From CoolCleveland.com

Straight Outta Mansfield

It's a Mansfield Trifecta!
On Sweeney and redrawing districts, Mike Trivisonno and the Catholic Church

Excerpt - on the redistricing and scheduled meeting

See full post here.

The Fix is Already In

I attended a meeting of concerned Westside citizens on Wednesday March 4. The residents were gathered in an attempt to get some answers regarding the redrawing of the ward boundary lines in the City of Cleveland. An Eastside group will hold a similar meeting at the Fatima Family Center, 6600 Lexington Ave. on Tuesday, March 17 at 6PM to try to do the same thing: get some straight answers on how City Council will be "fixed."

The Westsiders were basically stonewalled, and I'm afraid the meeting on the 17th will only result in more stonewalling. The date the lines have to be re-drawn by is April 1, and Council President Sweeney isn't about to let the citizenry know in advance where those new lines will be, since this might spark reasonable questions in regards to how the determination as to where the new lines were arrived at.

Sweeney will wait until the last possible moment to announce the changes, so there will be no time left for citizens to question the process. Was it an honest and fair process, or did politics play a role? Were favored members of council treated better than those on the outs with Sweeney? Looking at how wards 14 and 15 were carved up (and how Zack Reed’s ward will probably be decimated), it’s hard to believe the process isn’t tainted with partisan political gamesmanship.

These are only academic questions and speculations since the citizens will only have two choices: Like it, or don’t like it, but either way, there’s not a damn thing we’ll be able to do about it — except at the next election, when we remember how shabbily we were treated by Sweeney and his stooges.