What Mayfield Hts City Council Race

Okay, so the other day I did a review of the Mayfield Heights Mayoral Candidates, based solely off their websites. A comment by Jill Miller Zimon that as far as she knew she was the only council candidate in Pepper Pike that had a web presence, I decided to see what was the case for Mayfield Heights.

After a fairly strenuous search, the only candidate with a web site I could find was David Sasak. Well that's not actually true, as Donna Finney has a page on Howard Sonenstein's site.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that one of the other candidates has a site since I received some campaign pamphlet that had the site listed on it. Unfortunately, the pamphlet went where the rest of the junk mail goes. I'm now wishing that I had noted down the url before tossing it. But that's the extent of the attention it got, and it got more than the others only because it actually had a url on it. If it hadn't it would have been gone in 1 second rather than 3 seconds. Which brings me to another point.

Folks, if you want me to vote for you, you have to get in front of me. Junk mail is not getting in front of me since it almost hits the wastebasket the millisecond I touch it. In order to get in my face you have to get on something that comes across my pc screen. I don't get newspaper, haven't for years and years. You need to have a website, an rss feed, a facebook fan page or account, a twitter account. Something. Any one of those will do. Otherwise, you don't get my vote.

(If anybody is aware of a site for one of the other candidates, please let me know.)

And riding someone else's site doesn't cut it either. Reality is that while I could complain that Mr. Sasak's site is pretty weak, it exists. And my bet is he hasn't spend more than $4.99 per month on the hosting fees (GoDaddy) and not much on the actual design either (not a criticism!). If you can't afford that to get your message out, you can't get my vote.

So, be default, Mr. Sasak gets my vote. And for what it is worth, here, cut and pasted from his site, is what he's committed to;

I am committed to:
• Further improving our Senior services and activities
• Continuing improvement of our Parks and Recreation programs
• Maintaining a balanced budget, with No New Taxes
• Striving to continue fiscal responsibility in our City government
• Continuing to protect the integrity of our Zoning and Planning processes (and NO retail in Cedar/Lander areas)
• Work toward re-establishing local control over urban gas well drilling (and NO gas wells in our City Parks)

Not sure why retail is a problem in the Cedar/Lander area. Nor does the "no new taxes" mantra strike a chord without context. I don't want to pay higher taxes more than anyone else, but the amount taxed is less important than for what those tax revenues are used. However, maintaining a balanced budget is also a good thing, so a +1 for that bullet point.

Mr Sasek suggests that he's not a politician and that he doesn't lie. Well, of course you are a politician. You're running for City Council to represent us. By definition that makes you a politician. And what is so bad about being a politician? Politicians are by definition necessary to make this great republic of ours work. And you are participating, so don't duck it. And don't cast aspersions on every other individual representing us whether its local, state, or national. I'm not naive enough to believe that by definition politicians lie, cheat and steal to make their lives comfy. Or their friends. Though it certainly does happen, as we are witnessing at the Cuyahoga County level.

You paint yourself with same broad brush, Mr. Sasek.

Donna Finney's has two reasons we're supposed to vote for her. The first being:

Finney has served on the Building Committee for four years and was Chairman of the Legislative Committee and is currently Chairman of the Safety and Transportation Committee on Mayfield Heights City Council.

So far so good. The only other thing is that she voted against a pay raise for the Mayor. Is she going to make a motion to retract that pay raise if her sponsor Howard Sonenstein is elected? Other than the economy, are there no other reasons for voting against the pay raise? What were the arguments for the pay raise with which you disagree?

For what it is worth, the News-Herald has a comments from each candidate in an article. The Sun Messenger had an article back in August.