By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor

CLEVELAND, Ohio-The newly found relationship between Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich and a select group of Cleveland area Democratic Black elected officials and civic leaders has some other Black people in a quandary.

The Black state legislators from Cleveland, at least two Blacks on Cuyahoga County Council, controversial Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, some Cleveland councilpersons, and Black civic leaders such as Cleveland NAACP former president George Forbes, its current president James Hardiman, and Cleveland Chapter Southern Christian Leadership Conference Executive Director the Rev. E.T. Caviness are being called out by Black men upset with the Kasich-Black -leaders- are -my -friends thing.

"Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed voter suppression bills with targeted habits of African-Americans and Cleveland's Black politicians heap praise on him," said Richard 'Dick' Peery (pictured in brown), a retired Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper reporter who was a union steward at the newspaper and is long time community activist. "Don't they know they are committing suicide by kowtowing to the man who crippled the voters that send them to office and who will be needed and missed by President Obama in November?" (Editor's note:  The voter suppression statute in Ohio slashes early voting by two weeks, among other provisions, mandates that Civil Rights activists and Black elected officials of Ohio such as 11th congressional district congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge  say targets minorities, poor people and the elderly)

John Boyd (pictured in Black), a community activist too and a Cleveland Ward 6 precinct committeeman who has run unsuccessfully for Cleveland City Council and Cuyahoga County Council, said that the Black leaders and elected officials at issue "are spineless and have short memories."

And Peery's nephew, Anthony Peery, told Cleveland Urban News.Com that "they've been bought by the neo-liberal Blacks that we were warned about in the 1990s."

Kasich (pictured third), 60, was in Cleveland last week for the ceremonial signing of a criminal records sealing law that recently passed the Republican controlled state legislature and was sponsored by state senators Shirley Smith (D-Cleveland) and Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati).

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online Newsblog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Politics makes strange bed fellows. And Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich (pictured) knows that all too well as he was in Cleveland last week for a second time this month to meet with Black people, this time for the ceremonial signing of a criminal records sealing law recently passed by the Republican controlled state legislature and sponsored by state senators Shirley Smith (D-Cleveland) (pictured) and Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati).

The law, an amendment to a state law already on the books that permitted the sealing of only one non-violent criminal record, either a felony or a misdemeanor, gives a sentencing judge the discretion to seal criminal records of non-violent crimes to the limit of two, either a single felony or misdemeanor, or two misdemeanors. And It modifies child support calculations for monies owed by incarcerated persons, gives more protection against the public release of certain juvenile court records, and provides letters of recommendations for jobs like barber and beautician for people with felony records.

Smith, the assistant minority leader for the Ohio Senate and one of two Black state senators representing the Cleveland area, had fought for statutory reform for ex-offenders, a disproportionate number of whom are Black males. And Kasich heard her plea, bucking fellow Republicans and successfully urging passage of the law.

“I have long advocated for expanding Ohio’s record sealing laws, and for giving ex-offenders a second chance when finding employment. Senate Bill 337 accomplishes these goals,” Smith said in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com shorty before a press conference at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Cleveland where about 350 people witnessed the governor's ceremonial signing of the bill into law, including a host of Black elected officials. “It will benefit thousands of rehabilitated citizens who have paid their dues to society and want to move on with their lives. This legislation eliminates barriers to employment, and it reminds society that ex-offenders have a place among us. "

A former Ohio congressman who stole the governorship from former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in a close election in 2010, Kasich is by most political standards shrewd, at least in winning over some Black Cleveland leaders.

CLEVELAND, Ohio- (Editor's note: Below is a response by Kimberly Brown (pictured) to the guest editorial of Larry Woods, who called Brown a hater for her guest editorial to Cleveland Urban News.Com opposing Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's (pictured) education plan and the 15 mill Cleveland Municipal School District operating levy on the ballot for November. Among other provisions, Jackson's plan, which is now state law with Republican Gov. John Kasich's support, replaces teacher seniority with merit pay and hands public funds slated for the majority Black district for charter schools. The Cleveland Teachers Union leadership team, all nine Blacks on Cleveland City Council, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-11), all of the Black state legislators from Cleveland but state Sen. Shirley Smith (D-22), and the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Call and Post Newspapers support the mayor's controversial plan. Community activists generally oppose it and Cleveland Urban News.Com www.clevelandurbannews.com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com have not taken a formal position on the controversial issue but will do so in coming weeks. And the aforementioned Black officials that backed the plan are not necessarily backing the levy, though Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson, who enjoys some support from grassroots factions on community matters, is among those that have publicly announced support of it. The mayor controls the schools under state law, and appoints the Cleveland Board of Education).

In a previous editorial Brown wrote in pertinent part that school district officials are not fiscally responsible enough to warrant passage of the levy during a national recession and that the levy is not about children.

By Larry Woods, Guest Columnist

CLEVELAND, Ohio-I am a high school drop out named Larry Woods.  I saw Kim Brown's comments to the mayor's education proposal and was struck by the brevity and the negativity. (Editor's note: This is an editorial by Larry Woods in response to the one that ran in Cleveland Urban News.Com on July 4 by Kimberly Brown, a former Cleveland mayor candidate and unsuccessful candidate for Cuyahoga County Council who opposes Cleveland Mayor Jackson's education plan that is now a state law that strips Cleveland schools teachers of seniority in exchange for merit pay and hands public monies slated for the school district to charter schools, among other provisions. Signed into law two weeks ago by Republican Gov. John Kasich,  the education plan also calls for a levy on the November ballot, something Brown also criticized. Read Brown's editorial here at Cleveland Urban News.Com and also at the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com at http://www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com/2012/07/gov-kasich-comes-to-cleveland-to-join_04.html )

I agree that to ask already strapped homeowners to pony-up more of their scarce funds for a system that does one of the worst jobs of educating [children] known to man [might be unreasonable].

But not once did Kim Brown suggest an alternative or give a solution to the main problem, a system that does not educate our children and only trains them to be employed by businesses that have shipped most of their jobs to cheaper waters.