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Cincinnati Post
Citizen panel chosen to
revise city elections
August 7, 2003 Almost two months
later than expected, Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken has appointed
his nominees to a citizen panel that will examine how to restructure
City Council elections. Luken's nominees, announced Wednesday, are:
Don Mooney Jr., a Democrat who heads the city's planning
commission, will serve as chairman of the electoral reform panel.
Jeff Berding, a spokesman for the Cincinnati Bengals who was active
in the "Build Cincinnati" movement a few years ago that sought to
give more authority to the mayor. Bishop E. Lynn Brown, a local
official with the Episcopal Church. Elijah Scott, a neighborhood
activist in Avondale. They join nine other nominees whose names
were submitted in June to serve on the advisory panel. The others
are three people each nominated by the local Democratic and
Republican parties and by the Charter Committee, the city's informal
third political party. Luken and Vice Mayor Alicia Reece -- also a
Democrat -- unveiled plans for the panel weeks ago and stressed the
importance of appointing its members by June 25, before City Council
began its summer break. But Luken delayed the process, upset that
the GOP's three nominees were all white males. That threatened to
make the panel non-representative of the city's population, which is
43 percent black, he said. Of the mayor's nominees, two are black.
Overall, four of the panel's 13 members are African-American. Among
changes that the panel will study are electing council members by
district or using a proportional representation system, as well as
giving executive power to the mayor and abolishing the city
manager's position. The panel will present its recommendations to
City Council by Feb. 1. Some grassroots groups, meanwhile, are
considering initiative petition drives to put their own electoral
reform proposals on the ballot, possibly by this fall or next spring. |
