Small But Mighty Meeting

Confusion ends in progress

After some confusion, attendees to last night's Citizen Leadership meeting were treated to an extremely useful and progressive forum

For the eight of us in attendance, we found Akron attorney Warner Mendenhall to be a great source of actionable information that addresses several issues we face individually and as a group.

Initial questions to Mr. Mendenhall concerned CHUH school finances and what options, if any, were available for those who are against the upcoming levy.  His impressive education and experience, which includes being a citizen activist, a 2-term Akron councilman, and a successful attorney who took on Federal, state and local government entities and defended whistleblowers, have given him a deep and broad insight into local politics and finance.  His suggestion, since the levy is already slated for the November ballot, is to work in a coordinated grassroots information campaign.  Part of the campaign, which includes door-to-door canvassing, is the posting of easy-to-read notations of school district and levy-related documents.  Cleveland Heights and University Heights residents can then quickly skip through all the pages and directly go to pertinant facts, details and costs surrounding the levy.

With regard to actions or inactions of the city, Mr. Mendenhall said an important tool for any citizen activist is an extensive database of information and documents.  A searchable database provides quick location and access to past records that may demonstrate a conflict with current city practices.  He also offered up a few templates of simple legal tools that can be implementeded by a single individual to address instances when government officials are not performing their duties and obligations. A few of the meeting attendees were quite keen to accept this offer.

Mr. Mendenhall appeared surprised that Cleveland Heights is not set up with city wards as the backbone for selecting council representation.  "Wards in a city this size could be about 4,000 people, and bring about a diverse city council and low cost election campaigns," he said.  He added that this structure also prevents entrenched council officials that are easily re-elected or appointed. The ward size Mr. Mendenhall stated was based on a section of the Ohio Revised Code that states cities with populations over 25,000 are to have nine council members.

Changing the city's charter to create wards would be simple, according to Mr. Mendenhall.  Residents can iniatiate this referundum to create wards with a petition bearing the signtures of 10% of those who voted in the last city election, which according to the 2010 election records translates into 1,550 signatures.

A discussion also took place about the mission of Citizens Leadership.  A good suggestion that came out of this, and strongly championed by Julius C. Dorsey, Violet Fraline, and Mr. Mendenhall, was to have a brainstorming session to flesh out the group's strategic structure, core objectives, and key issues. All in attendance agreed to this idea.