On 2/3/2020 at 1:05 PM, Cleburger said:

 

We shall see if he actually pays for a "libtard" university study....

 

There's always Hillsdale. 

 

Perhaps at their new Oberlin campus if they keep trying to push off the Gibson's.  ?

12 hours ago, NorthShore647 said:

What would Cleveland look like with nine wards? Dramatically larger wards with diminished neighborhood identities

Robert Higgs - Feb. 6, 2020 - 11:19 AM

https://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/2020/02/what-would-cleveland-look-like-with-nine-wards-dramatically-larger-wards-with-diminished-neighborhood-identities.html

 

"Today, cleveland.com offers one possible scenario. Using the most recent U.S. Census population estimates, from 2014-2018, we created nine wards that have roughly equal populations and have as few as possible neighborhoods straddling ward lines. Our approach is just one of many approaches possible. But it provides a look at the impact the reduction issue could have."

 

 

 

 

 

It's a horrible, marketable idea.

 

As soon as I saw that TG was behind it, I figured he wanted something from council and this was his bargaining chip.

I can't speak to the logic of the suggested districts' borders, but I am loving the effort. Regionalization/Consolidation begins at the core.

Edited February 7, 20205 yr by TBideon

20 minutes ago, TBideon said:

I can't speak to the logic of the suggested districts' borders, but I am loving the effort. Regionalization/Consolidation begins at the core.

Agree 100%

I think reducing the number of city council seats to 11 could work. You then would have 5 wards each for the east & west side with downtown being 1.

 

2 minutes ago, ctown60 said:

I think reducing the number of city council seats to 11 could work. You then would have 5 wards each for the east & west side with downtown being 1.

 

 

I am all for reducing government waste, by my council office is the ONE aspect of Cleveland government functions that actually seems to work well.    I can email Matt Zone and expect a personal response from him or his staff within a day, which is not the case for nearly any other department I've tried to interact with.  

 

As an aside, I'm still on the hunt for how many employees the City of Cleveland maintained in 1950, at the peak of its population.   I believe the city is at about 6,500 full time employee today.  

 

 

On 2/6/2020 at 4:23 PM, Pugu said:

With the seats tied to population, is there a cap?   That is, if we had 200,000 MORE people, do we then have to add 8 more council people?

 

@Pugu There actually is a cap and a floor, the number of wards can't exceed 25 and can't be fewer than 11 (Cleveland Ordinances, Chapter 5, Section 25). There's even a chart that shows how many wards there should be within certain population ranges. So yeah, if we added 200k people we would cap out at 25 wards.

5 hours ago, andrew0816 said:

 

@Pugu There actually is a cap and a floor, the number of wards can't exceed 25 and can't be fewer than 11 (Cleveland Ordinances, Chapter 5, Section 25). There's even a chart that shows how many wards there should be within certain population ranges. So yeah, if we added 200k people we would cap out at 25 wards.

 

Thanks for this. I'm good with a cap at 25. I guess if the city makes it to 2-3M this issue can be looked at again, so its fine for now.  Regarding 11 members for "275,000 or less" that would be a sad day indeed for CLE if that ever became our population.

 

Too bad, I like Matt zone. I hope he still considers a mayoral run.

He’d be likely to get my vote, especially considering Kerry McCormack is probably not planning a run for mayor anytime soon.

Ugh, Please no. 

nope nope nope

For those of you saying no why is that?  Do you think he'd be worse the Jackson?  Maybe we should start a new thread with Cleveland Mayoral Race 2021.

I'd vote for a wet sock over Frank Jackson.

1 hour ago, cle_guy90 said:

For those of you saying no why is that?  Do you think he'd be worse the Jackson?  Maybe we should start a new thread with Cleveland Mayoral Race 2021.

Because there are much better candidates who have yet to announce. 

Because there are much better candidates who have yet to announce. 

This. I expect they announce right after the national election.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jenny Spencer (former director of Detroit Shoreway) has officially been sworn into city council, serving Ward 15. She is replacing Matt Zone.
Adam Stalder will now serve as Detroit-Shoreways Executive Director, which was announced today: https://www.dscdo.org/executive-director-announcement


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well everyone has known that Ken Johnson was corrupt. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this process. 

 

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/investigations/fbi-investigating-ken-johnson-cleveland-city-councilman/95-1eee9ee2-ccd5-4373-9c57-894ead5d0c1f

Cleveland City Councilman Ken Johnson Arrested, Charged In Federal Probe

 

https://www.ideastream.org/news/cleveland-city-councilman-ken-johnson-arrested-charged-in-federal-probe

Congrats Mark Naymik. Journalism still lives in Cleveland, Ohio....

 

 

It's about time. This should have happened months-years ago. He needs to resign now so that area has a chance to get someone who will lead for the neighborhood and the residents, instead of just for themselves. Just look at what happened to Hough/Midtown once TJ Dow was gone - we could very well see the same positive benefits for Buckeye/Shaker Square with Johnson out of the way.

On 2/23/2021 at 9:35 AM, freefourur said:

Cleveland City Councilman Ken Johnson Arrested, Charged In Federal Probe

 

https://www.ideastream.org/news/cleveland-city-councilman-ken-johnson-arrested-charged-in-federal-probe

What is surprising is that the amount of money involved isn't huge - that we know of, anyway. But in most or probably all of these city/county cases involving elected officials, the staff workers are almost certainly complicit, which spreads the sleaze into the civil service.  That i think is the bigger crime; the government ends up with an underperforming workforce, a pervasive sense of corruption, and a tolerance for poor performance.  That is harder to eradicate and more damaging than the occasional Ken Johnson.

More details...

 

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost asks Supreme Court to suspend indicted Cleveland Councilman Ken Johnson

 

"His longtime aide, Garnell Jamison, and John Hopkins, who served as the executive director of the Buckeye-Shaker Square Development Corp. in Johnson’s ward, also were accused of crimes."

Getting really tired of this undemocratic practice...

 

Another Day, Another Mockery of the Democratic Process as Phyllis Cleveland Resigns from City Council

Posted By Sam Allard on Mon, May 3, 2021 at 4:41 pm

 

It's difficult to comment with any originality on the news, today, that Ward 5 Cleveland City Councilwoman Phyllis Cleveland has tendered her resignation and nominated a veteran community activist named Delores Gray to replace her.

This anti-democratic process, council's so-called "appointment tradition," is universally reviled. It has been criticized to death for years by local media and by residents, who naturally object to their ongoing marginalization by the very people who are supposed to be representing them.

 

[...]

 

Martin Sweeney, Joe Cimperman, Mamie Mitchell, Martin Keane, Dona Brady and Matt Zone have all resigned in recent years. They all hand-picked their successors. Among them, only Cimperman gestured toward the idea of a process. He allegedly interviewed multiple candidates before settling on Kerry McCormack in Ward 3, whom he'd been eyeing all along. The rest simply presented the name of their chosen replacement to council, after which council ratified the new member without a word of protest. Council President Kevin Kelley always invokes the Unit Rule to ensure unanimity on these votes.

 

Read More...

Back in the early 1970s, when Cleveland had 33 council wards, look at how big the ward was that included unpopulous downtown so that it had equal population to other wards. 

 

I had to take a pic of this when I came across it on my ride the other day, I was actually so excited I turned around and grabbed the pic lol

 

2 minutes ago, GISguy said:

I had to take a pic of this when I came across it on my ride the other day, I was actually so excited I turned around and grabbed the pic lol

 

What is it?    Voter landscaping?  

2 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

What is it?    Voter landscaping?  

 

I think it must be where one of his relatives lives - another Cle City Vehicle pulled in when I was riding away. I can't believe he was able to get away with crap like this as long as he did. 

9 minutes ago, GISguy said:

 

I think it must be where one of his relatives lives - another Cle City Vehicle pulled in when I was riding away. I can't believe he was able to get away with crap like this as long as he did. 

 

You wouldn't believe have the stuff that happens with city employees.  It's amazing anything gets done!  

Analysis: City of Cleveland is quietly blocking citizen planning efforts for safer, bike-friendly streets

 

https://www.thelandcle.org/stories/analysis-city-of-cleveland-is-quietly-blocking-citizen-planning-efforts-for-safer-greener-streets

 

 

5 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

 

I wonder if he'll be able to collect a pension on his double dip second salary.   

 

 

Was just reminded that TJ Dow could be elected back to council this evening. Ugh. 

1 hour ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Was just reminded that TJ Dow could be elected back to council this evening. Ugh. 

 

I'd imagine this will be pretty likely. I haven't been over in that ward too much as of late but seems like he had the (yardsign) support not to mention how close the election was last time around. Not saying Basheer is perfect but he really should've stuck with his council seat. 

 

Then again, we'll see how the mayoral race ends up. It really seems Basheer's lost a ton of steam within the past month or so.

3 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Was just reminded that TJ Dow could be elected back to council this evening. Ugh. 

 

LOL that would be a step backwards for the Ward.  What a joke.

Howse beat Dow narrowly, but, does that mean that they have to go head to head in November? Or is it over?

4 hours ago, mu2010 said:

Howse beat Dow narrowly, but, does that mean that they have to go head to head in November? Or is it over?

They face off in November 

Really excited to see how tight the primary was between Rebecca Maurer and Anthony Brancatelli in Ward 12 (Slavic Village/Eastern Old Brooklyn). This will be a good race in the fall. 

55 minutes ago, GISguy said:

Really excited to see how tight the primary was between Rebecca Maurer and Anthony Brancatelli in Ward 12 (Slavic Village/Eastern Old Brooklyn). This will be a good race in the fall. 

I don't know much about her at all but it is exciting to see people run good races.  I do happen to respect and Like Tony Brancatelli a lot though. 

10 minutes ago, freefourur said:

I don't know much about her at all but it is exciting to see people run good races.  I do happen to respect and Like Tony Brancatelli a lot though. 

 

She's put in a ton of work and honestly I didn't think she had as much of a chance but these results tell a different story. 

 

I think Tony is a good person, for Slavic Village. It seems like he's completely neglected the other parts of his ward (Old Brooklyn, Tremont). Prior to election season, I'd only see him around OB when it's a ribbon cutting or something where photos are taken. In the past couple months I've seen him focus more on (high turnout) OB but it might be too late.

^^ I have interacted with her professionally and have a good impression of her.

ward 12 is kinda screwed up, geographically. his neighborhoods are separated by Newburgh Heights and the industrial valley. i live in tremont and am a part of ward 12. this seems like one that would be adjusted when they change the number of districts.

7 minutes ago, Whipjacka said:

ward 12 is kinda screwed up, geographically. his neighborhoods are separated by Newburgh Heights and the industrial valley. i live in tremont and am a part of ward 12. this seems like one that would be adjusted when they change the number of districts.

 

Absolutely, it's a terrible ward and he got the short end of the stick no doubt. I honestly had no idea your part of Tremont was in 12 until I was talking with Rebecca one day.  Oh yeah, and it has some Brooklyn Centre too! 

 

If only there were a technology that could help analyze things spatially and figure out that it was a terrible ward map before implementing it 🧐

Along with the mayoral primary, ten wards had city council primary votes. All eight incumbents appear to have won their primary elections. The remaining elections without incumbents are to replace Basheer Jones (Ward 7) and Ken Johnson (Ward 4). Both of these primary elections had eleven candidates with none receiving more than 30% of the vote. 2021's voter turnout was 117% of 2017's total. Nine wards saw increased turnout over the last election. Here is a breakdown by ward:

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2021/09/16/blaine-griffin-endorses-kelley-in-cleveland-mayors-race-council-presidency-in-his-crosshairs

Article related to mayoral race, but it also touches on the competition for Council President. It seems obvious at this point that it's going to come down to a decision between Blaine Griffin and Kerry McCormack. Anyone have any guesses as to how they think a decision like that will turn out?

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/two-candidates-seeking-cleveland-city-council-presidency-are-funding-council-candidates-across-the-city.html

^ Some info on donations

Council members Jones (1), Santana (14), Kazy (16), and Slife (17) and November candidates Warren (C13) and Starr (C5) seem likely to support McCormack based on his donations. Candidate Maurer (C12) seems likely as well. Maybe Polensek (8) based on his dislike of Kelley and Jackson. Kevin Conwell's (9) endorsement of Kelley for mayor suggests he'd probably support Griffin.

Anyone have any thoughts on the other council members and candidates?

For the first time in nearly 100 years, Clevelanders can now provide public comment at city council meetings

Lee Chilcote - TheLand - Sep. 28, 2021

 

 

"The day is finally here: After passing legislation allowing public comment, city council posted the signup form this week. Residents who wish to speak can sign up for a three-minute speaking slot beginning Wed., Sept. 29 at noon for the Monday, Oct. 4 meeting. As The Land reported back in March when the push for public comment really got rolling, except for the period from 1924-1932, when the city was under a city manager form of government without an elected mayor, Cleveland City Council has never given residents an opportunity to speak, according to city archivist Chuck Mocsiran. (This explainer from Cleveland Documenters explains it all)."