He's
been Lakewood's mayor for less than three years, but FitzGerald claims
he's accomplished a lot in the job: more cops, less crime, budget cuts
that put the city on sound financial footing. He spent three years in
the FBI in Chicago, which he hopes will help convince voters that he'll
clean out corruption in the county building too.
What we should expect from the new county executive: "A
radical shift to a more performance-based and ethical county
government. ... Any of the big, ambitious things county government might
try to do are going to be impossible if people can't have basic trust."
Also, the new executive needs to get the city, suburbs and the private
sector to agree on a regional economic strategy. "That's the toughest
part of the job of all. You can't do that by fiat. You have to do that
by persuasion."
Jobs: FitzGerald wants to create a fund he calls the
Fourth Frontier, a play off the state's Third Frontier program. It would
offer grants and zero-interest loans to private businesses in growth
sectors such as medicine, high-end manufacturing and green energy if
they pledge to expand in Cuyahoga County.
Regionalism: FitzGerald supports the Regional
Prosperity Initiative, a 16-county proposal to share increased tax
revenue from new businesses and discourage infighting between towns.
Within Cuyahoga County, he'd require cities to sign a "no-poaching,
noncompete agreement" before his Fourth Frontier program would make
loans in their communities, "so that individual cities aren't trying to
be vultures on other people's tax base."
More reforms: FitzGerald says the sheriff's office
should create a countywide law-enforcement strategy and add to its
felony-warrant staff. Although the sheriff has 1,200 employees, only
eight serve warrants full time, and there's an 18,000-warrant backlog.
The current county government's successes and failures:
"It's failed because it hasn't taken leadership on regionalism issues.
It hasn't articulated a vision for where the county should head. It has
relied too heavily on nepotism and patronage to fill positions." But he
praises the county board of health, its early childhood programs, its
bond rating and its work on arts and culture issues.
Can Ed FitzGerald convince voters he's a reformer?
Ed FitzGerald's pitch makes him sound like a modern Eliot Ness. He's had
a passion for fighting political corruption since his days as an FBI
agent, cleaning Mafia influence out of the city government in Cicero,
Ill. (once home to Al Capone). He even describes the parallels between
that case and our county corruption probe: kickbacks from contractors to
politicians, bribes disguised as home improvements. Yet his opponents
are attacking his credentials as a reformer because he's the only major
county executive candidate who opposed Issue 6, which created the job
he's running for.
FitzGerald's political talents are never clearer than when he's
defending himself. He's got an answer for everything. Sure, he argued
against Issue 6 in debates last fall — because he thinks the charter
makes the county executive too powerful, a problem he'd address by
creating an independent inspector general's office. Yes, he took
donations from Jimmy Dimora, Frank Russo and his recently indicted son
Vince Russo a few months before the FBI raided their offices in 2008.
But he donated that money this year to a charity for returning veterans,
and he was one of the first Democrats to call on Dimora and Russo to
resign.
His political positioning is so deft and shrewd, it may play into the
other main attack against him: He's too ambitious, trying to move up too
fast. FitzGerald's got an answer for that too — he says he'll govern
fearlessly, without an eye on getting re-elected.