Club Meets with Jane Campbell on Capitol Hill

Club members met with former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 24. Campbell is currently the chief of staff to Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

Jane Campbell mainly discussed her tenure as mayor of Cleveland (2002-‘06). As she freely admitted, it was a turbulent and troubled time. The country had a Republican president and Ohio had a Republican governor, neither keen on spending money on cities. Yet she had to wrestle with a budget far out of balance and the economy was shaky. Nevertheless she recalls being mayor as the best job she ever had though also the toughest. She pointed to projects started under her stewardship though coming to public attention only later: The Convention Center and Medical Mart, and infrastructure upgrades to rekindle development in the Flats.

Campbell reflected that she met Mary Landrieu in the 1985 when both were the youngest women legislators in their respective states. They remained friends over the years and she was pleased to accept Sen. Landrieu’s invitation to be her chief of staff after the 2008 election when Barack Obama was elected president.

Asked why she thought women were being elected in fewer numbers to Congress and state legislatures she speculated that politics had become increasingly focused on attacks at candidates’ personal lives or at least aspects outside public affairs (children and spouses, for example) and that women were holding back from entering such a tarnished arena.

She also said that she loves Cleveland and would certainly entertain returning.

Club Met with Rep. Marcia Fudge on Capitol Hill

Club members met with Rep. Marcia Fudge on May 3 near her offices in the Longworth House Office Building. Rep. Fudge was upbeat about Cleveland’s future and wishes media would deliver a better message about the city.

“Cleveland has the best orchestra in the nation; it has the number one library system in the nation; it has the best health care in the world; it has a wonderful housing stock, and it has tremendous universities,” she said. “As an example of the latter, CWRU ranks third in the nation getting innovation to market.”

Rep. Fudge pointed to new vibrancy in downtown, notably the new Medical Mart under construction and a casino project. She noted that water is still one of the region’s greatest assets: “We need the collective will to develop our waterfront, which has more potential than Baltimore’s did before it built the Inner Harbor,” she told 20 persons around a conference table in the Longworth room. She is also encouraged by the number of start-ups coming out of the region, especially from CWRU, University Hospitals, and the Cleveland Clinic. “Businesses are moving in,” she said.

“Progress in Cleveland is steady,” she reported. “In the next one- to two-years, you are going to hear a lot from Cleveland. We are going to be a leader in solar and wind power.” She urged Club members to tell the good stories about Cleveland. “We need consistent leadership and those good stories to get out there. When people come to Cleveland they see that media reports are wrong.”

Asked about the impact owing to the loss of earmarks, Rep. Fudge said she would be working harder with federal agencies to bring the kinds of services and work that her district needs.

Rep. Fudge said she flies to and from Cleveland at least twice a week and that travel is the worst thing about her job – “It’s tiring,” she admitted. But she said she likes to be in Cleveland for important events, and she noted she appreciates Cleveland’s lower prices on many goods and services compared to those in Washington, D. C.

Harold Hitz Burton Award to Basil "Bud" Littin, 2010

With great pleasure we announce that the Club officers presented the Club’s Harold Hitz Burton Award to Basil “Bud” Littin on Veteran’s Day, November 11. Bud joins a distinguished list of Clevelanders, including Associate Justice Burton, Anthony Celebreeze, Charlie Vanik, Frances Bolton, Kay Halle, Bruce Sanford, Donna Shalala, Nick Calio, George Voinovich, and Louis Stokes, who have brought distinction to their home city while living and working in the nation’s capital.

November 11 is not only Veteran’s Day but also the anniversary (plus one day) of the founding of the Marine Corps (this year the 235th), which is fitting because Bud became a Marine Corps officer in 1941 and fought with the Corps throughout the war in the Pacific. After the war, Bud worked for Ohio’s Senator Bob Taft, and then the Commerce Department.

Look for a representation on this website of the Award given to Bud.

Larry Ross On Off-Shore Money

In an address to the Cleveland Club on October 26 at the National Press Club only one block from the U. S. Treasury Building, Larry Ross said the U. S. Government is likely losing as much as $100 billion year after year on account of off-shore money owned by U. S. individuals and business entities. He said UBS (a Swiss bank) recently paid $178 million in fines and revealed 4,500 accounts but has as many as 52,000 accounts which may be sheltering U. S. money. Many other banks could be sheltering money as well.

Larry told the group that the Cayman Islands is the fifth largest country in the world in terms of financial assets, holding four times more than all the bank assets in New York City. He quoted his former boss, the late Congressman Charlie Vanik, as saying the Cayman Islands may now be harboring a new kind of pirate, spiriting money away from spouses, tax collectors, and creditors. He also said that pressure on such traditional havens as Switzerland is pushing sheltered money to places such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Larry is a private investigator whose Ross Financial Services uncovers assets overseas for government agencies and business enterprises. He said that when searching for hidden assets overseas, he looks for anomalies in transactions. Once he finds some it is not too hard to trace funds, even if from country to country. He said he was suspicious of AIG as far back as 2006 when AIG said they were taking fees for reinsurance when any such actual reinsurance was difficult to document.

He finds it hard to understand why persons of high standing would take risks trying to cloak money overseas when being caught by the U. S. government is only one way of losing the money; others are to currency fluctuations, overseas law and regulation, and outright crime. “The chance of losing your money one way or another is pretty good,” he said.

Ross also lamented the loosening of moral strictures, notably with corporate money. “If the accounting firms were willing to go along – as, say, in the case of Enron – then the lawyers would step in with red flags. Nowadays you can’t count on the lawyers,” he said.

Club Presents Louis Stokes with its 21st Harold Hitz Burton Award

The Club presented its 21st Harold Hitz Burton Award to Louis Stokes at the offices of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey on October 6 accompanied by a complement of friends and colleagues. Louis Stokes was the first African-American elected to Congress from Ohio and served his district in and around Cleveland for 30 years. The text of the Award is added to the end of this story.

In addition, Mayor Jackson of Cleveland issued a proclamation that was read at the lunch.

Louis Stokes was in good form and high spirits, and graciously accepted the Award. He then talked about his many years of service in the Congress and his views on the approaching elections. In particular he talked about the race for his seat, vacated by the untimely death of Stephanie Tubbs Jones; the recently named Democratic candidate is Marcia Fudge, mayor of Warrensville Heights. Club members asked Congressman Stokes questions about the Congressional votes on the financial troubles “bailout bill,” then roiling the House; he said he would have voted for it.      

Louis Stokes is now Senior Counsel at Squire Sanders and serves on the boards of both private and non-profit corporations.      

Previous Harold Hitz Burton Awards have been presented to George Voinovich, Frank Lausche, Howard Metzenbaum, Chapman Rose, and Frances Bolton, to name a few. Following is the text of the Award presented October 6:      

“Cleveland Club of Washington, D. C.     

Harold Hitz Burton Award      
for      
Distinguished Public Service

Presented to 
The Honorable Louis Stokes            

For thirty years as a Congressman from Cleveland, Louis Stokes made outstanding contributions both to his District and to the Nation in the fields of civil rights, equality for all citizens, and social and economic justice. He fought for a fairer America in which persons lives could be brighter and the whole Nation thereby move forward to a better future.      

The first African-American elected to Congress from Ohio and eventually the Dean of the Ohio Delegation, Louis Stokes worked to improve Congress and to make a more open and accountable nation.      

After distinguished service in Congress, he has continued to work for social and economic justice, particularly in the field of health care for all Americans.      

Veteran, Representative, teacher, advisor to corporations and non-profit organizations, he has been a champion and epitome of public service, for all of which reasons he is saluted and honored by his fellow Clevelanders here in Washington, D. C., this 6th day of October, 2008.”