Redistricting Round-up

Here's the latest on Cleveland City Council's ward redistricting.

* Last week, a map of redistricted Cleveland was released via Cleveland City Council's website. The Plain Dealer's Henry Gomez offers some observations about the newly proposed wards here and here.

* Ward 15 Councilman Brian Cummins posted alternatives that he and Executive Assistant Johanna Hamm produced with Triad on RealNEO and Brewed Fresh Daily. One alternative is more drastic, while the second is varies slightly the consultant's recommendations, but minimizes impact on Old Brooklyn. Cummins also posts what the new wards would look like as inkblots.

* Paul Schroeder from the Ohio Daily Blog reports that another emergency meeting of the South Hills Association took place Wednesday. He estimates that seventy-five people attended. Scroeder states that Ward 12 Councilman Anthony Brancatelli arrived at the meeting and abruptly left prior to it upon reading a letter critical of the plan to incorporate South Hills into an East Side ward.

* Schroeder also recaps Friday's presentation of the consultant's redrawn wards to Cleveland City Council. Only two days notice was provided to citizens to attend and offer their input. Schroeder includes remarks of Old Brooklyn and Mount Pleasant stakeholders allowed during the thirty-minute public comment portion of the meeting. Gomez offers his perspective as well in his Inside City Hall blog.

* Councilman Brian Cummins appeared on WCPN 90.3, Cleveland's NPR affiliate.

* Ken Prendergast, formerly of the Sun Newspapers, offers another summary of last week's protest and city council meeting in most recent edition of the Brooklyn Sun News, sharing some of the comments made by participating residents.

* Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation Board President Greg Huth wrote a letter to Council President Martin Sweeney that states, "Under the Redistricting Plan, if approved, OBCDC will be forced to cobble together a budget from four different ward councilmen, each representing a different constituency and with a different strategy for his ward." Huth continues to mention that any project of scale would be difficult to accomplish and that the unity that has been established in the Brooklyn Centre and Old Brooklyn neighborhoods would be drastically affected. The board of the Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition, an umbrella organization for Cleveland community development corporations, passed a resolution in support of OBCDC's stance on the redistricting plan.

* There are no protests scheduled this week, but Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre residents who feel the redistricting process has been done improperly are encouraged to attend Monday night's Cleveland City Council meeting. A vote on the new ward recommendations is anticipated to occur.

For more information about the events that have transpired to date, please check out the tag "redistricting" on Old Brooklyn Blogs.