I love receiving notes from people saying they almost always disagree with me, but on such and such topic, they are with me, and I’ve received quite a few emails of that ilk about the failure of Northeast Ohio leaders to embrace bold ideas. The response has been overwhelming to our proposal to create a multi-county quarter-cent sales tax to build a modern airport and construct and maintain sports stadiums forevermore. Readers keep asking me what we need to make this happen. We first published the idea – throwing a quarter on the counter every time you spend 100 bucks – last summer. We reasoned that people from across the region use the airport and follow the teams, so they should all help pay a tiny amount to keep them healthy. We ran all the numbers to prove the idea is sound. We republished it on New Year’s Day with a new preamble criticizing local leaders for resisting the idea without coming up with any of their own to finally get past these challenges. I said our leaders just want to keep their heads down and hold tight to their jobs instead of serving the public. Both of those counts – the regional tax and my criticism of so-called leaders – is where I heard from all those people saying they wholeheartedly agree, even though they think I’m wrong on everything else. Over and over, they asked me what we all could do to move these ideas forward. The pleaded with me to keep our newsroom focused on it. Unfortunately, nearly any path to a regional tax is through the Ohio Legislature, which is not Northeast Ohio’s friend. But lawmakers could do it with the snap of their fingers. One way would be for the Legislature to create the multi-county district and enact the quarter percent tax. Lawmakers would determine the composition of the facilities commission to oversee the spending, hopefully loading it with aviation and stadium experts, some travelers, sports fans and team representatives. (Let’s leave out the lame elected leaders. We don’t need them bogging this work down.) Or, lawmakers could allow creation of the multi-county tax district and facilities commission, putting it up for a vote. If they did that, I’d prefer it to be a district-wide vote, up or down, rather than county by county. A county-by-county vote could give us an unworkable patchwork if some counties voted no. Or, if lawmakers opposed creating something just for Northeast Ohio, they could recognize the capital needs throughout the state and create an Ohio-wide quarter-cent sales tax. In rural areas, lawmakers could create multi-county commissions to decide how best to use the money, whether for bridges, roads, regional airports or anything else. But in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland and maybe Toledo, the facilities commissions would build and renovate sports facilities and airports. The Legislature would get a big benefit out of creating regional commissions in urban areas – balanced politics. Ohio cities are Democratic strongholds, and we all know that one-party rule is terrible for public policy. Balance keeps us centered, away from wingnut ideas and politics. If you created a commission from the counties we proposed in Northeast Ohio, you’d have a balance of Democrats and Republicans making the decisions. Once this region started down the path of regionalism, where would it stop? With each advance, we’d become more balanced, with people on the right and the left having a true voice in decisions. That’s not how it works now. One reason Cleveland and Cuyahoga County languish and stagnate is because the Democrats control everything and never feel challenged. That leads to lethargy and a dearth of new ideas. We’ve shown repeatedly that if Northeast Ohio got its act together and acted as one, it would be one powerful region. If all of Cuyahoga County became the city of Cleveland, it would instantly become on of the nation’s largest cities, with one of the nation’s largest economies. What we have instead is a Balkanized region of many dozens of fiefdoms, each doing their own thing with no thought about the greater good. None of what I discuss here – or what so many of you wrote to me to support -- will happen without at least one impassioned leader taking on the challenge. Many think it should be the Cuyahoga County executive’s office, now occupied by Chris Ronayne, but he has shown no appetite for it. And readers told me they have given up on finding leadership in the once-powerful Greater Cleveland Partnership. Several wondered whether it might be Destination Cleveland’s Dave Gilbert, who has a long string of successes bringing major events to Cleveland. Gilbert was the driving force a few years back behind Cleveland Rising, which brought together people from a variety of backgrounds to envision a greater Cleveland of the future. The effort was largely doomed by two things: then-Mayor Frank Jackson’s refusal to let anyone at City Hall participate and the pandemic, which shut down any talk of forward movement. Maybe the bold leader is someone reading this. It doesn’t have to be someone who is elected. It doesn’t have to be a non-profit leader clawing to keep their job. All we need is someone with a vision and an ability to articulate it, along with the passion to inspire others in the cause. How about it? Is that you? I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com Thanks for reading. |