We already had someone who fit that description--his name is Michael R. White. And given the rules you outlined above--I would take him back in a fast minute.

Seriously--I know we can complain and complain, but the leadership vacuum is not going away. 

We are never going to find perfect authority control in NEO, but I would settle for a parent, not a king or a queen--but, a parent willing to be unliked and unloved, someone just satisfied to know they did the best they could for all of us, given the impossible task of trying to make everyone happy.

(oh--and that parent needs to surround themselves with really good friends like Nate Gray...)

 This would be my agenda if were running this joint:

1.  Enact a moratorium suspending the operations and effectively closing down every scrap dealer in the city for a one week period. During that period hold a series of oversight meetings requiring the mandatory appearance of the principals of these businesses. At this point in time, these dealers are nothing but legally operating "fences"; without them, copper thieves are out of business. Solution: 5% fee on all scrap transactions, 2.5% from the seller and 2.5% from the buyer to pay for the cost of an off duty cop who will check ID's, take license numbers, and do background checks on all customers.

2. Make every city hall employee re-apply for their job and consider outside applicants as well. An outside, independent hiring firm to do extensive background checks and verify application information, education, and experience.

3. Re-prioritize houses cited for demolition based on FIFO, first in first out. Some houses have been sitting vacant for a decade and are still standing, yet houses cited in the past two years are being demolished first.

4. Privatize Cleveland Water. The place is a complete disaster. The worst customer service I (and thousands of others) have ever experienced anywhere, EVER. The people on the other end of the phone, in my experience, are uneducated, unmotivated, and some are outright ghetto. They automatically treat everyone as a liar. It is appalling that a department with this kind of budget and responsibility is run by civil lackeys who most likely have no business or management degree. The Peter Principle at work.

5. Looks like Eugene Sanders is already doing what's needed to be done for decades: close schools! get rid of teachers! When companies lose orders and business tanks, they sell off factories and idle production lines,like, immediately. The school system needs to adopt the same business model, only not every 3 decades but every few years. If the school system were as reactive and flexible as corporate america is we wouldn't be struggling with an overwhelming budget that produces such underwhelming results. Unfortunately the systems that are in place are highly entrenched with stubborn unions standing in the way of just about everything; maintenance workers, teachers, cleaners, etc.

That's a start.

I would change the CDC's to one CDC per ward and have a ward meeting to determine the main need for that ward and allocate the funding to meet that need.  Then I would prioritize the needs of the each ward after consulting with the people that lived in the wards.  Next I would look at the results of all the studies and all the meetings that have occurred over the past 4 years to see what was learned and take some action to correct the things that have been found to need correcting.  I would have no more studies until what was already found has been implemented.  This would be a start.