Residents in some of Cleveland's East Side neighborhoods will decide this fall whether to keep Ward 1 incumbent Joe Jones as their City Council member or elect State Rep. Juanita O. Brent to take over.
It's a hotly contested race: five candidates filed to run in the primary election, but Brent and Jones were far ahead of the pack and handily secured their spots on the November general election ballot.
Ward 1 includes the East Side neighborhoods of Lee-Harvard, Lee-Seville, Union-Miles and Mt. Pleasant.
Incumbent Joe Jones has held his position since he was elected in 2018. He said he’s helped secure more than $100 million in new development in the ward, including new home construction and major infrastructure upgrades, according to his bio on the City Council website. He has a hand in the redevelopment project for the JFK High School site, as well as the $20 million mixed-used development in Union-Miles that will bring market-rate and affordable housing to the area.
This is his second tenure on City Council. He previously served on council in the early 2000s and resigned from his seat in 2005 after pleading guilty to mail fraud charges. His conviction made him ineligible to hold public office until it was expunged in 2017.
Recent scandals have marred Jones’s re-election bid: in January, City Council released investigation findings that said the councilman likely violated sexual and nonsexual harassment policies. As a result, all council members had to undergo professionalism training, including four one-on-one sessions with Jones, at a cost of $20,000 to taxpayers.
Last month, Jones was censured by his colleagues for a separate incident in which he allegedly threatened to “kill” an employee at City Hall.
It's unclear if those scandals will affect Jones's re-election chances: his popularity among much of his constituency was evidenced in the September primary election, in which he received the most votes (1,087) of any candidate in any ward.
Jones also has more in his war chest: campaign finance filings from the end of June show Jones has $45,160 on hand for his campaign. Brent did not file a semi-annual report on her campaign's finances — but local candidates are not required to do so if they raise less than $10,000.
Jones did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Brent is hoping to swap the Statehouse for Cleveland City Hall.
Brent, a Democrat who previously sat on board of the the Lee-Harvard Community Development Corporation on Cleveland's East Side, is currently the District 18 Representative in Ohio House of Representatives. That includes East Side neighborhoods as well as parts of Shaker Heights and Warrensville Heights.
Brent grew up and lives in Lee-Harvard. She said her platform is a “clean, safe and connected” community.
"I live here. I'm very invested in here," Brent told Ideastream after she filed to run in June. "Everything just kept pulling me back. And I was like, 'I don't want to leave where I live in a worse situation than what was given to me when I was a kid.'"
Brent is currently in her fourth term in the Ohio House of Representatives. Throughout her tenure, she said she's worked to address systemic issues that face marginalized communities by introducing and supporting legislation that "prioritizes justice and equity."
Brent did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Election Day is Nov. 4.
