by Bruce Checefsky

   City Council member Kris Harsh, who represents Old Brooklyn and part of the Stockyard neighborhoods, published an Op-Ed piece in the Plain Dealer and cleveland.com calling for a public debate with PB CLE (Participatory Budgeting) coalition.

   The event is for September 26 at 6 pm in the Little Theatre inside Public Auditorium.

   At the center of the debate is a charter amendment slated for voters in November to set aside 2% of the city general fund for projects submitted and voted on by residents in a process known as participatory budgeting.

   “Participatory budgeting (aka “PB”) undermines movements for social justice and fails to engage residents in the electoral process,” Harsh said in his Op-Ed piece, adding, “…they could simply vote to employ themselves to run more meetings, or even engage in political activity at their choosing.”

   Harsh cited convicted felon Larry Householder as an example of politics gone off the tracks in a major corruption case in Ohio history. Householder was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy and is serving 20 years in prison for orchestrating a $60 million illegal bribery scheme to pass a $1.3 billion bailout for two nuclear plants in House Bill 6. He said participatory budgeting is a Trojan horse intended to guarantee PB promoters “a paycheck on the public dime without having to justify their worth or be held accountable to the taxpayers.”

   PB Cleveland organizer Evan O’Reilly disagrees.

   “You can just as easily point to Ken Johnson to understand why this is necessary,” said O’Reilly, referring to the former city councilman found guilty of 15 charges, including conspiracy to commit theft from a governmental program and six counts of theft from a federal program. “It comes off as tone-deaf on the part of Harsh to accuse a very active and engaged constituency of being deceptive. I find the Trojan Horse analogy very insulting.”

   He added that city residents need more power in decision-making without going through the City Council.

   Debating can be traced back to the philosophical and political debates of ancient Greece or the scholars of ancient India. Protagoras of Abdera (c. 481-411 BC), who taught at Athens, is considered by many to be the father of debate. In ancient Greece, the subject of debates was often human nature, ethics, and moral dilemmas. One of the most memorable debates in American history was held in 1965 between the writer James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, at the University of Cambridge. The topic was The American Dream Is at the Expense of the American Negro. Baldwin described racial injustice in America from a deeply personal place, which led to a standing ovation.

   Harsh said Cleveland City Council stands as one of the most progressive elected bodies in the nation. O’Reilly, of course, disputes it.

   “I think it is clear that the City Council cares about low-income residents, but like many city governments, a lot of money and major decision-making ends up for the benefit of developers,” he said.

   The source of funding is a core issue, where a Peoples Budget Fund would need to be developed, according to the amendment, and if it is passed by voters, with 2% of the city budget or $14M per year set aside for the program. It has to come from the general fund, said Harsh, something PB organizers do not understand. The capital budget was a secondary funding source. 

   “The Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects decides on the capital budget,” Harsh said. “It is not a separate entity based on tax income. We have to bond market the capital budget every year depending on the needs of the city. We would probably lose our bond rating because of inconsistent and unsustainable needs.”

   Mayor Bibb did support an earlier version of participatory budgeting during his campaign but no longer supports the current proposal.

   “The City budget is a complicated process that organizers do not understand. They are not professional budget analysts,” added Harsh. “Not a single member of City Council, a single member of the administration, or a single union member in the City of Cleveland supports participatory budgeting in this formation.”

   Still, it can pass. An 11-person steering committee would create guidelines and rules on proposals, voting, and other procedures, with five members appointed by the Mayor and City Council. They will get a stipend of $5,000.

   Harsh sees the conflict as a direct clash between representative democracy and direct democracy. Critics of the Constitution in 1787 argued that the proposed federal government was too large and would be unresponsive to the people. In response, James Madison explored majority rule v. minority rights in his Federalist Papers No. 10.

   “Direct democracy was the mob that the founding fathers were trying to shield the government from,” he said, referring to the Madison Papers. “PB will probably never get more than 5% involvement from residents in the City of Cleveland, with more likely only 3% of the population having direct control over $14M a year.”

   Harsh was on the policy and debate team in high school and learning both sides of the argument to understand the issue, regardless of your personal belief, is central to winning. He found the process valuable to issues and thinks as a society, we have lost the ability to disagree with each other civilly and respectfully. Policy debate is a great way to bring it back, he said.

   “I have a strong opinion on this issue, but one of the things I hope to do is demonstrate the value of having policy debates in public,” said Harsh, “I would like to see this come back as an annual feature for City Council. We can debate stadium funding next year.”

   O’Reilly does not take the public criticism personally but feels Harsh might have.

   “We are not seeking to make enemies, and a few people in City Council seem to take it personally, but this is not a referendum on their performance,” he said. “When it is time to fight, you fight, and when it is time to come to the table, you do that, too. We are going to fight for this because we believe in it. We will try to repair some of those relationships if passed.”

   Jonathan Welle of Cleveland Owns and Aleena Starks of the Working Families Party will represent PB Cleveland; Harsh and a yet-to-be-named person will present the opposing view. Rhodes High School head speech and debate coach and Hathaway Brown School assistant coach Carrie Cofer will serve as moderator and timekeeper. Cofer has taught and coached speech and debate in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) for 24 years and is both the chair and a hall-of-fame member of the Cleveland District of the Ohio Speech and Debate Association. The debate resolution is: Be It Resolved the Benefits Of Participatory Budgeting Outweigh the Harms.

   “The better we are about talking to each other about differences and disagreements, the more productive we will be as a society,” said Harsh.

   PB Cleveland agrees. 

   “I hope we can have a legitimate discussion on the merits of how this is going to work,” said O’Reilly.             The free public event will take place on Tuesday, September 26, from 6 – 7 pm in the Little Theatre inside Public Auditorium, 500 Lakeside Ave E, Cleveland, OH 44114, and broadcast on YouTube TV20.