By Sheila McLaughlin
Enquirer staff writer

BLUE ASH - A stay-at-home dad and freelance consultant will be sworn in Thursday as the city's newest council member.

Lee Czerwonka will replace at-large councilman Raymond MacNab, who retired this month and recommended Czerwonka for the seat. The term expires Nov. 30, 2005.

Czerwonka's involvement for two years on the city planning commission, his reputation for volunteerism, and his efforts in piecing back together his tornado-stricken Fallsington Grant neighborhood in 1999 won him council's unanimous nod, Mayor Rick Bryan said.

"We realized that on almost any objective list of criteria you would have set up - community involvement, involvement in the schools, demographically - Lee makes a lot of sense," Bryan said Tuesday.

Czerwonka, 44, a marketing consultant and 13-year Blue Ash resident, works from home so that he can tend to his 9-year-old daughter, Maria, and help out at All Saints School. His wife, Christine Buttress, is a partner in the law firm Graydon Head & Ritchey.

Czerwonka grew up in the Montgomery area, where his late father ran a real estate business. The Moeller grad has a bachelor of fine arts in graphic design from the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

He said he became interested in city government when, as then-president of his neighborhood association, he worked closely with Blue Ash officials after the tornado to rebuild his subdivision.

"I noticed how well things worked. I took an interest at that point in time. Things grew from there," Czerwonka said.

---

E-mail smclaughlin@enquirer.com