Ed FitzGerald early voting Columbus

Former Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald is working on putting together what he hopes will be a major cultural arts festival in downtown Cleveland.

(Jackie Borchardt/Northeast Ohio Media Group)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ed FitzGerald, the former Cuyahoga County executive and failed gubernatorial candidate, has re-emerged after months away from the public eye to pitch Cleveland leaders on a downtown festival that would be run through a nonprofit.

On Tuesday, in his first interview since leaving office Jan. 1, FitzGerald told the Northeast Ohio Media Group that the concept is still in its organizational stages. But he envisions an annual event that mixes art, live music and food. He hopes to time the launch for August 2016, the month after the four-day Republican National Convention that he helped lure to Cleveland while serving as county executive.

A large festival, FitzGerald said, would help capitalize on the RNC, as well as the recent investments civic leaders have made downtown in recent years.

He also said other cities in nearby states outpace Greater Cleveland when it comes to putting on large festivals.

"We have to have a game plan for what happens downtown after the RNC," FitzGerald said. "The RNC is great, and I'm very proud that I was an early supporter of it, and I'm very proud of the city and everybody who worked hard to get it. But everybody we talked to knows it's important that you always have to be saying 'what's next?'"

FitzGerald, a Democrat and former mayor of Lakewood, chose to run for governor last year instead of seeking a second four-year term as county executive. His campaign wilted under repeated character questions, including the decade he drove without a valid license. He lost to Republican incumbent John Kasich by more than 30 percentage points.

His festival plan dates back to his days leading county government. In 2013, FitzGerald pitched rebooting the Great Lakes Exposition, an event that brought millions of visitors to Cleveland in 1936 and 1937, during the throes of the Great Depression. FitzGerald assigned a staff member to work on the expo but never made a proposal.

A lawyer working for FitzGerald incorporated Great Lakes Exposition Inc., a nonprofit organization, with the Ohio secretary of state on April 17. FitzGerald said Tuesday that he has yet to receive tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service.

(Scroll down to read the incorporation papers and promotional materials for the festival.)

FitzGerald has assembled an advisory committee but declined to identify its members, saying he hasn't had a chance to inform them of imminent press coverage. He has enlisted the help of Dennis Willard, a Columbus-based, Democratic-aligned political consultant whose clients include Armond Budish, who succeeded FitzGerald as county executive.

Willard told NEOMG that he is volunteering on the project on his own. He said he's been interested in helping organize a music festival in Cleveland for years.

"I've had an ongoing interest in this. As I was pursuing it, I learned [FitzGerald was] doing it. It was almost serendipitous," Willard said.

Also involved is Chris Ronayne, head of the University Circle community development agency and chairman of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

FitzGerald is taking a lead role on the festival, but he declined to say whether he would end up as director or even as a full-time employee. He said he's still working out details, including a name for the festival. But given his goal to launch the festival next year, FitzGerald said he's on a tight timetable.

"We're going to know whether this is viable, or whether it's going happen fairly soon. Because if we don't, the window will close," FitzGerald said.

FitzGerald said he has no immediate plans to seek public funding and that his fundraising pitches so far have been to corporate and philanthropic groups. He estimates he has had "close to 100 meetings" this year. The feedback has been good, he said, and any lingering controversy from his troubled campaign for governor has not hampered his efforts.

"I haven't found that to be an issue," FitzGerald said. "I just haven't."

Among those FitzGerald has discussed the proposal with is Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley, though Kelley said public funding was not mentioned.

"I'm very interested," said Kelley, who has counted FitzGerald as a friend and political ally. "I think it's a pretty exciting idea if we can get the right people to come together."

Asked if FitzGerald could be an effective salesman for the project, given his recent political woes, Kelley replied: "It's not so much him as it is, 'This a good idea.'"

FitzGerald has kept a low profile since leaving office. Asked what he's doing for a living when he's not working on the festival, FitzGerald said he's been performing legal and consulting work.

"Privacy is a new thing for me, and I'm getting used to it," said FitzGerald, who until this year had served in elected office since 1999, when he was appointed to Lakewood City Council.

Asked if he has any plans to get back into politics, FitzGerald at first gave a one-word answer: "No."

He then elaborated: "You can bold that, or put it in italics or whatever. I tell people I was in elected office for 15 years. I got a lot of things done. I was proud of what I got done. But I always told people I didn't think I would be in politics my whole life. ... I am enjoying my life out of politics. If there's people I like or support, I'll try to help them. But in my post-elected office days, I've been very much enjoying not being in a partisan environment."

But FitzGerald has yet to liquidate the roughly $150,000 that remains in his campaign account. He told NEOMG he's yet to decide what he's going to do with it.

Chris Redfern, the former Ohio Democratic Party chairman who left that job at the end of 2014, acknowledged post-election discussions with representatives from FitzGerald's team about donating at least some of the campaign's remaining money to the state party.

"We tried to impress upon him the importance of investing in the party," said Redfern, who directed considerable cash toward FitzGerald's gubernatorial bid before it collapsed.

No resolution was reached before Redfern resigned.

"There seemed to be little interest," he said.

Redfern's successor as state party chairman, David Pepper, said FitzGerald "was pretty generous" with his campaign funds in the final days of his doomed run. Pepper has not yet approached FitzGerald about a contribution but expects to soon.

"Our hope is that he would be helpful with some of those funds," Pepper said.

Ohio law allows politicians to make charitable donations from their campaign funds. Great Lakes Exposition's incorporation papers indicate it will operate as a 501(c)(3) under IRS code, meaning FitzGerald could divert his campaign funds to the nonprofit if he were to so choose.

There is precedent for politicians donating money from their campaign funds to their own nonprofits. After leaving office in 2002, Michael R. White, the former Cleveland mayor, donated hundreds of thousands of dollars from his account to a horse rescue charity organization he operated, along with his wife, from his Newcomerstown farm.

FitzGerald didn't rule out donating some of the money to his festival project. But he also said he's considering using it to start a political action committee.

"I've had plenty of people make suggestions," FitzGerald said. "And usually their suggestion is, 'why don't you give it to me.'"

"For the time being, it's sitting there," he added. "And at some point I'll try to put it to good use, either for a cause I believe in, or a candidate I believe in, or something like that."

FitzGerald acknowledged the public interest in his whereabouts since leaving office. But he also tried to downplay any political intrigue associated with his involvement with the event.

"I had a political career. It came and went," FitzGerald said. "This is a civic event, and when you're talking about a civic event, you're going to have people involved who are involved in civic life. And if this thing is going to be successful, it's going to be because there's a coalition of people that represent non-profit institutions, arts institutions and cultural institutions. That's what's going to make this work."