Maybe those New Year's resolutions already aren't going so well. (OK, they probably aren't.) Don't sweat it. The country hit reset last week, and you can, too, in a year that's also going to see significant leadership changes throughout Northeast Ohio.
Joe Biden was sworn in as the nation's 46th president, and regardless of how you feel about November's election results, you should hope Biden is successful in addressing our twin huge challenges — the pandemic/vaccine distribution and the slowing economy — while also making progress on the broader goal of narrowing divisions in the country. Tall orders, all.
The president rolled out a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, but some initial Republican opposition means the final total, if it's enacted at all, almost certainly will be smaller. Most of the recent data, in particular bad numbers on jobs and retail sales in December, point to a need for continued stimulus to keep the economy from tipping back into a significant downturn. We hope that a change in administration means our representatives in Washington can place the country's needs above partisanship. "Politics does not have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path," Biden said. It would be refreshing if that could be the case.
In this region, there will be new players in key places, with their own chance to offer a fresh start.
Cleveland will have a mayoral election later this year, with the possibility of a change from an uninspiring incumbent. The seat of influential U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, who's heading to Biden's cabinet to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will need to be filled. The Greater Cleveland Partnership and the Downtown Cleveland Alliance both are looking for new leaders. University Hospitals, in Dr. Cliff Megerian, and Case Western Reserve University, in Eric Kaler, already have named the individuals who will take over soon.
All these changes offer a chance for fresh thinking. We encourage the people making the decisions — voters in some cases, boards in others — to be expansive in their outlook and find leaders who are willing to challenge a status quo in Northeast Ohio that in many cases has not been good enough for the region to advance.
The state Legislature's inability to repeal and replace House Bill 6 — the energy bill that provided subsidies for two nuclear and two coal power plants while rolling back some clean energy standards and energy efficiency programs, and then became tainted as federal prosecutors alleged FirstEnergy and affiliated companies spent nearly $61 million in a bribery scheme aimed at passing the legislation — remains an embarrassment for the state.
And legislators haven't even gotten to the root of the problem, which is the abundance of "dark money" — funds meant to influence voter decisions where the donor is not disclosed and the source of the money is unknown.
There have been near-weekly revelations about how former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others who were arrested in connection with the bribery scheme took advantage of dark money to get their way on HB 6. A Cleveland.com investigation last month looked at how dark money was used by a nonprofit called Partners for Progress that obtained $20 million from FirstEnergy and its affiliates and directed $200,000 to Consumers Against Deceptive Fees, a group designed to attack Cleveland Public Power. Crain's wrote extensively last fall about the mysterious and well-funded opposition to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District levy. (Didn't work; the levy passed.)
Examples are numerous. And they're corrupting our political system.
It's one thing (totally appropriate) for advocates to spend money on issues or campaigns. But when the public doesn't know where the money is coming from, or why it's being spent, citizens can't make good decisions about the information, and the advocates can too easily spread false information.
Lawmakers this year have to get serious about passing a bill that eliminates the use of dark money. Until they do, we're going to see more HB 6-style disasters.
January 24, 2021 at 04:00PM
https://www.crainscleveland.com/editorials/crains-editorial-fresh-starts-2021
Crain's editorial: Fresh starts in 2021 - Crain's Cleveland Business
https://news.google.com/search?q=fresh&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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