Dozens of Columbus residents voiced support for changing how Columbus City Council members get elected, but a small influential contingent of Black community leaders and labor unions raised concerns about the measure.
Council held a second public hearing Monday regarding efforts to reform city council and how members get elected. City council is set to vote Monday to place the Our City Our Say charter amendment on November's ballot, which would make it so only voters within each of the nine council districts get to vote for their representative.
Council's current system has been the subject of ridicule since November's general election in District 7 where Tiara Ross won the seat citywide but lost within the bounds of her district to challenger Jesse Vogel.
The current system, where members must reside in one of nine districts but the entire city votes for each council member, is effectively an at-large system in practice.
At the start of the public hearing, the leaders of some of Columbus's labor unions spoke up against moving to a true district system and supported what some have called a "hybrid system" with some district seats and some at-large seats.
Communications Workers of America Local 4502 Vice President Eric Cunningham said he thinks district representatives will be incentivized only to work for themselves, rather than for the good of the city.
"When every council member is solely accountable to one district, the instinct becomes to protect that district first and think about the entire city second," Cunningham said.
He was echoed in a statement by AFSCME Local 1632 President Will Harmon and Executive Director of the Central Ohio Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Jamie Shumaker. She said having an at-large representative is non-negotiable.
"Without an at-large representation, the only person who speaks for everyone is the mayor. That is too much weight on one office. City workers need to know that the whole council answers to them, not just the district that they happen to live in," Shumaker said.
Several Black community leaders also spoke up in favor of a hybrid system, or voiced tepid support for council to make some changes.
Columbus NAACP President Sean Walton said the NAACP hasn't taken a position yet, but that there are some concerns, particularly about the current district map.
"There's a serious question about whether that Black political power is being protected of advanced," Walton said.
Walton and other activists said the current map wasn't drawn with Black political representation in mind. Community activist Johnathan Beard also raised this concern earlier this year, when he tried, but failed, to put forth his own ballot initiative that rivaled Our City Our Say.
Our City Our Say would keep the current map in place until after the 2030 U.S. Census. Redrawing the map sooner is one of the things Columbus City Council is considering putting on November's ballot alongside the Our City Our Say proposal.
Walton also read a statement from Columbus Urban League President and CEO Stephanie Hightower, who said she supports a hybrid district system.
"While we respect the desire for true district representation, we strongly believe that preserving citywide leadership matters," Hightower said.
The labor unions and Black leaders were outnumbered by supporters of the Our City Our Say proposal.
Danielle Dillard, a resident of Driving Park, said the current council fails to listen to citizens and supports changing the system in hopes a true ward system would make elected officials more accountable to neighborhood voices.
"I think the onus should be on all of you to illustrate what exactly you've done to merit continuing on in any sort of at-large capacity because I have seen nothing to demonstrate that we deserve some sort of hybrid model," Dillard said.
"I think it's time for us to vote for who cares about our district, who lives in our district, who's familiar with our district who didn't just move to our district. The person I voted for won the district, but I guess a whole bunch of people who don't live anywhere near me know my community a lot better than I do," she continued.
Dillard pushed back on the idea that changing to a ward system could dilute Black representation. Some council members expressed this concern and city staff made a presentation stating the current council district map has zero Black majority districts.
"Council Member (Nick) Bankston spoke about minority representation. We're so worried about what this council looks like that we've de-prioritized platforming effective representation," Dillard said.
Council is currently made up of five non-white members despite running citywide, where a majority of voters are white.
Maitland Neff, one of the volunteers who gathered signatures to put the proposal on the ballot, compared the current system to if voters in Ohio got to vote for another state's governor. Neff said it can help keep money's influence out of politics by allowing campaigns to run more local races rather than a citywide campaign targeting nearly one million residents.
"District representation not only lowers the barrier to entry for candidates to run in neighborhoods that they know, but council members would have a stronger incentive to engage proactively, not reactively, to the concerns of the communities for which they serve," Neff said.
Only one person fully opposed changing the system, in favor of keeping the current system in place. Sarah Cherry, an elections attorney, said she opposes district seats and moving to a hybrid system.
"I don't want my say taken away. I voted for all of you. I want to keep doing that," she said.
Cherry said she thought the Our City Our Say effort was a rehashing of Vogel's failed election bid. The effort to change city council's structure dates back decades, but many of the current effort's supporters do cite Vogel's loss in the new system as a motivation to push for change.
Most city council members, who have won at least one election in this system, have either voiced support for changing it or even signed onto the Our City Our Say petition to get it on the ballot.
City Council member Rob Dorans told reporters before the meeting that city council could consider several proposals at its next meeting which could add to the Our City Our Say initiative. He said this could include adding some at-large seats to the proposal by expanding city council, setting an earlier date to redraw city council districts to account for racial representation and campaign finance reform.
"How do we redraw those districts as quickly as possible to account for racial representation, as these districts were never drafted explicitly for true ward representation. So I think there's not only the question of at-large and district seats, but also the question is just some of the mechanics of this," Dorans said.
Dorans has called the current system "wacky" and "stupid" but has consistently called for a hybrid council system for the last several months.
City council returns from its summer recess on Monday, August 24, where it will formally read the Our City Our Say proposal into the record so it can be on November's ballot. The Franklin County Board of Elections told the city it has until August 25 to give it the language for any ballot issue being put before voters this November.
