Raymond Pianka was first elected to the Cleveland Housing Court in 1995. While on the bench, he implemented several innovative programs to achieve compliance with the city of Cleveland’s building, housing, and health codes. The programs included requiring negligent landowners to pay neighbors for the blight their properties cause and imposing fines on landowners who did not appear in his courtroom for housing code violations. Before serving as Housing Court judge, Pianka served for 10 years in Ward 17 on the Cleveland City Council. While on City Council, he was chairman of the Community and Economic Development Committee. A friend and former Cleveland city councilman said that Pianka was “amazingly creative” in the solutions he formed to deal with housing issues throughout the city and was widely viewed as one of the best housing court judges in the country.