Still wanted: an excellent mayor for Cleveland Heights

The November 2020 Heights Observer included what in retrospect we consider a somewhat naive and idealistic edition of this column. With “Wanted: an excellent mayor for Cleveland Heights,” we hoped to interest talented residents in running for the newly created office of a popularly elected mayor.

In a January 2021 response in the Heights Observer, local communications consultant Bruce Hennes charitably called our opinion piece “accurate and on-point.” But he posited that the city lacked a "civic infrastructure” that could produce a field of capable mayoral candidates.

Hennes also questioned whether a mayor who lacked the desirable qualities we cited, such as "a vision for the city . . . financial acumen . . . the self-confidence to make tough decisions, and the humility to ask for help," would attract an outstanding city administrator.

In fact, Mayor Kahlil Seren makes a good enough first impression to have attracted not only a clear majority of votes, but three qualified city administrators—including two former mayors—within three years. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, first impressions alone don’t retain staff for the long haul, as the nine department heads who left Cleveland Heights over the same period could attest. At under three months, however, the tenure of most recent city administrator Dan Horrigan was a record, even for this mayoralty.

Unlike the two of us, Hennes opposed the CH charter change from council/manager to mayor/council government. We still believe that our city ultimately will be best served by an elected executive, rather than a council-appointed manager. We believe this all the more because the charter amendment enthusiastically approved by the voters in 2019 requires a professional administrator to oversee day-to-day municipal operations.

Admittedly, the failures of our first elected mayor have been more extreme than anything we could have envisioned. As individuals, we both supported Seren when he ran for mayor in 2021. To say that we are disappointed is a grave understatement. 

From the little we were able to observe, Horrigan was as effective as anyone could be in a drama-soaked administration, where recent crises range from budgetary incompetence to highly inappropriate and possibly illegal behavior by the mayor’s wife to verbal abuse and apparent financial irregularities by Cain Park management.

We would add dangerously deteriorating roads, staff turnover, increasingly distressed dwellings from the Noble neighborhood to points south, a giant wasteland occupying much of Severance Town Center and a mayor who calls council members “liars”—all apparently emblematic of Lean Six Sigma management, Seren style.

It’s tempting to believe anything would be better than this. Hindsight shows that the 20-year decline of Cleveland Heights under city managers Robert Downey and Tanisha Briley left a municipal structure without the resilience to weather a major charter revision, an influx of inexperienced council members and a first mayor utterly unsuited to the job. 

Concerns about the dangers of this transition were legitimate. We can only plead unwarranted optimism and offer our apologies.

Yes, change is risky. But failure to change can carry even greater risks.

Cleveland Heights is a city with a soul. You can see it and hear it in the public comments at almost every city council meeting. People love living here and many wish never to leave. Sometimes they come to council to say "thank you," or to support an initiative under consideration. But most often they come with problems, to the only public venue where they can express their unmet, sometimes desperate, needs.

In November, we want to vote for a mayor who will listen respectfully, attract and keep talented staff, and lead with intellect, heart and—yes—soul. It's never an easy job, and the current state and federal administrations will only make it harder. But we're keeping our standards high.