference in philosophy between these two candidates.

I absolutely believe that we need transportation, housing, and an Ombudsman's office.

I believe that this is about realignment of resources to meet modern needs in our county.

As far as persons voting, to your point, what I said was I respect home rule, which means I respect mayors, which you may have done when you put out your end RITA plan before you talk to mayors who actually collect taxes and direct them.

You need to speak with people.

That's the difference in philosophy that leads to a difference in leadership style.

I'm about healthy communities, a healthy economy, and a healthy workforce as a platform.

And with that platform, we will deliver on a housing fund to backstep that housing department.

We will deliver on the rule of 30 to make sure that there's equity in our economy.

We will deliver on a Ombudsman's office that helps people navigate a broken, dysfunctional system.

Folks, we have 49 days till November 8th election.

We have 22 days till early voting begins.

The choice is yours.

I hope you'll consider choosing a person that's, after 450 days of campaigning now endorsed by Cleveland.com, endorsed by the Women's Caucus of Cuyahoga County, endorsed by Stonewall Democrats, endorsed by Moms Demand Action, endorsed by a majority of mayors in Cuyahoga County, endorsed by, I hope, you come November 8th.

Let's work together.

Let's collaborate.

Thank you for being here today.

(audience applauds) - Thank you, Mr. Ronayne.

Thank you again to both of our candidates.

Our candidates, again, our Chris Ronayne and Lee Weingart.

A special thank you as well to all of the Cuyahoga County voters who submitted questions at cityclub.org for this debate.

And on behalf of The City Club, I want to thank our partners tonight, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, and Ideastream Public Media, as well as Sisters of Charity and Sisters of Charity Foundation, Cleveland.com, and The Plain Dealer for their additional support.

The conversation on Cuyahoga County's government does not end here.

Next Wednesday, September 28th, The City Club will host a conversation led by William Tarter Jr. with the Center for Community Solutions to reflect on the decade that has gone by since county government reform and to discuss what lies ahead.

Thank you again, members, friends of The City Club, and candidates.

I'm Nick Castele with Ideastream Public Media, and this forum is now adjourned.

(audience applauds) (bell dings) Chris, thank you.

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