From The Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473 (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio-Ohio state Rep. Armond Budish (D-8) (pictured), a former state House Speaker and Minority Leader and a Beachwood Democrat and Democratic nominee for Cuyahoga County Executive who will face Republican Jack Schron in November, recently met with grassroots community activists leaders at the Chateau Mansion in East Cleveland. A millionaire district six county councilman, Schron is the underdog in the heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County.
"I am open to talking about county issues," Budish told the activists, many of whom agreed that the state lawmaker is likely the candidate that some of them may personally support, and possibly after another forum scheduled with community activists before the November 4 general election in Cuyahoga County.
Most greater Cleveland community activists, however, say that they do not like politicians in general, and that Budish will not get a free pass.
The county executive works in concert with an elected 11-member Cuyahoga County Council on issuance contracts, county services issues, and public policy measures in a job that paid $175,000 annually when current county executive-Ed FitzGerald, now the Democratic nominee for the race for Ohio governor, was elected in 2010. It is likely the most powerful job in the county next to the county prosecutor and the judges.
The county executive appoints his administrative team and the county sheriff, fiscal officer, clerk of courts, coroner, treasurer and many more, a change in the county governance structure that voters overwhelmingly approved in 2009.
The new county governance structure scratched a three-member Board of Commissioners and all elected county offices in place at that time, including the now appointed sheriff and clerk of courts, aside from the elected judges and the still elected county prosecutor.
Activists groups represented at the meeting include the Imperial Women Coalition, the Carl Stokes Brigade, Revolution Books, Peace in the Hood, the Women's Federation, Black on Black Crime Inc., the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network, People for the Imperial Act, the People's Forum, and Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor.
A lawyer, married father of two grown children and state lawmaker whose state legislative district eight includes parts of the cities of Cleveland, East Cleveland, Euclid, Richmond Heights, South Euclid and Woodmere, Budish, 61, was not necessarily invited to the open meeting that community activists had planned, a tense meeting behind grand jury actions issued weeks before that followed the tragic killings in November 2012 of unarmed Blacks, Malissa Williams, 30, and Tim Russell, 43. Both were unceremoniously gunned down by 13 non- Black Cleveland police officers shooting 137 bullets following a high speed chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in the parking lot of Heritage Middle School in neighboring East Cleveland.
"You were not invited to this meeting," said Gerald Henley, a community activist and former Cleveland school board vice president, to Budish when he pulled up a seat about a half hour into the grassroots discussion. "But since you are here, what is your position on the 137 shots?"
"137 shots."
That is what the fatal 137 shots Cleveland police shooting in late November 2012 of Williams and Russell has come to be known to community activists, and others. It saw a county grand jury, just last month, indict one of the 13 police officers that did the shooting, Michael Brelo, on two counts of voluntary manslaughter, and six police supervisors, five sergeants, and one lieutenant, all of them White, were charged with misdemeanor dereliction of duty. All seven of them have pleaded not guilty, including Brelo, who fired 49 shots into the front windshield of the 1979 Malibu Classic that Russell was driving and where Williams was a passenger. The pair died at the scene at Heritage Middle School.
The activists, and some others, remain passionate about justice prevailing in the celebrated case and say that they are concerned about whether Cleveland police can still effectively protect and serve the community, the Black community in particular.
Budish told Henley that he came to hear activists' concerns on countywide issues and that as to the 137 shots that he "has no opinion."
Longtime community activist Bill Swain, who is White and a member of the grassroots groups Revolution Books and the October 27th Coalition Against Police Brutality, countered and asked Budish if he were truly bold enough to appear before community activists without taking a position on the 137 shots.
Budish said yes and repeated that he had come to discuss Cuyahoga County matters.
One activist said that a no opinion on the 137 shots as a political gesture is at least better than backing police around the tragedy like Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty has done, a tragedy that has caused racial unrest in the majority Black major American city of Cleveland.
Cuyahoga County, which includes the city of Cleveland, is the largest of 88 counties statewide and has a population of some 1.3 million people. It is roughly 29 percent Black.
Community activist Kathy Wray Coleman, who led the meeting along with community activist Don Bryant, then said that since the group had planned to meet again the following week and already voted, before Budish appeared at the meeting, to protest around the 137 shots, that she would request to refocus the meeting on Budish . She then offered him a complimentary fish or chicken dinner prepared by the Chateau and bottled water, only the bottled water of which he accepted.
Swain got upset, asking if Coleman were really going to refocus the meeting away from police just to accommodate Budish. Coleman responded that activists have grave concerns on some state laws that need amendments to them, some that impact police, and on how Blacks, women and others will be impacted by the upcoming county executive election. Other activists leaders there agreed with Coleman, including women's issues activist Marva Patterson and longtime community activist Ada Averyhart, 80, a member of the grassroots groups the Carl Stokes Brigade and Imperial Women Coalition.
Averyhart told the activists to behave in front of Budish.
Then the drilling began on what he might legally do if elected county executive, and also what Budish might legally do and propose as a term-limited lawmaker before his term ends in January 2015.
Activists first asked Budish to push for an amendment or change in the current state law that allows either Ohio common pleas judges or the grand jury itself to choose the county grand jury foreman .They want the judges' authority taken out of the puzzle and say that such a statutory amendment is necessary for due process protections and to rid the process of corrupt judicial influence.The grand jury process around the 137 shots had been tainted by prejudice from Prosecutor McGinty, activists told Budish.
They also had concerns about Blacks being disproportionately subjected to multiple grand juries in the same cases, some resulting in subsequent felony criminal charges on a touch-and-go theory, and without any new evidence, something they said should be addressed under state and federal law, and the rules of criminal procedure.
Budish took notes, and he asked a few questions himself.
"How do you feel about Tim McGinty?" asked Budish, with activists responding that they appreciate the county prosecutor's quickness in getting life sentences in some violence against women cases such as the Ariel Castro rape victims and in the Gloria Pointer rape and murder case.
But they said that they believe that McGinty, a former common pleas judge and former assistant county prosecutor, is overzealous and had prejudiced the grand jury in favor of police relative to its review of the 137 shots by successfully recommending that 12 of the 13 police officers that did the shooting go free. The activists said they want another county grand jury to convene around the 137 shots, and independent of any prejudicial influence from the office of the county prosecutor.
Budish was also quizzed on what resources he would bring from the county to deal with the epidemic of rape and murder of women in greater Cleveland across racial lines.
"In the wake of the Imperial Avenue Murders, the Seymour Avenue malfeasance and the hike in violence against women, will you promise us more resources and a countywide missing persons unit where police can communicate across jurisdictions by radio and with other technology across the county to deal with the epidemic of rape and murder of women?" asked community activists.
Budish made no promises on that issue, but said he will look in to it.
Asked if he would make excuses for not hiring Blacks initially and later in his top level administration and in other key positions in the county if he is elected county executive, the lawmaker said no. He said that Blacks would be hired, and that diversity in employment has been a hallmark of his career from an attorney to a state lawmaker.
If he wins the race for county executive, Budish will lead Ohio's largest county as the 2016 presidential election nears and Ohio remains a pivotal state.
Activists also said that Budish should push for an amendment of the state law that permits county sheriffs throughout the state to hire appraisers through the county to price foreclosed homes for sell and that the appraisals should be based upon the already intact county appraisal for property taxes. Though state law demands that foreclosed homes are appraised like other homes, the Cuyahoga County sheriff's office had been, for decades, deflating the values so that friends of judges, Cleveland NAACP officials, politicians and their family members could steal the homes and escape with monies due back to the former homeowners from the remains of the sale under state law.
Activists called for the County Inspector General Nailah Byrd to push for prosecutions of county employees involved in mortgage fraud with the judges, the sheriff's office and mortgage companies and banks like JPMorgan Chase Bank, and Citibank, both parties to a $25 billion National Mortgage Settlement involving America's big five banks, which also include Wells Fargo, Ally Financial, and Bank of America, and 49 states and their attorneys general as plaintiffs, including Ohio.
"I have read some of your writings on this," Budish said to the activists.
Also, activists said that they want the state law amended relative to affidavits of prejudice filed to seek to remove prejudice judges of municipal courts in Ohio from hearing particular civil and criminal cases. Currently state law gives the presiding judge in the common pleas courts in the respective 88 counties authority to decide if the municipal court judge should be replaced, but case law is in conflict on whether the complaining party has a right to appeal a denial. Activists want the law to be amended with a clear statutory right to appeal.
Chief Judge John Russo is the presiding and administrative judge of the 34-member largely White general division Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, whom activists said to Budish should ask to suggest to his judicial colleagues that they stop giving disproportionate unfair felony sentences to Black people. And unlike their White counterparts, data also show.
A Cleveland NAACP study gaining dust shows just that, that the county's judges are collectively disenfranchising the Black community with differential treatment and other unconstitutional infractions, a mountain of data show.
Some of the activists, including Bill Swain, shook the hand of Budish and talked with him briefly after the meeting. Others thanked the Cuyahoga County executive hopeful for meeting when so many other politicians in powerful government roles snub their noses at community activists and poor people.
