Strickland cabinet continues to churn

By JULIE CARR SMYTH

COLUMBUS — Government is a place where people come and go. For the Strickland administration lately, they especially go.

Since May, six key aides to the governor have left their posts — several in the wake of negative media attention, unsatisfactory performance or internal strife.

The number doesn’t include the departures of Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, who left his development director post in February to make time for a U.S. Senate run, or Helen Jones-Kelley, the human services chief who stepped down in December after it was suggested that she improperly accessed government information on Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. It also doesn’t include transportation director Jim Beasley, who retired in January.

The pace of the Strickland administration exits seems unusual, said Mary Anne Sharkey, a former Statehouse journalist who later served as Republican Gov. Bob Taft’s communications chief.

“I honestly don’t recall any governor having this many people leaving, or having to terminate people, especially in the third year,” said Sharkey, now a GOP consultant. “You like to have a stable cabinet to keep the ship of state afloat while you’re campaigning for a second term.”

The controversy within Taft’s cabinet rose to historic proportions in his second term. His workers’ compensation chief, Jim “Mr. Fix-It” Conrad, was among those who lost their jobs in the “Coingate” workers’ compensation bureau investment scandal that eventually led to 19 convictions, including Taft’s.

But Sharkey said most of the problems encountered in Taft’s first term — notably the departure of human services chief Jacqui Romer-Sensky, and the forced resignations of Turnpike director Gino Zomparelli and school facilities chief Randall Fischer — resulted from patterns of activity under way before Taft took office.

Jan Allen, Strickland’s cabinet secretary, said she thinks the number of first-term departures from the administration is within normal bounds.

“Government is absolutely a place where people come and go, even more than the private sector,” she said. “That’s been traditionally true, and I think this generation expects it even more than previous generations.”

Allen said gubernatorial appointees serve at the pleasure of the governor and most expect to step aside gracefully when the time arises.

“There’s nothing more important than the right people, the right place, the right time in running an enterprise,” said Allen, also an alumna of the administration of Gov. Richard Celeste. “So when people feel the time has come for whatever reason to retire, to change jobs, then it’s important for the enterprise that that happen.”

Medicaid director John Corlett, for example, left on good terms. Public Safety director Henry Guzman, like Beasley, had hinted at retirement.

But Guzman and State Highway Patrol superintendent Col. Richard Collins made a splash Friday when they jointly announced they were leaving because their lack of personal chemistry was disrupting operations.

The other recent departures were embattled Lottery director Michael Dolan, who exited just as the major new venture of racetrack slots was authorized, and School Facilities chief Michael Shoemaker, who was forced out so quietly the administration didn’t even acknowledge his departure the day the Akron Beacon Journal published it.