Ben Stefanski interview, 24 February 2017

Abstract

Ben S. Stefanski II was born in Garfield Heights and graduated from Case Western Reserve University and The University of Michigan. He served as Utilities Director for Carl Stokes and worked to combat pollution Lake Erie as well as developing the regional sewer system. This 2017 interview was collected as part of a yearlong, community-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes' election as mayor of Cleveland.

Interviewee

Stefanski, Ben (interviewee)

Interviewer

Perry, Dee (interviewer)

Project

Stokes: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future

Date

2-24-2017

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

66 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Ben Stefanski interview, 24 February 2017" (2017). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 501003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1220

Related Resources

Stokes: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Dee Perry [00:00:04] We are here on Friday, February 24, 2017, with Ben Stefanski II, who is going to talk about Carl and Louis Stokes, as well as oral history for the Stokes Commemoration Project. And first name is B, E, N. Last name S, T, E, F, as in Frank, A, N, S, K, I. And, Ben, I wanted to start with your parents. They started building a life in Garfield Heights once they were here in Cleveland. What can you tell us about the neighborhood as you remember it as a child?

Ben Stefanski [00:00:45] Well, we had three houses in Garfield Heights. One we rented for a year or two. Then we brought a. A two-family. And then we bought the big house on Edgepark, which was a French Tudor house. And so it showed the progression of my folks in the business, in the saving and loan business, and their experience outside of the neighborhood previous to being residents there. But Garfield Heights was next to community, next to the Slavic Village neighborhood where my father founded the bank. In fact, he used to walk, I think it’s five or six miles from the bank and back home, so that my mother could use the car, you know, during the week. And then this was in the late 1940s. In 1948, we had our second car, which was a Cadillac. So we were just a little above the neighborhood because of our experience and the education of my. My folks.

Dee Perry [00:01:48] And so when you say above the neighborhood, that means that your neighbors were?

Ben Stefanski [00:01:55] They worked in the Jack and Heintz, the factories. They worked in the Flats. Their parents didn’t go to college at all, barely finished high school. So we were there because of the proximity to the bank. But then at a later period, 10 years later, we moved to Shaker Heights, where a lot of the people in the neighborhood that were successful moved to Brecksville or to Independence. So that was the migration patterns.

Dee Perry [00:02:25] Your father, as you’ve mentioned, founded the Third Federal Savings and Loan bank in 1937 in Slavic Village. He could have chosen other locations. Why did he put it in that neighborhood?

Ben Stefanski [00:02:39] Well, this was his constituency. These are the people he was brought up with. These are the people, the successful business people, the 1920s into the ’30s, that recognized the talents that my father had and were his role models. And so that’s why this was a neighborhood kind of activity, getting the best kids in the neighborhood a better education so they could become successful in our society.

Dee Perry [00:03:08] Talk about how the bank anchored the neighborhood.

Ben Stefanski [00:03:13] Well, the bank important, as my dad used to say. The important three things are job and. Well, anyway, the third part was a home. And all of these people were immigrants. A lot of them were immigrants. And. And they were brought up with the idea that you had to buy a house. And so Garfield Heights was a neighborhood. Everybody owned their own home, but they were all people that came out of Slavic village, immigrants. And so he provided one of the most important things was the financial house over their head and the money available that they might have to buy the house and pay the mortgage off over a period of time.

Dee Perry [00:04:00] And I was reading that he had an interesting philosophy that served Third Federal well when other banks were.

Ben Stefanski [00:04:13] Well yeah, he was focused on one objective, and that was to provide a roof over everybody’s head. Now banks, they loan money for all kinds of purposes, but he was very focused because that’s what created wealth for people. If you owned a home, inflation would make that house that you spend 10,000 end up 30 or 40 or 100,000 in the long term. So that was a way of creating wealth for all the people that wanted to live in the neighborhood and buy a house. And he provided the financing for them.

Dee Perry [00:04:49] Meanwhile, your mother was a social worker who was employed in the welfare office in Cleveland beginning in 1936. Did she do any of that work as you were growing up, or had she transitioned to something else?

Ben Stefanski [00:05:06] Well, when she got out of school, my father wanted to marry her when she was a college graduate, and she said, no, I got to go to graduate school. And he just hung around because he was 36 when he married, and that was pretty late at that time. But she was intent on getting her degree and being a social worker, because that was teaching and social work were the only things that were available to women at that time. So she came back to Cleveland, she worked for one year as a social worker. Then she married, and I was born a year later. So she was basically involved with building the family and creating the family values. But she also, because of her experience in. In college and in graduate school, she was editor of the newspaper at Notre Dame College. So she was very worldly. And she then became, we would say, the person that wrote down all of the activities of the bank and making. When they applied for a charter in order to open the bank, she did all of the paperwork because she was editor of her newspaper at Notre Dame College. So she had this experience. And my dad, of course, was dyslexic, so he was a personality. He was out shaking hands, but he didn’t read and write very much at all. So they had a great partnership. Each was able to contribute to a whole that was very successful.

Dee Perry [00:06:36] What sorts of messages did you get from them about education and about civic responsibility?

Ben Stefanski [00:06:46] Well, being in the banking business in the 1940s into the ’50s. My dad was very involved in the community. So every community activity, he supported Marymount Hospital, which was conceived before the Second World War and then it was built after the Second World War. He was intimately responsible and able to get government money. So he was always out doing something better for the neighborhood. And so that’s where he got much of his experience. And of course, my mother was right next to him. So they, you know, at home, at dinner, we would discuss what’s going on in the neighborhood at the bank and what the projects are. I didn’t realize the good experience that was, but that’s what we did.

Dee Perry [00:07:35] Ben, besides the conversations at the family dinner table, your dad did something very specific to keep tabs on what was happening with the housing stock in the community that he was helping? Describe how he explored the neighborhood?

Ben Stefanski [00:07:55] Well, when you make a mortgage, you have to go out and appraise the property to see the value is there and everything. At that time, they didn’t have independent appraisers or anything. So everything Thursday, he would go out with two of the board members, not employees, and he. And we would go out and he’d pick me up at school and then we’d go out looking at each house that people had made an application for a loan. So that sort of gave me an experience of being geography and orientated to the community around you. But that was done hands on kind of thing. And those experiences, now looking back, were very valuable in my perspective of what was going on.

Dee Perry [00:08:38] What kinds of conversations did you overhear or did you have with your dad about the neighborhood? About the neighborhoods? What was going on?

Ben Stefanski [00:08:48] Well, what was interesting was they have to evaluate the area where each house was and the condition of the house. So there were all those intimate looking at neighborhoods and saying, well, maybe you didn’t want to make a loan on a house that is not that well put together in this particular neighborhood, but in another neighborhood. So we would do that. So this evaluation was going on and I absorbed this because I was sitting there listening to it. So it was part of my DNA, as they say.

Dee Perry [00:09:22] And that experience would come in handy later on.

Ben Stefanski [00:09:25] Well, it gave me orientation to the community and to Cleveland and. And unconsciously I was thinking about the different neighborhoods and what was going on in downtown Cleveland. And it created the perspective to permit me to do some of the things that I did later on in life. It wasn’t like I came upon something or when I joined working for the city, it was like a New experience. It was an expansion of a base that I had that I didn’t even know I had, really.

Dee Perry [00:09:59] I wanted to talk about the time just before you started working for this city. You went to Western Reserve University. What did you picture yourself doing? I mean, what was your field of study?

Ben Stefanski [00:10:15] It was Urban Studies, American history. American Studies, really. I was in the first program at Case Western Reserve of American Studies graduate, and that was 1960. So we had community leaders come in and talk to our group of five or six people and some of the rabbis and different community leaders. So that was unconsciously a base that was there that helped me in the future activities. But I was very active at the university. I was head of the convocation program in my junior and senior year. We used the Church of the Covenant, that has about 1,000 seats. And every Wednesday we would have a speaker. And the two that were most predominant in my mind was Father Birkenhauer, who was the Jesuit of John Carroll that went and explored the Antarctica. Yes. And then the other was Dr. Tom Dooley, and he was one of the first volunteer doctors that went into Laos in 1956, ’57, ’58, providing free care. So I had these speakers, and it’s part of my experience.

Dee Perry [00:11:32] And did you see yourself teaching history or being engaged in something else that would use that background?

Ben Stefanski [00:11:43] Well, it’s part of our society. I was brought up at Gilmour to have a- What do they call it? Liberal arts education. And so this was part of that liberal arts, being involved in different activities. And what was unusual about my experience at Case Western was I was not a fraternity member. And so my parents didn’t think that was a good idea. So I listened to them back then, but they rushed me heavily. And I did not belong to the fraternity. So the activities at the school were all based on people that were members of the fraternity. And I was not. I was involved really, with my great experience with Archbishop Hallinan, who was the chaplain at Case Western. And in 1960, he was made Bishop of Charleston and a year later, Archbishop of Atlanta. And he was my mentor. He was the one that taught me. And. And sort of, you know, these people, instructors and professors, they pick out people that they think have potential, and then they invest their time and energy. And that’s the thing he invested in me, and I appreciated that activity. And looking at this, I’m saying I had a lot of different kinds of experience with different groups of people, not just one narrow kind of activity. So I was involved with the. The speaking programs from a religious aspect. So that’s part of the liberal arts. That’s why I was brought up with that philosophy. And I just followed it.

Dee Perry [00:13:29] And you mentioned listening to what your parents said. I was reading a story that said, after you finished your undergraduate, your mother was the one who said, you’re going to law school.

Ben Stefanski [00:13:42] Yes, well, they figured my education was not finished, and they figured, well, what do you want to do? And I didn’t know what I really wanted to do. So I applied to Georgetown and to Michigan, and I got in Michigan, and that’s where I went. And that was an experience that was just very explosive. It just opened up the whole world to me because I come from a city here in Cleveland, that my focus was very narrow. And here I had kids that I went to school with, the law school that were from all over the United States, the top people in their class. So I’ve been lucky, like my parents, my mother was, in being able to have a great educational experience, not just in classes, but with the kids that you were working with.

Dee Perry [00:14:27] You didn’t end up practicing law as a standalone field, but you went into the banking business with your father at Third Federal. What appealed to you about that situation? Or was it just?

Ben Stefanski [00:14:45] It was like the family business, you know, and that’s what you did. And I enjoyed that kind of work. I really, in a sense, didn’t want to be a lawyer. But that was the- When you’re done with college, what do you do? And so that was kind of. That opportunity opened up for me. But through my whole career, to this day, I use everything I learned in that three years of law school. It’s just. I go into meetings and, you know, these lawyers think they know everything. I just sat there and put holes in the discussion because of the experience I had.

Dee Perry [00:15:22] And very shortly after you started working in the banking business, you got an opportunity to use all of that experience, the American studies, the law studies. I wanted to talk, before we get to your time in the Stokes administration, about the fact that Carl Stokes was at about the same time that you were.

Dee Perry [00:15:49] During your law school studies, making a name for himself in the Ohio legislature. And then with his first run for mayor in 1965, were you at all aware or your family aware of Carl Stokes and what he was doing at that time?

Ben Stefanski [00:16:04] Not in the same way we were at the second election. I was just out of law school, so I was at the bank. I was interested in being a banker and succeeding in that, but at the same time, it. My father was overwhelmed by my educational experience in a sense. I was a little bit of a threat because I knew from learning a little bit more than he did from the street sense. So this created a. Not at the time that I understood it, but he was successful because he had a good ego, he did good things, and there were a few people that challenged him. And I was a subtle challenge. So I didn’t realize it at the time because a couple of projects I had come up with in 1965, 66, before working in the city and urban renewal kind of projects. And my father was not happy that I was coming up with these ideas. It was a little beyond his control. He could do things well and he wanted to stick with those things that he did well with.

Dee Perry [00:17:22] So then the opportunity comes for you? You got a call from Dr. Kenneth Clements? Was that the contact?

Ben Stefanski [00:17:33] Well, let me go a little further back. When Carl Stokes got out of Minnesota, I think he went to college, he was looking for a job and there was an opening in the liquor department for an associate who had a law degree. And so he went to work for my uncle, my mother’s brother, Judge Rutkowski, that was my mother’s maiden name before she got married. So. And I was very close with my uncle. And I never knew until after I went to work for Carl Stokes that all this had gone on. But that was the original reference that my uncle said, well, you should, Carl, you should look at Ben for something in what you’re doing in the city. And so that’s how that came about. And then right after Carl got elected, a few days later, Dr. Clement called and the bank and said, come down, we want to meet with you. And this was at the old Hotel Cleveland in a suite. And they interviewed me and they wanted me to be Utilities Director. They had already decided that that was the position. And so this interview was middle of November, and I said yes at Christmas and I was sworn in on the 1st of January. So. So that.

Dee Perry [00:18:56] Did you know what it meant to be Utilities Director? So what did you find out?

Ben Stefanski [00:19:02] Well, I had self confidence because of my education, my family experience. And so I didn’t- That was. And I was interested in government and I was interested in what was going on in the city because the bank effort was to keep people in houses and keep the neighborhoods good. And so this was part of that philosophy. So that’s why it was easy to make that decision. And my father was very unhappy with the decision and he was on that.

Dee Perry [00:19:31] Well, let me go back. Before you take the job, were you a supporter of Carl Stokes?

Ben Stefanski [00:19:42] No, I was not involved in politics whatsoever.

Dee Perry [00:19:45] But even as a?

Ben Stefanski [00:19:46] But as an individual, I paid much attention. I stayed up that election night until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning when they came out and said Carl Stokes was elected. I remember Louis Seltzer was on the radio with him and that kind of thing, but I didn’t have any previous experience in that aspect.

Dee Perry [00:20:12] And your father was upset that you took the utilities director job or just that you were in the administration at all?

Ben Stefanski [00:20:21] He expected me to be his employee at the bank for X number of years, at which time I would take over the bank because right after I got out of law school, he put me on the board of directors. So he was playing both. He was giving me the position, but he wasn’t giving me the responsibility. He wasn’t willing to trust me, like- But he was- He wanted to make sure that the legacy was still there at the bank. And of course, my brother, young brother Mark, in 1986, came in and worked for Cleveland Trust previously and he’s now the chief executive officer and has done an excellent job. Still, the bank has the same philosophy to make money available for every kind of citizen in Cleveland to buy a home.

Unknown speaker [00:21:15] Ben, did you have a cell phone on you? I don’t know if something went off. I didn’t know if there was an alarm or anything.

Ben Stefanski [00:21:21] No, but there. Just hold on to it.

Unknown speaker [00:21:27] Okay.

Ben Stefanski [00:21:27] I mean, that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t hear anything.

Dee Perry [00:21:30] So I just heard a little.

Unknown speaker [00:21:32] It was like a charm.

Ben Stefanski [00:21:35] Oh, I sort of heard that, but I didn’t know where it came from. Is there any suggestions anybody has over to what I’m presenting or?

Dee Perry [00:22:05] You’ve said yes to the job of Utilities Director for the city of Cleveland. What did you find out were the responsibilities? What were you going to be expected to do?

Ben Stefanski [00:22:18] That’s an interesting question because Carl Stokes did not outline any responsibilities. I just got the job and said, go do it. So it was. I looked at the public utilities involves the pollution abatement, cleaning up the Cuyahoga River and the lake, the water department that provides water for the whole county and outside of the county and the public power. So I was not given any direct requests at all. It was kind of, all right, we got to do this. There were some other more important things, you know, community development and development of the public housing on Woodland and all these other kinds of things. So my relationship with Carl Stokes was a very positive one in that I came up with the ideas, I presented them to him, and most of the time he said, okay, go do it. He just wasn’t that involved in the kinds of activities that I was, he was more community orientated. But, you know, providing a wonderful environment in this greater Cleveland area is very important. And that was just started of the evolution of pollution abatement. And Benny Blauschild, the automobile dealer and the lady at the Plain Dealer, I’m forgetting 

Dee Perry [00:23:50] Betty Klaric?

Ben Stefanski [00:23:50] Betty Klaric. Yes, thank you. You’re my generation. [laughs] These were the people that were pushing these activities, and these are the people that I brought into my office, and they educated me and they gave me the impetus to go ahead and create the pollution abatement program, because there wasn’t any water pollution abatement program prior to my being appointed.

Dee Perry [00:24:14] And the river catching fire in 1969 became a big story. But as you’re saying, there hadn’t been any pollution abatement, and the river, the Cuyahoga River, had been catching fire for years. So talk about the political climate and the expectations around what businesses were allowed to do up to that point.

Ben Stefanski [00:24:44] We were about six to nine months ahead of the fire. We had already thought about how we’re going to abate the pollution. And so the fire was merely a front-page story. It wasn’t much of a fire or anything, but we were ready to do something about it. And really that helped us. And I went to the mayor and I said, you know, we need money to do this. And I said, it’s been suggested we have a bond issue of $100 million. And I suggested we present it to the voters because we could sell city bonds, but we wouldn’t get the people behind it. So in that 1969, we went ahead and proposed this on the ballot. And we had the Kiwanis downtown parading and placards and all kinds of activities. And there was great resonance among the public to provide swimming in Lake Erie. But we could, because we couldn’t swim prior to that because of the pollution. The overflow was coming out of every place into the lake.

Dee Perry [00:25:53] And it’s- I still wonder why. What were the forces that made people pay attention at that point, because this is something that had been going on for decades? So what was the climate that let it get to that point?

Ben Stefanski [00:26:08] Well, Carl Stokes, I won’t even say this. Compared to our president today, he was a new person on the street. He was talking about problems. And so the environment was about change, about making things happen. And I was responding to that in the activities that I was responsible for. And I had people that then came forward and. And the big effort was- This was three or four months after I took the job. We needed somebody to tell me about water pollution. And one of the advisors from one of these private companies said, there’s this fellow in New York, in Washington, D.C., Don Martin, and he’s with the pollution control department there. You should hire him and bring him to Cleveland and to run your program. So I called Don Martin and the mayor was making $40,000 a year at that point. And he says, well, I have to have $75,000 as the salary. So I went to city council and I got an ordinance passed to pay him $75,000. And he came to Cleveland and he was the producer for the program. He was the expert. He had been through all the problems and everything. And he had a post degree from. From this engineering school in Pittsburgh. And so we tried to be credible in everything that we did and the community, because my grandparents lived in Slavic Village, which was full of smoke from the steel plants. So the pollution abatement was always an issue. And the timing had just come where we were moving from a very quiet community into an active, knowledgeable constituency. And they were demanding a better environment. And that helped us. We were responding to that. Besides our own initiative.

Dee Perry [00:28:10] Did you understand what the methods were that were going to be used to bring about this pollution control? I remember one thing I saw was big curtains in the lake.

Ben Stefanski [00:28:24] Well, part of that was that you have to demonstrate some progress. You have to show something in what you’re doing, because this is the long term. We’re still doing the same program that we started 40 years ago at the interceptor sewers and the collection that’s still going on. And that program went from $100 million to $3 billion a year, or $3 billion for the whole program. So that we- My idea was, what can we show the people that will make a difference? And the engineers came up with this idea at Edgewater Park. It’s in a bay, and if you could sort of divide the water a little bit and make sure that the whole lake doesn’t come in and there’s an outlet there right where the sewers come out. And you could chlorinate this area, you would make it available for swimming. And so that’s a positive outlook as to what our program could be. So that’s what we did. We spent $150,000, put up a curtain, a vinyl curtain sort of separated the water. And then we put pipes underneath which we could put chlorine, pump chlorine into the swimming area. And that was a big, positive kind of picture that people had about what the lake could be. So that was how that occurred. That was strictly a demonstration. We got government money for it, too, to show people that these were the part of our community that could be used and could be preserved.

Dee Perry [00:29:55] And Carl Stokes, at that point, even though the fire was an embarrassment, positive things came out of it. The river fire, that is. He became branded as an environmentalist.

Ben Stefanski [00:30:10] Yeah, that was a great pleasure working for the guy. He saw the big picture. He saw what you were proposing, and he would go with it. And he didn’t have to get involved with the details. And so he went all the way to the Congress. He testified in Washington about pollution, and he didn’t know much more than I did, but he was a good showman, and that’s what you need to get these programs going. So he was a very positive supporter of what I was doing and never got into any of the details. In fact, the swimming in the lake and all that. He loved that.

Dee Perry [00:30:48] Now, at that point, was Louis Stokes in Congress yet?

Ben Stefanski [00:30:54] I had almost- I knew Louis Stokes, but I had no contact with him. I was not involved in his election. He just, you know, went to Congress and he became infamous as a Great Congressman for 40 years from our community. And it was, like, great for the two brothers each to have their own individual sphere of influence. And yet they could talk together and confer on what was going on.

Dee Perry [00:31:22] And I was just wondering at the point where Carl was making a name in terms of changing the environment, if Lewis was in place yet.

Ben Stefanski [00:31:37] Not really yet, but that’s what was the great thing about Carl Stokes. He always saw the good things and the positive things of things that were going on. So he always picked up what I was doing and splash it all over. And that was fine, because that’s what you needed to. But he never got involved in the detail because fortunately, he trusted me. I trusted the people that worked for me. And Don Martin, rather Ed Martin, was there in doing that.

Dee Perry [00:32:09] And one of the things that you were instrumental in accomplishing was helping to create a Unknown speaker. Why was that an important cause for you?

Ben Stefanski [00:32:22] Well, because that’s the only way you can handle the problem is regionally, not citywide, because you would have. And this goes back to my banking experience, where builders would go and put a street in, and then they put some houses in there, and then they put a treatment plant at the end of the street to treat the sewage. And that’s. Eventually, nobody maintains the plant and the sewage gets into the regular water and Everything. So that was one of my major efforts, was to eliminate the giving people or developers the right to city water without having them part of the regional wide sewer district. They got upset at that. And the suburbs went to the court and the judge supported the program. And Judge McMonagle, who was very helpful, he was the judge that made the decision. And everybody then accepted the Unknown speaker. And as we do today, everybody does what the Unknown speaker tells you to do.

Dee Perry [00:33:27] And you got pushback from the developers? From anyone else? Did anyone else say no?

Ben Stefanski [00:33:31] This was just the developers money thing with them. Everybody at that point, everybody seemed to understand nationally, if you think at this period, too, the end of the 60s, there was a national interest in pollution abatement and cleaning up. And so that was just. We were sort of attached to them, or they were attached to us in these programs.

Dee Perry [00:33:58] Were there other utilities projects that you were involved with that Carl Stokes signed off on?

Ben Stefanski [00:34:09] Well, the water department agreed with us not to give connections to any developer that wasn’t part of the Unknown speaker. That was a major, major thing. That was our tool to make sure that everybody went into the major, you know, the Easterly, which is down in the Flats in Cuyahoga Heights, and Westerly at west at Edgewater Beach, and then the other Easterly is at the end of Bratenahl. So this encouraged those developments and the sewers, the big gigantic sewers that people don’t even know about even today underneath that take the water from the sewer water and store it and then push it through the plant when the weather is better.

Dee Perry [00:35:07] This was a period when Carl Stokes was often in the news. I mean, he was a symbol of something as the first Black mayor of a major American city. So there was a lot of public scrutiny. Did you feel that spotlight, too?

Ben Stefanski [00:35:23] Oh, yes, I understood that whatever he supported, that people were coming to Cleveland to see what Carl was doing. And that part of what I was doing had a national influence. And of course, he was, like we said before he testified before Congress. So that it was programs that were. We were at the right time, at the right place, with the right product.

Dee Perry [00:35:46] And as they say, did you see the coverage get less positive as his administration went on?

Ben Stefanski [00:36:00] As far as what I was doing, I never experienced, which is interesting to watch politics today, the negative response to programs, whether it’s good or bad, we just always had positive. And we had a good Betty Clark at the Cleveland Press. She was always positive. She understood what was going on and she was able to tell that story to the public and that was what was important.

Dee Perry [00:36:34] Carl Stokes had one term that ended in ’69 and went for another term that went to 1971. You were there for both terms? Was there any difference?

Ben Stefanski [00:36:48] Yeah, because I left in the middle of the second term, and I never knew why I was asked to leave. And they brought in another guy, and maybe I was creating too much turmoil, I don’t know. But that’s the only reason I could look at it, because today, that’s the legacy that we’ve left, is the Unknown speaker is really a very positive thing. I never understood what happened at that.

Dee Perry [00:37:22] And you didn’t have a conversation with?

Ben Stefanski [00:37:25] Not really, no. I never asked. I was too young to ask the right questions and that kind of thing.

Dee Perry [00:37:32] You were 29 when you took the job?

Ben Stefanski [00:37:33] Yeah, and I was 31 when I left, so, you know, I was pretty young. Most everybody was in their late 30s, 40s, and 50s kind of thing.

Dee Perry [00:37:45] For you, what’s the best lesson that you learned from that time being part of the administration?

Ben Stefanski [00:37:58] I appreciated Carl Stokes as being my boss because he let me do what I suggested. Not that I knew any better or anything, but I did have Ed Martin next to me, too. But that was a major influence on the community, and it changed the sewer district and how the- They approached everything, and it just made a big difference in our community.

Dee Perry [00:38:28] Did Ed Martin stay on after you left?

Ben Stefanski [00:38:31] You know, I can’t remember specifically. He stayed on for a while. I know, and I don’t know. He did move to Cleveland. He lives out east of Cleveland in the country, but he’s still there.

Dee Perry [00:38:45] You stayed in the city after? After leaving the administration? Did you see anything that Carl Stokes, as mayor, had done to change the city in terms of urban renewal, in terms of other initiatives that his administration started?

Ben Stefanski [00:39:08] They started a lot of projects. A lot of public housing that we have today is from that period. He did. Of course, then we had Glenville, and, you know, there was always the friction between the police and the administration, which was unfounded, but it was there all the time. But he was a. He had to fight a lot of the establishment of. In city government to achieve some of the programs that he was working on. It was not easy.

Dee Perry [00:39:49] And you mentioned Glenville, the shootout, and then the uprising that happened after that in 1968. What was the impact, or I should say, did you feel an impact on the administration, on programs that the mayor and.

Ben Stefanski [00:40:14] No, I never felt any problems with a constituency supporting the programs that I was responsible for. I remember the night of the Glenville I was listening to the radio about 10 o’ clock for whatever reason, and they talked about the Glenville incident. So I went down to City Hall and we were up until 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning because the community leaders came in and Carl had to make a presentation in that. But he was always very positive. He had a wonderful attitude. He was just- And he always got it. He knew what was going on. He knew how to manipulate the- That’s a poor word to use, but to sustain yourself when you have these kinds of problems.

Dee Perry [00:41:06] But after ’71, he decided not to run again.

Ben Stefanski [00:41:11] He ran two terms, right.

Dee Perry [00:41:14] And then he left the city after that. Did you have a feeling that something changed when he left? I mean, was the city a different place before and after Carl Stokes?

Ben Stefanski [00:41:30] I have to say yes, but it took me a while to figure out. He changed the attitude of everybody. He showed that we had to be inclusive and we had to consider everybody’s problems. And it was a matter of the life of the city to continue. And he created the legacy for Mayor White and for Mayor Jackson, you know, of acceptance, of being- Nobody thinks about those issues today anymore.

Dee Perry [00:42:04] There was a time when you thought that political life might be for you, but after your time in the administration, you never ran for office or-

Ben Stefanski [00:42:19] No, I never ran for office. I did take out petitions in 1967 to be a. That’s an interesting story. To be a state representative from the southeast area, and so I get a call from Ray T. Miller, who is the county Democratic chairman, and I went down to his office and he said, you don’t want to run for this job. He says, the state legislature is not a good place. His son was down there and became sick and an alcoholic. And so I listened to Ray T. Miller and he says, but he says if somebody asks you to appointed position and you have specific responsibilities, that’s what you should do. And that’s exactly what happened to me. Carl Stokes called and I got a position where I could do something. And what I found out later was that Ray T. Miller had represented the bank and some of the issues in Washington, D.C., and my father had got to him and went to him and said, you know, you talk to Ben and get him out of this. So some of the things you never knew about was going on there we go, good and bad things because positively during my administration, when I was there, there were positive things that happened and people came and did things. So, you know, you go with the flow.

Dee Perry [00:43:50] Speaking of which, after your time in public office, you didn’t do another political office. But you stayed. You have stayed involved in civic life.

Ben Stefanski [00:44:04] Yes.

Dee Perry [00:44:04] Was that, do you think, more a function of the way you were raised or what you saw in the city being?

Ben Stefanski [00:44:13] Well, it was a function of all of these things coming together. I mean, my whole education, but my experiences have been different. Things that came together because, like, I was appointed to the board on the Western Reserve Historical Society, and pretty much that was an establishment kind of institution. But Fred Crawford was influenced by the activities that I had occurred, and he was the one that promoted me to be a board member and then eventually to run the historical society for four or five years in the late ’70s, early ’80s. So your experience and contact with various different people creates new opportunities that might not have happened if you had been a bank teller and then a bank officer and done nothing else than that.

Dee Perry [00:45:12] What do you see as the legacy of the Stokes brothers, both because Lewis obviously stayed in politics much longer, in public life much longer than Carl did?

Ben Stefanski [00:45:29] Well, we were in a transition period that 1970s from the old politics, the local politics, where the city didn’t do much, wasn’t concerned about the river, wasn’t concerned about pollution, wasn’t concerned about public housing. They just try to keep things together. Never set up a tax, regional income tax, which was new, which created more funds available to do projects to put in new streets. And we’ve learned how to use the tax bonds issues and everything for our stadium and for our basketball arena and all the projects that go on today. But that was the change of the old to the new in 1970. New perspectives, new people that were interested in investing in our city. So there were a lot of ancillary positive effects on the city that we don’t even think about. But it was, you know, Carl Stokes put the city on the map where things are happening and it takes time. But, you know, we have a beautiful riverfront and we’re still doing projects.

Dee Perry [00:46:46] You were a young man, I think maybe the youngest cabinet member at the time, most people were 40 or 45, 50?

Dee Perry [00:46:58] So I’m curious what you think the involvement of young people could be or should be today, and how to encourage them to be part of that legacy of commitment and involvement?

Ben Stefanski [00:47:15] Well, part of it you have to- First, you have to have confidence in yourself, because the process does not create confidence. It creates questions about what you’re doing and how you’re doing and what you’re doing. And if you have that positive response within yourself and knowing that what you’re doing is the right thing, and these other guys are just way off. That helps you to become involved. And I was very lucky in that I never had to deal with the gutter politics that’s involved. I was fortunate. I was brought in at a high level, and I kind of left at that level and. But, you know, there’s people that are. It was not a livelihood for me. I didn’t think of it as a future, but as a contribution. And that’s why I stuck my neck out, and a lot of things got done or the future expanded the possibilities for these things to happen.

Dee Perry [00:48:20] You mentioned a while ago, mentors. What role did mentors play in your life?

Ben Stefanski [00:48:30] Always very positive. You know, I just loved Carl Stokes. People, you know, they said this, that and the other, and he had his own problems and whatever, but he had the big picture. He knew how to be mayor. He knew how to present things, went to Washington or wherever. Anywhere he went, he was a celebrity. You know, that’s part of what politics is about, to be able to do that. So it was very positive to be able to have worked for him. Though he was never as satisfied as one would hope in his career. I think he felt a little frustrated even after he was finished with the city. But he just- He had high ambitions, and in politics, sometimes it’s hard to meet those ambitions. But he did a lot of things because the other cabinet members were all very good people. They did a lot of good things for the city, and they were not interested in their personal experience, but in making sure that things improved.

Dee Perry [00:49:43] He wrote, as I remember in his autobiography, that he didn’t realize how many internal fights he was going to have to fight to get the external programs done. Did you?

Ben Stefanski [00:49:59] Well, because when we went into - in ’69 - went into City Hall, all of the people that were there were hired during the Depression. They had been there 20, 30 years. So they were all concerned about keeping their jobs, and they weren’t involved in what’s new and what we have to do to make the city work. And so, you know, the people in my area, the heads of the plants, the pollution plants, were all people from the 1930s. Some of them were college educated even, but they couldn’t get a job. And once they came with the city, they just became part of the process. And if you’re part of the city up to that point, when Carl was there, you didn’t make waves. You just went with the process, and you didn’t create problems, and you didn’t look for problems. You just tried to handle them on a daily basis. And that’s not what the future city was about.

Dee Perry [00:51:00] So as Utilities Director, did you have to deal with some of that old guard harshly or did you take another approach to getting?

Ben Stefanski [00:51:11] I just avoided them because there was no way of convincing them or changing them. So, like, when we brought in Ed Martin, he was the expert from out of town, so nobody could, you know, question what he was doing. And so that’s what you did. You just wait for them to retire. I mean, there’s just. So maybe some people didn’t like me, but I brought in my own people and tried to appoint them, qualified people, engineers. So that. And I was never. Well, like, probably the best appointment was the Congresswoman, Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Her first job was for me as an assistant in my office. And that’s when she was at Case Western getting her undergraduate degree. So I was able to meet with a lot of interesting people and people that continued with their careers in public life.

Dee Perry [00:52:15] Yeah, I didn’t know about the connection to Stephanie Tubbs Jones. So what was her educational background that made her part of the? That worked for you?

Ben Stefanski [00:52:27] Well, she wanted a job. She needed a job. And she had another year in school at Case. And so Carl put her in my office. I mean, you know, that’s what happens in the city. You get people that not necessarily need to do a job or something. And of course, she was very good and very smart, and it was a pleasure that I had the opportunity to work with her.

Dee Perry [00:52:51] And interesting that she later became the handpicked successor for Congressman Louis Stokes.

Ben Stefanski [00:52:58] Yes. So in government, there’s always good people around and you have to nurture the good ones and encourage them. And that was some of these people, like the Congresswoman, this was her career. For me, it was not a career. It was an effort to be part of the improvements in the community and being independent of my father.

Dee Perry [00:53:25] As you look around the city today, around Cleveland, if you were in that position at this point, what would be something that you would focus on? What needs to happen in terms of infrastructure?

Ben Stefanski [00:53:42] I think the city’s doing a pretty good job. If you look at University Circle, it’s totally transformed. And Downtown is just totally different than it was 40 years ago. And we have a great basketball team, LeBron James, that converted to being a social scientists to improve our community. We have just so many positive things that go on. And the establishment has given, I think, more leeway to a lot of other people to contribute to the success of our city. I’m very pleased with, you know, with everything that goes on with the casino and the Higbee Building. Who would ever expect that? And the other sports arenas. They’re all very positive for the size of Cleveland. We’re very, very blessed with some major assets.

Dee Perry [00:54:43] On the other hand, there still seems to be a lot of work to be done in terms of community relations. There’s still that police public tension and maybe the lease administration tension.

Ben Stefanski [00:54:59] Yeah, that’s just a natural part of the process. And especially when you have, and I use this sort of questionably but more liberal kind of city government that wants to be involved in the various problems that exist, that there always will be people that are just more conservative and rather not be involved in some of these things. But you look around the city and it’s very vibrant. The restaurant business is just terrific. Everywhere, no matter where you go, what neighborhood, there’s well known restaurants. The inner city neighborhoods have done extremely well. Tremont is. And all the projects that have gone on are just very good.

Dee Perry [00:55:49] I think circling back to where it began for your family, that is the rise. The bank in Slavic Village is still.

Ben Stefanski [00:56:01] Yeah, that’s a commitment that my brother made when my father died in 1987 or so that he would stay in the city and do as much as he can to make it a better environment. And so they made an effort to continue to lend in the city and to be involved in any activities. And they’re unusual in that their community activities are neighborhood centered rather than community wide. They’re not too happy with the basketball arena or things like that. But they’re very concerned about the schools in our neighborhood and the good teachers and how the citizens can get involved in the local community to make a better place to live.

Dee Perry [00:56:51] And I think that’s all I have. Any additions that I missed?

Unknown speaker [00:56:58] We didn’t know if you- Do you want to ask-

Jacob Taylor [00:57:05] So we’ve heard some other things about Carl Stokes’s projects, and you talked a little bit about the housing, but is there anything else that you saw or noticed about his projects during the Stokes mayoral administration that was interesting?

Unknown speaker [00:57:22] And when you answer, just talk to Dee.

Ben Stefanski [00:57:24] Okay, Ask your question again. 

Jacob Taylor [00:57:35] I was just asking- I didn’t know whether you had anything else to add because you kind of talked about it already about other projects that Carl Stokes had done during his administration. 

Ben Stefanski [00:57:48] Some of the things that he did are not as obvious. Like we had Dr. Ellis was the Chief Health Department. He was a doctor from out of town hired. And there were a lot of things that went on like that where there’s immunization in the neighborhoods and all those kinds of projects that nobody gets excited about but were part of the city process. And I think all of the city services are a little better today. Rubbish collection is better. There’s a more environmental approach to rubbish collection and what you do with the wastes. And these are subtle things that nobody pays much attention about but which makes a better environment in our community for people. And it’s people moving into the city. I don’t know what the numbers are, but it’s probably about 20,000 live in the city now. Young people moving in that. Back when I was there, I was the lone person that lived in the Chesterfield was one of the first urban residents here. But I realized when I went with Carl that I had to live in the city if I was to do anything. And so, you know. But there’s been a lot of progress since then. And downtown is a very vibrant place. And it’s being- The neighborhoods are starting to improve. Some of them have improved, others are still a lot of work to be done.

Unknown speaker [00:59:18] I have another question. You were young in this administration and what was it like either on a personal level or how did you feel in that environment when everybody was older? You talked a little bit about it, but I was just wondering what was it like for you?

Ben Stefanski [00:59:38] I was very self confident, so I was not intimidated by the people around me. And maybe that’s. At times that was in conflict with Carl or so. But. So I didn’t feel inadequate or too young to do the things that I did. So I just continued to where I thought things should be done. I proposed them and I was lucky that things went by. There wasn’t a negative kind of approach to what’s going on.

Dee Perry [01:00:21] I want to pick up on something. You said that occasionally you might have been in conflict with Carl Stokes. Does that mean you had to push him to use some of your ideas or to follow through on them or to just?

Ben Stefanski [01:00:42] It wasn’t much conflict. It was like he said, okay, let’s do this. And then I’d run away and far ahead of what he thought. And he’d say, well, let’s get this done before you move there kind of thing. There was never the animosity or anything like that. It was never any of that. It was such a pleasure working for him. I know he got tough with other people, but part of it was they didn’t do their job. They needed to be directed a little more.

Dee Perry [01:01:20] Is there anything that we didn’t cover?

Ben Stefanski [01:01:24] I can’t remember. There’s so much that we went through.

Unknown speaker [01:01:29] Even if you repeated something, if there was anything that you wanted to make sure we knew about.

Ben Stefanski [01:01:36] No, I’m just happy with the course of the discussion. And you’re so good as an interviewer.

Dee Perry [01:01:46] It’s good when you have someone who can sort of bring it to life. And I so appreciate the time that you’ve given us. Thank you.

Ben Stefanski [01:01:55] It works both ways, because I haven’t really thought much about this in the last 20 years, really.

Unknown speaker [01:02:01] You know, there’s a- I wish I had it down here. There’s a photo of you and Carl- I think it’s Edgewater Park.

Ben Stefanski [01:02:10] Yeah. My bathing suit. [laughs] 

Unknown speaker [01:02:12] Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to talk about, you know, that day, what was going on that day and what that picture is all about?

Ben Stefanski [01:02:19] Well, that was- Carl needed a positive public exhibit because he was dealing with problems every day. And this was a program that, you know, you could go swimming. All these kids were down there to go swimming. It was such a positive thing. And, you know, he appreciated the press as well. And so that’s why he went down there and he smiled and great pictures, but he realized that he needed the positive approach to some of the things that were going on, and I was fortunately able to provide that for him.

Dee Perry [01:03:02] And that was 1960-?

Ben Stefanski [01:03:08] Nine. Yes.

Unknown speaker [01:03:09] Was that after the curtain was put in place?

Ben Stefanski [01:03:12] Yes. Okay. So that was that after the curtain was put in place. And I remember that. Let’s see, the holiday weekend in May was not Labor Day, Memorial Day. That was the- We went down there on the day before Memorial, and they had just put in the curtain and everything else. And then the next day, we were at dinner, and then the storm came in, and we went down to look if there was any damage, and there wasn’t much damage, so we were very fortunate that-

Unknown speaker [01:03:48] Yeah. I have a question. In a book that I just read about Carl Stokes, it talked about how when they did the dedication of the Lake Erie, what was that like for you, in that perspective? That date, when he presented that area?

Ben Stefanski [01:04:07] I had the philosophy, even though I was probably a little bit of an egotist, but whatever I did had to benefit the administration and their ability to do other things and for the public to trust them as part of the mayor’s office. So I felt I was contributing in that way to support his program because of the positive response that that all gave to us.

Unknown speaker [01:04:38] How do you feel personally about your contribution, though? You played a large role in that.

Ben Stefanski [01:04:44] It’s very gratifying to look back and see that they’re still doing the things that we started completing them and they were the right things to do and that the money was available to do it. In a sense, I was lucky that all the things that we started had support and continued and completed because it took a number of years for all this to happen. And so somebody was looking over my shoulder, [laughs] especially when you’re in government, because you just don’t know where the processes will go.

Dee Perry [01:05:26] And it’s interesting, too, that that work is still being- That is, the regional sewer work is still being improved on today, that it was a good idea then and that it’s kept being proven.

Ben Stefanski [01:05:41] The plans and the interceptor sewers and everything that Ed Martin designed are being proven, put through, completed today, in the next 10 years.

Dee Perry [01:05:53] It’s taken that long?

Ben Stefanski [01:05:54] It’s taken that long. Well, it’s over $3 billion, so there’s been a lot of money. There’s the change of process from the utilities department to the Unknown speaker, and it takes time for people to complete the projects.

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