Why the rush to appoint CEO?

Editor’s note: Another Viewpoint is a column the Morning Journal makes available so all sides of an issue may be aired. Chase Ritenauer is mayor of Lorain.

After the Lorain Academic Distress Commission voted on a CEO hire last Monday, I debated whether or not to compose a letter to the public. The hire has been made, and the path forward has been set.

However, as I think about the process, which was anything but seamless and filled with widely reported shortcomings, I think about the division in the community. I think about my upset constituents.

Most importantly, I think about the children of the district who seem to be at the center of a political agenda far outside of local control.

You can see that I decided to write this letter as the public deserves to know how this occurred.

During the Fall of 2016, the presidential election was heating up nationally; however, thoughts locally were squarely on the fate of the Lorain City Schools.

House Bill 70, a bill passed surreptitiously through the state legislature and without the support of our Democratic State Rep. Dan Ramos or our Republican State Sen. Gayle Manning, was to be imposed in the spring of 2017. Instead of waiting until spring, the schools and I decided to take a proactive approach that attempted to keep the politics at the door and, instead, focus on what was best for the district.

The day before the November presidential election, school representatives and I traveled to Columbus to meet with Gov. John Kasich’s staff who assumed the schools and the city would take a confrontational approach to HB 70.

Despite HB 70’s numerous flaws, the schools and I felt an open, collaborative approach would be best.

For a few reasons our request was that a commission be named sooner rather than later.

For one, we wanted a thorough process instead of the rushed, contracted process that is part of HB 70 and, in my opinion, has led to much of the dissension in the community today.

Second, we wanted employees in the schools to know the direction of the district prior to the short period in which districts make hiring decisions for the next school year.

At the time, I felt the meeting was a great success. In fact, the meeting was so successful that Governor Kasich actually phoned in to talk to Superintendent Jeff Graham. The bits of the conversation I heard focused on how proud Governor Kasich was of Lorain’s acceptance of HB 70 and the approach we were taking. If we needed anything, we were to let the governor know.

It was time to get to work so that we could get a commission seated as soon as possible.

What we have seen since that meeting has been anything but collaborative.

As we entered 2017, the Ohio Department of Education made visits to Lorain but, still, no indication of a commission being named.

We were then told that no commission could be named until April 7 because of HB 70.

Well, technically that is true, but an idea of the commission members, a CEO search process format, and other considerations could have been announced well ahead of the official April 7 date. Instead, silence. Discussions, both direct and indirect, continued with the governor’s office and with ODE throughout the first quarter of 2017.

A day before the deadline— April 6th—was when the commission members were named. This should have been the first sign of the HB 70 ruse.

What has since transpired is a search process that has undergone immense scrutiny for a variety of reasons including how it was selected, its connections to the candidates, and its background.

Regardless of your opinion on the search firm, the question is why the rush?

Tomorrow: What’s the status of governor’s assurances?

Despite HB 70’s numerous flaws, the schools and I felt an open, collaborative approach would be best.

Chase Ritenauer