Columbus City Council will consider several proposals that it said would "compliment" the citizen-led Our City Our Say charter amendment, including expanding city council to add four new members.
Council will read the Our City Our Say petition into the record at its Monday meeting, which will ask voters on November's ballot whether all the nine existing council seats will switch from at-large voting to true district voting. The current system, put in place by voters in 2018 created nine city council districts, but voters from the whole city got to vote for each member.
Council member Rob Dorans will ask council Monday to vote on another charter amendment to put before voters in November. It will expand council to 13 members with four at-large seats and call for the council district map to be redrawn in 2028.
This means voters will see two ballot issues this November, if council approves.
Dorans told WOSU that having additional at-large seats will help balance the need for neighborhood perspectives with the need to have a voice for issues affecting the entire city like transit, housing and workforce development. He said that while council didn't find a compromise with Our City Our Say, those conversations shaped what he put forward.
"I've been very clear from the start of this discussion — late winter, early spring — that I viewed a hybrid model of sort of the best of both worlds where we have the ability for folks to represent districts and be accountable to those folks within the districts while also having some council members that view the city as their entire constituency," Dorans said.
Colleen O'Connell, a spokesperson for Our City Our Say, told WOSU that while negotiations with council failed, they encouraged Dorans to submit something that works with their amendment. She said within the group's leadership team, they believe what Dorans put forth doesn't undermine the amendment.
"We felt that (negotiations) were productive enough that when we didn't reach an agreement, we encouraged them, if they were going to submit something, that they make it complementary and not something that contradicts," O'Connell said.
Our City Our Say is a coalition with a broad array of supporters. It includes former City Council candidate Jesse Vogel, former mayoral candidate Joe Motil, Columbus Stand Up, the Democratic Socialists of America, Indivisible Central Ohio and more groups.
O'Connell said four at-large seats wasn't preferable to many members of the coalition but added that at the end of the day, because this doesn't contradict the Our City Our Say amendment, the group is committed to not spending time and energy directly opposing council's proposal.
"One of the things that we are really encouraged about is that Rob Dorans is encouraging others to support both amendments and we're hopeful that other politicians and party establishment will also allow the people to be truly heard on this issue," O'Connell said.
The four at-large seats would be phased in during the 2027 and 2029 elections. Redrawing the map, however, will take until the 2029 election. During the 2027 election, all the current council district seats will switch to being voted on only by district residents.
Doran's proposal means that the current council district map — which has faced criticism from some of the city's Black leaders — will stay in place through the 2027 election.
Starting in 2028, council will begin a redistricting process with a citizen-led redistricting team. He said that by the end of the year, the council will have to come up with a new map to install ahead of the 2029 elections.
Dorans said the timeline for adding a new map isn't perfect, but this proposal lets council adopt a new map while working with the Our City Our Say amendment "as soon as we practically can."
"It's not ideal, but I think it's an important thing for us to... address some of the concerns that council heard very, very clearly from some folks in the African American community," Dorans said.
Dorans said the council-led amendment will also address what he believes is the current system's biggest "stumbling block." He pointed to a rule requiring each of the nine council districts be within 1% of the population of others.
Dorans said increasing that limit will allow more flexibility when drawing a new map that can keep neighborhoods grouped together and add more opportunity for maps that are better for racial representation.
The council-led charter, however, will not require the creation of any majority-minority districts. Some Black leaders called for this change, because each of the nine council districts are currently drawn with a majority or plurality of white residents.
Dorans said the charter amendment itself will not prescribe a certain amount of majority minority districts, but the language will encourage districts that reflect the city's demographics.
"The language that is going to help guide the work of that independent commission, will give them a clear charge that we want them to be mindful of how do we draw districts that are reflective of the city as diverse as Columbus is," Dorans said.
The commission will be citizen-led, but appointed by city council. Dorans said the appointment of the commission members is where council's involvement ends in drawing the maps.
"I don't think it was a good idea at any time for politicians or their staff to be the ones primarily influencing this process," Dorans said.
Dorans is also putting forth proposals to reform campaign finance laws and lower signature thresholds for candidates to qualify for the ballot.
The signature threshold would be lowered to 150 signatures for district candidates and 250 for at-large candidates.
Dorans said he will put forth a city ordinance, not a charter amendment, on August 31. It would cut the maximum campaign donation allowed by law in half to about $8,000.
Dorans said he will also introduce a cap on in-kind contributions, which currently allow unlimited funds to be shared between campaign committees.
If this system is put in place, Dorans said either an at-large member or a ward member could be appointed council president.
Current Council President Shannon Hardin announced Thursday he is running for mayor the same year his District 9 seat is on the ballot. Hardin leaving council would mean a leadership vacuum that any of the nine to 13 members could fill.
Dorans is currently council's president pro tempore, which steps in to fill the council president's duties when they are absent from a meeting.
