Who Should be Mayor?

Who should be elected mayor of Cincinnati? CityBeat posed the question to three young political leaders.

David N. Schaff, President of Hamilton County Young Democrats

The direct election of Cincinnati’s mayor will be a crucial vote for the future, which is why all Cincinnatians MUST vote.

Our city’s economy is in a downward spiral and people are fleeing Cincinnati in droves. We are living in pessimistic times and a cure must be found for this epidemic. I believe the strong(er) mayor must apply an antiseptic to the city’s wounds.

As an assistant to former Mayor Roxanne Qualls, I gained firsthand knowledge of the leadership characteristics the next mayor should have.

When Courtis Fuller entered the mayoral race in late June, I was excited about the prospects of a mudslinging battle. I believed, and still do, that real competition makes candidates more likely to provide a substantive agenda and vision to lead this city, as well as give voters a choice. The voters in turn, can then hold the strong(er) mayor more accountable to his campaign promises.

I believe that Mayor Charlie Luken is the most qualified candidate to become strong(er) mayor. He has served on city council, has been our mayor for eight years and was a member of Congress. He knows how government works.

Charlie is a native Cincinnatian who knows the city and its neighborhoods. Luken has a demonstrated track record of being a strong proponent of Cincinnati’s Public schools. He stood up as a supporter of school tax levies when there was little political gain in doing so.

In creating Cincinnati CAN (Community Action Now), Charlie has engaged hundreds of Cincinnatians in an effort to advance the cause of racial justice.

Charlie Luken has the vaccine to rid this city of its illness. I am optimistic that in the end we will have a stronger, healthier Cincinnati, which is why I will wait before I retreat to Warren County.

Charles Tassell, President of Blue Chip Young Republicans

In this election, the political trend has been to castigate Mayor Luken for a myriad of leadership failures, the riots, et al. However, one should not overlook the fact that Luken has stepped into a proverbial barrel of monkeys.

When he received the highest vote on council, making him mayor, the bar of expectation was raised considerably. That should have been a warning to him not to just take up space at 801 Plum. Luken’s complacency was the failure — by waiting until he would become the strong mayor to initiate reform, he lost his mandate and revealed that he was not in touch with the people. Of course, this is not any different than the Democratic Party’s 12-plus years of lackluster reign over the city.

The Republican leadership, too involved with internal personal disputes, saw only a powerful conservative Democrat candidate and promptly did a dive for the mat — not even offering a counterpoint to the unanswered questions, unfulfilled promises and ethereal visions of the Luken machine.

The Democrats and Republicans both failed to plan for this day: the Democrats through incoherent, half-hearted plans for a dozen years and the Republicans by failing to groom candidates beyond pretty, young, white-boy lawyers. Thus we have a Charterite answer: a non-political visionary (so I’ve heard) in Courtis Fuller.

The problem, beyond the liberal ’60s political rhetoric, is that he would have to deal with and coerce city council into doing any part of his plan — and that, as every mayor will tell you, is the crux of the problem.

The ‘Strong Mayor’ can only appoint Committee Chairmen and start the hiring/firing of the City Manager, albeit on a 4 year cycle. The real power will still be diffused in Council. Hence, it will not matter if Riley or Brodberger were Mayor — the make up of Council will determine where Cincinnati goes, more than 4 years of Mayoral rhetoric. Find a sensible council candidate (there are a few. e.g. Monzel, Cooper, Tarbell) and work for them. A few, new, shiny faces could really help too.

Molly Lyons, a member of the People’s Law Collective

Instead of responding myself to this question, I asked the people in my community for their thoughts on who they were voting for and who they wanted to be mayor. My thoughts on these questions are echoed in many of the replies of the people I talked to.

The majority of people who I talked to said that they would vote for Courtis Fuller. Their reasons ranged from, ‘It is time for us to have a black mayor again’ to ‘He is not Charlie Luken.’ One woman stated, ‘Luken only perpetuates exclusive racist, classist, detrimental policies for all not like him or who are without money in Cincinnati.’

Only one person I talked to said they would vote for Luken. His reason was that most of the people in our city, as well our country, are passive about the problems that come from global capitalism, racism, sexism and other forms of oppression. In order for people to act on these problems, they need to be touched by them. He believes that this is more likely to happen under Luken, because he does not advocate for change and preserves the status quo.

The answer to the question of who people wanted to be mayor got more varied responses. One woman said she would vote for Sister Alice Gerdeman of the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, because ‘she promotes a vision for a community that I would choose to live in.’ Berta Lambert, ‘unopposed lifetime mayor of Over-the-Rhine,’ said that he would make the best candidate for mayor, because he knows the city and he knows the people.

Others were for the abolition of government in general and the city government specifically. One reason for this included a quote from Abdul Karriem Muhammed, which states, ‘To the leaders of this present system, in the name of Allah, stop oppressing, come to the agreement that we serve one God (Allah) and, if not, take notice of war from Allah and his apostles.’

Other solutions included people rising up, overthrowing the system and ‘creating sustainable self-governing communities where people respect each other, have autonomy over their lives and are not under the rule of oppressive men who make laws to protect the interests of the rich over the lives of the poor.’

This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2001.