Columbus residents will vote on August 2nd whether or not Columbus City Council needs to add six more members.
Represent Columbus, a grass-roots group, leads this most recent attempt to change the Council Member election process from seven citywide positions. The goal is 13 members, with 10 coming from specific neighborhoods and three elected at-large.
“Our current seven-member Council format where all Council Members are elected in citywide (“at- large”) elections was established by Columbus’s male leadership in 1914 (women could not vote at that time), when Columbus had 181,500 people in 24 square miles,” said Jonathan Beard, Represent Columbus Treasurer, in a recent update.
The city’s population has recently topped 850,000, but the council hasn’t added a member since its creation. Beard and the rest of Represent Columbus believe the City Council fails to represent the city’s diversity.
Electing members from specific neighborhoods or districts has gotten support from several communities in the past. When the group proposed an 11 member council last year, area commissions from Hilltop, Milo Grogan, Near East and others rallied behind them.
Following this new proposal, each community would have one council member to represent that specific neighborhood. Districts would be drawn by an “independent apportionment board, with a goal of district elections in 2017, but no later than 2019.”
“Instead of the revolving door of council appointees who can’t possibly know each of Columbus’s more than 200 recognized neighborhoods and their issues, opportunities and leaderships, under this proposal, every district would have one council member who resides in and would be elected by that community’s residents, who would be responsive to the concerns of neighborhood leaders and politically attuned to the issues and opportunities,” Beard said.
Other supporters of the ward system believe it will create more opportunities for underrepresented constituencies because they will require less of the vote, while current members have called the initiative a political scheme by people who can’t otherwise get elected.
Represent Columbus has been in the signature-gathering stage of the initiative over the past several months, and were successful in gathering more than 38,000. Over 19,000 were validated by City Hall officials, 2,000 more than is needed for approval.
Following the signature verification, the Ohio Constitution requires a vote within 60-120 days to place the legislation on the ballot. City Council unanimously approved the issue on May 23rd for a special August 2nd ballot. This special election will cost taxpayers about $1 million ($2,000 per precinct), which would be deducted from Columbus’s property tax revenue.
For more information, visit www.representcolumb.us.