Pictured are Attorney Marc Dann, the lead attorney for the Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH) and a former Democratic Ohio attorney general, Cleveland City Law Director Barbara Langhenry (wearing eyeglasses), Cleveland City Council Clerk Patricia Britt (wearing matron suit), CLASH member and Cleveland activist Yvonka Hall (wearing lime-green suit), who is executive director of the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, and Cleveland activist Donna Walker- Brown (wearing Black and White blouse, a member of Black on Black Crime Inc. who leads the Inner City Republican Movement of Cleveland
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
Investigative article
Clevelandurbannews.com-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Attorneys for the Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH), led by Attorney Marc Dann, a former Democratic Ohio attorney general, are demanding via a letter dated May 8 that Cleveland Law Director Barbara Langhenry order city council clerk Patricia Britt to accept the 6,350 signatures that CLASH submitted last month in an effort to get a lead-safe initiative on the November ballot and to send the matter to city council for review and possible adoption of the proposed city legislation. .
As law director Langhenry represents the city and city council but has no direct authority over Britt, who is appointed by city council.
In short, the proposed city ordinance, which becomes law in this instance only if it gets on the ballot as a ballot initiative and voters approve it, or if city council, independently, or by court order, brings the issue before it and adopts it into law, is aimed at lead-free housing and would require that landlords certify that their properties are lead-safe.
Britt rejected the petitions from CLASH for a ballot initiative saying they are legally flawed because they lack the caps disclaimer on the back of the petitions, language required under state law that is designed to warn those who circulate petitions that election petition falsification is a felony under state law.
And for the same reason she refuses to submit the proposed ordinance by CLASH to city council for review and possible adoption into law, though every single city council member is against the measure as proposed by CLASH.
In a quandary over the controversy, city council plans to introduce its own legislation.
While Britt and Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley argue that the flawed petitions, valid signatures or not, prevent the clerk of council from submitting the proposed legislation to the 17-member Cleveland City Council for review, attorneys for CLASH argue that even if a defect in the petitions precludes the measure from getting on the November ballot, the city charter mandates that getting the valid signatures forces Britt to submit the proposed ordinance to city council for review, and regardless of whether CLASH has met specifications for a ballot initiative.
Lawyers for CLASH, specifically the Dann law firm, say in the five-page letter to Langhenry, that if she ignores their demand, and if Britt refuses to cooperate and bring the issue before city council, they will ask a court of law, either the 8th District Court of Appeals or the Ohio Supreme Court, to issue a writ of mandamus compelling or ordering Britt to accept the petition signatures and submit the proposed legislation to city council.
Any legislative initiative by city council would begin in council committee and might not get a vote by council but activists for CLASH want a public forum and a public discussion on a community measure they say is a health emergency, city council, no doubt, disagreeing on any possible epidemic.
A (writ of) mandamus is an order from a court to an inferior official ordering such official to properly fulfill his or her official duties or correct an abuse of discretion. If granted, it follows a petition for a writ, filed in court as an original complaint. It is not, however, a substitute for an appeal.
Dann says in the letter to Langhenry that the language in the city charter governs and supersedes state law in this matter, an issue the 8th District or Ohio Supreme Court might decide if a petition for a writ of mandamus is filed against Britt, who will likely seek dismissal of the writ with Langhenry as her attorney of record.
If the court at issue decides it has authority to hear the writ and that the city charter supersedes the state election law at issue, it might likely decide thereafter whether valid signatures on flawed petitions that violate state law are required to be accepted per the city charter.
The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections certified the signatures as valid but said also in a letter to CLASH members that the petitions were flawed and violate state elections laws by excluding mandated election falsification language.
The mistake, says the county board of elections, is a fatal flaw that prevents the ballot initiative from reaching the ballot.
But the board of elections did not say, one way or another, whether Britt is required to submit the measure to city council by virtue of the language in the city charter that says that if the signatures are valid the clerk of council must submit the proposed ordinance to city council, the language also saying, without ambiguity, that the clerk of city council determines if the petitions are adequate.
Dann says it was not the purview of the board of elections to decide if the proposed ordinance is put before city council and argues in his letter that a plethora of case law, or more specifically rulings from appeals courts that may or may not set a precedent, reveal the city charter supersedes state law, such state laws of which are embodied in the Ohio Revised Code.
He has not spoken publicly on the issue and he did not return a phone call from Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com seeking comment.
CLASH member Yvonka Hall, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition, said by phone that CLASH is circulating more petitions to get the measure on the ballot
Hall and Steve Holecko, community activists who both ran unsuccessfully for state representative last year, lead both CLASH and the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, a grassroots activist group of greater Clevelanders derived behind Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential run, Sanders now among some 22 people seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.
Former city councilman Jeff Johnson, who is a Black attorney who lost a bid for mayor in 2017 is also a CLASH member, Hall saying that the Glenville neighborhood on Cleveland's largely Black east side, parts of which Johnson represented until leaving city council to run for mayor, has one of the highest percentages of lead poisoning of children in Northeast Ohio, practically all of them Black.
CLASH says Britt's actions in rejecting the signatures for the lead-safe initiative is no different than what she did in 2017 when she rejected 13,072 signatures submitted by groups, led by the largely White Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, that sought a referendum from Cleveland voters on the city's financial support of Quicken Loans Arena renovation deal, more than 20,000 signatures submitted with only 6,000 valid signatures from registered Cleveland voters required to put that measure on the ballot.
This posture, however, can be called into question.
A former Ward 6 city councilwoman Britt, who is Black, argued relative to the Quicken -Deal petitions that business contracts with the city and the Q precluded the potential referendum on the Q-Deal in spite of the necessary signatures collected, the Ohio Supreme Court granting a writ of mandamus that came a little too late and after activists had been tricked by city officials and others into withdrawing those petitions before the Supreme Court could issue its writ.
The current issue on whether Britt must submit the proposed ordinance by CLASH to council for review as required by the city charter and in spite of a violation of state law as to flawed petitions that lack election falsification language is obviously not the same as her arbitrary refusal to do so in 2017 regarding petitions seeking a referendum as to the multi-million dollar Q-Deal, the latter by claiming contractual obligations with the city and the Q.
But that does not mean a writ might not be issued by a court of law, though it is an uphill battle, legal pundits have said, including attorneys for CLASH.
The petitions pertaining to the Q-Deal sought a ballot initiative via a referendum by Cleveland voters to reverse actions by city council in providing taxpayers monies for the Q-Deal whereas CLASH's recent initiative is a proposed ballot initiative that asks voters to vote for a lead-safe city ordinance.
Hall said that Britt allegedly tried to trick CLASH members into withdrawing the petitions, but to no avail.
"Pat Britt tried to get us to withdraw the petitions for a lead-safe initiative but we are going forward," said Hall, who added that city officials have let down poor people and the city's children by ignoring lead-poisoning and its impact on the larger community.
Poor reenters, children, and the elderly, she said, are most at risk as to run down and older rental properties, and associated lead poisoning.
Britt did not return a phone call seeking comment.
City officials, and some Cleveland community activists like Donna Walker-Brown, say CLASH's legislation lacks the safeguards to protect landlords where necessary and that the Black community needs more input on the matter.
"They will be entering properties to violate our privacy with their inspections, the fines for lead poisoning could be excessive, and we need Black activist groups and the Black community at the table," said Walker Brown, a Cleveland landlord who is a member of Black on Black Crime Inc. and leads the Cleveland Inner City Republican Movement.
She says the proposed initiative could ultimately benefit the establishment and hurt struggling landlords like herself if safeguards are not put in place relative to fines for not ridding properties of so-called poisonous lead and that it could be another way to steal homes via illegal foreclosures for not paying fines that may or may not be warranted.
Cuyahoga County officials and common pleas judges, big banks and mortgage companies like JPMorgan Chase Bank, and the office of the county sheriff, among others, are already under scrutiny because of the gross theft of homes of residents of the county via illegal foreclosure activity
Walker- Brown is a Black Republican who has friends across partisan lines.
Practically all of the players at the helm of the dispute are Democrats, including Attorney Dann, Britt, Hall, Mayor Jackson and all 17 members of city council.
Cleveland is a largely Black major American city with a population of some 375,000 people.
CLASH says its group is diverse, and includes activists, Clevelanders, suburbanites., philanthropists and a host of other community members.
Anybody can join CLASH, its leaders say, though some activists, such as Walker-Brown, say not enough was done by CLASH's leaders to include key community members and Black activist groups who have not been asked to participate in the past .
The largely White editorial board of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, has issued an editorial urging city council to review and address the proposed initiative.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
By Women's March Cleveland organizer Kathy Wray Coleman: We will speak on the Trump administration's policies and on women of color as to the Stop the Abortion Bans Cleveland rally on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 at 5 pm on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, and as to all women, Black and minority women especially, and teens. We rally to fight for women's reproductive rights and to seek to ensure inclusion of women of color at all levels of the continuum. Info tel: (216) 659-0473. This is part of a nationwide effort on May 21 with rallies scheduled in several cities throughout the country. 
