Saturday, February 20, 1999
Strong-mayor plan closer
Reform try could make May ballot
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Advocates of a plan to give more power to Cincinnati's mayor may have enough votes on City Council by next week to put an electoral-reform package on the May 4 primary ballot.
“There are six people on council who are very much interested in seeing that something gets done, if everything can be worked out,” said Mayor Roxanne Qualls.
Councilman Charlie Winburn agreed.
“We are 90 percent there,” Mr. Winburn said. “It's just a matter of working out some bugs.”
Friday morning, leaders of Build Cincinnati, a bipartisan group of political activists who have been working on a “strong mayor” plan for more than a year, met with leaders of the Charter Committee and Cincinnatians for Charter Reform, two groups opposed to any strong-mayor plan.
The aim was to agree on a scaled-back plan that a six- member majority of council could put on the May ballot by the March 5 deadline.
No agreement was reached, but Ms. Qualls and Republican Councilman Phil Heimlich were in the meeting, and those familiar with the discussions said those two council members — along with council members Winburn, Minette Cooper, Paul Booth and Jeanette Cissell — were ready to sign off on a plan that would allow for direct election of a mayor with enhanced powers.
The proposal agreed to by the six council members would drop Build Cincinnati's original plan for an eight-member city council elected from districts — at least for now. It would include a directly elected mayor who would not be a member of council but who would have veto power over council legislation and could hire and fire the city manager, with the consent of city council.
Mr. Winburn has his own plan, which also has substantial council support and is similar to the Build Cincinnati plan. It is different in that it would give the mayor the additional power of appointing council committee chairs.
Mr. Winburn said he is meeting today with Build Cin cinnati leaders to work out the details of a plan that he said will have support from six council members.
Charterites said they object to the plan because it would not preserve the council-manager form of government Cincinnati has had for 70 years, under which the city manager reports to council alone.
Margie Rauh, president of the Charter Committee and a participant in Friday's meeting, said Charterites also have a problem with the mayor not being a member of council.
“I see that as an adversarial relationship,” Ms. Rauh said.
David Crafts, chairman of Cincinnatians for Charter Reform, a group that advocates direct election of the mayor but keeping the council-manager government, said his group “doesn't disagree with the need for strong, accountable leadership. There are just differences on how we get there.”
Jeff Berding, one of the leaders of Build Cincinnati, said it is “premature” to talk about a possible agreement on a plan.
Build Cincinnati hopes to have an electoral-reform plan ready by Monday afternoon, when city council's law committee meets again to discuss electoral reform.
Ms. Rauh said it was clear to her after Friday's meeting that there may well be enough votes on council to place the Build Cincinnati plan on the May ballot.
“If they do, we'll go out and work to defeat it,” Ms. Rauh said.
Ms. Qualls said she hopes the Charterites and Mr. Crafts' group will be “flexible.”
“Build Cincinnati has come a long way in terms of compromising to get a plan everyone can agree on,” Ms. Qualls said.
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