CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- A proposal to “fix an incomplete and nebulous section of the charter” addressing City Council vacancies will now go to the voters for their official consideration.
Council took it right up to the deadline on Monday night (Aug. 30) to forward the proposed charter amendment to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in time to get it on the ballot for the Nov. 2 General Election.
Prior to that, the lingering problem was the lack of any time constraints in the charter to fill the vacancy created when Councilwoman Melissa Yasinow resigned in March 2020 with close to two years left on her term.
With council at an impasse on four finalists out of more than 20 applicants, it took more than a year to make an appointment, with the existing charter stating only that a vacancy “shall be filled by council” without any timeframe included.
Voters, as well as the city’s new popularly-elected mayors, could provide that option in the future, with the proposed ballot language drafted as follows:
“Shall (the charter) be amended to provide a timeframe by which City Council may fill a vacant seat, and to provide that if council fails to timely fill such seat, the city’s mayor shall do so within a specified time, and finally to provide that except when a vacancy arises in the year in which the seat is scheduled to be filled at a regular election, a person shall be elected to serve out the unexpired term at the next general election more than 120 days after the vacancy arises?”
The debate continued on Monday night about the “specified time” to make the appointment, for which the current council settled on a compromise of 45 days.
The initial proposal was for 30 days, an amendment was introduced briefly to extend that to 60 days, to allow time for the local chapter of the League of Women Voters to conduct and record interviews with applicants.
Councilwoman Melody Joy Hart then withdrew her amendment for 60 days, going instead with 45. She said earlier that the potential for the mayor to make the appointment should provide council with incentive to act first.
After that, the appointment is turned over to the mayor, who then has 10 days to appoint.
While that formula seems to be working in surrounding cities, there was some reluctance in Cleveland Heights to giving the mayor the appointment if council can’t agree.
This included criticism from Tony Cuda, now running for a council seat and the former campaign manager of Citizens for an Elected Mayor, which waged a successful ballot campaign in 2019 to change the city’s form of government.
Some members of council also looked for a way to get the vacancy out to the city’s voters to decide, although the logistics and potential cost of special elections proved to be too much.
City Law Director Bill Hanna provided council with numerous approaches taken in other cities, and council wound up going with one modeled somewhat after Toledo in Lucas County, which also includes provisions for getting the vacancy on the ballot.
As for the 120-day threshold for getting on the annual November ballot, the Cuyahoga County Election Board “has no concerns -- it’s workable for us,” in allowing sufficient time for candidates’ petitions to be validated, Manager of Candidate Petition Services Brent Lawler told council.
That doubles the timeframe that required Councilwoman Mary Dunbar’s unexpired term to appear on the November ballot as well, after she resigned for health reasons on Aug. 16, which was still outside of the current 60-day threshold still in the charter.
The only dissenting vote came from Councilman Mike Ungar, who feels that charter amendments should only be done by a charter review commission.
Ungar noted earlier that the Charter Review Commission in 2019 recommended an amendment setting a 90-day time limit, although council pushed that back to 150 days before tabling the proposed charter amendments indefinitely.
“The problem is undeniable,” Ungar said of the year-long stalemate on appointing Yasinow’s successor. “But the fact that we’re still up here going back and forth about changing on the fly, that tells me we should put the brakes on, because this is no way to enact legislation.”
Councilwoman Davida Russell and Council Vice President Kahlil Seren still believe that the optimum way to fill a vacancy is a “vote by the people,” although they were open to compromise to get the amendment on the November ballot.
“Because of what happened here (with the Yasinow appointment), I’m going to support this, just because it took so long,” Russell said.
Seren acknowledged that the votes weren’t there to add provisions for an “immediate” election following a vacancy.
Lawler and former CEM Treasurer Len Friedson noted that the worst case scenario for an appointment getting to the ballot on an unexpired term could be as long as 16-17 months.
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But in terms of proposed charter language, “it’s better than what we have now,” Friedson added.
After the 5-1 vote, Council President Jason Stein emphasized that for now, “nothing has changed in our charter -- this just gets it on the ballot in November for the voters to decide.”
Read more from the Sun Press.
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