The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Cleveland

FIRST SPEAKER: I am your city and I need your help. Where once I was proud and respected, I have grown ashamed and ridiculed as our dreams are crushed. We were growing, but now my pockets are emptied and my people neglected.

And I turn to you, for I am your home, your jobs, your Cleveland. And I pray before it`s too late you`ll make them stop.

SECOND SPEAKER: On August 13th, vote for Cleveland. Vote for recall.

SPEAKER: Mayor Kucinich speaks to the people every day. This is what the people say the recall is all about.

FIRST MAN: I think the big shots want the mayor out of office.

WOMAN: But I can`t see that these big shots don`t give him a fair chance to get at it.

SECOND MAN: Probably it`s because he`s stepped on some pretty big toes and this is their way of retaliating.

THIRD MAN: Because they don`t want an honest man in there, that`s why.

SPEAKER: On Sunday, August 13th, support the people`s mayor. Vote against the recall.

ROBERT MacNEIL: On Sunday the voters of Cleveland will decide whether to keep or throw out a mayor who`s been in office only seven months. But that bizarre event is only one symptom of Cleveland`s problems; it`s a city facing bankruptcy, complicated by a severe crisis of identity. Tonight: Cleveland on the brink.

Good evening from Cleveland. Clevelanders have been staggering under one bad piece of economic news after another this week. Auditors say $52 million are missing from the city treasury; the city risks default on $40 million in loan repayments; next month it will run out of cash to pay its workers; and its schools can`t open this fall unless the state gives them a $25 million loan. But what to do about this impending bankruptcy has the city bitterly divided, and central to that is the extraordinary figure of the young mayor, Dennis Kucinich, who since January has made enough people mad at him to force a recall election this Sunday. The polls say it will be close, and give Kucinich a slight edge, but many voters are still undecided.

FIRST MAN IN STREET: Well, it`s actually a tragedy, because Cleveland has always been the best location on the nation. And what has happened has made us the laughingstock of the nation, actually. And I actually did vote for Kucinich, but I am very much disappointed in him. And his arrogance is what`s got me against him. He won`t go along with the public, he won`t help us in any way.

WOMAN IN STREET: He`s only been in office for seven months, which is a very short time; he hasn`t done anything criminally wrong; and I think one person, he can`t be blamed for the way Cleveland supposedly is going downhill and a dead city, because I think that started back in the late `50s.

SECOND MAN IN STREET: I plan to vote for the recall.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

SECOND MAN IN STREET: Because I feel that our city was already in a state of corruption, and the mayor -- the people`s mayor, who`s considered the people`s mayor, anyway, Mr. Kucinich -- he hasn`t done anything but made the condition worse.

THIRD MAN IN STREET: To me, they are playing the black-white game now, because when the petition for the recall f irs t came out they went to the west side. They couldn`t get enough signatures over there so they came over here and started playing the black-white game. And we got no place here in America for a black-white game politics.

FOURTH MAN IN STREET: Well, at the moment I`m on the fence. The one thing I cannot see about the recall is it`s going to cost about $200,000, and I think that could be put to a better use and perhaps give Mr. Kucinich a little more time and see what develops within three or four months, maybe.

INTERVIEWER: Do you plan to vote?

FOURTH MAN IN STREET: Oh, yes, sir. INTERVIEWER: But you haven`t made up your mind yet.

FOURTH MAN IN STREET: I`ll be firmly decided by that time, I hope.

MacNEIL: Kucinich exemplifies Cleveland`s ethnic and class divisions. Sixty different ethnic groups share the inner city of half a million people --on the east side, largely black, on the west side, white and heavily East European. Kucinich`s father is Croatian, his mother Irish. Some blacks call him a racist. There`s been a large outflow of population, leaving a core of lower middle class and poor, surrounded by prosperous suburbs, where Cleveland`s money and so-called "power brokers" reside.

Kucinich is: a non-organization, self-styled populous Democrat, who squeaked into office last November and quickly found himself dubbed Dennis the Menace, a name suggested by his boyish looks -- he`s actually thirty- one -his small stature -- five-foot-six -- and his uncanny talent for irritating people. But it took great political skills to become the youngest big-city mayor in the country. Kucinich, who has a Master`s degree in communications, was master of campaign cool, confident rhetoric and TV charm.

Mayor DENNIS KUCINICH: I think the people of Cleveland have given me an opportunity which I`m not going to let go by. This city can be great, and I`m going to do everything I can to help make it a great city; every waking moment I have is going to be put toward that effort. And I know, I know -- that Cleveland`s going to go places.

MacNEIL: The incident which provoked the recall effort came in March. Kucinich suddenly fired the liberal police chief he had brought in from San Francisco, Richard Hongisto, and fired him, moreover, on live television.

KUCINICH: I am left with no other choice but to discharge Mr. Hongisto from the Cleveland Police Department. I know that this has been a very troubling time for the people of Cleveland. They`ve been very generous with me in their support of my administration through some very trying times, but in each crisis I`ve been able to demonstrate that as long as the people and their mayor stay together, that we can work toward our common goals of a cleaner city and a safer city, whatever difficulties come up.

MacNEIL: Hongisto`s firing -- and the manner of it -- crystalized the feelings of a lot of traditional Cleveland politicians and business leaders over the abrasive style and inexperience of the mayor`s administration.

RICHARD HONGISTO, Former Police Chief: ...certain kinds of policies in improper fashion.

INTERVIEWER: How is Robert Weissman involved in this? You describe an abrasive attitude.

HONGISTO: With his management practice of abuse, abrasiveness, riding roughshod over other people, of his utterly anti-humanistic approach to other human beings has spread that philosophy throughout the Kucinich administration and that that will ultimately be the ruination of Dennis if he should arrive at a ruination.

BOB WEISSMAN, Executive Secretary to Mayor Kucinich: Somehow people who like what Dennis is doing in government have no problem about this supposedly abrasive and rude manner of the administration. The people who voted for us have no problem with it. The problem always seems to be with those who don`t like what Dennis stands for and what we`re trying to do in government in Cleveland. It represents, a sharp departure from the kind of government. Cleveland has had in recent years; it`s threatening to many people and many interests.

MacNEIL: The confrontation politics of the mayor and his aide Bob Weissman resulted in another clash with the police. They went on strike in protest against orders to make single-officer patrols in dangerous neighborhoods. The courts ordered them back to work, and the media-minded mayor promptly visited the. black areas himself. But he continues to be embroiled in labor disputes with city workers and in bitter confrontations with the large city council and its president, George Forbes.

KUCINICH: I respectfully submit that you will permit me to continue my remarks.

GEORGE FORBES, City Council President: Just one moment. As long as I preside in this chair...

KUCINICH: ...you have no authority, Mr. Chairman, to censor my remarks.

FORBES: You`ve got one minute to do whatever you`re going to do.

KUCINICH: I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, and it certainly is a pleasure to be here this evening. Now, Members of the City Council...

(Voices from chamber.)

KUCINICH: I`d like to compare this situation with the computer contract, which we still haven`t seen after two months...

FORBES: Now, you will not compare that issue with the computer contract.

KUCINICH: I will compare this with the computer contract, where you had two months to discuss it and I only get a minute to talk ab--

FORBES: You`re out of order.

MacNEIL: George Forbes, the City Council President, is a lawyer and and leader in the black community, and is on good terms with the business community; and as such, in the mAyor`s eyes, represents the Establishment the mayor campaigned against. Mr. Forbes, is it fair to recall Mayor Kucinich when, as that lady said earlier in the program, he`s done nothing criminal, and he`s hardly been in office long enough to see what he could do?

GEORGE FORBES: It`s not a question of whether it`s fair or not, the question is following the law. And the law of the Charter of the City of Cleveland provides that if you`re disenchanted with the mayor you may follow the process of recall. These people followed that process to secure the number of signatures that was valid, and it consequently comes before the public for a vote.

MacNEIL: What is the mayor`s crime, in your eyes? Is it simply his style -- so-called abrasive style?

FORBES: Crime....

MacNEIL: I`m using that in quotes.

FORBES: Then he would be impeached. I think it`s style, I think it`s political philosophy, and I think it`s the people who surround him, particularly Mr. Weissman, who`ve given him bad advice.

MacNEIL: I see. It must be almost unprecedented to be recalling somebody for his style and for his political philosophy, which has been tested by the voters on the...

FORBES: Well...

MacNEIL: ...previously.

FORBES: We`ve had two attempts on previous mayors: Carl Stokes, who was a black mayor in the City of Cleveland -- there was an aborted attempt to recall him; and the one before him, Mayor Locher, there was an attempt to recall him. In neither instance were there enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

MacNEIL: The mayor has portrayed you as in effect his sort of political enemy number one. Do you feel you share any responsibility, having been part of past efforts to govern this city, for the economic circumstances it finds itself in now?

FORBES: For several months I personally led the mayor`s legislative programs through the city council, even some of those that I was not in favor of, particularly one dealing with a light plant. I advocated the sale of the light plant, but he had a concept he could save it through judgment bonds. We passed it through the council. For several months I think that the mayor and I got along, even though I differed with his philosophy and his politics. But it was at the time that he called the council a bunch of lunatics, buffoons and clowns that the division began to appear.

MacNEIL` The council is not that, in your view.

FORBES: No, we`re human beings, we`re politicians and public officials like he is.

MacNEIL: How much do you think Mr. Kucinich in his short time in office shares responsibility for the economic situation at the moment?

FORBES: I would be less than candid if I said that he shares the total responsibility. He inherited a tremendous-amount of the problems -in fact, he inherited most of them. What I blame him for is not accepting the fact that they are financial problems facing the city of Cleveland and that he should move in a direction to solve them.

MacNEIL: What happens if he wins on Sunday?

FORBES: That`s a good question. I would hope that he would recognize that he`s the mayor of the City of Cleveland and that somehow peace and harmony should try to reign in our town.

MacNEIL: And it would work if peace and harmony reigned?

FORBES: I hope so.

MacNEIL: Thank you; we`ll come back. The man with the unenviable job of trying to pull Cleveland back from the brink of economic chaos is Joseph Tegreene, the mayor`s campaign manager and now his director of finance. Mr. Tegreene`s appointment raised a few eyebrows because he`s only twenty-four and had had limited financial-experience. Mr. Tegreene, if the mayor wins on Sunday and remains the mayor, is he likely to modify what everybody`s referred up to now as the politics of confrontation and this abrasive style?

JOSEPH TEGREENE: Well, I think that the attitude about the mayor`s confrontative style has been grossly exaggerated, particularly by those who support the recall. The mayor has been conciliatory with many elements of the community, but he hasn`t hesitated to take on a tough battle with those he feels are not operating in the best interests of the city. Now, that tendency certainly won`t b e modified.

MacNEIL: Some of those presumably mean some people in the business community or the establishment whom he campaigned against, and you as his campaign manager were part of that campaign. Can this city actually be governed unless the mayor and those groups get along together?

TEGREENE: Well, I think that the mayor has gotten along with many of those groups; he has had confrontations with elements of those groups who he feels are not operating in the best interests of the city; but the mayor has, through the Finance Department in particular, reached out to particular elements of the community for assistance, and I think that will continue. We are responsible for many programs which have benefited the business community, responsible for many programs which have helped neighborhoods; but the mayor is not going to be the agent of the business community in city hall, he`s going to be the agent of the entire community and that`s going to require standing up for the rights of the people, particularly working and poor people in the community.

MacNEIL: While it`s widely recognized -- and Mr. Forbes has just underlined that -- that the economic problems of the city go a long way back, has the mayor not contributed to their worsening by his absolutism since coming in to office, his refusing to compromise and to seek middle ground on some issues?

TEGREENE: Well, first off, at the beginning of the show, you made several statements to describe Cleveland`s finances, and those statements were most likely drawn from this morning`s paper which is advocating the recall, and hence those articles exaggerated and in many cases distorted Cleveland`s true financial picture. In fact, we did inherit some severe financial problems. We face serious financial problems as a result of several years of neglect and mismanagement. But we have taken steps in the past several months to manage those problems, a major effort to overhaul our books, a major effort to determine deficits in the city`s treasury account, an intensive effort to reduce the costs of operating the city. So we have taken steps to solve those financial problems; it`s going to take a lot of time and a great deal of effort, but I believe we`ve taken the right steps forward in Cleveland.

MacNEIL: Well, you`ve challenged some of the things I said at the beginning. Is there any one of those things in particular that you would like to deny? Is it not true that the firm of Ernst and Ernst have said that there is $52 million missing from the treasury which they can`t explain, that you may have to default on $40 million in loan repayments or servicing...? I could mention the others, but are any of those....

TEGREENE: Well, for example, you stated that the city would be running out of cash in September. The city has sufficient operating revenues to meet all of its operating expenses for the balance of the fiscal year. We have a technical problem with the certificate of resources in Ohio State law which gives us the authority to spend, but those problems have been worked on and will continue to be worked on, so there`s not going to be any payless paydays in Cleveland. In terms of a default, the City of Cleveland has had serious difficulties in the credit market in the past two months, but we are working on those financial plans with our investment advising firm in New York and with local banks, and the local banks are not going to let the city down. Sure, we have serious problems, but we are not in a catastrophe. We have problems that are still at the point of being manageable, and I`m confident that they will be managed and will be solved.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Cleveland has suffered as the butt of some national jokes long before the present crisis atmosphere, and it has tended to believe some of them. But the city has a great deal to be proud of culturally, and after New York and Chicago it has the largest concentration of corporate headquarters in the country. A group of business leaders are now creating a $4.3 million fund to promote the city out of its inferiority complex.

SPEAKER: Never in its history has greater Cleveland had a real marketing program to tell its story to the nation. Until the last decade or so, maybe we never needed one. We were growing vigorously, and most people knew Cleveland for what we really are: one of America`s great cities, a fountainhead of jobs, wealth, industrial production, culture and power.

Our basic strengths as a community have been overshadowed by problems. Damaging negative attitudes have developed about Cleveland. in recent years, attitudes that seriously threaten our jobs, our businesses and the quality of life we enjoy.

We are at a disadvantage in attracting new business and skilled people to our community, as well as visitors and conventions. We are faced with the possible loss of additional business, industry and jobs, and even further erosion of our tax base.

THOMAS VAIL: Cleveland is one of the most underpromoted cities in the world. We`ve got to take the initiative in getting the story across about the people and events that make this city a great place in which to live and work.

SPEAKER: Some people say that Clevelanders are down on their city, and that we are our own worst critics. So in Cleveland you`ll be seeing local advertisements that focus our attention on the city`s basic strengths and the promise of our future. And you`ll be hearing our theme on radio and TV.

SINGERS: There`s a new generation in Cleveland, And we`re building a whole new town.

SPEAKER: Nationally, we`ll launch an advertising campaign in major magazines and newspapers to convey positive impressions about Cleveland to carefully identified target audiences. And the most influential convention trade magazines will carry color advertisements promoting the benefits of Cleveland as a place to visit. We have already produced anew booklet on greater Cleveland which finally shows how great a city we really have. It is being used successfully to recruit the kinds of people and businesses we need. Memorable, attention-getting mailings will be sent to target audiences, such as a recording of the Cleveland Orchestra, or a Cleveland Browns autographed football.

LOIS HORVITZ: I`m Lois Horvitz. I`m proud of my city. I want to see it reach its full potential. If we all get behind this program, it can bring us together as a community, and then we can deal effectively with our problems.

SPEAKER: For the program to compete successfully with well-funded efforts in cities like Atlanta, New York, Detroit and St. Louis, it must have the solid backing of the entire community and be adequately financed.

ART MODELL: I`m Art Modell, co-chairman of the new Cleveland campaign. One thing that football has taught me about life is that you must have a game plan. And that goes for greater Cleveland, too. We can sit back and be pushed around or go out and take the offense--and once again take charge of our own future.

MacNEIL: If Cleveland can weather its immediate political and economic problems, what kind of future is there for a large old industrial city like this? Richard Knight, associate professor of urban affairs at Cleveland State University, has made a special study of the forces underlying Cleveland`s economy. Professor Knight, first of all, have the people behind that PR campaign got the priorities right? Is the greatest need simply to improve the image?

RICHARD KNIGHT: Well, Cleveland is a young city and it`s a new type of a city, an industrial city. And it grew out of the industrial revolution and it`s perhaps maybe a hundred years old. I think it`s a very difficult city to understand, and part of the purpose of the image campaign is simply to get a better reading on what is actually here, what has grown up here, what is the institutional base on which the city will be built.

MacNEIL: What are the underlying strengths of the economy here on which a recovery and a sort of hopeful new future could be built?

KNIGHT: I think originally the advantages that the city had were primarily based on the location -- access to raw materials and markets -but because they got an early start in new technologies and have kept at the forefront in developing the technologies, many of these firms have now become international or multinational and market their products in one world market. In order to operate in these very large international markets they require a vast array of what we call now advance services: legal, engineering, accounting, insurance and advertising. Because these firms grew up here and now comprise, I think, the third largest concentration of industrial firms in the country, the service firms tend to also grow here. So we have one of the big eight accounting firms that is not in New York, and we have some major engineering firms, the regional banks are growing, the advertising firms are growing, and so forth. Very few cities have had this kind of a client base around which to develop these advance services. Now, as the city has changed from a working-class population to more of a middle-class population, it`s also built up a very strong cultural base -- orchestra, museums, colleges, and a very strong health sector. And I think these are the kinds of institutions that do take a hundred years or so to develop and you don`t find in a developing, new center...

MacNEIL: You can`t plunk them down in a brand-new city.

KNIGHT: Right. You won`t find them in Atlanta, say, or Denver.

MacNEIL: Can a city like this grow and prosper if so much of the wealth and leadership resides outside the city limits and has no voting share in its government? Are there not structural problems, perhaps not unique to Cleveland but nevertheless present here, which will have to be corrected?

KNIGHT: There are very great structural problems. I think the kind of stresses that have created in Cleveland as the traditional production, the kind of routinized jobs, leave and as these more service-oriented jobs continue to expand, create great disparities between the wealth of the suburban communities and the lower incomes of the city. And the city was built up around factories, and we`ve inherited this old physical form which is really not very suited to the kind of future that we face. So the need, really, is almost to redesign the city so that the people who are now working downtown can come back and live downtown if they so desire.

MacNEIL: Does that argue for a metropolitan area government?

KNIGHT: It argues for something; that`s the issue that really has to be resolved. And I think a lot of industrial cities are now confronting that.

MacNEIL: Mr. Forbes, do you have a view on that? Do you think many of the problems would be a lot easier to solve if the government were the government of metropolitan area Cleveland?

FORBES: No, I don`t think that metropolitan government is the answer per se. I differ just slightly with the Professor. Because a person lives outside the corporate boundaries of the City of Cleveland and he does not have the franchise to vote it does not mean he does not have something to say about what goes on. For instance, the corporate headquarters are generally located in the City of Cleveland, and there are other powers to participate other than that of voting. These people have employees, these people have wealth; and they have something to say about what goes on. I think that`s probably where I differ with the concept of Joe Tegreene and the mayor that because you don`t live here. you shouldn`t have anything to say. If you have business here that employs people, puts people to work, then you have a great deal to say; and it`s other than just voting. It`s through the control of loans through the banks. All the major banks are within the corporate confines of the City of Cleveland.

MacNEIL: What`s your view and the mayor`s on this, Mr. Tegreene? Is some structural change necessary in the way Cleveland is governed in order to bring the full resources of the metropolitan area to bear?

TEGREENE: Well, believe it or not, I agree with Mr. Forbes on this. The people in the commercial that were talking about the promote Cleveland campaign, none of them live in Cleveland; they live outside of the boundaries of Cleveland. But their businesses are in Cleveland, and the residential and economic life of the entire northern Ohio area surrounds Cleveland, and it`s going to require a cooperative effort on the part of the people in Cleveland and outside of Cleveland, on the part of the government, the business community, religious groups, community groups in order to get the town moving again. People who live in the suburbs say that they`re from Cleveland. So we don`t need the structural change as much as we need an attitudinal change: that this is northern Ohio; Cleveland is the hub of northern Ohio, we all have to join hands together in promoting the town, in promoting the town that we live in and that we work in, all working together to improve the quality of life for the community.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you this as a detached observer of this situation: will it make a great deal of difference to the long-term development of Cleveland whether Mayor Kucinich is defeated or wins day after tomorrow?

KNIGHT: Well, it`s almost -- as Joe says, again, I think it`s partly attitude. I think there are a few institutions in Cleveland that are also making important decisions about their future: should they build a new headquarters building? If there`s a lot of uncertainty about how the city is going to handle their planning, and if that planning gets too difficult and too delayed, they may look for another site.-- possibly outside of the city or perhaps in another city. Without some kind of a long-range plan, I think it`s very hard for certain major institutions that grew up here to kind of fit themselves into the future of the community.

MacNEIL: Well, I`m afraid we have to leave it there; our time is up for tonight. Thank you all very much for joining us this evening. We`ll watch with interest what happens on Sunday. That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back on Monday night.I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.