Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio- East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King (pictured) survived a recall effort on Tuesday with 70 percent of voters voting no.

According to unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections the Black two term mayor, who escaped a previous recall attempt, won over those seeking his ouster 173-73 with all precincts counted, nearly a mandate.

A Democrat who blames Republicans and disgruntled city counsel members for the recall attempt, King survived the previous recall attempt, which was last year in 2022, by 18 votes, far less that the margin for Tuesday's recall election and an indication, said sources, that East Cleveland voters support him overall.

The 99 percent Black and poor city, an impoverished suburb of Cleveland of about 15,000 people, has been under fiscal emergency for the last decade.

Then the vice president of city council, King succeeded former mayor Gary Norton into office in December of 2016 by succession, and after East Cleveland voters recalled Norton and the council president at the time. That successful recall effort was organized by activists who complained that Norton was fiscally irresponsible and was supporting a now defunct merger proposal with East Cleveland and neighboring Cleveland.

Thereafter, he won election in 2017 and reelection as mayor in 2021.

Mayor King, 55, was born and raised in East Cleveland, and he holds an MBA from the Ohio State University.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief (Coleman is a former biology teacher and a seasoned Black journalist, and an investigative, legal, scientific, and political reporter who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio).