Submitted by Roldo on Sun, 08/02/2009 - 16:28.
The Plain Dealer did an excellent job of displaying and explaining the divisions of the County Reform ballot proposal the newspaper supports. But I’m wondering if “division” isn’t the operating word in its presentation.
The PD’s presentation is found on Cleveland.com: http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/08/county_reform_plan_has_somethi.html
The map on the front page of the Sunday PD gives one the impression of 11 new fiefdoms being created.
And the way the PD described the new governmental “wards” – highlighting racial and ethnic characters of proposed new districts - also raises questions. Is that the way reformers want the public to think about this proposal?
I think it may suspicions among voters.
I’d love to see a poll of what voters think after they view the outline offered by the Plain Dealer. The newspaper editorially strongly backs the ballot proposal.
I’m not sure anyone at the PD imagined what voters might take away from its offerings.
To me it says, “Wait a minute. What are we doing? I need to know more about how this will work.”
Regional Economics Action Links North East Ohio
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Who is drawing the lines?
After reading the article, I still don't know who is drawing these lines? The Triad Group? Based on what? The Census? The two comments worth reading in my opinion:
Posted by CleverUserNm on 08/02/09 at 10:41AM
This article highlights what's really wrong with representative democracy in this country right now: the political parties. The article even admits they have it all planned out what type of candidate is going to win each ward: a hispanic dem here, a white conservative there... Where's the district for the independent or libertarian or green party? They didn't mention which district(s) would be female, either.
Non-partisan elections would be a decent first step. Then let's talk about reforming the structure. After all, it worked so well for Summit County, just ask Tim Davis.
Sad. The PD has taken a "reform" structure that is filled with question marks and odd features and presented it as a slam dunk good idea. Any honest person with any knowledge of government would have to admit that it is at best unclear that this plan would address corruption issues, efficiency, competence or anything of relevance. It is possibly worthy of discussion, but the PD has declared it to be unquestionably worth voting for.
One point - that this new structure is going to lead to increased economic development - is possibly the most laughable and pie-in-the-sky notion of all the one-sided arguments out there.
Even today's story - the argument that this type of reform is sweeping the country - is completely unsupported by any data. If such data exist, the article did not provide any.
This is a plan that relies solely on having a competent and effective county executive. Can we bet on that, considering the cast of characters we have? Does the PD already have a candidate in mind??
The PD should at least admit that it is desperate for anything that changes county government, which is ascribing the most generous motive to the PD. But regardless of your opinion of the merits of this, the PD's handling of this issue has been an embarrassment.
Also, as many have pointed out---where is efficiency and accountability with this proposal?? It's will be even more bloated and more inefficient than the present system.
Ok what about
Ok what about regionalism?
Laura asked are the proposed districts statistics based on census tracts?
I would think they are and those districts are not loosely based on the Ohio State governments congressional districts, they look to be exactly the same.
Jennifer Brunner could be contacted, ask the Secretary of State. What software application was used in the state of Ohio congressional redistricting competition?
The reason the state districts are the proposed county districts is because they do have relatively the same populations in each. That would make them very likely to vote relatively predictably in any election.
Having the software or having access to the software used in the competition that Jennifer Brunner hosted would allow building alternative models. It is what it is designed to be used for.
It made me think about the township boundaries and that they obviously as they exist, do not have equal population among them. Some do and some obviously do not.
Far and equal representation is and should be a valid respected criteria, but what about the potential for a more functional government? What about real regional reform? That being what about a regional government?
Peter Lawson Jones has said that the problem with regional government is that if you ask ten different people you get ten different ideas.
Then define the criteria or the end goal, then see how many of those ten ideas meet that criteria. It could result in inner districts that have denser population having or being one vote and then outer ring district like Strongsville and Royalton only having one?
The issue I have with the Ohio congressional districts is that they are not or do not have any potential for being functional districts for a school system, fire or police department etc. But the township boundaries do offer that.
Also ideally a district would have better than just equal populations, they would have some form for potential to be or generate a balanced budget, to have the potential for balanced economics within them.