The Redistricting Finale

By now, everyone that reads Old Brooklyn Blogs probably already knows that Cleveland City Council decided yesterday to approve the redistricting recommendations established by Triad Research by a vote of 16-4. Unfortunately for the next four years, Old Brooklyn will be split into three political districts.

So before OB Blogs returns to its regularly scheduled programming, here are some links covering the yesterday's decision:

* Cleveland City Council released the final plan less than two hours prior to the meeting. (Communications Director Katherine Bulava said in an email that the download is much more likely to work in Internet Explorer than Mozilla Firefox.)

* WEWS News Channel 5 and 19 Action News had the best television coverage the events of the Cleveland City Council meeting on their newscasts.

* Paul Schroeder from Ohio Daily Blog captures some of the remarks delivered by Councilmen Cummins and Reed prior to the announcement that the redistricting plan was adopted earlier in the day.

* And finally, PD writer Henry Gomez summarizes the meeting and some of the events leading up to it, and shares insights into the futures of Reed and Cummins. He mentions that one small victory for Cummins and the community is that Downtown Old Brooklyn will be concentrated in one ward instead of two.

ADDENDUM 3/25/09: Cleveland City Council has posted maps of the 2010 wards, but they are very difficult to read.

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.

City Council Posts Final Proposed Ward Map

This afternoon, Cleveland City Council posted a map of the proposed wards going into 2010. What's bad for Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre is that they're still divided amongst three and two wards, respectively. South Hills would be clumped into a district with Slavic Village. And OBCDC's service area would still be dissected into four political districts, which could potentially spell serious trouble for the agency.

Here's a related article from the Plain Dealer, and here's the press release from Cleveland City Council.

Ward Redistricting Presentation to Council Friday Morning

OB Blogs received this email from Ward Reshuffle, a group that is advocating for a transparent redistricting process that is considerate of citizen input.

-- PUBLIC MEETING NOTICE --

• When: 9:30 am Friday, March 20^th
• Where: City Council Committee Room 217, 601 Lakeside Avenue N.E.
• What: Council’s consultants on the redistricting of Cleveland’s wards will be presenting their final recommendations to Council. All Councilmembers should attend this important session

From: Allan Dreyer
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:28 PM
To: All Council Members; All Staff
Subject: Important Public Meeting regarding new city wards

There will be a public meeting on Friday, March 20^th, in City Council Committee Room 217, at 9:30 a.m. Council’s consultants on the redistricting of Cleveland’s wards will be presenting their final recommendations to Council. All Councilmembers should attend this important session

---Allan Dreyer, Deputy Clerk
Cleveland City Council
(216) 664-4198

Tonight's Ward 15 Redistricting Protest & Council Meeting

When it came time for Ward 15 Councilman Brian Cummins to introduce his constituents at tonight's Cleveland City Council meeting, around two hundred residents of Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre enthusiastically rose to their feet to convey their power in numbers and communicate that they will not accept the current redistricting plan for their neighborhoods.

More than fifty residents from each community braved a chilly lakefront breeze to participate in a pre-meeting protest at the steps of Cleveland City Hall, bearing signs saying "We are neighbors, not numbers," "Don't Sweeneymander Our Wards," and "Don't Cut Up Our Neighborhoods." After about forty-five minutes of shouting various slogans, Cummins arrived outside to address the loyal group. His message was that, as someone who has served the residents of Ward 15 as the executive director of Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation and council representative, the deep personal relationships he has established over the last decade have propelled him to fight in the best interest of the neighborhoods.

During the council meeting, Cummins expressed to leadership his dissatisfaction in how the redistricting process has been performed with highly political motives and without citizen input.

But probably the most exciting news of the evening for Old Brooklyn residents was that Councilman Cummins spent around three hours with consultants this afternoon crafting an alternative redistricting plan that would divide their neighborhood into only two or three wards.

Click here to watch WEWS Channel 5's video and here to read Henry Gomez's article in his Inside City Hall blog on cleveland.com.

UPDATE: Here's another piece from Henry Gomez.

An Update on Ward 15 Redistricting

Old Brooklyn Blogs last left readers with a summary of the events that transpired up until last Saturday afternoon. Here are the most pertinent items from the last six or seven days.

* As noted, an illustration of how Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre have been proposed to be gerrymandered was posted by Ward 15 Councilman Brian Cummins. In it, Ward 15 is spliced into four pieces, which are incorporated into Wards 12 (Slavic Village), 13 (Downtown, Tremont, Ohio City, St. Clair Superior), 14 (Ohio City, Tremont, Clark-Fulton), and 16 (Old Brooklyn, Stockyards). The entire plan still has not been made available for public review and comment.

* A group of Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre residents is organizing a mass protest on the steps of Cleveland City Hall on Monday, March 16 at 6pm. Protesters will then move to city council chambers to have a presence and demonstrate that they will not accept the destruction of the fabric of their neighborhoods nor the process by which redistricting has been performed without citizen input and in a politically-motivated fashion. Transportation via bus will be available beginning at 5pm from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo east parking lot. Attendees are strongly encouraged to come with their neighbors, family, and friends and to bring signs.

* South Hills Association members held an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the proposal for their neighborhood to be incorporated into Ward 12, which is currently comprised of Slavic Village (North and South Broadway SPAs) across the Cuyahoga River and suburbs of Newburgh Heights and Cuyahoga Heights. According to the Ohio Daily Blog, about 100 residents attended on just a few days notice, and are furious and prepared to fight. South Hills residents have a four-part plan that focuses on contacting city council members en masse to convey their displeasure, organize as many residents as possible for the Monday protest, invite Ward 12 Councilman Tony Brancatelli and Ward 13 Councilman Joe Cimperman to hear their complaints firsthand, and possibly pursue legal action.

* There's been conversation about when city council will vote to approve the recommendations of Triad Consulting, the contractor hired by leadership to calculate population estimates by tract and draw new ward boundaries. Council must adopt new political districts to take effect in 2010 by April 1, or Mayor Frank Jackson will assume that decision-making authority. To date, a depiction of the new wards has not been released. News reports indicate that, in addition to Ward 15, Councilman Zack Reed's Ward 3 is slated to be eliminated under Triad's current plan. Both Councilman Reed and Ward 15 Councilman Brian Cummins have both been considered two of Council President Martin Sweeney's most outspoken critics.

* Bette Meyer, who served as facilitator of the forum to garner public input about Cleveland's political redistricting, sent an email to participants and how the process is very contradictory to the five major consensus principles that were identified by more than 200 citizens. In her message, she implores Clevelanders to contact the Clerk of Council and media to express that they want to see the proposed changes make available to members of the public for their consideration and input. A similar meeting for the East Side of Cleveland has been scheduled by community leaders on Tuesday, March 17.

* This week, WKYC Channel 3 broadcast two pieces about Ward 15 redistricting. A full interview of Councilman Cummins from Thursday is available here, and a story about how South Hills residents feel about their neighborhood becoming part of Ward 12 is here.

* Finally, fellow Old Brooklyn blogger Will at Skorasaurus has a full timeline of the redistricting process.

New information will be posted as it is received, so please bookmark Old Brooklyn Blogs for further details about redistricting as well as much more from Cleveland's Old Brooklyn neighborhood. Have additional info, a link to share, or remarks? Please post in the comments below.