Next year will be Jenny Spencer’s last on Cleveland City Council. The Ward 15 council member said she will not run for another term in the 2025 elections.
She said she came to the decision months ago but waited until after the 2024 elections to break the news publicly.
Spencer, who represents Detroit-Shoreway and other West Side neighborhoods, said she felt she had accomplished what she set out to do on council. In particular, she worked on legislation revamping Cleveland’s policy of tax breaks for new homes, reducing the size of the abatements in hot real estate markets. It’s a salient issue in her neighborhood, which is seeing a wave of new construction.
Plus, the tempo of the job itself was “not a sustainable pace,” she said.
“Even though it’s the right decision for me, I think one of the parts that’s difficult about it is I do think we need more women on council,” Spencer, who is one of five women on the 17-member body, said in a phone interview.
She will not resign early in order to appoint a successor to her seat. The common but criticized practice enables a newly named council member to run for reelection as an incumbent, usually with the backing of their colleagues.
Candidates for the 2025 council races will not have to file petitions until well into next year. By removing herself from contention so early, Spencer said she wanted to give possible contenders time to enter the race.
“I want to give anyone who might be considering running plenty of runway to look at it,” she said. “I think it’s a big decision.”
Spencer previously worked as the director of Detroit-Shoreway Community Development Organization, now known as Northwest Neighborhoods. Council appointed her to the Ward 15 seat in 2020 at the recommendation of outgoing incumbent Matt Zone. She ran for and won a full four-year term in 2021.
After her term ends, Spencer said she plans to take time off and visit in-laws in Paraguay. Her husband, Mario Martinez, became a U.S. citizen this year.
“It’s been an honor to work with Councilmember Jenny Spencer,” Council President Blaine Griffin said in an emailed statement Wednesday evening. “She has brought a lot of insight and creativity to the body of council. Council is a tough job. But she handled it with a tremendous amount of grace, tenacity and care.”
During the last redistricting a decade ago, the retirement of Council Member Jay Westbrook enabled then-President Martin Sweeney to cut a West Side ward without pitting West Side incumbents against one another.
It’s not certain what effect Spencer’s decision will have on council’s current round of redistricting. Under Cleveland’s charter, Griffin must cut two wards to keep pace with the city’s falling population.
“We will work closely with Councilmember Spencer as she finishes her term and will work with her and the Ward 15 community to continue addressing the priority issues that she and her community identifies in Council,” Griffin’s statement said. “Of course, Ward 15 will be treated fairly and equitably when it comes to redistricting and any other matters.”
Spencer said she had not seen a draft of a new ward map. But she said she would like to see the neighborhoods in her ward remain whole in any new set of boundaries. Ward 15, which stretches from the Lakewood border east to Whiskey Island, is one of Cleveland’s most diverse.
“It’s just this unique gift of this particular community,” Spencer said, “and I hope that any new ward would continue to reflect that diversity.”
