Candidates were asked to answer four questions about fathers, families and health and human services funding prior to both the primary and general elections.

C. Ellen Connally, Democrat

1.     As a single woman, I adopted a child and raised him alone until I married about 8 years later.

As a Judge of the Municipal Court for 24 years and as a visiting judge for the last 6 years I have been intimately involved with issues relating to fathers, fatherhood and family issues.  When male defendants appeared in my court I frequently gave them the option of jail or school, in an attempt to get them to get a high school diploma.  I often stressed the importance of education not only for them but for their children.

Domestic violence cases are a major part of the docket at Cleveland Municipal Court. I was intimately involved in developing programs to help both offenders and victims in domestic violence cases.

2.     Issues that need to be addressed locally include but are not limited to the following:

a.     Work force Development

b.     Expansion of Vocational Education Programs

c.     Expansion of Re-Entry Programs for returning offenders

d.     Expansion of the County Fatherhood Initiative

e.     Expansion of day care facilities

f.      All day kindergarten for every child

g.     Review of foster parent guidelines

h.     Reduction in the amount of time children stay in foster care

i.      Expansion of programs that train parents to regain custody

j.      Programs that insure that fathers get equal visitation rights

The County Council must review the entire program of social services. There will be a lot of work to get these programs implemented but the county council must start by doing an entire review of social services and the manner in which they are allocated.

3.     Part of the solution to putting these fathers back to work involves the responses that I gave to the last question. 

We MUST keep students in school so that they obtain a high school diploma.

We must work with Unions to get students in apprentice programs.  But we must also make sure that students complete the programs.

We must create jobs both in the public and private sector that can be filled by these men.

4.     I am attaching two charts that I developed that show the use of mental health and alcohol and drug treatment services within the nine cities that make up District Nine along with charts showing per capita income for the various cities and villages in the district.   You will see that by far, Cleveland uses the majority of the services. However, the charts reflect the entire City of Cleveland and not just Cleveland’s Wards 1 and 4 that are a part of the district.  You will also see that the Village of Highland Hills has the highest per cent of persons living below the poverty level.

As you can see by the charts, the Village of Orange, which has one of the highest per capita incomes in the county barely uses the county services. The same is true in the Village of Woodmere.  About 60% of the citizens are retired.  While they do not usually need drug and alcohol services, they could use other services for seniors.

I believe that services have to be allocated based on need but that need must be balanced on the needs of all the citizens of the District.