By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com). Kathy Wray Coleman is a former biology teacher and a 20-year investigative Black journalist who trained for some 15 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. Reach Coleman by phone at 216-659-0473 and by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio-East side Cleveland Councilman Jeff Johnson (pictured in gold tie) has won the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party endorsement for the new ward 10, a ward drawn earlier this year through redistricting to reduce city council from 19 to 17 seats effective next year and after the upcoming November election.
The victory for Johnson from the Democratic party's executive committee comes after the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections deemed an endorsement vote by Councilman Eugene Miller (pictured in brown tie) that denied Johnson the 60 percent support required for the endorsement invalid because Miller changed his address in June and Johnson successfully complained that it violated the city charter.
The city charter does not require that council members live in the wards they represent but it precludes them from moving once elected during the period of their four-year terms.
Miller had moved into the new ward from his address in the current ward 10 but moved back after Johnson filed a complaint. He faces another hearing on August 27 in conjunction with another complaint from Johnson that he must be kicked off of the ballot for allegedly falsifying data as to his first change of address relative to the voter registration updating process.
Both Miller, who currently leads Ward 10, and Johnson, the current councilman from Ward 8, are Black.
Others seeking the ward 10 seat are Community Activist Donna M. Walker- Brown and Teresa Floyd.
Cleveland is a majority Black major American city and nine of its members, all representing wards on the largely Blacks city's majority Black east side, are Black as is Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who is seeking a third four-year term this year against political novice and millionaire businessman Ken Lanci, who is White.
Voters will choose the two top candidates in a September 10 non-partisan primary election if more than 3 people are running for the seat and those winners will proceed to the November general election.
Johnson was slated to initially take on Ward 8 Councilman Kevin Conwell, who is also Black. But he then opted to battle Miller whom some Blacks council members claim received favorable treatment during the redistricting process from Council President Martin Sweeney, a White west side councilman.
Both Sweeney and the mayor have been campaigning for Miller while Johnson enjoys support from Conwell, Councilman Michael Polensek, state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10) and state Rep. Shirley Smith (D-21), among others.
Johnson is a former state senator who was councilman in the city's Glenville neighborhood before winning the state legislative seat. Before regaining his council seat he was the director of the city's community relations board under Jane Campbell, who is White and a one-term mayor whom Jackson ousted in 2005, then as council resident, and with the help of the Old Black Political Guard.
The city is divided along racial lines and is the second most segregated city in the nation net to Boston with Black dominating the east side of the Cuyahoga River and Whites primarily residing on the west side.
