By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog (Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com, Tel: (216) 659-0473). Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Ohio-A diverse group of Richmond Heights residents and city and greater Cleveland community leaders joined Mayor Miesha Headen (pictured) Sunday afternoon at a community park in Richmond Heights to continue organizing to help her retain her mayoral seat with just a day left until Tuesday's special recall election. All that were there say that voters should vote "yes" on Tuesday to retain Headen as mayor.
"Seventy five percent of the voters did not want the previous mayor and Mayor Headen, who campaigned as an agent for change, won the election last year and it is undemocratic to remove her from office, said Sherdina Williams, a 21-year resident and registered nurse, and one of the organizer's of Sunday's rally.
That race was a four way non-partisan race where none of the candidates got the majority vote and the incumbent mayor lost.
Williams said that Headen is a good mayor.
"She is efficient and wants what is best for the city," said Williams.
A Democrat, Headen, 42 and married with two young children, briefly spoke and thanked those in attendance before heading back on the campaign trail.The Columbia University educated mayor, the city's first Black female mayor and the only Black female mayor of Cuyahoga County, said that she is pleased to have enhanced outcomes for the city in the short time that she has been mayor, including economic development, effective personnel changes, and initiatives that have served to raise the credit rating in the city so it can function financially.
She says that it is no longer business as usual in Richmond Heights, a city of some 10,000 people that is roughly half White and half Black
"Richmond Heights now has an AA credit rating status," said Headen at the rally, a former auditor in private practice and a city council member before she became mayor, a part time job that pays $15,000 annually.
Some Republicans attended, but Democrats were in the majority at the political and community gathering for Headen on Sunday. Among them were community activist Richard Peery, former East Cleveland City Councilman and East Cleveland Public Library Trustee Charles E. Bibb Sr., also president of the Ohio Eighth House District Caucus, union affiliate and Democratic operative Lang Dunbar, and the Rev Jeffery Jemison, a former East Cleveland City School Board Member and former chaplain for the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
Peery, a retired Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper reporter and former union steward for the writer's guild, is calling on the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party to step in to give more campaign help to Headen, and Dunbar, a retired member of the 500-member International Association of Machinists, said that he supports the Black mayor without reservation, particularly because she is a Democrat who support unions.
Bibb blames the attempted recall on the Tea Party.
But some city residents say that the recall effort, at a price tag of some $23,000 for taxpayers to pay, is a power struggle between Headen and a city council resistant to necessary change.
If the mayor, who is only nine months into her four-year term, is recalled, the council president, Republican David Roache, per the city charter, will serve out the remainder of her unexpired four-year term.
Headen's supporters also include former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones and state Rep Bill Patmon. They and other Headen supporters say that tomorrow's special election, where voters can vote yes to retain Headen or otherwise choose to recall her, is not fair. But nonetheless, they also say that a yes vote will give Headen the support needed to carry on her message of positive change for the city, a platform that she campaigned on when elected in December 2013 in a four-way race that ousted incumbent mayor Daniel Ursu, a 24-year mayor and Republican still reeling at losing, and even more, losing to a progressive and smart Democratic woman, some say.
"Mayor Headen is an effective mayor and voters should retain her on Tuesday," said state Rep Patmon, who represents Ohio's 10th House District.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
