Kent City Council’s continuing struggle with its political ward boundaries took another turn March 20, when Mayor Jerry Fiala cast the deciding vote to accept a set of maps Community Development Director Bridget Susel had created.
Council still has to approve legislation that will use those maps to set the new ward boundaries. That will start on April 17, and, unless council invokes an emergency clause, may take another three months to finalize. If ultimately approved, the wards would be effective starting with the 2025 primary elections.
Council has been struggling with the matter for months, and has considered two sets of maps Susel created. One set removed Mae Street from Ward 4; the other — the one Fiala championed — keeps it in that district.
Kent’s city charter stipulates that each of the city’s six wards be within a 10% population differential. City voters must approve all changes to that charter.
Those population counts are based on the most recent U.S. Census, meaning ward maps must be tweaked every decade. The problem with the most recent census, Susel and other city leaders agreed, was that the numbers were flawed: Reacting to the pandemic, Kent State University had closed two weeks prior to the census count, sending large numbers of students out of the city.
City leaders approved, then in January rescinded, a ballot measure that would have let city voters decide if the population differential between wards should be increased from 10% to 15%.
Calling the entire process “disjointed,” Council Member Robin Turner said he and his colleagues were erroneously told that the ballot measure was unconstitutional.
“It isn’t,” he said. “What we had accepted all along was reasonable. It wasn’t a really out-of-line proposal. It was a minimal kind of shift. … This would be a minimal change that would allow us to remain better connected to the residents in the community.”
Also against accepting the new ward maps was Council Member Heidi Shaffer Bish, who urged her colleagues to let the voters decide.
“I still believe that it’s important that we allow the voters to make a choice on this so that they can, if they choose, stay in the district as is to avoid confusion,” she said.
Before casting his deciding vote, Fiala noted that ward boundaries have spanned the Cuyahoga River in the past, and that the district that includes the Riverbend development still does.
Supporting the legislation council will face next month were council members Gwen Rosenberg, Jeff Clapper, Jack Amrhein and Melissa Celko. Against the measure were Shaffer Bish, Turner, Roger Sidoti and Mike DeLeone. Council Member Chris Hook did not attend the meeting.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.