Last night (September 3, 2019) at a Brecksville City Council meeting we were presented with a sample of what a Petsche administration would be like if he were elected mayor. The subject of the meeting  was a presentation by the city’s law director and one of the council members on some serious ethics violations committed by Jack Petsche when he was running for council in November 2017 and during his first year in that position starting in January 2, 2018.

In Part One on my blog  I showed what a “progressive meeting” is like. Now in Part Two we’re going to look at the corruption that all progressive administrations have. And Jack Petsche has now demonstrated that he would be no exception. Petsche is running to be the mayor of Brecksville and being the “progressive visionary” that he is,  his official campaign slogan “A Better Brecksville” is somewhat strange. I say that because a few years ago a survey was sent to Brecksville citizens asking them to rate the city on various relevant aspects.  Without going into details the results were statistically significant and showed the the city had an over 90% very satisfied rating. In other words, that citizens felt the city had been well run under the current mayor. So what more could a Petsche administration do?

Well it would seem corruption is the answer — watch the following video.

Cleveland Channel 5 News September 3, 2019

Petsche, being an attorney both knows the law and knows how to say the right things to hide what he really did which is as follows. Number one is that his company is USA Roofing, Inc. In the bid to the general contractor for the new jail he listed his company as USA (there are thousands of companies with that name). Further, he was not running for office when he made the bid so it didn’t matter. So was Petsche thinking about running for office and decided to use USA instead of his real name USA Roofing? Then after he won the council seat in a very close elections he was obligated to tell the city about the contract especially when he had to sign an ethics agreement/contract with the city when he took office on January 2, 2018. On that date it is my understanding that the roofing on the new jail had not yet started.

This is the point in time where Petsche gets into trouble because he is an attorney and he just signed a document that clearly states he is NOT ALLOWED TO GAIN BENEFIT FROM WORK DONE FOR THE CITY. If Petsche had been honorable he would have told the city at this point that he was doing the roof on the new jail. That would have ended the issue as the city and Petsche could have worked out some kind of compromise.  Petsche chose not to tell the city for some reason and now no one buys his claim that it was a private contract and not subject to the ethics agreement.

During the meeting last night over 90% of the citizens that were there were not happy with what Petsche did  and although Petsche’s name is still on the ballot for mayor it’s hard to see how he could win in November.

This is not the end of this issue the city clearly has the option to remove him from office, however that could backfire on them in Petsche’s favor and get him sympathy votes in November. The better option may be to wait for the ethics review and if Petsche is indicted that would end his political career. If he isn’t, which is hard to believe, the city can still remove him from office.

In any case this issue is not over.