Because Cleveland City Council delayed getting started on its ward redistricting process, council is now rushing perhaps the most important part – collecting feedback from residents, writes columnist Leslie Kouba.
In this photo: Council President Blaine Griffin talks oversight and council priorities for the 2024-2025 legislative session. CLEVELAND, Ohio – On Thursday evening, a standing-room-only crowd struggled to see the sun-washed slide presentation at the third and last public input session regarding the charter-required reduction of wards in Cleveland.
Maybe, it’s noteworthy to point out that the consultants Council President Blaine Griffin hired back in May 2024 include an 85-year-old analyst who helped three of Griffin’s predecessors draft new ward boundaries that had to be revised, because they discriminated against eastside Black neighborhoods and westside Hispanic/Latino communities.
Was Griffin smart to blame the delay of the 2020 census for this down-to-the-wire project? Nope. The census was only delayed by 120 days, and the data was ready in 2022. There is no worthy excuse. The three public sessions consisted of an explanation of why and how Cleveland must redraw ward boundaries, a tutorial on a really intricate and highly technical online mapping system calledThe complicated online map drawing had been presented as though it was the only way for people to participate. And not only that, people had to draw ALL the wards, not just the areas they knew the most about.
The question changed into a demand. The people of Cleveland MUST have the opportunity to review and comment on the redrawn wards before council votes on them. The consultants then scribbled their notes and offered a fairly confident response that this would happen. It better.
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