It’s the people, not the structure.

Over and over, readers have told me that, without me paying them much heed. My mistake.

The Plain Dealer played a key role in the lengthy process that resulted in Cuyahoga County changing the structure of its government from a county commission to a county executive and council.

We didn’t just heartily endorse the change when voters considered it, we covered the process that led to it in depth and, more important, we exhaustively covered the corruption of county government that ultimately persuaded fed up voters to make the change.

Looking back today, I think we screwed up. We took aim at the structure when we should have been thinking about the people. Not just the people in leadership, but the people who put them there. You know -- all of us.

Let’

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