From Cleveland Plain Dealer May 9, 2025
A vision for civic problem solving after town hall success
Editor Chris Quinn proposes leveraging public frustration into structured community planning sessions.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer hosted a town hall Wednesday night at the Cuyahoga Public Library, Parma Snow branch, where readers could ask questions about President Trump's first months in office.
Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com
Note: Artificial intelligence was used to help generate this story from Today in Ohio, a news podcast discussion by cleveland.com editors.
Visitors to cleveland.com have asked for more stories based on podcast discussions
The frustration was evident as Northeast Ohioans packed cleveland.com’s town hall, venting anxieties about federal cuts and democratic erosion.
But what if that energy could be channeled into something more constructive? What if a media organization could transform community concern into community action?
That’s the provocative question posed by Chris Quinn, cleveland.com’s editor, on the Today in Ohio podcast in the aftermath of the event.
“As I sit and think about it, that we should be hosting more than venting,” Quinn reflected. “I mean, it was great. I’m really glad people came, and I’m glad they shared what they think. But if we don’t have representative government, is there a way to take it back?”
Quinn’s vision goes beyond traditional town halls. He envisions structured gatherings where engaged citizens, subject matter experts, and journalists collaborate to tackle complex regional challenges— starting with one of Northeast Ohio’s most intractable problems: government fragmentation.
“What if you took the people who came last night and you put them into a big room in tables of six and you said, let’s attack regionalism,” Quinn proposed. “We’re never going to get anywhere in Cuyahoga County as a balkanized county. Let’s come up with a plan to create one government, a city of Cleveland that is countywide.”
The approach might differ significantly from previous civic planning initiatives like Cleveland Rising, which Quinn and others consider failures due to a lack of subject expertise and realistic framing. Quinn suggests a more structured process.
As one small example, he said, converting the county into one city would have to consolidate firefighting. Could that be one of the many tasks assigned to groups to solve?
“If you have people that can bring reality to it, and they have all the numbers and the map of the stations, and you orchestrate it correctly,” specific solutions could emerge for regional issues like firefighting coordination. Or income tax standardization and other aspects of metropolitan governance.
Leila Atassi identified key lessons from previous planning efforts.
“You need some subject matter experts in the room. Because I sat in on a number of those Cleveland Rising discussions and noticed that they were coming up with solutions that already exist that aren’t being properly deployed.”
The proposal represents a step beyond the town hall hosted Wednesday evening, to focusing the energy of the people who attended into finding solutions outside of government channels that have broken down.
“Could we be the convener?” Quinn asked. “Could we take a team of three or four reporters and, say, every issue that comes out of these discussions, you’re going to be the research team. You’re going to explore them and do a series of stories that really pushes it.”
The approach acknowledges the reality that many current elected officials may be resistant to regional solutions. As Quinn bluntly put it, “Our leaders will never do regionalism because they’re all pigs at the trough. They all want to keep their jobs.”
Instead, a model such as the one proposed in the podcast episode bypasses traditional power structures by building organic movements that could eventually lead to charter amendments or other citizen-driven initiatives. Quinn said his is just one early idea emanating from the town hall.
Laura Johnston, who moderated the event, pointed out that the town hall revealed a clear hunger for leadership and action.
“People want us to take a larger role in the community. I almost felt like they were saying, fix this, fix it for us.”
The challenge, of course, is the resources needed to convene such conversations in a newsroom fully committed to covering local and state issues. But , as the latest generation of politicians corrupt the democratic structures for selfish motives, someone else has to step up to help lead the way. Can a newsroom help facilitate that?
As Quinn concluded: “I would like to use this as a step to something bigger.”
Whatever that might be, the energy and desire for meaningful change was unmistakable at the town hall.
Find the podcast discussion at tinyurl.com/CLETodayInOhio. Listen to full “Today in Ohio” episodes where Editor/President Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura John
