Former mayors discuss politics

UC's Institute for Learning in Retirement gathered two former mayors, Arn Bortz and Dwight Tillery, and current city council member David Pepper for a discussion about politics in Cincinnati at the Carmel Presbyterian Church Friday, May 2 from 2 until 3:30 pm 

Bortz, who was mayor from 1983 until 1984, discussed what city politics were like in the 1980s and also advocated reform in the city's civil service system. 

Tillery, mayor from 1991 until 1993, addressed what he called the very sensitive issues in this community: race. 

In 1991 Tillery was elected as mayor of Cincinnati and remained on council until 1998. He was replaced as mayor by Roxanne Qualls in 1993. 

Councilman David Pepper, who was elected to council in 2001, said he felt the community had lost faith in Cincinnati's political system. 

"I think it's safe to say it was a kinder, gentler time [during the 1980s]," said Bortz. 

He believes some of the problems in the city arise from micro-management by the mayor. 

"More power was given to the city manager," he said. Bortz said things began changing with the arrival of Jerry Springer as mayor of Cincinnati, who served from 1977 until 1978. 

He said Springer and his staff worked full-time. "Jerry began to get involved in micro-management," said Bortz. He said much of the inflexibility at City Hall has to do with the civil service system. He added the system has changed since it was installed in the 1920s and it has become a job-security system that punishes employees for taking risks. 

"No one, unless you're convicted of a felony, seems to get fired from City Hall," said Bortz.  

"We need to change the culture at City Hall."  

He clarified doing away with civil service should not mean going back to the patronage system. 

"Should I be polite or deal with those very sensitive issues in this community?" Tillery said prefacing his remarks. The civil rights movement inspired him to become a constructive voice from the black community in Cincinnati, he said. As a college student he joined the United Black Association.  

"For many black students at UC it was like looking from the outside in," said Tillery.  

He believes city council during the 1990s, made up of three white males, three black males and three females, was the most diverse council in the history of Cincinnati. Despite Peter Bronson, said Tillery, who painted the council as clowns, it was better to have the discussions in city council rather than have fighting and tension in the streets.  

"The times when white male Republicans ran this town like a railroad is over."  

"We have to recognize that we have an African-American minority and a growing Hispanic minority," he added. "People don't like to talk about power, [but] politics is about power," said Tillery. 

Tillery reiterated he would rather Cincinnatians "kick and scream and get things out on the table" than for people to have to turn to other places for change. 

He said the problem is Cincinnati has waited so long to address race that it's too late to talk without shaking fingers in each other's face. "People have simply given up on the political system," said Tillery. 

"It was clear to me as I was running that people had given up on the political system," said David Pepper, picking up where Tillery left off. 

He said people were asking him why he would want to be on city council.  

He said he felt the question they should be asking him is why they should want him on city council. "We're in a city where people don't think government and politics is the way to solve their problems," said Pepper.  

He said Cincinnati has not gotten to the point where people can trust the government with their problems. 

"We haven't gotten there in that we haven't been able to instill confidence in the system," he said. 

"The biggest solution [to this problem] is to have a city hall where there are grown-ups that hash out problems and create solutions," he added. 

"There is a general feeling in the African American community that they are not at the table," said Tillery when asked by an audience member what the concerns of the black community were.  

"They feel they are not a participant, that their neighborhoods are ignored and run down," he said. "They feel in spite of it all they are second-class citizens." 

Councilman David Pepper said the most important concern among Cincinnatians is crime and security, "partly due to distrust between citizens and the police."