Statehouse moves force new deadlines on Cleveland City Council's ...
A statewide ballot measure planned for 2025 may force Cleveland City Council to speed up the process of redrawing its ward boundaries.
The Ohio Senate recently passed a resolution calling for citizens to vote to renew the State Capital Improvement Program (SCIP) in May 2025. SCIP provides low-interest loans and grants to local governments for infrastructure projects such as road and bridge repair.
A similar resolution is moving through the Ohio House. Both resolutions have bipartisan support.
Anthony Perlatti, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said at the Nov. 15 board meeting that these developments in Columbus present an unexpected challenge for BOE staff and Cleveland City Council.
Council is in the process of drawing new ward maps. Cleveland’s charter ties the number of wards to the city’s population, which is measured using the U.S. Census. As the city’s population has dropped, so has the number of wards and elected council members.
Once council finalizes a new ward map, the BOE is responsible for drawing new boundaries for precincts, the smaller units within wards. Precincts are important for determining polling places.
Until recently, there seemed to be plenty of time for this process — Cleveland’s primary election is in September. But now that it appears likely there will be a statewide vote in May, the timetable must change, Perlatti explained at the Nov. 15 meeting and in a letter to council’s clerk dated the same day.
“The CBOE will reassign a significant portion of Cleveland residents to new precincts and polling locations,” Perlatti wrote. “This large responsibility involves educating voters on the changes to minimize voter confusion on election day. It also impacts the CCBOE’s ability to process Vote-by-Mail applications for the May 6th election.”
BOE needs the completed ward map by Dec. 17 if council “would like to review and comment on the modifications,” Perlatti wrote, or by early January if council skips that step.
A spokesperson for City Council told Signal Cleveland that Council President Blaine Griffin and council’s deputy clerk “have talked with the Board of Elections before and after [receiving Perlatti’s] letter” and plan to meet the BOE’s new timeline.
Associate Editor and Director of the Editors’ Bureau (he/him) Important stories are hiding everywhere, and my favorite part of journalism has always been the collaboration, working with colleagues to find the patterns in the information we’re constantly gathering. I don’t care whose name appears in the byline; the work is its own reward. As Batman said to Commissioner Gordon in “The Dark Knight,” “I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.”
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