In what would become something of a tall tale in Cuyahoga County politics, Jimmy Dimora once attributed his interest in public office to falling into a tank of human waste at the Bedford Heights treatment plant.
While he was working at the plant, a catwalk collapsed. Dimora complained to the mayor, but she brushed him aside, telling him that if he thought it was easy to run a city, he should run for office himself. “And that’s what I did,” Dimora told the Plain Dealer in 1998.
Dimora eventually rose to the top in Bedford Heights, where he served as mayor. He then rose to the top in Cuyahoga County, becoming county Democratic Party chairman and a county commissioner. But a federal investigation finally caught up with Dimora and his political machine. In 2010, he was put in chains by FBI agents and led from his home.
Just how deep a vat Dimora and his pals plunged Cuyahoga County government is unfolding in U.S. District Court in Akron, where Dimora is facing a 36-count federal indictment that alleges he used his commissioner’s office as the base to run a criminal enterprise.
Testimony this week by J. Kevin Kelley, a former Parma school board member, former county employee and Dimora confidant, provided details of a dark world of bribery, kickbacks, intimidation and back room deals that provided county jobs for favored insiders.
Right off the bat, Kelley implicated Bill Mason, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, in a job-swap that gave Mason’s brother a position in the county engineer’s office. (“I adamantly deny his claims regarding me,” Mason said, not exactly a ringing affirmation that the hirings were entirely aboveboard.)
Kelley also testified about the spending habits of former county Auditor Frank Russo, Dimora’s closest ally, who pleaded guilty in December to bribery-related charges and who is also expected to testify against Dimora. The former auditor once spent $200,000 on a pool and pool house at his Gates Mills residence, Kelley said.
Summit County residents, who don’t vote for Cuyahoga County officials and aren’t immediately affected by their decisions, may not be eager to explore all these details as Dimora’s trial proceeds.
That does not mean all interest should cease. There is no way Northeast Ohio can escape the impact of what happens in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
For one thing, the other larger cities in the region need strong and effective political leadership from the Cleveland area pushing at the Capitol in Washington and the Statehouse in Columbus for programs and priorities that benefit urban areas.
That’s not an easy task these days, certainly not in Republican-dominated Columbus, and it is problematic, at best, in Washington, where Republicans control the House.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald are untouched by the scandal, and FitzGerald benefits from heading a charter form of government, adopted by voters, that greatly improves accountability. But he and Jackson must cope with the legacy of corruption, ineffiency and bad hiring left over from the Dimora years.
The corruption scandal also makes the bridge-building necessary to launch regional initiatives more difficult.
Another factor is that the competition for young, highly educated workers, entrepreneurs and venture capital is increasingly fierce. The publicity surrounding Dimora’s downfall cannot help but damage the entire region, creating the impression in the minds of business leaders and others willing to invest in the region that Cuyahoga County is a place where making deals with public officials could result in lengthy visits to federal prison.
Democrats can takes some consolation in the likelihood that the Dimora scandal will have little or no effect on President Obama’s re-election effort, or other statewide campaigns. Unlike Tom Noe, the Republican fund-raiser who had ties to former Gov. Bob Taft and the George W. Bush campaign, Jimmy Dimora’s schemes stopped at the Cuyahoga County line. At which point, one could say, he caused damage enough.
Hoffman is a Beacon Journal editorial writer. He can be reached at 330-996-3740 or emailed at slhoffman@thebeaconjournal.com.
