Friday, January 08, 1999
Some Dems wary of plan to change city election
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The bipartisan effort to change Cincinnati's form of government may hit a major roadblock later this month if Cincinnati's Democratic party leaders vote not to back the plan.
Democrats are deeply divided over “Build Cincinnati,” a charter reform that a group of Democratic and Republican activists wants to put on the May primary ballot.
On Jan. 30, about 230 members of the Cincinnati Democratic Committee will meet to decide whether the party should formally endorse the charter amendment. It would give Cincinnati a directly-elected “strong mayor” and an 11-member city council elected largely from districts.
County party chairman Tim Burke backs the plan, but some party leaders, including councilmen Todd Portune and Tyrone Yates, have written to committee members that the plan is “downright dangerous” and will hurt the party.
“Let's not let the Republican Party and its supporters succeed in this attempt to undermine the Democratic Party's leadership in the city,” the letter said.
In addition to Mr. Portune and Mr. Yates, the letter was signed by a Democratic former councilman, Peter Strauss; a council candidate, Forrest Buckley, and party activists Scott Seidewitz, Samantha Herd, Jane Anderson and Jeff Cramerding.
Another letter promoting the plan has been sent to committee members by Build Cincinnati organizers.
Both Mr. Burke and Hamilton County Republican chairman Mike Allen back the plan, along with NAACP president Milton Hinton. A group of mostly young Republican and Democratic party activists, along with NAACP members, have worked for a year on the details.
Build Cincinnati supporters fear that if the Democratic party pulls its support, the chances of the plan being passed by Cincinnati voters will be diminished. Four years ago, a “strong mayor” ballot issue was defeated by voters in part because it was seen as a Republican, big-business plan.
“We don't want the perception that this is just something Republicans want,” Mr. Allen said.
There is no final draft of
the plan yet, but the key elements include:
• A directly-elected mayor, who would not be a member of council but would be the chief executive officer of the city, with veto power over council legislation and authority to hire the city manager.
• An 11-member city council, with three members elected at large and eight from as-yet-undefined districts.
Democrats who oppose the plan say there is nothing to be gained for Democrats by replacing an electoral system that has, in recent years, routinely seen the election of a Democratic majority on the nine-member council.
In addition, they argue that the system Cincinnati has used since 1987 for electing the mayor — where the top vote-getter in the council field race gets the job — has produced nothing but Democratic mayors.
The Build Cincinnati plan, the letter-writers said, “will hand over the mayor's office to big-money business and special interest groups.”
NAACP officials and many other black political leaders have advocated district council elections for years, but opponents of the plan say the proposal could reduce minority representation on council. Four of the nine council members elected in the last two elections have been African Americans.
“At most, two or possibly three of these districts will have a majority of African-American voters,” the letter states.
Mr. Burke said the argument that fewer blacks would be elected makes no sense. “How can they know what would happen if we have never had any experience with districts?”
“We can have a disagreement about this, but we need to be truthful about the facts,” Mr. Burke said. The signers of the letter, he said, “need to understand that this is a work in progress and there is room for compromise on some of these issues.”
On Saturday, committee members will debate the issue, with a vote on the plan scheduled for Jan. 30.
But, at this point, there is no formal plan to vote on. Once the ballot language is written, Build Cincinnati organizers will have until late February to get the 8,331 signatures needed to place the issue on the May 5 primary ballot.
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