Republican Judge Joan Synenberg held off Democratic opponent Daryl T. Dennie in the Nov. 5 election.
A longtime jurist on the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas bench, Synenberg came up short at the ballot box two years ago in this highly Democratic county. In 2022, she lost a close race to Brian Mooney, a Democrat who at the time served on Cleveland City Council. The margin was so narrow it went to an automatic recount.
Local judicial races are officially nonpartisan. But Mooney’s win was seen as a victory for the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party’s sample ballot – a widely distributed piece of campaign literature that lists the Democrats up for election. After that election, Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Synenberg to an open seat on the bench.
This time around, Synenberg stepped up her campaign. She enlisted the help of political consulting firm Burges & Burges and invested heavily in billboards. She ran on her experience, her endorsements and her high ratings from the bar association group Judge4Yourself. (Democrats have been sitting out the Judge4Yourself interviews.)
All told, Synenberg’s campaign spent $244,000 this summer and fall – more than double the $110,000 the campaign spent in 2022, according to reports filed with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. She raised more than $96,000 from campaign donors and received $225,000 in loans from her husband, defense attorney Roger Synenberg.
According to the unofficial tally, Synenberg won with 52% of the vote to Dennie’s 48%.
Akram Boutros rallies supporters
One of the ousted CEOs of MetroHealth is pressing his advantage after a state audit cleared him of criminal liability for paying himself $1.9 million in supplemental bonuses.
Dr. Akram Boutros repaid the money before the hospital board fired him in 2022. He then sued the board, though he withdrew that lawsuit to seek cancer treatment last year. It’s possible that he may refile.
Now a public relations firm representing Boutros is circulating a list of supportive statements from former MetroHeath board members and others. Here’s a representative example from Gareth Vaughan, former board chair of the MetroHealth Foundation, the hospital’s charitable arm:
“It was and still is unfathomable to me that the MetroHealth Board would accuse this good and honest man of lying and stealing. I am delighted the Auditor finally got to the bottom of this scandal and cleared his name. It’s time the Board apologizes to him and make[s] it right.”
The hospital board maintains that it acted appropriately in firing Boutros.
Downing’s not done
Diane Downing has been part of some of Ohio’s biggest projects for decades, including the construction of Cleveland Browns stadium in the 1990s and serving as chief operating officer for the local host committee when the Republican National Convention came to town in 2016. And though she recently announced she’s stepping aside from leading the Say Yes to Cleveland scholarship fund, she’s not stepping away from education totally, joining Cleveland State University’s board officially last week.
“Though I’m retiring from Say Yes, I’m grateful to Governor DeWine for the opportunity to continue working to support our community’s students as a Cleveland State trustee,” she told Signal Cleveland via email.
