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Some Cincinnati voters headed to the polls for the city primary election Tuesday encountered a signature-gathering effort for a new set of city reforms aimed at the November ballot.
Among the proposed reforms: Allowing for the recall of the mayor and cutting council members salaries.
State Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Mount Lookout – but acting as a Cincinnati resident – is seeking to make eight changes to
Cincinnati s Charter.
• Require Council approval of all lawsuits filed by the city.
• Make council salaries equal to the median household income for the city. Council members now earn $65,000 a year, with some money taken out for benefits. Their salary would drop to $46,000 under the current median household income.
4:31
Seventy-five people with petitions to run for one of only nine seats on City Council. Incredible.
Far more than I have ever seen, and I have been covering Cincinnati politics since 1983.
That doesn t mean you are going to see 75 names on the ballot in the November election. Many of those people – mostly people you have likely never heard of, unless they are kin to you or live on your street – will never file those petitions. Many will struggle to get the signatures of 500 Cincinnati registered voters that they would need to qualify for the ballot.
But you may see 35, or some number a little north of that – which would still be a massive field trying to finish the election in the top nine.
Aaron Doster / AP
This column is a look-ahead at politics in this corner of the world. It is not by any means a prediction of the future.
I am not Carnac the Magnificent
. (Younger readers, just Google it.)
Anyone who tells you that he or she predicted a year ago all the weird twists and turns the politics of 2020 would take is fibbing, to put it mildly.
So you ll get no predictions for 2021 here. If that s what you are looking for, buy an Ouija board.
What follows is all about what is likely to transpire in this neck of the woods in the eagerly awaited 2021.