While the loss of two East Side wards was the main takeaway from the proposed new Cleveland City Council ward map, there’s also some discontent over the West Side changes. The proposed map splits up the Detroit-Shoreway, Cudell and West Boulevard neighborhoods.
The division displeased Cudell resident Nikki Hudson and others. She’s part of a crew of neighborhood activists who persuaded the city and school district to pause a school construction project that would have taken down dozens of trees at Cudell Park. More recently, she’s been pushing against plans to build a gas station near the park.
In Hudson’s view, the new map weakens the political muscle of her West Side group by dividing up the current Ward 15. She lives in the proposed Ward 11, sandwiched between the new Wards 7 and 12. Both the new 11 and the new 12 run north to south.
“The way the neighborhoods are on the West Side, they don’t really run north to south,” Hudson told Weekly Chatter. “They’re kind of oriented more east to west.”
Ward 15 Council Member Jenny Spencer, who isn’t running for another term, criticized the maps in a statement released online Thursday. Spencer privately saw a map in late November that did not cut up the northern West Side into north-south strips, she wrote.
Spencer endorsed the idea of turning the map-drawing over to a third party, à la this year’s failed statewide redistricting amendment, Issue 1.
“Based on my experience with the redistricting process, I believe that the burden of map making should not fall to Council leadership,” Spencer wrote.
On the other side of the argument – and on the other side of the ward boundary – is the Edgewater North Homeowners Association, led by local attorney Galen Schuerlein. Edgewater would be in the new Ward 12, which reaches south to include the West Park home of Council Member Danny Kelly.
Schuerlein told Weekly Chatter that she appreciated having her neighborhood connected with other single-family homes in the new Ward 12. In a neighborhood newsletter, she wrote that she backed the new map and Kelly as its representative.
“I’ve already briefed him about security, Air BNBs, the possibility of being a landmark district, and generally about our neighborhood,” she wrote. “He is looking forward to meeting everyone and I hope to set up a ‘Meet Your Leaders’ get together in the new year.”
Griffin squares up to defend his map
Meanwhile, Blaine Griffin made the rounds on local radio this week to stick up for his map. The council president appeared on Ideastream Public Media’s the Sound of Ideas and the Outlaws Radio Show, a podcast hosted by local conservative-leaning commentator Darvio Morrow.
In a call with Weekly Chatter, Griffin made clear that he’d prefer to move on from the haggling over ward lines. He said he did not rework the West Side wards to dilute activists.
“Everybody is lobbying for their community and their neighborhood, which I understand,” he said. “But some of the arguments that they’re making, I wish I had the time to tit-for-tat their arguments.”
In an earlier map, Spencer, Rebecca Maurer and Kerry McCormack were drawn into a single Near West Side ward, he said. After Maurer protested, Griffin moved her into an East Side ward.
“You can accuse me of whatever you want to accuse me of,” Griffin said of drawing Maurer into a West Side ward. He argued that he was trying to “work with her so she could have a place to run.”
Maurer, meanwhile, has previously said that she didn’t appreciate being drawn out of the territory she currently represents.
As for divided neighborhoods, Griffin said he couldn’t neatly fit Cleveland’s 34 official statistical planning areas into the 15 new wards.
“It was like trying to put 30 pounds of potatoes in a 10-pound sack,” he said.
The big dollop of mashed potatoes lands on City Council’s tray in January. Griffin maintained that he still has the votes to pass the map.
