Mayor Brewer response to Plain Dealer --Part One

(Read Post, click on comment, invite folks who agree or disagree)

Ms. Johnston,

 

Without responding to each and every counterpoint, since my letter speaks for itself, I will offer the following as I just received a copy of a letter from the Ohio Public Defender Commission.  The author is Tim Young.  I'm not sure of his title.  The organization is opposing the elected Public Defender and has noted that Cuyahoga County will lose $8.4 million in indigent defense funding if it goes forward because that plan does not qualify for the funding. 

 

"Reform also suggest that the body studying the problem will go out and investigate and research alternatives and return with the best answer.  It appears no one contacted anyone regarding the most efficient and effective way to deliver quality indigent defense services.  The body in Cuyahoga County promoting the election of a public defender never contacted anyone at the State Public Defender Office, the Ohio State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, or even the U.S. Justice Department."

 

"Any move to make such sweeping changes require public hearings and comments.  None of those happened.  The group promoting this reform was not a public body and as result, did not seek public comment on this issue before revealing it at the very last minute.  Had it done so, experts from around the country were available to come to Cuyahoga County to help seek real, meaningful reform in this area."

 

Mr. Young's statements characterize my opinion of the entire proposed Charter and the process the committee underwent in crafting it.  Mayor Martin Zanotti, Mayor Bruce Akers and County Prosecutor William Mason failed to study Title 3 of the Ohio Revised Code in relation to the statutory duties of the elected officials they were seeking to eliminate.  They've admitted this more than once.  Zanotti, Mason and Akers failed to perform any real due diligence and have only regurgitated the same plan that was advanced by former CWRU professor Cathy Barber in 1996 when she was commissioned to study county reform by former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Mary Boyle.  It was a bad plan then and it's a bad plan now.