Ward 17 Councilman Matt Zone responds to critique of City Council

(Plain Press, August 2008) In the December 2007 issue of the Plain Press, a Commentary by Plain Press Managing Editor Chuck Hoven “Cleveland needs a referendum of Cleveland City Council” was highly critical of Cleveland City Council for focusing too little of its attention on legislative solutions to the problems facing the city. Ward 17 Councilman Matt Zone thought the article used too broad a stroke. He contends not all council people are neglecting their legislative role and asked for a chance to respond.

Ward 17 Councilman Matt Zone: In your article about City Council you make a lot of very good points. There are some points that I would say don’t apply equally to all. Just as there is diversity within firemen and policemen and service workers, there is diversity within out City Council and how each of us individually operates within our wards. I don’t think anyone would accuse me of running a fiefdom within Ward 17. I always try to make sure that the community has a say at the beginning of anything that happens. Whether it is dealing with a difficult safety issue or creating a new block club in the community or moving forward a new development project, those conversations always begin first and foremost with the residents. That is just the way I was brought up, the way I was trained and it is unfair in some respects to compare all of us in the same vane.

Plain Press: I know you were listening because you called in when Cleveland Public Radio had staff from the Local Officials Leadership Academy on as guests. They mentioned two things city council’s should not be doing. One was City Councilpersons shouldn’t be ombudsmen and the second was that city council’s shouldn’t micromanage. It seems in our City Council, over time, the major role has become that of ombudsmen. How would you address that concern of the Leadership Academy?

One of the reasons that Council Persons have evolved into becoming ombudsmen for residents for residents is because City Government has not been efficient and has not for the most part been responsive to residents’ needs and concerns. The unique role that a city councilperson can play is that when you call a problem in to be addressed whether it is to get a light turned on, a pothole filled, or a dog that is running loose, and you call into a system and you are in a city as large as Cleveland it takes two, three, four weeks to get that issue addressed, I see a direct role that a local councilperson can play as an advocate for that person who really has a voice in how our city operates, but can be a louder voice for that individual to make sure that their needs are resolved.

Shifting away from that model. We as a city need to become, whether it is through modern efficiencies of technology or other means, more accountable for when citizens call in for city services, to make sure their needs are addressed.

What can you do as a monitor of the administration and as a policy person to change that?

There are several things that are happening right now. The city is in the process right now of developing a work management program for our employees. This work management program will establish criteria for how everything is done from the amount of time that is spent filling a pothole or changing a light bulb, and with that initiative simultaneously the city is also implementing the 311 call center. It will be a wonderful opportunity where the citizen can speak directly to an individual, electronically record the quality of life issue that they want to address, receive a tracking number and make sure that claim gets processed into this electronic data base that will monitor that call for service. Much like UPS does for a package, they give you a routing number. With that routing number, you can find out at any point in time, is that package still in San Francisco or has it made it to Cleveland yet? No it is in Iowa. Through modern efficiencies in technology, I would see less of a role as the councilperson would play for that constituent in that ombudsman role. Because, quite honestly, we did not get elected to give people fish. We were elected to teach people how to fish. That is the approach that I always try to take being the councilperson here in Ward 17. I know that the model that we have right now is not a sustainable model. If we are going to become one of the truly great cities, not only of our country but of this global society, we need to be able to shift away local government’s role as an ombudsman, we need to be more as legislators. We need to be looking at policy and how we can make government more efficient and more accountable to its citizenry.

Speaking of policy, what would you say were some of the top policy issues facing the city that council should be addressing?

I will give them to you in no particular order of importance, but I would say: energy issues, safety, education and jobs.

Let’s take the issue of energy, what types of things has the city done or is city council doing in the terms of policy?

Well, when you look at the way energy costs are going now it is projected that gasoline, we are at basically $4 a gallon now, just two years ago we were at $2 a gallon. There are very reputable organizations out there that are forecasting that gasoline is going to be at $6 maybe in another two years. We need to look at how that affects not only our municipal budget, but how does it affect the citizenry that we serve. How can we make moving around our city more affordable for residents? Does that mean investing more of our dollars in public transportation? Does it mean creating a better light rail system that can move people around? These are the issues that Council should be examining and working on to make sure that we can move people through our city. You know all the world class cities have wonderful public transportation. Now I know that RTA was ranked the number one transit system, and they do a fairly decent job, but what can we be doing as an older industrialized urban area to make sure that we move people around in a fashion that is affordable and sustainable and is not predicated on the price of gasoline.

That is just one issue dealing with energy. Another one is rising cost of natural gas and the rising cost of electricity. We have a lot of people who live in our city that are on fixed income. How can we make sure that we enter into consortiums of buying energy that are right for our residents? We should be examining those types of issues and make sure that policy that we create on the local level benefits the citizens that we serve.

You are chair of the Public Utilities Committee. What is Cleveland Public Power doing to make sure we have both low cost power and green energy?

Right now, Cleveland Public Power (CPP) is looking to diversify its energy portfolio. Right now, we get over 90% of our generation from coal based poser plants and their customer base has not grown in the last 20 years. Right now CPP is on a very aggressive plan to expand to all quadrants of the City of Cleveland which will allow them to bring on more customers which will allow them to diversify their energy portfolio to make sure not only are we locked into long term contacts so we have dedicated power to supply to our customers, but also to diversify that. Almost like you would diversify your retirement portfolio. You don’t want to have all your money in stocks. You want to have some stocks, some bonds, some CDs, some mutual funds. You want to diversify, because when you are dependent on any one source, and there is a spike in that, it is going to have a tremendous ripple effect for the residents of the city of Cleveland. So we are looking to diversify our energy generation into cleaner uses of energy as well. Everyone is excited about the opportunities to harness wind power. Well it is quite expensive right now to put up wind turbines. Until they make them more efficient, I don’t see a significant investment coming from the City of Cleveland. But I will tell you in a very short time I would suspect you would see Cleveland Public Power invest in not only wind generation, but solar and hydro as becoming part of a growing portfolio of energy use on CPP’s part.

You mentioned safety as well, what kinds of policy initiatives?

The legislative branch, on any level of government, whether that is local, county, state or federal, we should be spending time looking at how we are operating as an entity, reviewing policy and procedures and then making recommendations to the administration on how to implement reform and change.

Do you spend time doing that?

We don’t spend enough. No we don’t.

City Council at the beginning of a legislative season, what do they do? Do they sit down and say what their priorities are?

We do meet collectively. The Council leadership team will meet with the chairmen of all eleven standing committees and say what is your legislative policy for the year? The individual chairmen will work on a legislative calendar tailored around the legislative policies change and reforms that they want.

Do you bring staff from think tanks to look at data and provide analysis of data?

Chairmen have different styles and approaches. I can only speak to what I have done in the Utilities Committee. I have done many of those things. Since I have become chair of the Public Utilities Committee, I have created a low-income advisory group that is looking into how we can supply sustainable, affordable energy that is responsive and respectful for the diverse needs of all of the residents. In addition I have created an advanced energy working committee that is looking at how we can diversify our energy needs within our city. In addition to that, I have created a peak oil task force that is …

It looks like you have a policy agenda and you are brining in experts in your Public Utilities Committee, to what extent are other committees doing this?

I will say some of the committees are doing that. For the most part some of my colleagues who chair committees, they run them different. They hear the legislation that is put in front of them.

So they are depending on the administration to come up with a plan?

Clearly we have to work with the administration – but we have to do it in a way that is accountable to the community. And the way that you create accountability is there is this whole check and balance with the legislative branch and the administrative branch. If the administrative branch is continually feeding you legislation and asking you to hear it and approve it without the heavy lifting that is being done by the legislative body on examining our current policies and procedures, then there is a breakdown in government and we are not being accountable to the citizenry.  That is where we need to change that model.

 I will give you one example. We were talking about safety. Two years ago we were having a horrible time with vicious dogs. Through the Public Safety Committee, City Council led an initiative where we examined sample ordinances from municipalities all over the United States. We looked at our current legislation -- on how that was drafted. We looked at how the city administration was operating our dog kennel and our dog warden and we also examined, researched, and studied how the judges were enforcing and interpreting the law. So we looked at all three branches of government and the end result of a 53-page white paper was we have a pretty good animal ordinance as it stands. We just needed to make some minor tweaks within the administrative branch and judicial branch, which we did. Out of that white paper came the mayor recognizing the hard work that City Council did. Mayor Jackson authorized more funding to hire more assistant dog wardens. The Mayor saw in our findings that we saw the opportunity to generate revenue for our dog warden by doing more creative things and we are now starting to implement more programs. So the mayor recognized the hard work that Council did and made some administrative changes. The judicial branch saw the research that we compiled and now during sentencing for repeat offenders they are starting to do more creative sentencing.

That is an example of what a legislative branch should do. You tackle an issue. You look at it not only from the standpoint of how the law is written, but how the law is enforced. And when the law is enforced, how is the court interpreting that. That is the role of a legislative branch on any level of government.

Can you give me an example from education?

Council has taken more of an interest in being involved in education, with not only with how we are building these new schools, but also what is the curriculum that is being offered to these students. Councilwoman Nina Turner in Ward 1 has taken kind of the leadership role for our City Council and she is doing an amazing job working with the CMSD on how can we create a better learning environment for our children. The buildings and school construction that is all great, but that is just bricks and mortar, and if we don’t have good quality education then the school system is going to be a failure.

We now have a 50% graduation rate and that is the highest it has been in quiet some time. The Literacy Cooperative of Greater Cleveland says 69% of the population of Cleveland is functionally illiterate. How do we raise our status and lower our poverty rate if we continue to turn out a 1,000 or more kids every year that are dropping out of high school?

That is a huge challenge.

What can the city do, with city funds to make a difference in these kids lives?

We have lost several generations to inadequate education. I think we need to look at every single thing that we do as a city to figure out how do we incorporate and create an opportunity to welcome the children not only from an academic standpoint, but from a workforce standpoint. Whatever city policies we create within government, can we create an opportunity that those children can learn from whether it is a co-op program with our city or some other opportunity. Our municipal buying power should be used with how we procure materials and goods and allow that to trickle down to the students that are being educated in our city.

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