Mayors Association. Taxpayer Funded Lobbyist Group Refuses Transparency, Violates Public Trust

The deer issue may be just the tip of the antler as far as the Cuyahoga County Mayors/City Managers Association (CCMCMA) is concerned. Though CCMCMA formed a subcommittee addressing the “deer issue” on a regional basis, including Parma and Seven Hills, and which demands that Ohio Division of Wildlife (ODOW) take responsibility for urban deer, it’s listed as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) lobbyist group that employs a powerful Squire, Sanders & Dempsey attorney to lobby at both executive and legislative state levels. 

Not bad for an organization that brought in $170,000 in 2014. 

But concerned citizens cannot access any records or attend meetings. September 2014, North Royalton Mayor Stefanik invited me to attend the meeting. Ten minutes later, he called back warning me that it was closed, despite previously open meetings. 

Since then, yours truly was denied mediation for public records access by CCMCMA through Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's office, and a Sunshine Audit through the state auditor's office because CCMCMA is not considered "a public body," even though it's really acting like one. 

CCMCMA leaders may still be in violation of Ohio's Sunshine Laws on four legally defined levels, but mainly because they allow it to function as a public body while operating as a private entity. Members are likely making decisions - particularly in violation of the Public Trust Doctrine - that materially affect Cuyahoga County residents. 

CCMCMA gatekeeper Lisa Barno and SS&D lobbyist lawyer Timothy Cosgrove have personally refused numerous inquiries. Confident the Association will never have to answer to Cuyahoga County residents about where the $170,000 came from, and where it went, Cosgrove also lobbies for Cleveland Clinic, American Greetings, Alcoa, and dozens more. 

What other decisions have CCMCMA members made? Decisions like CCMCMA subcommittee members devising, in North Royalton Mayor Stefanik’s words: "a regional, short-term plan in the interim...during the summer," to address the deer issue? Perhaps on the basis of lobbyist-originated efforts in Columbus to open up suburban Cuyahoga County to wholesale deer slaughter in exchange for sorely needed municipal grant monies from the state – the Ohio Deptartment of Natural Resources? Is that also what’s been going on with the controversial oil drilling? 

This may partly explain the stonewalling at North Royalton’s Safety Committee meeting last week. Leaders were presented with indisputable data based on the city’s own official Deer-Vehicle Crashes (DVCs) records spanning six years, which also included Seven Hills, Broadview Heights, and Independence, showing no human injuries or fatalities, consistent with the Ohio Department of Public Safety records, which show no human fatalities in all Cuyahoga County for five-plus years. 

North Royalton leaders scoff at the truth, facts, and their own city-recorded data. They scoffed at facts concerning Lyme disease, primarily transmitted by small rodents carrying the Lyme-infected black-legged tick, not deer. And that, ironically, any sort of lethal deer measure would result in safety issues, and a Pandora’s Box of rebounding populations since, as of lately, Ohio deer have just returned to their original, pre-settler numbers, or biological carrying capacity. 

Pressed repeatedly about why this is in Safety Committee, members could not answer the question, and offered only opinion and ignorant, unscientific responses, some of the most preposterous on record. Councilman Nickel seemed to think that a buck stomping its hoof and standing 300 feet away from a child waiting at the bus stop was a threat to public safety. He didn’t know the hoof-stomping behavior indicated deer do this to alert other deer to danger, a human standing and staring. The most oft-cited justification was the possibility that just maybe, one of these days, a deer might kill a human, despite being told the number of human fatalities from DVCs across the nation has held steady at 200, making the average person more likely to win the super lottery. 

So, if this is not a safety issue, why is it in North Royalton Safety Committee, specifically as the basis for putting lethal or part-lethal deer control issue — with the usual vague and misleading language — on the March ballot? The four above-mentioned communities, plus three others, two of which aren’t even contiguous, which flies in the fact of CCMCMA leaders' claims that all communities will have to agree for this to work, will also see lethal deer control on their March ballots. Did these communities receive grant money from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in exchange for the agreement to put hunting on the ballots? Is that why the CCMCMA meetings and records are not open? 

Sadly, at the Safety meeting, North Royalton Mayor Stefanik, charged by Kurtz with steering the CCMCMA subcommittee on regional deer, and who started out with the right idea, wanting non-lethal, has done a 180 – calling out a resident about a long-ago, minor feeding infraction (disclaimer: this writer agrees feeding is bad, but because it hurts deer), and making incorrect statements about my comments concerning a ballot issue during 2014 during phone discussions because he refused email discussions — now that he has no ballot contenders next month. 

At least two North Royalton council members are hunters, as is CCMCMA subcommittee member Broadview Heights mayor Sam Alai, and CCMCMA presiding officer Independence mayor Gregory Kurtz, whose family is very big on hunting, in a community that already allows bow hunting. 

How does the average or uninformed citizen stand a chance? 

The Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) essentially states that all natural resources, including deer, belong to no one, actually, not even the good ol’ boys hunt club – desperately trying to maintain a municipal/suburban stronghold across the region, ITS OFT-STATED GOAL TO KEEP HUNTING REVENUE UP — known as the ODOW. Only a public informed about the spirit and essence of the PTD could support the kind of outrage and action required to stop this type of government obfuscation and refusal to cooperate with state laws. Sadder still, the state allows this, even profits from it. 

The corruption and abuse of the PTD in Cuyahoga County continue partly because of the suspected exchange of grant monies for turning suburban areas into hunting grounds, but generally, according to leading national experts, because it “stems from the inability of many courts to distinguish between the government's general obligation to act for the public benefit," writes C. A. Jacobson, co-author of a recommendation for sweeping wildlife reform at state levels, "and the greater obligation it has under the PTD as a trustee of certain public resources." Jacobson et al. also state, "a lack of awareness among the general public about their role in advocacy and enforcement of their rights" as one of the eroding factors leaving the PTD susceptible to political opportunism. 

And there you have it, follow the money.

If it's okay with you to have your tax money fund a lobbyist group under the designation of a 501(c)(3) that refuses public scrutiny and violates the Public Trust, then do nothing.