CLEVELAND — Cuyahoga County will soon have a new chief executive, and we now officially know who the candidates will be in the general election.
Former University Circle Inc. President Chris Ronayne will go head-to-head with former County Commissioner Lee Weingart this November. Ronayne handily defeated Tariq K. Shabazz in Tuesday's Democratic primary, while Weingart was unopposed on the Republican side.
A native of Chicago, Ronayne later moved to Ohio and graduated from Bay Village High School and Cleveland State University before serving as Cleveland Mayor Jane L. Campbell's planning director and chief of staff in the early 2000s. He then became University Circle Inc.'s leader from 2005-21, helping the neighborhood become one of the nation's best art districts during his tenure.
"We will only succeed if we work together to make positive changes for everyone in our community," Ronayne, who now lives in Edgewater with his wife and two kids, said on his campaign website. "By building healthy communities, a healthy economy and a healthy government, we can get our County back on track."
Weingart has spent his whole life in Cuyahoga County, and made headlines in 1995 when he was appointed as a county commissioner at the age of 28. Though he would go on to lose the next election, he took credit for "solv[ing] the county's financial challenges" and "[bringing] NFL football back to Cleveland," and has served as the head of his own lobbying firm since 2002.
"Cleveland pulled itself out of a tailspin in the 1980s and 1990s," Weingart wrote. "Cuyahoga County can do the same in the eight years from 2023-2030."
The winner between Ronayne and Weingart will replace current Executive Armond Budish, who declined to seek a third term in office. Budish has taken credit for being "fiscally responsible" and working to "improve the quality of life for those most in need," but his term was also clouded by numerous investigations and scandals, notably involving the county jail.
Following the infamous Jimmy Dimora scandal, Cuyahoga County residents voted in 2009 to scrap the old commission for the current executive-council system. Ed FitzGerald served for one term as the first executive before Budish was elected in 2014.
