WELCOME MADAME PRESIDENT

I admit I was holding my breath a bit as I walked into Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

First up on the agenda: election of a new Council President (with Scott Coleman’s resignation, the former Council President, Mayfield Heights city employee Chuck Brunello, has stepped up to be Highland Heights’s acting mayor).

Why the breath holding?

Prior to the meeting Councilwoman Cathy Murphy was reported to have, “expressed interest to her colleagues in again serving as (Council) president” and that she was also considering throwing her hat in the mayor’s race, as Brunello has already done. https://www.cleveland.com/hillcrest/index.ssf/2019/02/highland_heights_21.html

Walking into the meeting I was imaging what might unfold if two candidates for mayor ended up serving as Mayor and Council President during this difficult post-Coleman transition period.

Would Highland Heights residents be subjected to endless posturing and one-upmanship at council meetings and in the press for the next 9 months, leading up to the November election?

Perhaps recognizing that possibility….and embracing their responsibility to calm things down after Coleman’s shocking resignation….council members chose a different route, elevating a new face to the President’s chair: Lisa Marie Stickan.

Stickan, a lawyer who is well-known in Republican circles, has served as both a ward rep and as an at-large member of Council since 2010. She has a reputation for working well with her council peers---even those with whom she has, at times, disagreed.

          Democracy is all about the balance of power. 

The city is well-served by Council members who represent different points of view and who are willing to stand up and speak their minds--- especially if they disagree with the mayor. 

But it’s just as important that city officials not take                                       such disputes personally.

Some council members are better at doing that ---not taking things personally---than others.

My sense is that Council made the right move in their Council President selection this time around.

COLEMAN SCANDAL TOLL

Although some speculated that Scott Coleman would do all he could to hang in, despite Rep. Dave Joyce's Federal Elections Commission filing, that didn't prove to be the case.

He has resigned as mayor....an implicit admission of the seriousness of the charges against him.
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2019/02/highland-heights-mayor-scott-coleman-resigns-after-campaign-embezzlement-allegation.html

The Council President---in this case Mayfield City Service/Parks Department employee Chuck Brunello---will serve in Coleman's stead until a new mayor is elected in November.

Various council members, quoted in the press, have indicated that they don't think any city financial shenanigans have gone on under Coleman's watch.....but I think they need to prove that to residents by obtaining an independent audit of the city's books, going back several years. 

I do wonder what would cause Coleman, if true, to engage in the alleged behavior.

Why would a well-paid, well-respected member of this community do something so stupid and so ruinous? 

Speculation abounds....was there a problem with drugs? gambling? blackmail? Or was it just plain old greed? We may never know.

What I do know is that Coleman is now a ruined man.

No company likes the kind of publicity that Coleman's behavior has engendered. My best guess, given the seriousness of the allegations, is that on top of everything else he will lose his accounting/tax manager job with Progressive Insurance (if he hasn't already).

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I have never been a big fan of Scott Coleman, the mayor, but I can say quite honestly that I have never wished Scott Coleman, the person, ill.

I am truly sorry for the agony his family must be experiencing.

It is a very sad end to a long political career.

IS MAYOR COLEMAN IN LEGAL JEOPARDY?

I’ve taken a pretty long break from this blog----life changes as we move forward and it can be a challenge keeping up old routines when the cosmos shifts underfoot.

But it’s hard to ignore the buzz arising from this recent Cleveland.com story.

Treasurer embezzled money from Rep. Dave Joyce’s campaign, says letter to FEC. https://www.cleveland.com/open/2019/02/treasurer-embezzled-money-from-rep-dave-joyces-campaign-says-letter-to-fec.html

Basically, according to the reported story, this is the deal:

• Until recently Mayor Scott Coleman acted as treasurer for Representative Dave Joyce’s campaign committee.
• The campaign organization filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing Coleman of a list of improper actions, including:

• making $80,000 worth of improper ATM cash withdrawals; 
• shorting bank deposits; and 
• submitting false campaign report records that over-reported campaign expenses and under-reported donations/campaign receipts.

Wow!!!

Before you say, “Well that kind of record-keeping can be hard for a layperson,” remember this:

Coleman is an accountant who works as a tax manager for Progressive Insurance.

Given his professional background as an accountant and his own repeated runs for office, Coleman certainly understands both how to keep, and the importance of keeping, accurate campaign finance records. 

That’s what makes his alleged actions so egregious.

        What is even more fascinating about this story, however,
        is the fact that it got this far, into public view.

Bad publicity like this is anathema to politics and politicians. Normally I would expect this kind of thing to be worked out behind the scenes if at all possible… perhaps through reimbursement of unaccounted-for funds and the filing of an amended campaign finance report.

For whatever reason, that didn’t happen.

Instead the campaign committee contacted a local prosecutor and filed a complaint with the FEC (whose stated mission is “Protecting the integrity of the campaign finance process“). 

It might have been a necessary self-preservation move on Joyce’s part, to preserve his own integrity and that of his campaign.

So, is Coleman in legal jeopardy? My guess would be “yes”.

There is both a civil and criminal component here.

The FEC is a civil agency charged with overseeing compliance with federal election laws. It can investigate, make findings and assess hefty civil penalties for campaign law violations.

Criminal prosecutions, on the other hand, are initiated by prosecutors. We will have to wait and see if criminal charges are brought against Coleman arising out of the alleged behavior.

I would hope Coleman would be criminally prosecuted if he did what the Joyce campaign alleges.

What confidence can we have in the legal system otherwise?