November 04, 2009
Posted by:
Joe Roman
Woke up with a smile this morning, and that is always the greatest way to start a day.
I’m so very pleased that Ohio voters – and Cuyahoga County voters in particular – passed three ballot issues that finally put us on the verge of making real economic improvements for our region:
- Issue 3, which legalizes gaming in Ohio and will result in a casino being built in downtown Cleveland;
- Issue 6, which replaces our wheezing, outdated county government with a new, more streamlined and effective system that places a specific emphasis upon economic development and job creation; and
- Issue 4, the Tri-C levy, which will allow this local gem to continue to provide high-quality, affordable education for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
On the face of it, these three issues seem so different and unrelated, but the fact is they converge for a common path to making northeast Ohio stronger.
And no, I’m not getting carried away and I’m not viewing this through rose-colored glasses. I understand there is plenty of work to be done as a result of voters’ passage of the casino (Issue 3) and county government overhaul (Issue 6) measures. People expecting perfection, particularly from Issue 6, will be sorely disappointed.
But standing still in greater Cleveland is not an option. Our shared, nervous anticipation about our region’s economic future is, unfortunately, warranted. But we also share a justifiable and real hope that there is tremendous opportunity to build upon our many existing attributes and cultivate our long-term economic growth.
That is precisely why I am proud that the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) lent considerable support early on to all three of the mentioned ballot issues.
What do the election results mean for our business climate?
A new county government is going to represent a quantum leap of improvement over what we have now. With a single county executive at the controls, businesses that seek to expand or relocate here will find it much easier to work with the county as part of the public/private partnership that does work and can work better here.
The county will be much better positioned to participate in –and in fact help oversee – a growth strategy for our county.
The GCP will also take an active role, as we did this election season, in supporting smart, trustworthy candidates with the conviction to move this region forward to fill the important County office seats now open.
This morning’s new growth strategy also includes a new downtown casino, which will mean jobs – and lots of them – and tens of millions of dollars annually in new tax revenues (without any kind of tax increase to our taxpayers) that will be spent locally.
Yesterday we could only imagine the ability to create, virtually overnight, a discretionary pot of money – roughly comparable to the Cleveland Foundation’s annual grantmaking capability and focused on economic development and education – that could be put to use in Cuyahoga County. Today we have that ability. And the GCP intends to have a voice – working with our new county government – in helping to shape how that new money is best spent.
Perhaps part of that new money could be spent developing a new scholarship fund for our county’s best, brightest and neediest young minds. Perhaps it’s the answer to finding the funds to move the port and open up our lakefront, or increase the size of the county land bank. Who knows? But the potential for this money is happily mind-boggling.
Tri-C is a fundamental part of this new picture. Believe me, I don’t like taxes. And I dislike tax increases even more. But endorsing Issue 4 was a no–brainer. Our young people – particularly the young people who live on the economic margins – need the opportunity to succeed. If they are willing to work and push themselves, they have to be given a chance – and Tri-C provides that chance at a high-quality, low-cost level.
It’s quite simple: We need an educated work force if we are to grow.
I would like to thank our members and my colleagues at the GCP and COSE who invested their time and effort – often at their own expense, on their own time - on behalf of these efforts. Members and GCP employees campaigned in a variety of methods – from old-line, grass roots efforts such as distributing yards signs to staffing polling areas – to engaging in social media campaigning that included videos and blog postings.
And we also contributed, in difficult economic times, well over $500,000 to these efforts. It is, I feel, money that was very, very well spent.
I’m looking out the window this morning, and it’s a bit cloudy in Cleveland. Nothing new there. But there’s a good bit of sunshine that’s beating down upon us all as a result of yesterday’s election. There’s a new ray of hope for our region today that didn’t exist yesterday.
Category:
Advocacy
Tags:
issue 3,
issue 4,
issue 6,
Cuyahoga County,
election,
election results,
Tri-C,
casino,
county government