County council candidate Baker's résumé is skinny

To the Editor:

Cheryl Stephens is well known to us. Her economic development leadership for over 20 years, her progressive politics, and her Master of Public Administration [degree] make her a well-qualified candidate for Cuyahoga County Council. To see her credentials, go to the Cuyahoga County website and look her up.

Her opponent, on the other hand, has had 18 jobs in the past 13 years. He is significantly less qualified than Stephens. During a challenge of his residency, I received copy of his application and résumé from the South Euclid Lyndhurst (SEL) School District. 

He says he is an educator. Yet as of May 2019, when he applied at the SEL district, he had no permanent teaching certificate listed on his résumé. He has had three successive one-year substitute certificates starting in 2017 and ending in July of 2020. He has worked as a substitute teacher and coach in several districts. His longest “tenure” is with SEL, where he has worked for a little over two years.

On his online application to SEL he claimed to have worked at one job for four years. But his résumé showed that he was at that employer only from October 2013 until June 2014, and then again for nine months of 2017—not from 2013 to 2017 as his application says.

He is a law enforcement officer with Academy training and has experience as a patrol officer in three small towns for four years, never staying in one place more than 18 months.

Another question to be raised is that, in his campaign literature, he says he is “pursuing” a Master of Education Administration degree. He told the SEL board in 2019, on his application, that he received a master’s in Higher Education Administration from Walden University in 2018, but he omits this fact from his résumé. He should explain why he is “pursuing” a degree he told SEL he already had.

When compared to Cheryl Stephens’ qualifications I think the choice here is a no-brainer. I am putting out this information so you can see how big the difference is between Stephens’ qualifications versus her opponent’s skinny résumé, which shows someone who can’t hold on to a job very long.

No wonder his supporters put out a smear piece. It’s their only hope.