Scandal-Battered TJ Dow Faces State Rep. Stephanie Howse In History-Repeating Ward 7 City Council Race!

FEATURED PHOTO: STATE REPRESENTATIVE STEPHANIE HOWSE IN RUNNING FOR THE CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL SEAT IN WARD 7

TheLand.com, By Michael Indriolo, Posted October 2nd 2021

Ward 7’s city council race is a Cleveland story through and through, pitting a scandal-battered former council member against a state representative in the Nov. 2 general election for control of the open seat representing an up-and-coming area in Cleveland.

The race comes at a pivotal time, as the historic community, encompassing Hough, Asia Town, MidTown and part of St. Clair-Superior, is on the cusp of unprecedented redevelopment that could benefit the community but could also raise property taxes and drive out long-term residents. 

Stephanie Howse, 41, an Ohio State Representative with a straight-no-chaser style and a record of fighting for the minority party in the statehouse is facing former Ward 7 council member TJ Dow, 46, who represented the ward from late 2008 to 2017, during which time he made numerous self-interested plays with the ward’s money. Dow did not respond to multiple interview requests for this article. 

Hough and surrounding communities have been here before. In the 2008 special election for the Ward 7 council seat, Dow, with 97 more votes, narrowly defeated Howse. The renowned and politically fierce Fannie Lewis had recommended Howse for the seat just before she died part way through her term, but Lewis’ daughter and a group of Ward 7 residents disputed this claim and called for an open special election. Now, Howse and Dow are facing off once again after Ward 7’s current council member, Basheer Jones, vacated his seat in favor of a mayoral bid. 

Just like in 2008, Howse took first in a crowded primary race this September, edging out Dow by only 64 votes.

Dow’s deception

Throughout his time in office, Dow, on several occasions, made questionable financial moves with his community’s money. Most notably, after losing his seat to Jones in 2017, Dow attempted to transfer more than $700,000 of Ward 7’s money to the former Ward 4 council member Ken Johnson, who was sentenced to prison time earlier this month for siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from his community. Dow had been accumulating his annual allotments from council in hopes of building a neighborhood resource center that never actually materialized. 

Dow also blocked approval for apartment development in his ward until the developer donated nearly half a million dollars to his resource center fund. Dow published his own book series using taxpayer money, too, yet he didn’t pay his own property taxes for nearly five years. 

History repeating itself

In the 1950s, an urban renewal initiative aimed at clearing out impoverished urban areas forced many Black Clevelanders from their homes in neighborhoods like Central. Many chose to move to Hough, shifting the neighborhood’s population from predominantly white to about 74 percent non-white in 1960. The neighborhood’s Black residents protested the racism they faced at the hands of its longtime white residents. 

“You have such a rich history, I mean, people that are really grounded, I would say, in the historical moments of Cleveland,” Howse said. 

Hough birthed one of the nation’s first community development corporations: the Hough Area Redevelopment Corporation. With Lewis’ guidance throughout the 1970s and following decades, Hough, along with Ward 7 as a whole, battled the headwinds of disinvestment and systemic racism, preserving League Park and adding new homeowners. 

“There was a concerted effort from a group of Black homeowners to come together and build together and really try to work to invest in the community,” Howse said.

Although new development in Ward 7 ushered in by former council member Basheer Jones, including the redevelopment of East 66th Street and the Allen Estates project, among others, could benefit its residents, many fear an urban renewal echoing of the 1950s. Could development price existing residents out of their homes by raising property values beyond their means? 

That’s among the biggest issues Ward 7’s next council member will face: How to foster equitable development that brings in new life to the community while benefiting people who already live there. 

“I think we have to be really honest [about] our retirees’ economic trajectory versus a 34-year-old’s,” Howse said. “How do you develop a tax policy that acknowledges that and is not punitive?…We have to talk about it because not talking about it has now put people in positions where they’re taking very drastic measures.”

Innovative solutions

The ward’s myriad issues extend well beyond just housing. About half of its population lives in poverty. Seven of ten Hough residents qualify for food bank benefits. 

Howse wants to address these issues through a research model called the Loving Cities Index. It’s a model that comprehensively evaluates all the factors that make up a child’s lived experience in a city. Howse said that kind of holistic approach would help her and other city officials better understand where to focus their energy and funds. It would put the city’s legislators more in touch with residents’ needs.  

“That’s one of the challenges we have,” Howse said. “Everyone just is doing their own things. The school is doing its own thing, the church is doing its own thing, the criminal justice system is doing its own thing, even though we’re all interconnected. We have to find some ways to begin to do our work in a very intentional and collaborative way.”

The Loving Cities Index framework aims to investigate the extent to which city systems actually address their institutional inequities by grouping statistics into four key fields: care, commitment, stability and capacity. It’s a matter of collecting the data and creating a report, she said. 

”It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, that school is not doing too well,’ but what about the conditions that created the school environment?” Howse said.  

Throughout her career, Howse has demonstrated an attention to how her policies impact her constituents. Her record of speaking her mind on gender and racial equity issues and advocating for the wellbeing of marginalized communities in the face of opposition from state Republicans shows that. 

“State legislators, as well as city council people are a part of the legislative branch, right?” Howse said. “So I think [working in the statehouse] lends itself really well to working on policy development and advocacy around how do you set up the rules to ensure that everyone can benefit in a place.”

She wants to turn that legislative experience toward the city’s American Rescue Cplan Act funding, she said. That money needs to be invested in programs with long term value, she said, rather than those which could become recurring expenses. One such program she advocates for would encourage home ownership and help fund repairs for existing homeowners. 

In conversations with those homeowners, Howse said she’s heard a lot of concerns and confusion about the Lead Safe Cleveland initiative. Landlords trying to participate should have easier access to financial assistance, she said, but those who try to skirt regulations should face consequences. The challenge is identifying the difference between those two. 

“We really have to think about how are we going to incorporate this, fully incorporate it, but do it in an equitable way,” she said.

Equal Representation

Howse is one of 8 women of color of the 12 women total running for city council this election season, which is almost unheard of in Cleveland and a sharp break from the past. As it stands now, only three women of color, out of four women total, sit on Cleveland’s 17-member City Council. According to Cleveland.com’s review of Board of Elections records, that’s more women on the ballot than any other time in the past 20 years. 

Although the U.S. Census estimates that women and girls make up 52 percent of Cleveland’s population, Cleveland City Council has historically been controlled by men. Having worked in the 99-member Ohio’s House of Representatives as one of only seven women of color, it’s well within Howse’s character to run in an unwelcoming environment. 

And that’s the attitude she encourages the residents of Ward 7 to have. Being a mostly Black and traditionally redlined community, Ward 7 needs to stand up for itself through political action and civic engagement now more than ever, she said.

“Most times, people don’t invite you to the party,” she said. “You know the party is going on, so sometimes, you gotta show up.”

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Michael Indriolo is a reporting fellow at The Land.