By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black news venues
Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Ohio state Sen. Shirley Smith (D-21) is the first Black to announce that she might run for Cuyahoga County executive next year in the wake of a formal announcement late last month by County Executive Ed FitzGerald, a Democrat like Smith and former FBI agent and Lakewood mayor, that he will not seek reelection and will instead run as the likely Democratic nominee against Republican John Kasich in the 2014 gubernatorial election.
A prior state representative and state senator since 2007, Smith would not go into detail with Cleveland Urban News.Com on her proposed run for one of the most powerful offices in the county, a job that pays more than $200, 000 annually and oversees hundreds of employees and county contracts.
She said that she is establishing an exploratory committee.
"I am announcing that I am establishing an exploratory committee for a possible run for county executive" said Smith to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read online Black newspaper. "Part of that process is speaking with people."
The lawmaker's 21st state legislative district includes most of the majority Black east side wards of Cleveland, some on the west side, and a more than 300,000 constituents' voting base.
The term limited Smith has sponsored legislation beneficial to women, like cancer awareness bills, and to poor people, Blacks and others like a new state law (Senate Bill 337) supported by Kasich that took effect this year that permits the expunging of Ohio criminal records of either a felony and a misdemeanor together, two misdemeanors, or either a single felony or single misdemeanor. Not all criminal records, whether a felony or misdemeanor, can be expunged under the law.
Smith will hold an information forum and free expungement clinic open to the public on Thursday, May 23 at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University, 4th Floor, 2000 Prospect Ave in Cleveland, beginning at 4 pm. Law enforcement officials and affiliates of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification will be on hand to assist. For more information contact Smith's Columbus office at 614-466-4857 People with criminal warrants should consult an attorney first, community activists said.
A Cleveland NAACP study reveals that Black defendants in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, which is led by Democratic Chief Judge Nancy Fuerst, are disproportionately prosecuted and receive harsher sentences than their White counterparts, and nothing is being done about it, data show.
Cuyahoga County is the largest of 88 counties statewide and has a Black population that harbors at 29 percent. It is a Democratic stronghold and includes the majority Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland and its eastern suburbs, among other cities of Northeast Ohio.
Other perspective candidates for next year's Democratic primary for county executive include state Rep. Armond Budish (D-8) of Beachwood, also minority caucus leader in the Ohio House of Representatives, and county council president C. Ellen Connally, who is Black and a retired Cleveland Municipal Court judge.
The Republicans, who will likely need a miracle to beat the Democrats in a county executive race and are the minorities on county council, are scrambling for a candidate, political pundits have said. (Editor's Note: The 11- member Cuyahoga County Council oversees county government and the 19 member Cleveland City Council, which will be reduced to 17 members next, year, makes city laws, called ordinances. State lawmakers like Smith make state laws, and Congress, which includes the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, adopts federal laws).
FitzGerald swept into power in 2010 after winning a Democratic primary against Terri Hamilton Brown, who is Black, and beating the Republican nominee in the subsequent general election for county executive under the voter adopted Issue 6. It is a new form of county governance that substitutes the previously elected positions of the three-member Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners, and the elected offices of sheriff, coroner, auditor, recorder, clerk of courts, engineer treasurer with an elected county executive and an elected 11-member county council.
Issue 6 was vehemently opposed by the Cleveland NAACP, Call and Post Newspaper officials, and Black elected officials, except state Sen. Tina Turner (D-25) in an infamous dispute. Voters, however, adopted the controversial measure that radically changed the county's governmental structure overwhelmingly with the support of Republican leaders and after a string of stories by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest Newspaper, on public corruption.
That corruption was highlighted by over 60 convictions or guilty pleas of Democratic affiliates over the past three years, mainly businessmen and two common pleas judges, as well as former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, and former county auditor Frank Russo.
Both Russo and Dimora, and a host of others, are serving federal prison terms, a lengthy 28 year sentence for Dimora, also a former chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
The county Democratic party is now led by Cleveland area trial attorney Stuart Garson with City of Cleveland Community Relations Board Director Blaine Griffin, who is Black and a protege of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, as its vice president. And it is still an influential political animal, to say the least.
