With a shrinking population, Cleveland is shrinking the size of its council for the first time in 30 years. Voters approved a charter amendment last fall that now ties the number of council seats to the number of residents—with roughly one councilman for every 25,000 people.
In a 16 to 4 vote, council agreed to a redrawn map that divides the city into 19 wards, down from the current 21. While more than three quarters of the city’s population will not see any change, wards now represented by Councilmen Zack Reed and Brian Cummins will be split up and attached to neighboring wards, eliminating their seats. The most affected areas are Old Brooklyn, Brooklyn Center, and Mount Pleasant.
Before the vote Monday night, residents of Mount Pleasant held a last minute protest outside city hall—rallied by Reed.
After the vote, Council President Martin Sweeney reminded the crowd that the neighborhood of Mount Pleasant will still exist, even if it is represented by a number of councilpeople, but Councilman Reed was not having it.
REED: How can you say that a neighborhood still exists when five people now represent that one neighborhood. With all due respect to the council president, it’s hard enough to get one or two colleagues together with a consensus. To try and get five people to a consensus will be very difficult.
Meanwhile, Cummins, who represents Old Brooklyn currently, continued to complain about what he saw as a lack of transparency in the redistricting process.
Both Reed and Cummins are seen as Sweeney’s toughest critics in council. And now both have to decide where they want to run. But from his perch, after the vote, Sweeney struck a conciliatory tone toward Reed.
SWEENEY: We look forward to you making your decisions in the future and being a productive member of this body as you have been the entire time you’ve been down here.
Politics aside, the new ward boundaries won’t last long. After the 2010 census, council will again have to draw ward lines based on the new population numbers.