By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

CARVING THE CITY

A proposal by the Cincinnati Election Reform Commission would divide the city into nine neighborhood wards grouped as follows: District 1: Sayler Park, Riverside, Sedamsville, West Price Hill, East Price Hill south of Glenway Avenue. District 2: Westwood. District 3: College Hill, Mount Airy, Fay Apartments, South Cumminsville, Millvale, North Fairmount, English Woods, Camp Washington. District 4: Northside, Winton Place, Clifton, Avondale. District 5: Downtown, Over-the-Rhine, Clifton Heights, Fairview, West End, Queensgate, Lower Price Hill, East Price Hill north of Glenway Avenue. District 6: University Heights, Corryville, Mount Auburn, Mount Adams, Walnut Hills, Evanston, part of East Walnut Hills. District 7: Winton Hills, Carthage, Hartwell, Roselawn, Bond Hill, Paddock Hills, North Avondale. District 8: Pleasant Ridge, Kennedy Heights, Oakley, Madisonville. District 9: East End, Linwood, California, Mount Washington, Columbia-Tusculum, Mount Lookout, Hyde Park, part of East Walnut Hills.

A tripartisan city commission voted Thursday to recommend the most sweeping changes in Cincinnati government since 1925.

The proposal by the Election Reform Commission would create a City Council of nine members elected by districts, replacing the current at-large system. Council members' salaries would be cut in half, and they would no longer be limited to four two-year terms.

The mayor's powers would be strengthened even further, making him the city's chief executive officer. The mayor would be given absolute power to hire and fire a "chief administrative officer," which would replace the city manager.

Donald J. Mooney, chairman of the 13-member commission, called the pairing of an executive mayor with a professional administrator "a strong mayor system with adult supervision."

"We have serious political, cultural, racial and economic difficulties in this city, and it will take strong political leadership to solve them - somebody with the strength and resources to walk both sides of the racial divide, for example," Mooney said.

The proposal now goes to City Council, which can vote to put it on the November ballot. If City Council refuses, some advocates of a district election system say they'll gather the 6,771 signatures needed to place it on the ballot by initiative petition.

City Council created the commission last year in response to complaints that the system of citywide elections allows members to ignore neighborhood problems, and that African-American and west side voters have been historically underrepresented on council. Each political party appointed three members to the commission, and the mayor appointed four more.

After six months of work, their proposed system would keep some remnants of Cincinnati's 79-year tradition of professional, non-political city management, while making it clear the mayor is ultimately in charge.

The problem with the current system is that the city manager reports to both the mayor and council - giving her, in effect, 10 bosses, said Villanova University political scientist Craig M. Wheeland, a consultant to the commission.

"If the mayor and the council don't get along, the person who's going to be stuck in the middle is the city manager," he said. "City managers don't like being micromanaged."

The commission's recommendations defy its own polling numbers, which showed that only 24 percent of Cincinnati voters would support a system that both strengthened the mayor and divided council into districts. Even Mayor Charlie Luken said he didn't see much public support for wholesale changes.

But that same poll, conducted last month, showed that 66 percent of Cincinnatians felt the city was falling behind other cities.

"The polling did not show that people were crying out for change. But the sense was that someone needs to lead us out of the wilderness," Mooney said. "This is shock therapy to the system."

Council's diminished role in the proposed system is clear in the reduction in council salaries, now about $57,000 a year. Their focus would be more on constituent service to their neighborhoods and less on policy-making.

"You don't need somebody sitting down there all the time doing what they do now, which is a lot of minutiae," said Carl Stich Jr., a Republican delegate.

Commission members seemed cognizant that many of their proposals may alienate City Council. The proposed district map, for example, would put all four of the current African-American members into one district - forcing them to move to other neighborhoods or run against each other.

The commission arrived at the plan Thursday through a series of votes, which will form the basis of a written report to City Council in a few weeks.

The stronger-mayor proposal passed 10-3, while the council-districting proposal was a narrow 7-6.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com