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Election night was sweet for Frank Jackson: Voters re-elected him mayor of Cleveland and cleared the way for a casino, hoping to deliver an economic jackpot for his financially strapped city.

But voters also handed Jackson – and all the Cleveland mayors who will come after – a political test.

Come 2011, the mayor of Cleveland may no longer be the most powerful elected official in Northeast Ohio. That job is likely to pass to the Cuyahoga County executive, a position created by Issue 6, the charter measure that voters overwhelmingly approved last week to reform county government.

Jackson, as mayor, will still represent a shrinking city of about 430,000. He’ll still be responsible for balancing the city’s budget, making sure the streets are plowed and planning Cleveland’s future.

But he’ll have to do it alongside a county executive who represents three times the population – 1.3 million people, including the mayor’s own constituents. Some say the number of people the executive represents would make that person the most powerful single elected official in the state other than the governor.

How will the relationship between the mayor and county executive work?

“There’s intense speculation on who is going to be the spokesman for the region,” said economist Edward “Ned” Hill, dean of the urban-affairs college at Cleveland State University.

That could shift over time, depending on who holds the mayor and county executive jobs, he said, and it may come down to who can get things done.

Jackson – who steadfastly opposed Issue 6 – declined to comment for this story. It will be almost another year before the county executive is chosen. Political insiders already are jockeying to see what names get on the ballot.

Whoever wins will end up tethered to Jackson in a sort of three-legged race. They don’t have a choice. Each needs the other to better the county and the city. It’s up to them to make it work.

“The recognition of that symbiosis is pivotal,” said David Abbott, executive director of the George Gund Foundation and a former county administrator.

The county executive, for example, needs to work with the mayor to accomplish large-scale projects that affect the region, like Gateway and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Abbott said.

And the mayor needs to work with the executive to receive tens of millions of local, state and federal dollars that support the city’s budget and social services, he said.

Despite Jackson’s opposition to Issue 6, many believe the mayor will work with the county executive because that’s what voters want, said Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc. and a former Cleveland planning director. Both he and Abbott have been mentioned as possibilities for the county executive slot.

But a future mayor may not cooperate with a county executive.

“Instead of a three-legged race, it could look more like two scorpions in a bottle,” CSU’s Hill said.

Allegheny County, Pittsburgh battle it out

Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, switched to a county executive form of government in 2000. And for the first time since the Great Depression, the blue-collar Pennsylvania county elected a Republican to a countywide position.

Voters picked James C. Roddey, a local businessman, to serve as their county executive.

It was awkward at first, Roddey recalled during a phone interview. “Did the Pittsburgh mayor know I had more power than he did? Probably . . . but he didn’t really accept that.”

The two didn’t get along, but it didn’t matter early on, said Joseph Sabino Mistick, a law professor at Duquesne University and a Pittsburgh political columnist. Because Roddey was a Republican, “he had no allegiance to city leadership” and could go about reforms, said Mistick, a Democrat.

Roddey said he launched the first property reassessments in 30 years and slashed the county work force from 7,000 to 5,500, turning a $36 million budget deficit into a $4 million surplus within four years.

Roddey said he lost his bid for a second term because of voter anger over higher property taxes. He maintains his time in office set the region on the right course.

Since then, Mistick said, everyone has recognized that the real power lies with the county executive.

The Pittsburgh area – which had no clout – now commands power that puts it in the same league as Philadelphia.

“And that’s good for us because we’re able to demand attention,” Mistick said.

Meanwhile, tensions between subsequent county executives and Pittsburgh mayors have emerged.

“It’s fair to say our current mayor and executive started off on better terms than previous,” Mistick said. “But a multitude of little turf battles have had a cumulative effect. While they publicly still support each other, they are estranged.”

Summit, Akron working together

Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic has spent 30 years working with Summit County executives and said he’s gotten along with most of them.

Sometimes the city/county partnership hasn’t worked – about 15 years ago, the county executive was so tied up with a self-interested County Council that he didn’t have time for the city, Plusquellic said.

But other times that partnership has made all the difference, such as when the city and county recently paired up to save 3,100 jobs at Goodyear.

Plusquellic said that when he heard the jobs were in jeopardy, he called Summit County Executive Russ Pry. Although the jobs were in Akron, Plusquellic printed out a list of home addresses showing hundreds of people in surrounding suburbs who would lose their work.

The county and the city united and saved the jobs.

The outspoken mayor, who has carved out a national reputation for innovative accomplishments, urged politicians in Cuyahoga County to put away their pettiness. He said it’s been holding back Cleveland, Akron and the region for too long. “I don’t think anybody should be looking down their noses at anyone who wants to bring progress,” he said.

“If you have someone in office who cares more about someone overshadowing him than moving forward or someone who complains about ‘that darn county executive bringing in 10,000 jobs and then taking credit’ … well, that’s a pretty sick person,” Plusquellic said. “Stop the jealousy. Stop the greed. I don’t care which side of the river you’re on up there, you have to get past this.”

News researcher Tonya Sams contributed to this report.

The revolution will arrive in waves.

In January 2011, a new Cuyahoga County Council will meet, its 11 members bucking commissioners’ habit of staid rubber-stamping to jostle and debate. The first Cuyahoga County executive will take over, and with 1.3 million people to serve, become the second most powerful leader in Ohio.

By June, a regional group will present a five-year plan to promote economic development.

Other more far-reaching changes are demanded in the governing charter that county voters approved Tuesday. Yet some of those changes could take years – even decades – and will require continual vigilance by voters, experts say.

Experts also say that charters have worked in other counties, including in neighboring Summit, and five other similar-size counties nationwide, by giving the government home-rule powers, rather than restricting it to the rights outlined by the state.

“You’ll see immediately some real changes in the way the county operates,” said attorney Eugene Kramer, who wrote the Cuyahoga charter. “But a great deal depends on who gets elected. . . . It won’t be enough to say, ‘I voted, that’s the end of it.’ People have to pay attention.”

Voters paid attention this fall to decipher two competing reform plans.

They rejected the county commissioners’ measure to create a panel that would craft a new form of government and, instead, voted 2 to 1 to enact a new charter, a sort of constitution for the county.

That document calls for 11 council members, each representing a geographic district, as well as an elected prosecutor, and an elected executive. The elected offices of auditor, clerk of courts, coroner, engineer, recorder, sheriff and treasurer will be abolished to make way for administrators appointed by the executive.

The reform makes the government more streamlined, since the executive will be responsible for virtually all services. But it also makes it a bit messier, since the council must approve spending.

County Council members will be beholden to their constituents and so, will likely fight for projects for their geographic districts. Members will probably debate more. They may have to read legislation more than once.

That system ensures checks and balances, said Joel Lieske, a political science professor at Cleveland State University.

“The county commissioner system was kind of speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil,” Lieske said. “The county has lacked leadership.”

In the first few months under the charter, council members are expected to tackle a code of ethics and campaign finance reform. They will also standardize hiring practices and eliminate unnecessary jobs. And by the end of the year, the council will pass its first annual budget.

Meanwhile, the county executive will run the day-to-day county operations. The executive will also work with the economic development commission (made up of representatives from Cleveland, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga Port Authority, the Cuyahoga County Mayors and Managers Association, the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the North Shore Federation of Labor and a nonprofit organization) to attract new business to the county.

Having one leader instead of three can make it easier to accomplish goals, said Stephen Brooks, the associate director of the Ray Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

“You have a single person who can get involved with the negotiations that need to be done and really push things through,” he said.

The leader can work hand in hand with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, as well as Summit County Executive Russell Pry. He or she can urge progress from a bully pulpit and encourage regionalism by offering financial incentives to municipalities that collaborate.

Some experts doubt any county structure can have much impact on economic development.

“It’s extremely wishful thinking,” said Joseph White, the director of the Center for Policy Studies at Case Western Reserve University.

White said development depends much more on geography, the global marketplace and the education of the work force.

Regardless, White and others believe the success of the new government depends on who gets elected.

“Who you elect to that position now has become much more important than past leadership,” Brooks said. “The vote you make for the county executive is the vote that you’re making for the county.”

In Summit County, Pry has partnered with Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic to combine building departments and police operations, keep the Goodyear headquarters in Akron and create a $70 million BioInnovation Institute that involves regional hospitals, the University of Akron and the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

“There are synergies you can take advantage of in this system,” said Pry, who concentrates on attracting and keeping jobs, since without jobs, he has more problems with the rest of his budget.

Pry is the county’s fourth executive since its charter took hold in 1980.

But he is one of the first Summit executives to flex the charter’s muscle, using powers written in the document.

Still, because Summit County government has more elected officials than Cuyahoga, it’s hard to compare the counties, said Janice Patterson of the Cuyahoga Area League of Women Voters.

She listed five other counties – Palm Beach and Hillsborough (Tampa), Fla.; Allegheny, Pa. (Pittsburgh); Oakland, Mich. (Pontiac); and Hennepin, Minn. (Minneapolis) – which have populations within 100,000 residents of Cuyahoga’s.

All have charters, Patterson said. Which makes it fitting that Cuyahoga has one now too.

“There are sweeping changes that have to take place,” she said. “So to those who are paying attention, I think that will be pretty noticeable and pretty interesting.”

A REGION DIVIDED / Is there a better way?

Welcome to the city of Metro Cleveland. We’re new, but we suspect you’ve heard of us.

We’re the largest city in Ohio, by far. With 1.3 million residents, we’re the sixth-largest city in America. Right back in the Top 10.

Our freshly consolidated city covers 459 square miles on the Lake Erie shore. Our economic development authority – enriched through regional cooperation – wields the power to borrow a whopping $500 million.

So, yes, America, we have a few plans.

How do you like us now?

Merging Cleveland and Cuyahoga County into a single super-city is only one example of “new regionalism” being discussed across the country. In fact, it illustrates one of the most aggressive and seldom-used strategies to revive a metropolitan area by eliminating duplicated services, sharing tax dollars across political boundaries and planning with a regional view.

At the other end of the spectrum stand places like present-day Cleveland – a tired city with rigid boundaries watching helplessly as its wealth and jobs drain away.

In between are dozens of regions where city and suburbs agreed to plan new industries, or began sharing taxes, or staked out “green lines” to slow sprawl and encourage investment in urban areas – cooperative strategies aimed at lifting the whole region.

Some dreams came true and others did not. Regional government does not solve every problem or achieve overnight success, experts caution. But the evidence suggests it allows cities like Cleveland to do something not dared here in a long time. It allows them to dream.

Dream big.

“Regional government would let Cleveland compete in the new economy,” said Bruce Katz, a specialist in metropolitan planning for the Brookings Institution.

“Overnight, we’d become a national player,” said Mark Rosentraub, dean of the College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

“These ideas are not crazy,” insists Myron Orfield, a Minnesota state senator and one of the nation’s best-known proponents of regional planning. “Regionalism is centrist. It’s happening. Ohio is one of the few industrialized states that has not done anything.”

Orfield is often credited with popularizing new regionalism through his 1997 book, “Metropolitics.” It details regional partnerships he fostered in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, strategies like tax sharing.

In 1969, the seven counties surrounding the Twin Cities began sharing taxes from new business and industry, pooling the money and giving it to the communities that needed it most.

Designed to revive the cities, the plan worked so well that Minneapolis now sends taxes to its suburbs.

(SEE CORRECTION NOTE) These days, a newer model of regionalism is drawing policy planners and mayors to northern Kentucky. Louisville merged with its home county last year to form the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government, becoming America’s 23rd-largest city as Cleveland slipped to 34th.

Much of the messy work of merging city and county departments remains, but Louisville Mayor Jerry E. Abramson said his community is already enjoying cost savings and something more – rising self-esteem.

Louisville residents had brooded as civic rivals Nashville and Indianapolis used regional cooperation to lure jobs, people and major-league sports teams. Fearful of being left forever behind, voters approved a dramatic merger that had been rejected twice before.

“I think people saw that those cities were moving ahead more quickly,” Abramson said. “We decided we would do better speaking with one voice for economic growth.”

History suggests such unity would not come easy to Northeast Ohio. Look at a detailed map of Ohio’s most populous county, Cuyahoga, and you’ll see a kaleidoscope of governments: one county, 38 cities, 19 villages, two townships, 33 school districts, and dozens of single-minded taxing authorities.

The idea of huddling them behind a single quarterback is not new. At least six times since 1917, voters rejected plans for regional government, spurning the most recent reform plan in 1980.

“You know why? People like small-town atmosphere,” said Faith Corrigan, a Willoughby historian who raised her family in Cleveland Heights. “It’s been said Cleveland is the largest collection of small towns in the world.”

Any effort at civic consensus in Northeast Ohio also means bridging a racial divide, which helped to defeat the last three reform efforts. Black civic leaders suspected a larger, whiter city would dilute their hard-won influence and political power. Those sentiments remain.

“Yes, we’re fearful of less representation,” said Sabra Pierce Scott, a Cleveland City councilwoman who represents the Glenville neighborhood, which is mostly black. “It’s taken us a long time to get here.”

Meanwhile, residents of wealthy suburbs may see little to gain by sharing taxes with Cleveland, let alone giving up the village council.

“I think it’s almost a fool’s dream to think you could even accomplish it,” said Medina County Commissioner Steve Hambley.

Yet opposition to regional government is softening. Recently, Urban League director Myron Robinson told his board members that regional cooperation could give black children access to better schools and should be discussed.

Mayors of older suburbs, facing their own budget woes, are questioning the wisdom of paying for services that might be efficiently shared, like fire protection and trash collection.

And Cleveland business leaders, many of whom live in the suburbs, are emerging as some of the strongest supporters of regional sharing and planning. They say a strong city is essential to the region’s prosperity and that Cleveland cannot rise alone.

For models of what might work, they look to any one of a dozen metropolitan areas that forged regional partnerships in recent decades – and to a few impassioned local believers.

“If I were God for a day,” CSU’s Rosentraub declares, he would simply merge the city and county bonding powers behind aplanning agency with teeth. He would create a $500 million revolving development fund, big enough to launch the kinds of projects that change skylines.

That kind of cooperation, Rosentraub said, would also send a message across the land. We’re big. We’re regional. We’re working together.

BOX:

13 municipal Courts

33 school districts

59 municipalities

72 police departments*

110 fire stations

479 elected mayors, trustees, city and village council members

1,413 school buses

*Includes hospital, college and other small police departments recognized by Ohio attorney general’s office.