Ronayne has visited all 59 communities in Cuyahoga County during this campaign season. On the day Ideastream tagged along, he was canvassing in Ward 1 on the city’s East Side. Most people don’t answer their doors these days, but he’s tenacious, he shoves mailers into every door and leaves his spiel on people’s Ring doorbells.
When someone does answer their door, like Ronnie Carter did, he jumps at the opportunity to talk with potential voters.
“You got my vote,” Carter tells him. It turns out this is an easy decision for Carter as Ronayne’s a Democrat. He said it also helps that Ronayne stopped by in his community.
Others take Ronayne’s visit as an opportunity to vent their frustrations about overgrown trees or sidewalks that aren’t in the best shape. Long-time resident and small business owner Carlos Jackson is concerned that minority owned contractors aren’t getting enough work in local construction projects.
As we walk around, Ronayne comments on how neat this part of town is, how well kept the lawns are, how much people around here clearly care about their community.
“The operative is to try to stabilize community,” he said. “You know it’s in our best interest to keep people in the county and not lose them to other counties. You know it comes back to you in the way of taxes and other things.”
That’s not always easy. As Ronayne points out, the county is facing some serious challenges.
“It’s about aging infrastructure and aging housing stock and our people are aging so keeping up with the needs to continue to preserve, restore and reinvest is a really big challenge for the county,” he said.
As Ronayne knocks on doors, 16-year-old Ethan Khorana is scrolling on his phone, looking at the voter records, figuring out which door to knock on next. The teenager is very politically plugged-in, he previously worked on Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s campaign, who incidentally, has endorsed Ronayne. Khorana says it was Ronayne’s tenure as CEO of University Circle Inc. that impressed him enough to spend his Saturdays canvassing.
“Just seeing how University Circle went from nothing to something like that and that’s a lot due to Chris so you know imagine what he can do to the county,” he said.
Ronayne spent the last 16 years as the CEO of University Circle Inc., spearheading the rejuvenation of the city’s hospital and museum district. Earlier in his career he worked for the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission and in the county commissioner’s office and later moved over to City Hall as former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell’s planning director and, later, her chief of staff. He is also the past chair of the board of directors for both Canalway Partners and the Port of Cleveland.
Now Ronayne is ready to turn his focus on the entire county.
“There is an unparalleled quality of life here for the cost of living we can really make this a place that really, really is vibrant for all,” he said.
Ronayne says community resident’s well-being is a top concern for him.
“We are very focused on the issue of the health of our communities,” he said. “This issue that we have great disparity right now we have a difference in age expectation that can vary 20 years by community.”
Ronayne would like to see financial buy-in from the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals to create a “Community Health Equity Fund.” When asked if the hospitals are on board at all, Ronayne simply said he’s “in talks” with them.
Ronayne said he wants to focus on making local communities livable - and walkable - with access to fresh water and food everywhere.
“You will see in my administration a department focused on a new department of housing, a focus on transportation with a division of mobility and infrastructure,” he said. “And you will see an Ombudsman return so that people know how to navigate the county government.”
Ronayne also said he would like to quickly address challenges in the local foster system after reports emerged of kids spending the night in county office buildings, a problem he called the “canary in the coal-mine.” He also said he’s like to have a strong focus on justice, and resolve the issue of where to locate the new Cuyahoga County jail.
He also noted that he looks forward to working with mayors and other local officials in the county.
“This is a great time of leadership change in this community,” he said, noting that the area has several new hospital and university CEO’s as well as new mayors in several suburbs and the city of Cleveland.
Another focus of his administration, he said, would be the attraction - and retention - of businesses to the area, and leveraging the lake as an economic asset.
“I think that the freshwater capital that we are, that’s what I’m calling us, the freshwater capital, can also be the future water economy,” he said.
Ronayne is, in fact, such a fan of the lake that, in 1999, he biked all the way around it. It took him about a week to make the 600 mile voyage.
“I would recommend it to anybody,” he said. “I wasn’t in perfect shape to do it. I just got on the bike and rolled, and it’s a great ride.”
Cuyahoga County, he believes, should be presented as a center for ecotourism. And voters, he argued, should really care about who becomes their next county executive. After all, there are 1.2 million people living in the county, and the executive oversees a $1.5 billion budget. Voters will get to make their choice on Nov. 8.
