Hi everyone, we're gonna go ahead and get us started.

Uh wanna thank everyone who is either joining here in public chambers here tonight or is turning in virtually regarding this public hearing regarding the structure of Columbus City Council.

Uh first of all, I want to uh thank everyone for their flexibility with rescheduling this hearing.

Um wanted to be very clear about why that happened.

My father was unexpectedly hospitalized last week, and fortunately is now home and recovering, and I want to thank many of the folks in the community that reached out with their well wishes and prayers.

So seriously sincerely want to thank folks that that did that.

Um but appreciate being able to get here tonight.

I know there's a lot of interest in uh this hearing.

Um wanna talk about why we're here.

Uh over the last decade, there's been a lot of discussion about the structure of Columbus City Council.

There's been several charter amendments proposals, uh, which led to a change that became effective in the 2023 City Council elections.

As I said in a recent op-ed to the dispatch, while I wasn't on council at the time, uh I didn't vote in favor of that proposal.

I believed it was confusing and did not adequately address long-standing concerns regarding neighborhood representation among this body.

Uh the city has big questions in front of us as we continue to grow.

And how this legislative body is structured, we'll certainly have a direct result in how we answer those questions in the form of public policy.

I'm hopeful that this body and the community can engage in an honest dialogue starting tonight about what reform might look like.

I want to acknowledge that there's no singular council structure that certainly will make everyone happy.

Uh while I certainly have an opinion on the matter, I'm just one of nine council members and ultimately just one of 900 plus thousand people that call the city home.

While council has the power under our our charter under section 45 to put a charter amendment to the voters, I know there are others that put their ideas in the form of their own ballot initiative.

And that's okay.

We shouldn't be afraid of engaging residents and putting ideas forward and making folks case to the community.

Tonight's public hearing has a simple agenda.

Our director of our legislative research office will review the history of city council structure, the current structure, and how we got here, and and review how other cities in Ohio, imperial cities across the country, structure their legislative bodies.

Then we'll hear from the public.

As I've said, there's been a lot of uh discussion on this topic going back many years.

And that is certainly proven by the number of people who've signed up to speak tonight.

Uh last count we have 36 people who signed up to speak or uh have in that several others have submitted written testimony.

Uh just talk about a little bit of logistics for tonight with 36 speakers.

I want to hopefully try and get home to my kiddo's bedtime, and I'm sure some other folks want to do that too.

Uh but I will call your name forward, and I will also call a second speaker.

And if the second speaker could just wait right over here just so we keep folks moving.

I would appreciate that just so that we keep the the hearing uh as much on time as we can.

Um I'm gonna ask folks to try and keep their remarks to three minutes per our standard rules here at City Council, uh, but certainly happy to uh extend some Midwestern politeness if folks need a little bit longer to conclude their comments.

Uh certainly want to thank my colleagues who made time to be here tonight.

I know we might have another council member or two that will be coming in here later this evening, but certainly certainly Councilmember DePadia, Councilmember Deacca or Councilmember Whitech, uh certainly for being here.

Want to pause and see if you had anything you want to say at the outset of the hearing.

Councilmember.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Pro Tem for um holding this hearing.

I just wanted to say thank you to the community.

Um, I was born and raised here in Columbus Boomeranger.

I moved away, I came back, and I um have uh the pleasure of being born and raised in my district, living four houses away from my family home, and uh while on the Southeast portion for 11 years, I lived on the South Side, and so these are two places that were very near and dear to me.

And I think as we talk about um what representation looks like as we talk about getting familiar and really representing the people in the communities in which we live in, um, you know that's certainly something that resonates with me, and I just want to thank everyone for caring and loving our city for wanting the best for our city for all the work that folks have put in to ensuring that we have a fair uh system that represents people, that you have people that really um fundamentally understand the streets and the roads and the places that you go um and live in every day.

And so I'm excited to hear the conversation tonight.

I'm excited to hear from all of our residents so that together as a community we can find a path forward.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh I want to also acknowledge that Councilmember Ross has joined us.

Um thank you, Councilmember.

Uh, wanna now turn over to Director Matt Erickson from our legislative research office.

Thank you, President Puritan.

I appreciate it.

It's a pleasure to come before council again, talk a little bit about the structural history of City Council.

I will try to uh keep my time limited, give uh time for the residents to talk, as I'm sure this uh maybe the driest part of uh this evening's festivities, but I'll see what I can do, keep it pithy.

Uh in terms of the history of Columbus City Council and its structure, uh it's not dissimilar from most of the other major cities in Ohio uh in that up until a certain point in about the mid-19th century, uh uh Columbus was classified as a borough, and then in 1834, um uh up in between 1834 and 1912, even though Columbus did in fact have a uh city council, the the structure and the size of it and the way it functioned was largely at the direction uh and the prerogative of the state general assembly.

Uh you see that uh when Columbus was originally classified as a city back uh at that point in time in Ohio, um uh municipalities were classified as boroughs or villages or cities, Columbus had been classified as a borough uh up until its reclassification as a city in 1834, at a time when there were about 3,000 people calling Columbus home.

Uh and at the time uh when Columbus was classified as a city, the General Assembly had divided the city up into three wards, what were officially called wards at the time, uh, with four representatives apiece uh coming from each of those wards for a 12-member size of council.

Over time, as Columbus grew, as the city grew, the General Assembly made changes, uh, presumably at with with some uh direction or some influence uh by the actual local government itself.

Uh but the size of council would increase as the size of the as a number of wards would increase as well.

You see that between 1885 and 1894, we went from five wards to 19 wards, still retaining that two uh members representing each ward up until about the turn of the 20th century, when Columbus had at a time when we had about 125,000 residents.

Uh at the time, council consolidated to 12 wards with one member apiece, and as a point of fact, added three at-large members at the exact same time.

After the turn of the 20th century, you had, at least in this country, a broader uh populist movement and a progressive movement uh that was largely focused on home rule and self-determination by large cities.

You had probably one of the most consequential uh legislative moves in the state of Ohio's history with the passage of the Home Rule Amendment in 1912.

Uh this essentially uh home rule broadly implies that uh uh cities in Ohio are uh it's it is deferred that they possess the power of self-governance, and that unless they pass laws that are in conflict with the state of Ohio, they generally have the capacity to uh to self-govern and to self-direct without the General Assembly enacting any kind of structure that did require that those cities would uh adopt a charter through a popular vote.

And so after the home rule amendment was passed by Ohio voters in 1912, Columbus seeded a charter creation commission, uh, which uh the very first charter creation commission chaired by Washington Gladden and William Oxley Thompson.

And ultimately that charter was put to Columbus voters in 1914.

And it's that charter that formed the basis of City of Columbus government and government and still generally uh applies today.

Now, when the charter was passed and established a seven-member all-at-large council, again, that was sort of well, not sort of, that was uh the popular movement at the time that you did have very large growing urban cities that had largely been divided into districts.

And the popular sentiment at the time, when the home rule amendment was passed and ultimately the charter member was passed, was that this move from districts to at-large was seen in part as an anti-corruption move that cities with districts uh again at the time, early 20th century, late 19th century, uh witnessed more corruption than with at-large systems.

But as with uh many other uh legislative moves, there are trade-offs that are associated with that.

So while we moved to an at-large system in Columbus and did away with the ward system, there's also a very common criticism that doing so can dilute or diminish minority representation on legislatures.

Uh and that frankly was the Columbus experience uh for most of the 20th century.

And again, I I note here that a lot of the efforts over the years, especially those efforts in 1968 and 1975, were very intentional about trying to increase neighborhood representation and correspondingly minority representation on council.

So we had three subsequent efforts put to voters in 68, 75, and then again in 2016 to reform the uh Columbus City Council structure and move to a true hybrid system.

But those three were rejected by voters.

After that latest uh rejection in 2016, there was the appointment of a charter review commission that was specifically seated to evaluate the structure of council.

And that council, that commission ultimately recommended the council that we uh that we have today that the primarily included expanding council from seven to nine members, uh, an innovative district at large system of representation, uh introducing one year residency requirements, uh drawing districts and and requiring that any representative must reside within that district for at least one year, um, while also maintaining that key feature of at large systems of representation wherein all residents vote on all council races.

Uh, there's also the introduction of the provision where any vacancies uh must be filled with residents of the district.

Uh and this version was approved by voters in the 2016 primary election uh with the 75% approval.

This new council then, so again, that was uh approved in um sorry, May 2017, not May 2016, May 2017, and uh then we would see the actual enactment of those charter changes that occurred.

Uh that new council, the manifestation of that charter change uh we see in 2024.

Uh after the 2020 census ended, a mapping commission was seated in 2022, specifically for the purpose of drawing those nine council districts.

The charter review, the charter provisions that voters approved included a couple of by the way.

Please feel free to stop me at any time, otherwise I'm just gonna keep talking.

Um the charter revision charter provisions that voters approved specifically included a couple of provisions that were really meant to avoid some of the practices around gerrymandering uh that we see in other municipalities and in other states, uh, what's also commonly referred to as cracking and packing to uh try to center uh certain populations and districts and um and reduce their influence.

Uh one of those is the uh the variance provision uh that says that the largest district cannot exceed the smallest district by more than one percent uh population variance.

Um I'll mention this in a few minutes, but that actually ended up being one of the more problematic uh provisions of uh the um charter of the of the mapping uh provisions just because it became intensely hard, I think, for the commissioners to draw some of the districts in consideration of the second requirement that was included, which is that generally speaking, districts are supposed to be geographically contiguous, encourage compactness so you don't see some of those long runs of maps that you see in some other places, maintain the geographic integrity of a neighborhood or community of interest, and then using existing boundaries, generally speaking, existing districts, precincts, geographically identifiable boundaries, uh in other words, districts should not be split in practically.

So following the drafting of the map uh and council members approving that map in uh January or sorry, December of 2022, that meant that the uh then council was effectively eliminated, abolished at the end of 2023.

Uh and uh elections were held in 2023 uh 2023 with the new map with uh the primary for nine districts with the general election for nine districts.

Uh, in order to stagger terms after that, because uh at that time nine nine council members were elected, generally speaking, municipalities like to see staggered terms so that you are not replacing an entire legislative body at the exact same time.

So, in order to stagger uh again provisions uh that voters approved in the charter, drawing lots, four members serving two year terms, five council members serving four-year terms.

All terms thereafter would be four year terms until the entire process effectively uh resets again following the 2030 census.

So everything that we have in place right now will effectively reset.

Um if you were to plot it out in 2032, you would see a new districting commission seated using 2030 census data to put a map to uh for voters uh to have representation in the 2033 election.

And the current council uh as of 2033 would effectively be abolished again at the end of 2033.

That is the council current structure.

If anybody has any questions, director, can you um you might have said this at the beginning and I just missed it?

Is there something in code that we need to review this and at what is that time constraint of the review?

There is nothing in code or charter other than the requirement to seed a new districting commission.

There is otherwise nothing germane to the structure of city council, the sizing of the number of districts.

Uh the current law uh only requires that the map be redrawn every 10 years following the completion of a census.

There is a separate provision, council member.

I apologize.

There's a separate provision wherein a charter review commission needs to be seated every 10 years uh after seeding a review commission in 2022.

Uh, there is a requirement that a charter review commission will be seated uh in 2032.

Got it.

But was that provision in the code before or no?

For us to review it every 10 years, was that always part of the code, or was it it was not always part of charter?

So that it in the Charter Review Commission, both the districting commission and charter review commission are pieces of charter.

So voters approve those.

Um I can't speak to the charter review commission when it was introduced.

It was within the last 20 years, I can tell you that much.

It wasn't always in charter.

Uh the districting commission was the mapping commission was approved at the same time as as voters approved the overall uh structure.

I think in 2018.

I might have said seven.

Now there is something in code that says every 10 years will be a review.

There is something in charter that requires the convening of a charter review commission every 10 years.

There is nothing that otherwise prohibits ad hoc charter review commissions.

Thank you.

You keep correcting me, charter is what I mean to say instead of code.

So comparing Columbus to uh I have a small portion where you can discuss how Columbus compares to other Ohio cities as well as peer cities.

It's worth obviously level setting uh our uh vernacular here.

When we talk about the types of municipal legislatures, we're really talking about three separate models.

We have the at-large system, which is generally speaking what Columbus has right now, uh, where all residents vote on all representation.

You have a district or ward system uh where you're going to have residency requirements for representatives, and only uh members of those, only only residents of those districts or wards have the uh uh ability to vote on their representatives.

You also have a hybrid system uh wherein uh it's a legislature with some number of district representation and some number of at-large representation, so a true mix of the two.

In terms of what Columbus has, straightforward, nine member at-large system with residency requirements, include some information about here because in subsequent slides uh it's useful to compare um City of Columbus uh with some of our peers as of the 2024 ACS uh survey, the American Community Survey, have about 914,000 residents uh equaling about 101,000 um residents per city council member.

Uh and the city of Columbus does remain the largest city in the country that has an art at large legislature.

In terms of what we see uh in other Ohio cities, these are the 10 largest um Ohio cities.

And in Ohio in particular, uh, you see a high degree of hybrid representation.

Uh you do see some large cities, in particular Cincinnati and Dayton, uh, that do have at large representation.

Dayton has a commission, and it's not exactly the same as a city council.

But you see a high concentration of hybrid uh legislatures within Ohio cities.

That just that last column there because it's a little bit uh tricky to represent.

Um what I've included there is the number of representatives, number of residents that each district's representative would represent, as well as the number of at-large number of residents that an at-large representative would represent.

So, for example, on Akron with its 10 ward district representatives and three at-large, each of those districts represents about 18,924 individuals, and each of the three at large represents about 63,000 uh residents.

There's also uh I wanted to note uh where possible that uh there are some it's actually difficult to find comparable provisions to Columbus when it comes to that variance component that I had noted earlier, what it is that sort of triggers the sizing of maps.

Cleveland is a little bit unique in that their uh charter specifies that their um ideal district size is about 25,000 residents.

So because they have um reduced in population size, they actually are uh eliminating two council districts.

Um they uh grow and they shrink depending on the size of their population.

Uh Toledo has a uh codified 5% variance threshold, as in their districts cannot exceed a 5% threshold.

But essentially everybody else, and this is evident on the next slide too, uh, where there is either district or hybrid representation, every other city and most almost every other major city uses language that is typically referred to as substantially equal.

Uh that they don't necessarily identify a number within their charter uh that defines the the variance, uh, but essentially that they are supposed to be substantially equal.

And generally speaking, the case law seems to suggest that that's uh that a 10% threshold, a federal 10% threshold uh that most cities adhere to is uh what most uh small and large cities have adopted for their districting.

In terms of every basically every city in the country that is larger than Columbus, you see a far higher concentration of district or ward only systems.

Uh and in over half of those systems, the mayor is actually a voting member of city council.

Um you see obvious exceptions with Houston and Philadelphia as large cities that have adopted hybrid systems.

Um but um otherwise most of the large cities have heavy concentration in district and ward systems.

I'm gonna leave it on this slide here for a moment.

That is uh the extent of my presentation, and happy to take any additional questions.

Questions to council members.

Virgil, looking at um both Ohio and these uh cities, when we look at it's difficult to get that apples and apples comparison when you see like population differences as much as we have both here in Ohio with Columbus being so large compared to other cities, but also you know, sort of being further down the list when you talk about sort of those large cities.

Is there sort of a range that you see from a sort of percentage standpoint we say a ward or a district like typically represents within those cities?

No.

I I I wish I could give you a more definitive answer.

Um, but um there's there's it it's kind of all over the board um with regard.

I mean, I'm happy to pull up um you know Ohio cities again.

Um but you can see it can be a little bit tricky with Ohio, obviously, because after Dayton city size gets you know fairly dramatically small and gets tricky to compare.

Any other questions, council members?

Great.

Thank you, Director.

Um as I mentioned earlier, we're gonna move on to public comment.

So I'm gonna name uh two speakers at a time.

So we'll have uh the first speaker come up again, ask that you try to limit your remarks as much as you can to three minutes.

I will name a second speaker, and if you could sort of be in the bullpen at the ready here, uh just so we keep ourselves moving here.

Um if you represent an organization, please let us know.

And again, you'll have uh approximately three minutes.

So the first speaker to come for a council is Mr.

Oh, and also if I uh mispronounce your name, please let me know.

Uh I apologize for that.

I will do my best to get that correct.

But first speaker is Mr.

Chris uh Travner, and then speaker after uh Ms.

Good evening.

Is this working?

Yeah, good.

Uh President Pro Tem Dorans, Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the importance of a representative democracy in Columbus, Ohio.

My name is Chris Tabner, I use they them pronouns, and I'm here in my personal capacity as one of the petition committee members for the proposed charter amendment supported by our city RSA to reform how we elect our city council members here in Columbus.

When we crafted the language for the proposed amendment, we knew simplicity was essential.

But the problem's so obvious the solution should be simple too.

Columbus City Council, as the capital of Ohio and the home to our state's democratic institutions, should be a beacon of representative democracy.

Instead, its election system for its legislative body is less democratic than the heavily gerrymandered Ohio General Assembly.

Right now, Columbus elects our council members through an at-large system with district residential requirements, as we just saw.

That was an excellent presentation, by the way.

Uh, resulting in a city of over 900,000 people spread over more than 225 square miles voting for every council member.

By comparison, each state house district for the Ohio General Assembly has about 120,000 residents.

Residents of each community in Columbus should feel confident that their representative on Columbus City Council is accountable to only them, not voters on the other side of the city.

I live in Eastmoor.

I should not have a say in the council member representing Clintonville, and vice versa.

The simple solution to this simple problem is to change the language in the Columbus City Charter so each district elects its own representative to City Council.

It's a system used by the vast majority of the largest cities across the U.S., as we just saw, like sit and also cities like Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Baltimore, San Francisco.

Columbus should be a leader in progressive representative democratic systems, not an outlier using a regressive, confusing, at large model.

That's why I'm excited that Columbus City Council has pulled together this conversation.

Right now, our city RSA is gathering signatures to accomplish the simple fix.

Let's get the truly representative district system we all deserve.

So what I'm asking all Columbus City Council members to do is the following.

Support the R City RSA proposal to have a district-based city council voting system.

Regardless what other democracy reforms any council member might want, this first step should be an easy thing to do.

Everyone deserves a representative from their district elected only by their district.

Two, don't oppose or attempt to block the our city RSA proposal.

In fact, we would love to have you gathering signatures with us tomorrow during the primary.

Love to have you join us.

And then three, don't introduce conflicting reforms that would delay or dilute change and potentially confuse voters.

Instead, let's use this hearing and other hearings to support the Our City RSA campaign.

For me, this issue isn't about who sits on Columbus City Council.

Personally, I like many of the decisions made by our current Columbus City Council.

And I disagree with some too.

That's the nature of democracy.

Regardless, I have a lot of respect for the people who sit in their current council seats.

If we pass our simple fix to how we elect council members in November, and all the current Columbus City Council members kept their seats in future elections, I wouldn't necessarily be upset.

It would tell me democracy worked as it should.

Which is why skepticism and outright opposition from some people to the R City RSA campaign confuses me a little bit.

I think we should be allies, not opponents.

So, you know, all Columbus City Council members have the opportunity to demonstrate their progressive democracy-centered ideals by joining our effort, and we would welcome you with open arms.

We'd love to have that happen.

As council member Doran said, the current system is stupid.

So let's to work together.

Let's start with the simple fix, pass it in November alongside a few other consequential statewide elections, then keep working the work moving to create the truly representative democracy all Columbus residents deserve.

So thank you for your time.

Happy to answer any questions, but I know we have a lot of speakers.

Councilmember Brosa, deputy.

Hi neighbor.

Quick question.

Uh thoughts on at-large members.

Personally, I think the first step is for us to switch to the district-based system.

If we want to have continuing conversations about something like out-large seats, campaign finance reform, maybe even more district seats with smaller, you know, fewer people representing being represented by each district.

Let's have that conversation.

But I think this is the first step, and then let's have you know a longer conversation about those other reforms.

Do the first thing and then move on to other conversations.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Council Mr.

Watch.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for your advocacy.

I signed the petition.

I'm excited.

I'm glad you guys are doing this.

Thank you.

My only concern, I guess, would be as it relates to affordable housing, right?

Do we have the time to sit and wait to evolve the system where we can still make decisions that are beneficial to the city as a whole?

Yeah, so Councilmember Weiss, I'm I'm I'm glad that you you asked this question.

I've been doing a lot of thinking on that issue myself.

You know, we need more housing in this city, we need more affordable housing.

I don't see these as contradictory.

I I know that there's some research out there.

I was taking a look at that research too.

And you know, one of the things I was looking at when it comes to that research is you've got um lots of different municipalities in different sized cities across the country that you know you you've seen, they've shifted to a award system.

Some cities have seen changes in how housing works.

That that data was over the course of three decades, and we're talking about Columbus right now.

You all as council have put in a lot of efforts already to move toward and address affordable housing.

And we're talking about if once again I said, you know, there's like changing the system doesn't mean that you all are not going to be in your seats.

And so the conversation around housing, I think we should be having those conversations in communities represented by a council member that is elected just by their community, but that conversation is separate from the conversation about how we represent our council to me, ultimately.

But I want to see more housing too.

I want to see more affordable housing for folks.

Well, one, I would encourage you to come to our zoning meeting on Monday.

I'm a primary example.

There are two zoning issues in my district.

One in which I agree with residents.

I don't think it's well placed, I'm gonna vote it down.

Another in which I've had small group conversations with neighbors, even smaller conversations with the leadership of the group to talk about why this actually fits, and the response that I have received is that this should just be in some other district.

They're organizing, they will likely challenge me because of that vote.

So it's kind of hard for us to say, let's just let it play out, and then we can make changes in the future because the challenges related to zoning, relating to housing, related to affordability across the board are happening today.

So I mean, that's the only concern that I think many of us may have with the system is that it is easy to get a group of neighbors in a single district to uh turn out votes or turn out folks against something that they feel does not fit, even if all the data, all the information points to it being the right choice.

Not a question.

Yeah, no, just a statement.

So I I appreciate you being here.

Appreciate uh you uh walking us through this journey.

So thank you, Res.

This is exactly the kind of dialogue we're hoping to have tonight.

So appreciate you being here.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh next speaker come for council is Mr.

Negan Harris, and after uh Mr.

Harris, we'll have Ms.

Rule Petrick.

All right, good evening.

Uh pro Tim Dorrens, uh members of council, and to the neighbors behind me.

Uh I come before you today with both appreciation and urgency.

I want to begin by acknowledging that uh Columbus has already taken an important step by having this conversation tonight, by having this public hearing uh regarding an at-large system or us shifting towards a district or award-based approach.

And the reality is that geography matters, uh, neighborhood voice matters, lived experience matters.

Uh, the concerns of the far east side, the south end, the north London hilltop, and even the Near East Side where I chair as the Area Commission, um, are not always the same, and our system of representation should be honest about that.

And I also want to acknowledge something else that the current at-large system has value.

It gives residents access to every member of council.

It allows the whole city to have a voice in who governs the whole city.

It reminds us that housing, public safety, zoning, transit, economic development, parks, uh, infrastructure, and neighborhood investment uh are not isolated issues.

But what happens in one district impacts the health and the future of Columbus as a whole.

So that is why this conversation cannot be reduced to a simple question of at-large versus wards.

Columbus deserves a better question.

A question that might be how do we design a system that gives neighborhoods real accountability without losing our shared responsibility to the whole city.

A true ward system may make it easier for residents to know who directly represents them.

It may lower barriers for candidates who cannot raise citywide campaign dollars.

It may create stronger accountability between council members and the neighborhoods they serve.

And those are real strengths, and we should not dismiss them.

But we also have to be honest about the risks.

And other cities, ward-based systems have sometimes created political silos.

They have allow council members to protect one district at the expense of another.

They have made it easier for uh necessary but even difficult decisions, especially around housing, like was just shared, to be blocked because everyone supports progress in theory, but not always in their own backyards.

And so we are growing city.

We are a city dealing with rising housing costs and uneven development.

Um the solution cannot be to create a system where each district fights only for itself.

But the solution also cannot be a system where district residents feel like their voice can be overridden by voters who do not live with direct consequences of that representation.

So tonight, do not simply patch the current system.

I'm asking you to reimagine it.

I want to respect the time.

Nicely done.

Yes.

Uh any question from council members?

I was just I was gonna say um thank you.

And I think uh you're right about asking the right questions.

I think, you know, um, I said I was a boomeranger, I've lived in other cities where there have been um true ward representation, and you can see the challenges between different districts, right?

Like you can see, even if we just let's just say for the sake of argument, we kept the districts the way they are now.

I certainly think worry about my district in comparison to some of the other districts right now.

Um, and you know, what does that look like?

What does that look like for prosperity for my district?

And so that's certainly something I think that as we've been talking about this that I worry about in that district model.

That's not to say that holds us back from doing it, but it's just something to be named, right?

When we consider what that looks like and ensuring that that representation is there and ensuring that we have that balance as we think about a growing city and the challenges are vastly different across the city, and certainly feels very different the further you go out from the city core for a lot of you know our legacy neighborhoods that don't feel invested in and haven't had the same sort of infrastructure improvements or other um investments that other parts of the city have had.

So I appreciate you naming that.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Nate.

Way to hit that three minutes literally on the nail.

Um next is uh Mr.

Will Petrick, and after Will Petrick will have Tom L.

Bees, good evening.

Uh my name is Will Petrick.

I'm here as a resident of Columbus.

Uh, and because I believe all of us should have a say in the decisions that impact our city and our future.

Today we have a system that ensures basically corporate CEOs and billionaires control our the future.

And as you said, council member Doran, it's it's stupid, and I agree.

And I want a system that ultimately improves people's lives and is responsive to regular people.

Uh, if a council member wins the majority of voters in the district they represent, they ought to win that election.

Um, as Liliana Bayman said recently, it's basic democracy, but it's not what happens here in Columbus.

So I wish Council President Hardin was here.

Uh, wanted to respond directly to some of the questions that he asked in a recent statement.

Um, first, he asked, you know, whether a district system would allow council to build the housing that we need.

Um also said that ward models amplify voices that tend to oppose affordable housing.

So, one example, Minneapolis, it has 13 wards.

Uh, in 2018, their city leaders worked together to launch Minneapolis 2040 plan to combat segregation and housing shortages.

They implemented inclusionary zoning in 2020 as part of that.

And according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, rents have grown more slowly in Minneapolis than in comparable cities.

There's 51 city council districts in New York City.

And Mayor Mamdani is working with council members there to fill potholes to shovel snow for a livable wage to take meaningful steps to help residents afford to live there.

Affordability is an issue that all of us care about.

So, my question for y'all would be knowing that the current system amplifies the voices of billionaires, how would the new structure that we're gonna build together be accountable and responsive to the needs of people and neighborhoods?

And are you ready to trust residents and to share power with us to shape the future together?

Second, council member uh Harden asks whether a new city would quote allow the city to make investments where they're most needed, not pitting neighborhoods against each other.

Respectfully, this question feels disingenuous.

Since the existing system just quote, allowed you all to hand over 25 million dollars and McCoy Park to billionaires.

The truth is people across this city want City Hall to invest in improvements that will make our lives better.

We want strong neighborhood schools, we want affordable housing, affordable child care, lower utility bills.

We want you to protect our parks and green spaces.

We want that for ourselves and for our neighbors all across the city.

Yes, there's different needs in different neighborhoods.

I live in North Linden, we don't have the same tree-lined streets as they do in Clintonville.

The Hilltop doesn't have a grocery store with fresh healthy foods that many neighborhoods have.

I think the ultimate question is will we continue with a system that concentrates power or will we move toward a system that really shares power with residents and neighborhoods?

Uh just I want a city and a system where our voices actually matter in the decisions that y'all make.

Uh want a system that's about accountability, representation, and trust in the people of Columbus.

That's why I'm supporting the R City R say initiative and the simple fix.

Hope you all will join us.

I do want to also say that in the presentation you had asked about kind of the average uh in terms of representation of a council member per district.

So in the top 50 cities, I did some research and I can share this with y'all.

Um, basically 90,000 members uh per council member is the the average for district level council members.

Any questions, council members?

Thank you, Mr.

Beecher.

Thank you.

Again, next we'll have Tom Albeans and then Mr.

Zachary Sparks will be afterwards.

Welcome back to council.

Good evening.

Good afternoon, uh, president uh and Columbus City Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Uh my name is Tom Albanese.

Uh I'm a founder of Element Consulting Group, and I've lived in the City of Columbus since 2002.

And I want to actually go off my remarks for a moment, and just say that I was invited to speak here, not because I know really the first thing about city council forms of governments or the pros and cons of ward versus at-large systems.

I was invited to speak uh to uh address the issue of homelessness and how communities don't lose sight of the issue of homelessness, no matter the form of government.

Uh, my company and I work around the country.

We're currently working with Chicago, Orange County, California.

I work 10 years with New York City and got to experience firsthand how dysfunctional city government can be in addressing an issue like homelessness, but how it also can really shine really no matter the context.

So I'm here to just share with you my experience here in Columbus and uh across the country, and to say just briefly that I don't have an opinion on ward versus at large versus hybrid.

I have an opinion about the voices of our neighbors in our community all around Columbus that are not heard.

And I heard one and I was so upset I almost couldn't come, Jessica.

Uh uh just last week regarding McCoy Park and the voices of neighbors that just simply were not heard.

Uh I was drawn to Columbus in 2002 by two voices.

Barb Poppy, who was running the community shelter board at the time, who called me personally to invite me to join her at the community shelter board, and the voice of a young African-American schoolgirl who was staying at the Interfaith Hospitality Network at the time, which was our community's broken response to homelessness, and forced children of all ages to go from one shelter basement, church basement, I should say, to another.

That drew me to Columbus and inspired me to do the work I do.

Um I'm here to just implore you to not forget about the people who are not in this room.

Not one of them.

And to remember that more than half of the residents of City of Columbus are renters.

And more than half of them are cost burdened.

I don't think this council represents those renters if we had to do a profile.

That's concerning for me because every day we see voices forgotten or not heard.

I work around the country in communities where I see Chicago, 50 wards, you have 50 mayors, 50,000 people apiece, as the presentation showed.

There's 50 different mayors, 50 different aldermen, right, that have each responsibility.

But in Chicago, they are figuring out how to make that work for those communities.

And it can work.

But what it also requires is strong community-wide intent and structure, policy, advocacy, and operational wherewithal.

So when a neighborhood says, not in my backyard, we as a community can say, we're sorry, we all have something to contribute in this community.

And we all have something we need to give.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions from council members?

You know, thank you.

Uh our next speaker will be Mr.

Zachary Sparks, after Mr.

Sparks will have Vladimir Kogan.

Thank you.

I'm Zach Sparks, resident of the Driving Park neighborhood and steward for the Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialist America's campaign to create real districts for city council elections, the topic of today's hearing.

Today, Columbus City Council is hosting a community conversation on the current voting system for city council districts.

Since last spring, Columbus DSA has led the actual community conversation on this issue when we started the campaign for this work.

And I can tell you in our conversations we've had so far is that residents are sick and tired of their elected officials, ignoring their neighborhood concerns while turning around and giving billionaires anything they want without question.

The reason McCoy Park debacle exposes just this, the interests of the billionaire class are served over those of the residents of the city.

We saw city council respond in a very usual way, deflecting blame and giving performative responses while maintaining the status quo.

Today's hearing is no different to us.

Columbus's current city council voting system is a farce.

The so-called districts in this model are an illusion, having no impact on the actual results of the election.

Because we maintain at-large voting, requiring a candidate to win votes across the entire city and not just their district, these districts can simply not exist, and the outcome of the elections would be the same as we saw in November.

At-large voting favors the well-funded and those in power at the expense of real community representation.

It is why most cities have abandoned at-large voting for city council seats, with Columbus being one of the last cities of its size uh still using this archaic system as we just recently saw.

Our proposal when we began this work last spring was simple.

Eliminate at-large voting and make the districts real.

In order to represent a district, you must win the election in that district in just that district.

This gives neighborhoods a real say in who represents them in city government and makes candidates answerable to their neighbors.

We are happy to see that this issue has captured council's attention as this hearing is being held today, but we should set the record straight as to what is actually going on.

This is an attempt to co-opt a citizen-led initiative to build our own power through engaging in the citizen-led initiative amendment.

Council is not holding this hearing for the working people of the city, but for their own benefit.

If council truly cares about this issue, then we should drop the pretenses and just let the citizens doing this work get on with our good work.

We don't want to see council attempt to redirect this energy into a proposal that maintains at-large seats.

We also do not want to see competing proposals this November that would confuse voters.

And if the hope is to have a community conversation, this can't be the last of these community conversations.

We should go to other districts of the city during different times with more notice than just two weeks to let regular working people attend these and hear and play part of these conversations of how they can have power in the city.

The R City RSA coalition is working towards a simple two district sorry, true districts amendment for this November's election, and we look forward to winning real representation representation for the people of Columbus.

Thank you.

Any question from council members?

CNN, next we'll have Mr.

Vladimir Kogan.

After Mr.

Kogan, we'll have Mr.

Will Clatt.

All right, well, good evening, Council members and Councilman Dorans wishing your data a speedy recovery.

Um my name is Vladimir Kogan, and I'm a professor of political science at the Ohio State University, where I teach classes both on voting rights and also local politics.

I should stress that I'm speaking tonight only in my personal capacity, and certainly not on behalf of the university.

And I just want to make three simple points.

First, shifting from at-large to by district award elections will almost certainly reduce the ability of African American voters to elect candidates of their choice.

Ironically, this is the opposite of the argument that advocates of ward elections have been making for nearly a decade, including in a 2017 letter written by the NWCP legal defense and education fund.

But in every contested citywide election since then, the victorious candidate has always performed best in the city's most heavily African American precincts, ensuring the election of black preferred candidates in every one of those races.

And last fall's election in District 7, I think offers a powerful case in point.

The ultimate winner, Councilwoman Ross, received her highest support in the most heavily African American precincts and was elected precisely because the election was held citywide.

This allowed the heavily African American areas on the east side to form a coalition with other like-minded neighborhoods in other parts of the city, something that would not be possible in a purely geographically based district system.

Moving to district elections will ironically reduce the number of African American preferred candidates elected into office, the opposite of the claims made in that 2017 letter, and what some activists have continued to argue since then.

And I think that's important context for the table that you saw in Director Erickson's slide, because many other cities have been forced to switch to district elections precisely for this purpose.

But the uh differences in voting behavior and geography in Columbus actually make the um the conditions somewhat different, uh that produce somewhat different results.

Second, housing affordability is the most serious challenge facing our community.

Yet careful research by scholars at the Ubjohn Institute, at MIT, and at George Washington University, all show that district elections reduce housing construction and supply, contributing to shortages, and ultimately unaffordability.

Third, when affordable housing is built, district elections often lead to it being built only in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, high crime, underperforming schools, and lack of employment opportunities.

But don't take it from me.

So you heard about Chicago earlier.

And in 2019, the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance published a 90-page report titled A City Fragmented, documenting how ward elections in that city had contributed to housing segregation and housing shortages.

To quote directly from that report, quote, the city of Chicago, through the policy of aldermanic prerogative, which gives aldermen, which is what they call city councilman there, virtually unchecked power over their wards, allows housing and community development decision making to be hindered by political influence and opposition to neighborhood racial change.

The consequence of all dramatic prerogative has been decades of missed opportunities to develop affordable housing in areas lacking sufficient supply.

Their report concludes quote any attempt the city may make to advance affordable housing is destined for inadequacy unless and until the structural barriers imposed by alternatic prerogative resulting from ward elections are dismantled.

So let's learn the lessons from Chicago and avoid well-meaning, feel-good, but poorly thought out institutional reforms that will only make our city's most pressing challenges even worse.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Gogan.

Councilmir.

Um I have uh two questions, I think.

One is on your latter point about Chicago.

So in you know, we we had a couple of different folks give examples of how cities have come together for you know creating policies that would essentially um ensure that they were working together when it comes to housing and other things.

Can you talk about what was the difference with Chicago in I live there for a hot hot, hot second, so I think their structure is a little bit different.

So when you talk about having that absolute power, I think it's also the way that it's structured within each city and each ward.

Yes, a great question.

So uh certainly there's differences in power, but a lot of it is a differences in norms.

And so if individual council members represent particular districts, then the other council members largely defer to them.

And so in Chicago, there's a norm of what they describe as aldermanic prerogative, which is if this is your district, I'll go with you.

So if you they don't want this project approved, we'll all vote no, as long as you do that for me.

And so it's kind of a I scratch your back if you scratch mine, and that leads to kind of the dynamics that you talked about earlier, which is everybody comes and says, not in our neighborhood, build that someplace else.

And it does get built, but unfortunately it gets built primarily in the existing low-income neighborhoods, again, without access to um opportunities of various sorts.

So, and you talked about it being a norm.

So it's how people behave, not necessarily how a structure is.

Right, yeah, how it's structured, but how because they've had an alderman system in Chicago forever.

Correct, correct.

Um my other question, just back to looking at voting.

So when you talked about disenfranchising uh specific communities, right, in particular black voters, is it because of the way the wards would be drawn?

Is it because you you talked about the difference between the at-large system and looking at wards and what the voting patterns would be?

Can you break that down to the case?

Sure, yeah.

And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting anybody would be disenfranchised, right?

I'm just suggesting that the um community preferred candidates would not necessarily be elected.

Um, and so it's a function of I think several things, and some of them are unique to Columbus.

Uh, one is the relative size of minority populations that Columbus is generally does not have large populations that are geographically compact.

Um that there's some uh you know, that some communities are spread out across different neighborhoods of the city.

Um, the second is the really the lack of racially polarized voting.

So in Columbus, fortunately, I think for us, um voting in local elections does not break down along racial lines.

It often breaks down amongst other dimensions, fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, not long sparson lines either, but um class lines, education lines, and some of that contributes to the dynamics that kind of manifest themselves in the data I describe.

Um hopefully that answers your questions.

And so and I think that's what makes Columbus unusual that many other cities do have very high levels of racially polarized voting, and under those conditions, with large enough populations, actually, district elections do allow for more minority representation.

But that's not the case in Columbus.

In Columbus, they actually have to have the opposite set of conditions.

Any other questions from council members?

Thank you, Mr.

Cogan.

Thank you.

Uh next speaker is Mr.

Will Clatt.

After that will be uh Miss Jennifer Creighton.

Uh my name's Will Clatt.

Um, I'm a Clintonville area commissioner, a union member, and I've lived in Columbus for basically 35 of my 49, or gosh, thirty yeah, not 49.

Uh uh 39 years.

Uh this city hasn't had competitive elections since the 80s outside of the recent election that Ross uh participated in.

Um, and that's not by accident, it's intentional.

Uh the at large system makes campaigns so expensive to run that those in office like running it's performative.

In practice, only candidates backed by the Columbus partnership can realistically compete.

Everyone knows the partnerships Republican billionaires who back you all, or most of you, uh, like the ha uh the Haslums and the and Waxner receive sweetheart deals from the city.

Meanwhile, our public schools are closing, essential city services are under-resourced.

Ask me and CWA workers are routinely sh uh shortchanged contract negotiations, and the council has failed to deliver a modern public transit system for a city our size.

I mean, it's insane.

You all know that the Columbus partnership decides who serves on council.

You all know it.

I mean, don't like you you know it.

Uh who becomes mayor and which neighborhoods are prioritized or neglected.

The results speak for themselves.

One of the highest infant mortality rates for a city our size, um, persistent economic and racial segregation and inequality, skywalk skyrocketing housing costs.

Literally, a park for disabled kids in one of our poorest neighborhoods is being axed for your campaign donors.

Current leaders were appointed, and I'll say when I say current leaders, I'll speak to only those that are in the the more recent and and Doran's is one of them.

Um but basically, you know, you all were appointed.

You you didn't build a base.

You you didn't have a base coming into the speech the the space, but here you are.

This was designed to hold you accountable to the people who made you made men.

And I'm talking about you, Rob, I'm talking about Zach Klein, I'm talking about Andrew Ginther, and I'm talking about Shannon Harden.

All of you are made men by a political system, an economic system for the rich.

On top of that, dark money has been used by your power structure to buy the central committee and make sure that you can endorse in primaries to maintain your political structure.

So the debate today is not about uh structure, it's about whether or not we have a functioning democracy.

It's a it's alarming, and it's an example of one of the few one of the few examples that I'm aware of where it's clear corporate capture of democratic institutions.

Hardin admitted in a meeting with the R City R R say uh group that uh that he has met with the partnership and he's gonna bury the the decision, and basically they're gonna do an at-large system, so this is performative in nature.

These people made you rob, but you have a choice.

You can still have an opportunity to stand up for your constituents, stand up for your neighbors, and support a system guided by fair elections and a democratic participation.

History and communities will judge you the same way that we judge Republicans for rigging gerrymandered state house elections.

Columbus deserves better than what you guys have offered.

And to be honest, and let's be honest about what we're doing here.

Council is afraid of real competition and is trying to protect a rigged system for themselves and the donors that keep them in power.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Platt.

Next we have Ms.

Any questions from Councilman White.

First, I don't think any of us are afraid of competition.

I'm sorry?

I don't think any of us are afraid of competition.

I will say for myself, who was not appointed.

I ran for my seat.

No one challenged me twice.

The first time I raised barely $25,000.

No one challenged me.

The whole system's rigged, dude.

I mean, like, come on.

You think you were so powerful, but we were so powerful.

It is like no one wanted to run.

How folks want to engage in democracy.

If you come with the defeatist attitude that this is not something you're capable of doing, it is likely to be the outcome that you see.

So what I'll say to that is uh I've been in meetings about how the appointed folks were appointed and how that is uh engaged.

And it's frankly fundamentally probably illegal how you guys have decided to do it.

Um that will come out in in the coming days, but my concern is that you've created a system in which there is no fundamental competition of a marketplace of ideas.

You didn't no one ran against you.

Can you imagine in a city our size, you thought you were so powerful that like no one wanted to run?

Like, come on.

It's because we've created a political system in which no one has a voice or the the economic power of the Columbus partnership.

No one has the voice to actually like uh compete with a uh a series of billionaires that you guys keep on handing out checks to that you voted for.

Thank you for your Republicans that you voted for.

Thank you.

Any other questions, Council members?

No, thank you.

I think Oh, you you do have a question?

I'm thinking or just a statement.

I'm thinking.

I mean, I I appreciate you coming in and what you shared.

I think that I will tell you, you know, coming into the system was difficult.

I did, you know, I was born in uh like I said, I was born in the city.

Can you tell us about your your sister, like how do you did you get it?

I can't remember if you were one of the appointees.

I I wasn't appointed during the pandemic.

I couldn't have to be able to do that.

Right.

So you were after like the the cops figured out that you guys were doing that and that okay, go ahead.

Well, I think that we're gonna see differently on this.

I would what I was trying to say is that I agree with you that this is a difficult system to come into.

I have like zero dollars in my campaign right now.

Like I oh, I know, because you have uh there's there's dark money and other powers that can run and endorse like so all I'm trying to say is that I'm agreeing with you that this is a difficult system for folks to come into.

And I appreciate you coming in and I appreciate you calling it out.

I do think that sometimes when we talk about this council, because we're all on the council, how folks got here and who and how and what we raised is all different for everyone.

That's all I'm saying.

And there are different degrees.

And I know you may or may not believe that.

I'm just saying that there are.

I did not, I think for me, the people who got me here, the people who helped me collect signatures during a pandemic, it was a it was majority black and brown women that we literally drove all over the city to collect those signatures.

And I think it's just disrespectful to them to believe that they did not do that work when we when they worked really hard to get me on that ballot.

And that's all that's all I think.

So the only thing I'll I'll push back on that is the idea that like uh to front that like Bracken Bro black and brown people in this city support the current uh infrastructure is is a lie.

I didn't think and is in as a disabuse of of the system.

And it's it's offensive.

That's not what I said.

First of all, I said the people in my community, the base that I had were black and brown women that helped me to get here.

As a brown woman, I said that, and I'm not disrespecting my community.

I'm saying what was a reality.

And you don't have to agree with that.

I'm just saying that I I literally started by saying that I agree with you.

This is a difficult system for us to come into.

It is difficult to run, it is difficult to raise money.

What do you mean by difficult?

I mean, are you gonna engage around uh the political process of the the Columbus partnership has had control over the city?

I I so can you speak to the Columbus Partnership?

The Columbus Partnership did not get help me get here.

I didn't I didn't meet with the Columbus Partnership.

The only reason I knew who some of them were was because I ran a nonprofit here.

They never met with me, they never said Lord S will you run.

They they actually didn't meet with me until I was elected.

That's all I'm saying.

So and what I say by being difficult for me, it was difficult.

It's been difficult for reach for me to raise money.

It has been difficult for me to continue to be in the seat.

It's difficult to, yes, citywide, the amount of money that you need to raise is insane.

I don't have the same sort of big corporate whatever.

I literally I literally put $500 into my own campaign account.

I'm just saying when folks come up, you act like we're all in monolith, people act like we're all a monolith, and we aren't.

How people got here was different.

I I would agree with that in that, like uh, for instance, Nancy has uh like spoken up in a way that I thought was super powerful.

I'm I'm uh uh disappointed that Green wasn't here, but like those are council members that have like spoken up for community communities where the the rest of us have not.

So that's fair, and I and and I would also say I'm happy to at any time share with you the places where I have spoken up and the places where I have I've I've abstained twice the entire time I've been on this council, and I thought to me that was an ethical issue.

That's all I'm saying.

But I'm saying when we come up here, it is just not factual to say that everybody does something all the time, because that's just not true.

It's not.

Look at your votes.

Thank you.

Um the next speaker to come for council is Ms.

Jennifer uh Creighton.

After uh Miss Creighton, we will have Mr.

Ted Welch.

Sorry, I have to grow three inches, but my husband keeps telling me there's no hope for that.

Um I'm gonna come off script a little bit real quick.

Um, I want you all to meet some of my kids.

Um, some of you all have seen Colton, and despite the cast on his arm currently, I've twisted no arms for them to stand up here.

They begged, borrowed, and pleaded for them to be up here.

So understand that these are the folks that are paying attention.

These are the people that we probably should be answering to more so than myself.

Okay, so bear that in mind when I talk about this.

Um, my name is Jennifer Crayton, and today I am here as an advocate for equity and transparency.

And I am here because what is being proposed for our city council is not just flawed, it is harmful.

We are told Columbus moves forward together, but our council structure tells a different story.

Our district seats are district seats in name only.

Every council member is elected citywide, not by the people who actually live in the districts they are supposed to represent.

And when everyone is accountable to everyone, too often they become accountable to no one.

Now we're being told that the solution is nine district seats and six at-large seats, but adding more at-large seats doesn't fix the situation, it multiplies it, it creates more opportunities for people who were not elected by a district majority to make decisions for that district.

It gives more power to voices who don't live with the consequences of those decisions, and I want to be clear.

But this proposal does not do that, it keeps the same structure that has already failed too many neighborhoods and locks in that failure in place.

McCoy Park is a clear example.

Residents spent years working with the city on an adaptive park plan.

Hundreds of thousands of public dollars went into that work, and when the vote came, the council member representing that district had not won the district majority.

She won citywide, and she voted to give away the only major green space in that district, even though the people who live there opposed it.

That is what happens when at-large seats override district voices.

Adding six at-large seats only increases the number of people who can override the will of individuals' districts.

There is a better way.

It is called our city R say.

Is built on a simple principle.

Districts should vote their own council members and only their own council members.

No at-large seats, no citywide override.

The drowning out, no drowning out the voices of people who are directly impacted.

Under this model, every district could finally have the power to choose someone who truly represents them.

Someone who answers to them, not to voters somewhere else.

That is real representation.

That is real accountability.

This isn't about personalities.

It is about power.

It is about fairness.

It is about whether residents in every district, not just the most politically influential ones, get to decide what happens in their own neighborhoods.

We deserve a council structure where every district has a real voice.

We deserve a city where promises made to underserved districts are not the first promises broken.

And we deserve a system that cannot take a community's only green space or any community asset without the district having the power to stop it.

This is our set city, and we deserve our say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I want to be clear, I am not an architect of R City R say.

I am not a sponsor of R City R say.

I did not pass out petitions for R City RSA.

I came across it, found that that worked for our district, for my kiddos, decades of underinvestment in these districts.

I hear East, I hear North, I hear South.

Where's the Southwest and where's the West side?

None in these conversations.

60 years.

You're telling me 60 years is okay to tell these kids that this is all they have.

That's what's important here.

Thank you, Ms.

Creighton.

I appreciate you being here and bringing these kids down here tonight to participate in their community.

I just want to clarify there is no council proposal at this point.

Um I know some folks have talked about that.

Um if there were to be one, we would certainly would have more public hearings and engagement with folks at this point.

Um, as I said at the outset, you know, this is about sort of level setting with the community and really again identifying um, you know, what are the normal structures uh here in Ohio, what are the normal structures across the country, and just begin a process.

Uh, as I said, if council chooses to move forward, uh, we would certainly have future hearings that would allow residents to again ask tough questions, whether folks like it or don't like it.

Um, and that does not mean that other initiatives can't continue to move forward as well and ultimately um you know make their case to people in the community.

So appreciate being here tonight.

I just want to make that small point of clarification.

Uh, and uh and I'll point out my own clarification.

In the beginning I said it, this proposal coming from city council.

So I recognize that it is proposal only.

What I'm telling you.

Yeah, there's really no proposal.

For how we move forward.

If if if we had a proposal, it would literally be up there on screen, and I would want you know, want folks to be able to meaningfully engage in the marketplace of ideas on this.

There's nothing at this point for, I mean, I there's nothing at this point for for folks to really.

Well, then I throw down the challenge.

Instead of just being on our main thoroughfares through Sullivan or Mound or Broad Street, come meet me on Richardson Avenue.

I'll I'll make you a cup of coffee, and we'll walk the neighborhood at five o'clock in the morning when these kiddos got to get on the bus to see exactly what it is that we need and why I support our city, our side.

Um, I would I would love for you to make me a cup of coffee.

That's my love language.

I just also wanted to say thank you for bringing your kids, and thank you for having them be part of the process.

I think it is important.

We talk about this often, we have young people in here.

It's important for them to be part of these conversations early on.

This is their city too, and they have some of the best ideas, and so you have a very, very um uh powerful mom.

And so thank you for supporting her too, and thank you for having them come out here today.

Thank you.

Um, our next speaker is supposed to be Mr.

Ted Welch, but I I don't see him now.

Um I will call if folks are not present.

I'll try to call them again at the end of the hearing to circle back.

Uh, but our next speaker would be Ms.

Morgan Harper.

After Ms.

Harper, we'd have Mindy Justice.

Can you hear me?

Ooh, okay, a little louder than I thought.

Well, thank you for holding today's hearing.

I really appreciate it.

My name is Morgan Harper.

I'm co-founder of Columbus Stand Up, and I was born and raised here in Columbus.

Seven years ago, I ran a grassroots campaign for Congress because I felt like our community was approaching a breaking point.

Too many people on the wrong side of the economic equation, resources not distributed equitably, driving around the east side and feeling like it was forgotten.

We knocked doors all over Columbus during that campaign, and what has always stuck with me from those conversations was hearing how disillusioned people were, especially black people, with government with a system that never seemed to bend to our benefit.

That's one of the reasons why we started Columbus Standup.

We realized that people had lost trust, and we couldn't build that back by just showing up around election time.

Engagement had to be year-round and consistent and rooted in service.

So we've done that the past few years.

We've hosted candidate forums and community events, many of which you all have attended.

But there's something more fundamental about the electoral system that is also driving this disillusionment that no community event can solve for.

People in Columbus are rightly recognizing that their votes don't matter.

They don't matter much for many of the state house and congressional seats that are gerrymandered and predetermined, and they also don't matter much when local elections are predetermined because of party endorsements and sample ballots and mailers the party pays for even when there hasn't been an endorsement, and just the vast sum of money that's necessary to run in a citywide race.

And there's a through line to this disillusionment and the leadership running the state of Ohio and in the White House.

It starts right here with elections in Columbus.

That's why I'm backing the R City R say coalition.

Once implemented, the simple fix would give people in Columbus more direct representation.

It would start to chip away at that feeling so many Columbus residents have that their perspectives are not reflected in government decision making.

It would start to restore the connection people want to feel with their elected officials, and it would allow city council members, you all included, to focus on a smaller geography, as has been discussed today.

Alternative solutions with a mix of at large seats and at and district seats are being floated, though understood, an official proposal is not on the table.

But even if these alternatives are coming from a genuine place of concern about governance and NIMBYism, I assure you that this is not how they will be perceived.

These counter efforts will be seen as yet another attempt by those in power to continue to control Columbus rather than letting the people decide.

It will feed the disdain brewing in the city from big betrayals like McCoy Park and more persistent and pernicious indignities, like having to leave your neighborhood to get to the good grocery store and looking at that same piece of sidewalk that never gets fixed.

So we, the community, are uniting behind the simple one district, one vote fix.

We are chipping away at the skepticism so many working class people in Columbus feel.

We are painting a picture of what a future Columbus governed by elected officials who have the ability to be more deeply embedded in community can look like.

And people are excited.

We welcome you to join them.

Debates about policy and refinements to the structure can come another day, but today must be about change.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Harper.

Any question, Council members?

Tina, thank you.

Morgan, I just have one question.

Oh, I'm sorry, Custom Ross.

Just one question.

Do you believe that districts as drawn are actually representative if if switched from residential to voting districts?

Or do you think that there should be some changes in how the districts are drawn?

Even if they're tomorrow, do you do you think that if we change the districts today from residential to strictly voting districts, that there will be some neighborhoods that may feel disenfranchised from the process?

More so than they do now.

No, I actually think, and this is one of the reasons why.

So I don't I don't know exactly what metric you're talking about in terms of people feeling disenfranchised.

Do you have a more specific?

I'm asking you do you think that the districts now, as drawn as residential districts, are going to be representative if we change them straight to voting districts, or do you think that there needs to be a redrawing of the districts?

No, I think we should stick with the districts as drawn for a few reasons.

I mean, some have already been discussed today.

One, it's simple.

Again, the confusion that can come from people having to sort through all these different proposals.

Uh, I think we will lose the impact, the really great impact, like I was saying, that could come from implementing this kind of change.

Two, changes are not necessarily permanent, as you all are discussing.

I mean, you have the ability and we have a government to govern and changes could come in the future.

But directly to answer your question, yes, I do think that the districts as drawn, and actually meant I wrote about this in a recent column in Mahogany magazine would allow for better representation across a lot of metrics.

We have districts as currently drawn that are my majority minority districts, and I do believe that we will continue to see and hopefully potentially even more different kinds of people who are elected, but certainly I have no doubts about the fact that we will continue to have strong black representation if we were to move to this all district system.

Okay, so you think do you think that they should stay if we redraw them and if we don't redraw them, change them from residential to voting.

Do you think they should be permanent or do you think we should be considering I don't think anything in government should necessarily be permanent?

I think we should always be looking at the facts on the ground.

We should be understanding how the people are perceiving the job that city council is doing and whether they're feeling like it's sufficiently repres sufficiently represented.

And I think you know, the the presentation that we got from the policy uh expert shows that there's a lot of different approaches to this across the country, but we do stand out as one of the very few, if only one of what two or a couple expert would correct me if I'm wrong, that don't have this district-based representation.

But that doesn't mean that we stay how we are forever.

In fact, I think that mindset is what has gotten us in this problem in the first place that any change we make means no other changes could ever come.

Sure.

That's a that's a scarcity mindset, but I get why we have it because he's kind of been trained to think like that in Columbus, in this whole country, certainly in the state of Ohio, and that's what I'm saying.

We have the opportunity here to think so much bigger and really embrace government and the power that can come from good governance.

And that's why I'm supporting our city our say.

So one, so do you think that that we should put in a review period where we're actually reviewing to see if this new model works?

I would expect that every person that I vote for for Columbus City Council, that everyone else who lives in different districts is voting for, would consider it their responsibility as an elected member of Columbus City Council to constantly be revisiting all the decisions they make to make sure that their constituents agree with them and that they're reflecting what their constituents want.

And in fact, by having this district system to city council member Baroso de Paya Padilla's position, you don't have to worry about these 900,000 people.

You don't have to be putting necessarily so much money of your own into running these campaigns to keep track of 900,000 people.

You're gonna have a much more limited geography to be able to be in such closer touch to make sure that your governance continues to reflect what the people want.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ms.

Harper.

Um I do appreciate that point about thinking about systems evolving and not necessarily being static over time, which I think is an important part of this conversation.

Um Mindy Justice, we have Miss Elizabeth Reed.

Hi, Council members, good evening.

Um I come today here, Mindy Justice uh personally, not representing somebody.

Um I am a district seven Columbus resident.

Um I'm a housing and mobility advocate.

I'm a renter by choice and privilege, and I care deeply, deeply about neighborhood voice, especially as our city grows.

I think it's fascinating that I actually have a profession.

I come from a profession of community engagement.

I spend a lot of time both professionally and personally advocating for neighborhood voice, and that's the lens through which I talk today.

Um where I stand on this topic won't come as a surprise.

I've written about it publicly, um, so I'm entering it sort of into public record now.

I do not believe that we have to fall victim to an all or nothing system.

And I don't think we have to fall victim to saying that a any form of at-large representation is always wrong and bad.

We need to change things.

The 25 election made that crystal clear.

Just because we do that does not mean that we have to go all in on something else.

The reason that I say that isn't to protect because the sitting council members, it's because of my lens from the housing advocacy perspective.

And I respect, I know we've been talking a little bit about this dynamic a few times over, but I have looked and just over and over again.

One of our biggest challenges continues to be housing.

And we have done so much good work, so much really difficult work.

And that progress cannot be pulled back.

We have to do more, we have to keep working.

These things are macro and they take time and they deserve macro representation, so that there can be that lens of understanding.

We see it with the Senate and Congress.

We see at a at a more macro level that sometimes you need district representation and other times you need a Senate sort of macro representation.

It's it's proven over and over again.

Um, and we know that research really does show when you have a fully at-large system, there is significant declines in housing production.

I'm concerned about that personally.

I don't have a vested interest into whether or not we do or don't go in this direction.

I know from that specific lens, I am very concerned about housing production and the unhoused members of our population or those on the lens uh or on the on the balance right now.

A strong hybrid model, a strong hybrid model.

So what I am here to suggest today is I strongly support change, and I believe fully that the answer is better.

And a full-throated hybrid system.

Um I would suggest that the system of nine seats we have today, we should add two members.

Um but if we're to keep it with nine, that we do six district and three at large.

Um that number's been thrown around before.

I don't remember where I heard it first.

Um but I would also consider a setup of seven district and four at large.

I understand and really respect the distrust, but I think we all have to come together as individual community members and say, did these people create this distrust exactly?

Or is it sometimes in part because of our state and our federal, it all has to work together.

It's a really complex conversation.

I appreciate the time and the nuanced approach that you are taking to looking at it deeply.

Thank you, Miss Justice.

Question, Council members.

See none.

Thank you.

Um I don't see Miss Reed with us, or next speaker will be Mr.

Daniel uh Catello.

After Ms.

Catello, we have Mr.

Jordan McLaughlin.

Thank you.

Thank you, President Pro Tem Dorans and Council members.

My name is Dan Catello.

I'm a volunteer with R City RC.

A coalition of Columbus citizens who believe in one simple idea.

Your representative should represent you.

When I talk to neighbors across the city, I hear the same reaction, surprise, and confusion, and they often say, wait, that's not already how it works.

In one of the largest cities in America, a candidate for a city council much must reach more voters than a candidate for Congress.

Every council seat is decided by the entire city, which means every council seat can be won by whoever has the loudest and most expensive bullhorn.

Our ask is not radical and it's not complicated.

Our City RC's petition makes one change that the representative of a district be elected by that district.

Nine true representatives, accountable to their neighborhoods, accountable to the people living in the city.

I'll tell you why this matters to me personally.

This past year, decisions made at this council, decisions that directly affect my district moved fast and moved without us.

I reached out to every single member of the council, every one of you, and I only heard back from one.

One.

And that council member, Councilmember Green, who I sincerely thank, even there, though they're not here today, is not my representative from my district.

I don't blame you for not responding.

You shouldn't be asked to respond to over 800,000 voters, most of whom are not in your district.

But here is what you need to be asked.

So who are your constituents?

Is it your neighbors?

Or is it whoever can afford to reach nearly a million people?

The people who need their government most are rarely the ones with the resources to influence it the most.

Real districts fix this.

Real districts mean a resident in Hilltop knows exactly who speaks for them.

A family in Linden knows who to call, and that council member knows that if they don't listen, their own neighbors will hold them accountable.

Councilmember Weish has already signed our petition, and I thank you.

And I ask each of you to do the same and support our city RSA.

Do not confuse the voters with some other measure.

And do not stand in the way of a citizen's petition, the purest expression of the democracy you are elected to serve.

The people of Columbus are asking to be heard.

We are not asking for much.

Just a voice, just a representative, someone who will answ when we call.

Thank you.

Any questions, Councilmembers?

No, I do.

Next we have Mr.

Jordan McLaughlin.

After Mr.

McLaughlin, we have Mr.

Jonathan Beard.

Thank you, Council, for having me.

My name is Jordan McLaughlin, and I founded Evicks Private Equity Columbus.

And I'm also a supporter of R City RSA.

When I last spoke here, I left here cautiously optimistic.

And now I'm back disappointed and frustrated.

I was very shocked to hear that Council President Harden would use housing as one of the reasons to not allow our citizens to have proper representation.

Because he claims that it's such an urgent concern.

I can tell you my experience with council with uh President Harden and with the empty chair mayor is that housing isn't really a priority.

I came here in July of last year with a very simple idea.

Stop private equity from being able to buy homes.

After getting the cold shoulder for President Harden, I went and did the work myself.

I came back with a proposal and support.

And council said they were going to look into it, and I appreciate that.

And stuff takes time.

So I waited patiently for months.

But then a billionaire comes and knocks on Columbus door, and suddenly council becomes the most efficient government body in the state by giving away a 20-acre park to a billionaire and gave him 25 million dollars of taxpayer dollars for the pleasure of it.

Sorry.

You did this in a matter of weeks.

Why can that happen in a matter of weeks?

But something that would actually help the people of Columbus take years.

Like, I've got more stuff.

If you don't want to do private equity, I've got vacancy taxes.

I've got rental licensing and inspections.

I've got right of first refusal.

I've got a ton of stuff.

We can get this done in three weeks.

If you can do it for the Haslems, you can do it for us.

This is why people are not.

Because they don't think you care, because your actions keep showing differently.

You've lost the trust.

I've always said if if you want a future that you can believe in, we have to build it ourselves.

And that's what our City RSA is trying to do.

Because we're going to do it ourselves.

You talk about you're worried about neighborhoods fighting each other.

All I see is a bunch of neighborhoods joining together to do this.

So I ask, please support our city RSA.

There are ways forward.

And I really hope that you will recommit yourself to getting effective things done for housing in Columbus.

Thank you.

Any questions, Councilmembers?

Sorry.

Next we have Mr.

Jonathan Beard, and after Mr.

Beard, we have Haley Merchon.

Merrin.

All right, good afternoon.

Thank you, Councilmember Dorns and members of the council.

I'm John Beard, 1815 Franklin Park South.

This conversation started in 2012 because I was upset.

I'm a housing community development professional.

I was running a nonprofit that secured the largest competitive grant Columbus has ever gotten 100 million dollars from HUD.

And through my work implementing this grant in areas of pervasive poverty and social distress, one of the concerns I had was that we had a Tea Party in Congress that was trying to defund the program.

It was 10 million dollars per year over 10 years.

Tea Party was trying to defund it.

And at the same time, I couldn't get any support from Columbus City government.

Okay.

And I couldn't tell the difference between Columbus Democrats and Tea Party Republicans in Congress.

Okay?

That's just fact.

We can talk about housing all you want.

I can talk about how you defund community development corporations that start to get good at putting down more and more houses, right?

They get good at taking down land and putting in houses for affordability.

Cities defunded them.

I could talk about your tax abatement policy for affordability, where you give um tax abatements in exchange for developer committing to make certain percentage of house housing affordable.

Yet they never do it.

You don't ask for information, it never gets done, it's just a giveaway of all.

So we can talk about all that if you want.

Um main reason I'm here is I've you know I started the council district effort in 2015, first person to get on the ballot and get a citizen initiated charter amendment on the ballot in Columbus history, and interested in the same, and started meeting with a couple of the groups that were meeting, and was disturbed by the simple fix that's proposed by R City RSA because it takes us back to 1950s, Jim Crow era government where the no-majority black council districts.

We just saw what happened in Louisiana V.

Calice that I've been talking about for the last three months to everybody, right?

Everybody's all outraged about that.

Why would we do the same thing here?

Okay, it's not their job to put together a good proposal, it's your job.

That's what we elect you for.

So I appreciate the council hearing.

I would encourage council to step up to put together a proposal, it could be nine districts, it could be you know, three or four at large and nine districts.

I'm not all that concerned about six districts, six at large is too many, right?

I said you got some research that said three that said the square root of the number of districts, if the number fit large is the square root of the number of districts that gives the voters most power, right?

Something like that is reasonable and justifiable.

Six districts is just bullshit.

Um, you know, I'll add to what the uh director talked about in terms of the founding after the um home rule was enacted in 1912 and 1914.

The city started the charter agreement, the charter proposal, the seven members at large is part of the progressive reform, which was also very heavily anti-immigrant because we had Italian neighborhoods and that kind of thing.

Um the seven-member council suggestion was uh the proposal was run by a lawyer named Hugh Huntington of the bank, right?

And the and the campaign was run out of the city of out of the chamber of commerce office, okay?

That's what at large does, and we gotta understand that that's been in place all the whole time, right?

So if you do some at large, just keep it reasonable, okay?

And you'll get support for that.

Um, got a lot of notes here that I can't read.

But anyway, it's it's the council's job to put together a proposal that we can trust, not citizens' jobs.

The one that's on the table right now is not a good proposal for black Columbus.

This started out of the pain of Black Columbus.

It got co-opted by other folk, and they left Black Columbus behind.

And I don't care how they try to whitewash it, that's what happened.

And um, you can't let that happen, please.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr.

Beard.

Uh Councilman.

Thanks for being here, Mr.

Beard.

I know that you had had uh another proposal.

Can you talk a little bit about um the black vote and your thoughts?

I think a little bit to um what council member Ross was saying a little bit uh was saying before in terms of our districts now and what do the voting numbers look like?

Yeah.

So the districts now are horribly gerrymandered, okay?

There's not one majority black district in Columbus.

It's so easy to create geographically compact, contiguous communities of interest that are majority black.

Okay, it's so easy to do that.

I got on days redistricting and did it in about half an hour.

I had two um drawing majority black, one drawn uh majority minority, a third one drawing majority minority, and a fourth one that was 47% minority, okay.

And I didn't use race as a primary factor in drawing the lines.

Compact, contiguous communities of interest.

I ran a little league, right?

Where did my kids come from?

Right?

Bam.

Where do people live?

Where do people shop?

Where do people go to the liquor store?

Right now, in in um council member Ross's district where I live.

They would have us believe that we shop down on South High Street.

There's no reason the nearest side and down by Grove City should be in the same district.

Okay, that's gerrymandered, okay?

We gotta get that out of out of anything going forward.

Um I'm sorry, did I answer your question at all?

Yeah, I just I I was just interested.

I know that when we there's a there's a breakdown of um race in the districts, which is a little a little challenging because I know that census numbers don't capture everyone, and even how people um what they cross off in the census is not always accurate or doesn't always accurately portray the people who live there.

So I was just wondering, just in terms of I know that that was something that you had talked about, you talked about it here.

I just wanted to get your thoughts a little bit more because we had not had the opportunity to talk.

So thank you.

So you use the 10-year census, that's that's established.

You use the 10-year census numbers.

Um a commission might inform it with more recent numbers if they can, but you use the 10-year census numbers, you draw the best lines you can.

They're not gonna be perfect, everybody knows that.

But I mean, goddamn, Columbus is 27% black, and we have no majority black districts in this in the current residential districts.

That doesn't make a bit of sense, that should not go forward.

It's disrespectful, it disenfranchises black Columbus, geographically connected uh black citizens have a right to elect cans of our own choosing without having our votes diluted by the majority, okay.

And it's you know, the LDF wrote letters, they were here in town at my behest um back in 2015, 2017, and one of the things Shen Harden wrote her letter saying we have a diverse council.

The goal of voting rights is not a diverse council.

The goal is that geographically concentrated minority communities have a right to elect the candidate of their choosing, regardless of the skin color of that candidate.

Okay.

So Columbus has done this thing of appointing black folk, you know, after 1969, they started appointing black folk and then running them as incumbents with the um you know business community and democratic party endorsement.

So they maintain this the sense of diversity, but that didn't mean they represent us.

I can tell you from working in community for 20 years, they sold us out time and time again.

I saw it time and time again.

Um, we've we've got to have people that that that look like us that that we not that look like us, people that we put into power if we live in geographically.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

And I would I would just I'm not a good public speaker, right?

But I do submit rid, I submitted risk written testimony.

I encourage everybody to be that a lot of the questions you asked today were answered in my written testimony.

So it's there.

Thank you.

And I also don't mind correspondence back.

I spent sent a bunch of letters and have gotten no response from any member of council.

You get you get responses from me.

Yes.

It took us about two months to get together, but yeah, we met.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Beard.

Our next speaker is uh Miss Haley Mirrin, and after Ms.

Mayor, we have Mr.

Joe Decker.

I apologize if I got your name wrong.

Oh, it's okay.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Haley Mahern, and I'm a district seven resident.

And later this week I'll become a two-time graduate from the Ohio State University with my MPA.

For my MPA capstone, I researched Columbus City Council's election system.

My research focus on whether Columbus constituents would be better served, represented, and advocated for by an at-large or bi-district voting system.

Combining existing literature with my own statistical analyses of Columbus's ACS census data, it becomes apparent that a true bi-district system is essential for equitable representation.

Existing literature proves that at-large voting enables vote dilution, which weakens the voting strength of minority populations.

Alternatively, by district systems have proven increased descriptive representation of minority communities and increased attention to localized services that address the concerns of all communities, not just those with the loudest voices.

These impacts are further compounded when racial clustering occurs in different voting districts.

My statistical analysis of Columbus's population data proves that Columbus experiences this racial clustering.

At the across the at-large Columbus area, the white population makes up nearly 58% of the total population, making them the at-large majority.

However, district nine achieves a single relative minority majority with the black and African American population being the largest population count in the district with 41.5%.

When evaluating the districts through the lens of white and non-white populations, districts four, five, eight, and nine all achieve minority majorities.

Multiple statistical tests of this data found that the racial differences across voting districts is statistically significant.

This means that the distribution of races across voting districts is not random and is significant enough that it must be accounted for in our voting system.

The fact that individual voting districts achieve minority majorities supports the idea that Columbus is better served by a bi-district system, as using an at-large system enables the white majority population to overpower the localized preferences of minorities.

The data analysis results can also be used to evaluate Columbus's voting system in terms of the Gingles test, which is established in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and is the judicial test to determine if vote dilution is occurring.

When the three requirements of the test are fulfilled, it proves that voting districts unjustly dilute minority voting power and they must be restructured.

My data analyses prove that Columbus fulfills two of the three requirements, supporting the idea that our current election system unfairly dilutes minority voting strength.

The third test cannot be accurately evaluated without racialized voter data, which does not exist in Ohio.

Establishing a true bi-district system would increase minority representation, better address localized policy concerns, and will prevent minority vote dilution.

To maintain the current at-large system is to ignore the significant racial variation across voting districts and to allow for the current vote dilution to continue suppressing the wishes of minorities in our communities.

My research has affirmed my support and shaped my request for the R City RSA proposal to be accepted.

I look forward to seeing our community become a more equitable and representative city.

Council Cover.

First of all, Haley, congratulations on the uh the double graduation.

Thank you.

Yes, congratulations, congratulations.

Also, um, can we get a copy of your absolute of your report?

Um Andy's right there.

And if you can if we can exchange information, I'd I would love to see the data that you collected, and it would be I mean, we've had data on the districts, and some of this we knew, but I would love to see what you pulled.

Uh, because I think it would be really interesting.

And thank you for doing that.

Absolutely.

Any other questions for council members?

No, that was my question.

And congratulations to you as well.

Thank you.

See none.

Uh, our next speaker is Mr.

Joe Decker.

And after Mr.

Decker, we'll have Mr.

Will Easton.

Good evening, members, our fellow citizens, too.

Thank you for letting me be with you.

My name is Joe Decker.

I am a large I am a longtime Columbus resident, a social studies teacher at Mifflin Middle School, and a proud member of the Columbus Education Association's Board of Governors.

I am here tonight to testify on behalf of more than 4,000 members of our union and in full support of the proposal put forth by our city, our say coalition.

For too long, residents of Columbus have been disenfranchised by a system in which the powerful and wealthy choose their politicians.

I don't vote for who represents Cleveland or Cincinnati in the State House, and I shouldn't get to decide who represents neighborhoods on the other side of town.

And yet, just last year, we saw a city district clearly choose who they wanted to represent them only to have their will overturned by an at-large vote in another area of the city.

The current at-large system means that campaign donations of money to interest are more crucial than the support of candidates' neighbors.

This artificially constructed barrier discourages working class Columbus residents from running for city council.

It opens council up to more influence peddling.

Just last week, City Council voted to turn over $25 million to out-of-town billionaire Jimmy Haslam.

Council voted to hand him one of the few parks on the south side of the city when McCoy Park had already been promised to the residents of the South Side and members of the community who were counting on the planned renovation of the park into a fully handicapped accessible resource for the public.

I teach my students about democracy, about their role in electing representatives, and how important it is to get involved.

We've just seen the Roberts Court overturn representative democracy and allow de facto racial gerrymandering.

The state of Ohio already does that.

I tell my students they should leave high school ready to vote so that they can protect their family and communities in the public square.

I've had many students who would be amazing public servants if they choose to take that route after graduation.

So teachers are supporting our city, our say as a means to fulfill the promise of democracy espoused in our classrooms.

Our students and our city deserve no less.

Stand with us, sign the petition.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Decker.

Any questions for Council members?

Mr.

Decker, thank you for your service to our kids.

Uh next we'll have Mr.

Will Eden, and after Mr.

Eaton, we will have Mr.

Joe Motell.

Uh good evening, everyone.

Uh Councilmember Dorrance, thank you for calling this hearing.

Councilmember Day Athler and Green in Absentia, thank you for your courage and your principled opposition to the absurd and immoral giveaway of 25 million of our taxpayer dollars plus a vital city park to shady billionaires who are currently throwing fundraisers for Vivek Ramaswamy.

My name is William Easton, and I live in Clintonville.

My wife and I raised our daughter through CCS schools, and now she's doing very well out at a top-tier public university in California.

So the other day I remembered back to a moment when she was about seven or eight years old.

And those of you who are parents will probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

I don't remember the exact topic, maybe it was Santa or the Easter bunny, or maybe I was still trying to harsh uh shield her from the harsh realities of the life that we live as grown-ups.

But she suddenly turned to me and said, Dad, can we just stop pretending?

And I realized she was growing up a lot faster than I thought.

So I have one request for everyone in the room tonight.

Can we just stop pretending?

I'd like to think that the council meeting held on April 20th was one at which the merits of a uh proposed policy would be honestly debated, and that city council would have the courage to turn down an obviously horrible deal.

But we all know that vote was a predetermined outcome, and that council president Harden's amendments and his theatrics were completely meaningless.

I'd like to think that another parcel of land can be found somewhere in the neighborhood to replace McCoy Park, including the promised and budgeted recreation facilities for people with disabilities.

But we all know that no such parcel exists, and that purchase remediation, planning, design, and construction for a new park will take at least five years, if not more.

I'd like to think that council's sudden interest in this particular topic to fix a system that's correctly been called stupid, confusing, and weird is genuine.

But we all know that after years of silence about our fake district system, this hearing was called only a few short weeks after the R City R say coalition began collecting signatures to put real change onto the ballot this November.

I'd like to think that this hearing today was called with open minds, no predetermined outcome, and that council might truly be interested in a more representative and accountable democracy here in Columbus.

But we all know that you're already planning to put a competing measure on the ballot to confuse voters that will include six big money at-large crony seats so that corporations can continue their control of our city council.

Finally, I'd like to think that each council member here and the votes you take are responsive to the needs and voices of working class residents of each of your districts.

But we all know this is little more than a managed democracy with conservative donors like the Haslums, the Wexners, Peter Edwards, real estate developers, and the Columbus Partnership calling the shots on who's allowed to run for office and which policies can and cannot be debated here at council.

Most of us in this room tonight uh here are adults.

Can we all please stop pretending?

I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Ms.

Eason.

Any question, Council members?

Thank you.

None.

Uh, our next speaker is Mr.

Joe Motill after Ms.

Mosilville, uh, Mr.

Willis Brown.

Good evening, uh, Pro Tem Dorns, members of City Council, Joe Motill, 167 West Cook Road.

Let's be honest.

This public hearing is taking place because city council and the mayor are extremely concerned about a well-organized grassroots ballot initiative that has the potential to disrupt over 100 years of dismantling a pay-to-place system of city government that rubber stamps legislation and silences the voices of everyday people and neighborhoods.

And if you were so concerned about creating a more democratic election system, then this public hearing should have included topics like placing strict limits on in-kind contributions, which are currently unlimited, and as you know, were abused during the recent district seven council election to the tune of no less than 340,000 combined from council members Dorns and Remy.

Let's lower campaign contribution amounts.

Prohibit the acceptance of campaign contributions from vendors, developers, and other persons or groups who have a financial interest in city business while such business is pending during election cycle.

Include the use of taxpayer-paid CTV for candidates.

Lower the number of signatures to get on the ballot.

Between 1894 and 1914, Irish, German, African American, Slavic, and other immigrant neighborhoods slowly had their 38 members city council representation stripped away by from them by the city's elite.

City Council currently functions just as it was meant to in 1914, when they abolished all of that to create an undemocratic seven at-large and then nine at-large seats in 2018 that continues to pander to the rich and powerful while ignoring the will of the people.

On May 1st, 1914, this corrupt and undemocratic at-large election system was exposed in the then Columbus Evening dispatch by former City of Columbus Assistant Law Director George Jones, who stated, quote, the laboring men will not be benefited or represented in a council in a council of seven men elected at-large, four of whom at least will be corporation handpicked and will vote as the corporations dictate as against the interest of the men who work.

End of quote.

This would be further confirmed in a paper published in May 2015 by the Harvard Business Law Review about the origins of the Columbus Partnership, which states in part, quote, Wexner recalled the origins of the partnership.

One day in the in the late 1980s, J.W.

Wolfe called me into his office and asked if I wanted to join him as one of the three or four people who decides what happens in town, like who's mayor and where the highways go.

Wexner initially said no, but further encouragement from Governor Voinovich led Wexner to partner with John Wolfe and convene what would become the current partnership.

In closing, Columbus is the last major city in the U.S.

that utilizes this archaic power controlling solely at-large city council election system because our mayor, city council, and our city's power brokers are fearful of political discourse and the inability to control an independent-minded city council members' actions.

So I fully support the nine district, our city our say ballot initiative and realigning racially gerrymandering mandored district boundaries sooner than later.

If you recall they're not to be looked at until I believe it's 2030, and uh we need to look at that sooner.

And just real quick, I want to say I totally disagree with this affordable housing crap coming from a couple of the speakers, how this is gonna hurt things.

Zone in is taking care of that.

We have legislation that addresses where and what type of housing goes in.

So that's nonsense.

That's more of the rhetoric that we had to face in 2018 from from those who who presented fear mongering to the opposition of our of our ballot initiative.

And this is more of the same that's coming from a couple of the speakers here tonight.

So I'm glad to answer any questions.

Any question, Council members?

Okay, seeing none, our next speaker is Mr.

Willis Brown, and I believe uh Liz Reed is now with us, and I know it's her birthday, so I'm actually going to call you up next to make sure.

So, no Willis uh coming up, but uh uh Elizabeth Reed, if you want to uh jump up here for the next speaker, just in case you'd like to enjoy your birthday not in City Hall.

Uh Willis, nice to see you again.

I love the beer by it.

Uh good evening, City Council members, and uh thank you, uh Councilmember Dorns and uh for having this and standing up and also that I'm here with our district representative, council member Ross.

And and you know, you hear all these different things, and and and it's important to know that.

But having nine zero is a good thing.

And we say, well, at large, everyone is constantly talking about at large at large.

But we know that the average person which government is supposed to, this job, this job y'all have here was supposed to be a part-time gig.

It's now a profession, it's a career.

You know, you you came in, you did your job, you went back.

Now it's being steered where you go to the next level to the next level, and that's fine.

But the at-large system allows those that would have the money and the wherewithal to put themselves in these seats.

And we've seen it, we know it, so we are saying nine districts is what's important to start.

Yes, we know we have to look at the map.

We said we're gonna it would be done before uh to and after the census, that's good, it will be done.

But we have a representation of of people at our council now that represents uh a mixture, which is good.

That's what we need to do more of.

But I think what I'm gonna present is that as a member of the our city, I'll say, and also one of the signers on the petition, because I believe that that's how it should be done.

And we can always expand, but I think we don't want to confuse it.

That's why we say keep it simple and to make it happen.

And I'm gonna give a reference of how this system failed the people.

We had a very contentious development issue with with Trinity Baptist Church and the residents in Bronzeville, which I'm a resident of.

And it was so contentious that the pastor threatened to kill a member in our neighborhood.

It was very awful.

We thought that at that point we came to council that we would get some support.

Well, it passed.

But here's the issue.

Our representative at the time was Councilmember Favors.

You had nine members here.

You didn't have to vote for them.

The vote on that issue, barring the intensity of it was nine zero.

We, the people didn't even get one vote.

When she knew what was going on, never even ask us to come here to negotiate or discuss how we can we wasn't against development.

We want to be just want to make it a better development.

But that's the failure.

The failure is that we cannot even rally the money to vote her out.

Thank God she left.

Because with the system of district representation, if that happened and we had true representation, we will vote you out the next time.

Because not that we wanted something done, but that you didn't give us the respect.

We've gone to war, people have lost their lives because of disrespect.

And that's what she did to us in that seat.

She didn't bring us in to discuss it, nor did she give us one vote.

That's what we do.

Everything here on the vote, the democratic process.

What she said, I don't care about y'all, and I don't care what your issues are, I am not even going to give you the vote.

You had the majority to vote for the project.

You could have given us that.

And that's why I'm saying nine seats and nine seats only, vote the person in from your district, because if they do something like that, you can vote them out.

And we must stick to that because that's the principle of democracy here.

And that's what I represent.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I don't know.

Maybe, maybe not.

Council Murray Wetch.

Mr.

Brown, thank you for being here.

Thank you for your advocacy and always coming.

I remember that vote.

I knew you were kind of going there, and I was kind of curious.

So I have a circumstance in my district, right?

Where I have met with the residents, I have sent the developer back to have this negotiation, and the answer still comes back with no.

This should go somewhere else.

How do we as council members make informed decisions on the future of the city if there is always this fear that the one vote is the one in which folks decide they're gonna challenge because of that?

If you're in that district, you have nine people, you can vote for your people.

Let the other nine take the load.

Yeah, I mean, if it's politics.

And people, you must let them know that the citizens are not dumb.

They understand, but if you give them the support, let the others take that weight.

That's what you should do.

But is that leadership?

Yes, it is appropriate because you're supporting the people whether you have all on your side or not.

You're saying I'm sticking with what is in the best interest.

It may not be what you may want, but it I'm gonna vote for this because it's in the best interest overall for your district.

It's politically advantageous.

Well, that's not you, you're here to do a job and leave.

Politically, you have to understand that.

Yeah.

And we keep we we we fail to understand that.

It is just like this.

Let me a little bit uh leniency here.

We talk about the housing, housing, housing, housing.

Let me tell you.

That's wonderful, but we don't hear nothing to say.

What are you gonna do for their jobs?

Where's the employment for them?

We have an issue coming in our neighborhood in the Bronze neighborhood with with the uh the the Soya Towers.

And we're saying we gotta have one, we don't even have people skilled to build that bill.

We have one year, they're gonna start demolishing it.

We have one year before they start to reconstruct it.

We don't even have people ready for that.

And yet we talk about jobs.

Why can't they work on the project and then get an apartment?

We talk about housing.

We have to talk about jobs.

Not we all we're gonna do is what we did in the 60s, and I'm from New York City and from Harlem.

What we did, we housed the poor people in the project, and we're doing it again.

We have to have employment when you talk about housing.

But and I'm just gonna go back to my district because this is a part of the zone in phase that has not come but is on the radar to go in.

At the very next parcel to this development I'm talking about in particular, it would be mixed use commercials.

So you could have jobs, you could have housing.

And the neighbors who live in the homes around that one parcel don't want it.

They don't want that.

They don't want that.

Then you must educate them how that can they can better.

And we've had the education and we've talked about it, and they still don't want it.

Well, then you have to make that decision.

So then I have to make a political decision.

Well, again, that's why you're there.

Whatever happens later on, that is what you have to do.

Now, what the consequences is you can't control that.

But you have to be true to you and to them and to your job for the people as you sit in that seat.

And and by by by large, it's a comfortable seat if you stick to those principles that govern you as an individual.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Brown.

Um next speaker to come for council is Miss Elizabeth Reed, then we have Pastor Kevin Dudley.

Good evening, council members.

Thank you so much for giving me grace to be here and uh calling me up.

Um I have no prepared speech today.

Um I just want to share with you my thoughts about this particular topic.

Four weeks ago, I was completely fine with the way um elections came to city council.

Um I got really involved because of McCoy Park, and I began to learn how districts could change the outcome of that particular vote.

Um, had we had districts.

I know that in our district, which is district seven, that there were two council members who were competing for the same position, and had that person won, that vote would have gone different, and we would not be spending time trying to save McCoy Park.

Um so that's the bottom line.

But I do think it's a little bit more complex than I think I do agree with our city R say um in that we have no at-large seats.

Um, if we're going to go into districts, we need to have straight district and no at-large, because then the at-large seats become the super deciders.

Um, on top of that, I think really the biggest problem, and it needs to go hand in hand, is really the way we we finance uh campaigns.

Um I think there are is way too much money involved in that.

There needs to be caps to that.

There needs to be caps to who can donate, how much corporate and business can donate.

Um I think the simplest way is a cap on spending.

This is the most you can spend for a council election.

This is the most you can spend for a mayor, mayorial election, period, capped done.

Um, and then with that only contributions certain so high from various, there would have to be a study to get all that done to figure out what the numbers are, but I really do believe uh campaign finance reform has to be a part of this change.

Um, I do think districts help because in dealing in like getting to know different council members um over the last few weeks.

Um understanding of your full district.

I think it's hard to have an understanding of the full city.

There's a lot to know and a lot to learn.

We have a lot of area.

Um, but with district representation, you district council members can focus more on really getting to know their own district, and so they can help to advocate for their district when they're in council meetings.

I understand that likely we'll still have people assigned to various committees in terms of parks and recreation or public safety or whatever, and I think that's great.

I understand that likely we'll still have people assigned to various committees in terms of parks and recreation or public safety or whatever, and I think that's great, but you have at least that you have that at large understanding of what the community needs, but you also have that really that district understanding and responsibility to that district when you're representing um your district.

So three minutes, look at that.

All right.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Yeah, any questions for Liz Customer Watch.

So one happy birthday.

Thank you for spending some time here, and thank you for your continued advocacy.

Uh, you you mentioned something around chairmanships and how that would work in terms of like people would still have responsibility.

Yes.

Um, that's kind of a piece we have not touched on, right?

If we are an all-district system, let's say a district representative in one of the more wealthy parts of the city is now the chair of finance, right?

They now have the ability to kind of dictate where dollars kind of flow.

Now, they, the individual may not choose to do this, right, and hoard all those resources and hoard all those opportunities in their district.

But do you think that a situation like that down the line could present itself?

So, my understanding is they're chairing that.

I mean all of council votes on the overall budget, all of council votes on every single individual item that comes in.

So, even if you're the chair of finance, you're not necessarily controlling how everything is being budgeted.

You may have more intricate knowledge of that.

Um, you may be able to help your co-counsel understand what various pockets mean and why they came up with the numbers that they did, but that explanation can come to every council member, whether you're the one in the knowing, you know, before those decisions are made, if that makes sense.

Um, to give an example with parks and recreation, when the McCoy Park issue came up, Nancy knew that there was development plan there because she understood what because she was on the parks and recs and she understood what was going on, and she also had reach out to our.

I mean, I know I had conversations with her way before all this came up, and I told her here's what we're working on in the Southwest area.

So she knew in advance.

So part of it was even though she wasn't our district, um, she because of her reach out and her focus and being over Wreckham Park, she understood that this whole situation was a little unfortunate because we didn't have a lot of uh open discussion and open dialogue before all these decisions were made.

Um this doesn't necessarily solve that, but I think um it it's a start, um, and getting to know your district, getting to really understand and be accountable to that district can be helpful in those discussions.

Thank you.

You know, um, council member, I just wanted to add, um, and thank you for that response, Liz, because I think in in you know, in places where I have seen like ward systems and we talk about the infighting, we talk about all the bad things about this, right?

But I think and I think the the thought that I had was like, oh, if you have um at-large seats, does it add equity because it adds kind of like that person who's accountable to everyone?

But I actually think that that's what happens with the chairmanship of the committees, right?

Because when I think about infrastructure, I mean one of the things I love about public service and transportation is that I do get to go to every part of the city, right?

And I do get to understand what their challenges are, even if I don't live there, right?

Because it's similar to a street that I have on my side of the city, or it's similar to, so I think it still gives you that ability to have that like citywide focus and understand the impact of one community versus the other.

So I think you know, what's interesting because I think in this conversation, I'm just sharing my own thinking is that I think that's where you can have that balance of what we're talking about here today, where you can still have your eye on, you know, and some of the other examples that folks gave from other cities where you can have, you know, similar to the Columbus Forward package or housing package or whatever we had, that it we're still focused on the same things and what that looks like, but you can have that more narrow focus on your particular district.

Um that that is going to be you can be a little bit more specialized in that in their concerns, but you still have the balance of utilities or housing or whatever it may be.

So great.

Thank you.

And happy birthday.

Yeah, thank you, Louis.

Happy birthday again.

Thank you.

Um is Pastor Dudley with us.

I don't see him.

Next, we have Minister Ashe.

And after after Minister Shea, we have Mr.

Jim Villers.

Giving all praises to God.

Your father living Elohim, if you can speak Hebrew.

I'm Minister Kujangalaya Shea.

I'm here representing Columbus Fair Districts.

And our group, the Petition Committee for Black Columbus.

I'm a member of many different religious organizations, one of which is the Civic Betterment Committee.

I've interviewed all of you.

I've supported all of you, but I'm not here representing the Civic Betterment Committee of the Baptist Ministerial Alliance today.

I'm not representing them.

I'm representing the petition committee for Black Columbus.

Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

in an Alabama jail wrote on the back of a paper bag, a sermon called Why We Can't Wait.

And we can't wait any longer for district representation.

I'd like our city our say in terms of putting districts to get our representatives on city council.

Not against any of you.

Like I said, I've supported all of you.

But we do need districts at this point.

However, we don't need the gerrymandered map that our city R say is using, which is the map that Columbus has drawn.

We have a map here with nine districts.

District number two, three would be black districts.

District number four would be almost half black or half minority districts.

We've mailed you this in March.

If you don't have it, you can get a copy, you can make a copy.

I just recently emailed all of you on top of John Beer's letters and sent you an email.

I haven't got any response back from any of you.

But I do believe you are all people of good character.

I do believe you want to do the right things.

But we haven't had the kind of representation that we needed.

We lost map free stadium.

Map free was supposed to be the Linden Stadium.

But all of a sudden, after we went down and got all of the infrastructure for the soccer field and the soccer stadium, all of a sudden we couldn't get it because of the parking.

But now they had concerts and now it's a football team there, and they got plenty of parking.

Well, we didn't have any representation from our district in the London area.

So I am here saying that that was wrong.

You know, we can't wait.

We need this district map put in place.

And we need you to vote for district representation based on this ungerrymandered map.

On the back of here is a map of the state of Ohio that's very gerrymandered.

It's a Trump map, just like in Florida.

They just got four seats for the Republicans.

I'm tired.

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, like Fannie Lou Hamer.

I'm sick and tired of this gerrymandering.

We need a fair map.

Yes, we need just district representation, but we need a fair map.

I'm 72 years old.

I remember James Roseboro.

I remember Jerry Hammond.

I remember Ben Espy.

All of those are friends of mine.

Dr.

John H.

Roseman was my doctor when I was a little boy.

All of these people, if you Google right now, if you go to Google and you Google Columbus Black City Council people, you will see these people up and it will say that all of them wanted some type of district representation at some point.

Just go to Google, you'll find it.

They did.

I knew these people.

They were great people, along with Les Brown, who's still alive, and the late Bill Moss, who's who passed away, who was fighting for the same thing.

We got the body cameras, I'm glad.

We stood out in the rain in front of the city council for many years to get body cameras.

We got that.

Wonderful.

We got a lot of things that we wanted for this city.

But now we're at a point where we're trying to get something in November for the election.

If there is a November election, if Trump doesn't start World War III and declare martial law, we don't have a November election, which I told Sherrod Brown, my friend.

So we're in a bad spot.

I asked you as people of character, use our map, fair district map with two minority districts and one almost minority majority district.

Use this map, put it in place, give us district representation so that we can end this gerrymandering process and the city of Columbus, named after the first enslaver and explorer of our people, Christopher Colombo.

He should have been called Diablo Colombo, devil representative instead of Christbearer.

But uh asking you as people of character to give us consideration for this map and give us district representation.

If you have any questions, I'll be glad to try and answer them.

I'm not on the wrong side, as some people would say.

Well, because I'm not with our city RC.

No, they're on the wrong side because they are using a gerrymander map.

So God bless you, may have a smile upon you.

Thank you.

If not, thank you for your time.

Thank you, God bless you.

Appreciate it.

Uh, next speaker is Mr.

Jim Villers.

After Ms.

Mr.

Villers, we have Miss Adrian Hood.

Good evening, President Pro Tim Dorans, members of council.

My name is Jim Villers.

I'm here representing a downtown alliance for voter engagement.

Thanks for the starting the conversation.

I hope it's a sincere one.

I'm here to tell you that we totally support the R City RSA Charter Amendment to create true district elections, no more citywide campaigns.

From the day we started collecting signatures, I found voters very eager to sign.

Because for the first time last fall, there was a competitive city council race.

But unfortunately, this isn't personal, but unfortunately, the candidate who got an overwhelming majority of the votes in that district isn't sitting on council.

People remembered what happened, and people realize it doesn't make sense.

In fact, it's stupid.

Last month, council, just two weeks ago, gave us more traction to get more signatures thanks to your gift of 25 million dollars to the Haslum Sports Group and for giving them McCoy Park.

A park to serve an underserved community that had been planned to go under construction this year.

I attended all three of the hearings on that issue, and I heard the anger at the end of the last hearing from President Hardin.

I wish he were here tonight, and Councilmember Ross.

What a bad deal that was.

The result would have been different, that your anger would have equaled our anger, and you would have and should have voted no.

Now voters are more eager to eager to sign our petitions.

You tried to make a bad deal better, but the real slap in the face happened the day after your vote when we watched a carefully orchestrated celebration by the Haslam Sports Group in the NWSL.

The fix was already in.

Those hearings were nothing but theater.

And that is disrespectful of the volunteers who spend time and effort and think that they're gonna have a say in what you all decide.

I hope as this amendment moves forward in the process to find a new, you've you've put the fix on the community again, people like Liz Reed, who now have to spend more hours and hours to try to fix the problem that you all have created, and I hope that you'll respect their efforts when the uh amendment comes to back the report comes out of that committee.

Uh with a council truly elected by district, there's no need to seek large donations to run citywide.

Billionaires want a return on their investment, and that's when they come back to you and ask for a park and millions of dollars.

There are other reforms, you've heard them campaign finance reform.

You can't should not be able to shovel money from one council member who's got a big surplus to other council members or candidates who are in need of money.

There are other reforms, but let's start with this strict district elections.

Get big money out of politics and out of your council decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Villers.

Our next speaker is Miss Adrian Hood.

After Miss Hood, we have Colleen O'Connell.

Welcome back, Miss Hood.

Good evening, President Pro Tim, City Council members.

My name is Adrian Hood.

Um, I am a Columbus native, been here all of my life except for my years of active duty service.

Excuse me.

I am a retired master sergeant from the Air Force, retired in 2020.

I have three children and five grandbabies.

There's a lot that's already been said, quite honestly.

And I think that y'all get the message about where we are.

Um that happened last year and how it turned out.

And I had the conversation with Tierra, so she knows that it's nothing personal.

But when I was trying to tell the community in 2023 when I ran that these districts were not real, people really didn't grasp that concept until I was out there at early voting and telling people, no, you actually can vote for me, even though you don't live in my district, and they would go inside and see my name, and they were infuriated.

So I think in 2023, the momentum started to build about what this really was.

And in 2025, they got to see what it actually meant.

And again, nothing against here at all.

But it's about the process.

I heard you say something earlier about having to make a decision.

Make the decision.

When the community sees that you have their back, they will have your back.

And we have seen time and time again where that rings true.

So my question becomes what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose your soul because of the decisions that you make that are harming the community that you say you serve.

Y'all are public servants.

Never forget that.

And when the community believes in what you are doing, the community will have your back.

That legislation that went through in 2016, 2017, it should have passed.

But you know why it didn't?

Because of people like the Columbus Partnership, they spent over a million dollars.

Over a million dollars.

When we could have had true representation at that time.

So here we are, years later.

Actually, 10 to be exact.

Here we are having this conversation again when we shouldn't.

I really do.

But honestly, at this time and at this juncture in the road, I have seen a lot of talk and not a lot of action behind it.

Love is a show me word.

We don't need lip service.

So to insert or propose anything other than nothing but the spirit of confusion.

And it's not fair to the communities that y'all say that y'all serve.

Thank you.

Any uh questions, council members?

See them.

Thank you, Miss Hood.

God bless y'all.

Uh, next we have Miss Colleen O'Connell.

After Ms.

O'Connell, we have Abe Van Hellman.

Hey y'all.

I am Colleen O'Connell, and I first want to say thank you for providing the opportunity to provide um to weigh in on the city council district voting system.

And I am one of the petition committee members for the proposed charter amendment for our city RSA.

A proposal that, as a former fifth grade teacher, I like to think of as lowering your class size, and hopefully making it easier for you to make sure that your district has the attention and focus it deserves, just like my students needed my attention and focus.

And most of my time now, professionally and personally, is spent with union members who are working together to make the changes they know that they need.

And that means my day today is built around collective voice, collective power, and the right of people to have a meaningful influence and a meaningful seat at any table where decisions are made that are impacting them.

And that's absolutely true of good governance.

Having a voice where you most need to be heard and a seat at the table to influence and have power over decisions that impact your life are the mark of a healthy democracy.

And right now in Columbus, though, we have a city council district election system that misses this mark.

Neighborhoods don't always have a meaningful voice, not just during elections, but also between them when the real work happens.

We saw that just a couple weeks ago with McQuay Park, and I know everybody did their best to try to do to do better with what was a terrible deal.

Um I'm a union officer.

I know I know what it's like to be handed something crappy and have to do something better with it.

But moments like that, I know that you realize they don't build confidence that at-large seats and any capacity can be trusted.

To be accountable to the people who live, the impact of the decisions that are made here.

And I know that the system was designed as a compromise, that the intention wasn't to have this type of impact.

But the fact is that it does.

Any at-large seats would still be citywide elections, elections that require massive amounts of spending to have the kind of reach that's needed, the kind of spending that can make elected officials beholden to billionaires like the Haslums, who make large donations to campaigns.

And at this moment, the people of Columbus are demanding that we build a city that belongs to all of us.

One where billionaires like the Haslums can't buy a bigger voice than we can have together.

And a true district system would increase the confidence that it's possible for us to have a bigger voice.

And that's why I'm asking that no at-large seats are considered in anything that's put forward.

But more importantly, it's why I'm asking you to have trust with the people of Columbus, that you support the Our City RSA proposal to have a district-based city council voting system.

And I actually had something else written here, but I am gonna just address that infighting is a choice, and it's a choice you can choose not to make.

As a union officer, I know that sometimes I'm I'm in touch with people that I am close to that I represent.

Sometimes I have to make votes that they don't like, but I have to trust that the democracy matters more than my role, and it might mean that I'm re-elected, it might not, but at the end of the day, what matters is that in the moment I made a decision and I was trusted to, and that the union is working forward because it's about more than any one council member, just like it's about any more than any one person anywhere.

And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, sorry for going over.

No problem.

Uh any questions, council members.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, our next two speakers to come up will be uh Stevie uh Pesmonte and Rachel Wenning.

Good evening.

Pro Tem Dorans and members of council.

Thank you for holding this hearing.

My name is Abe Van Helmand, and I'm here on behalf of Strong Towns Columbus.

Strong Towns is a local organization that is a part of a national movement advocating for financially resilient, safe, and people-centered cities.

I live in the university district, and like many Columbus residents, I experienced the city neighborhood by neighborhood.

Columbus is not one single place with one single set of needs.

The university district has different challenges than the Hilltop, Clintonville, and downtown.

That diversity is one of Columbus's greatest strengths, a strength which should be reflected in how we're represented.

Strong Towns believes cities work best at human scale.

Residents should know who represents them.

They should know who to call when sidewalks are missing, when speeding traffic makes streets unsafe, or when basic infrastructure is neglected.

And elected officials should directly be accountable to the people who live in the communities most affected by those decisions.

That is why the current at-large only system falls short.

Columbus is now a city of more than 900,000 residents spread among uh across 225 square miles, expecting council members to be equally accountable to every neighborhood, every corridor, and every local concern across the city of this scale is unrealistic.

In practice, it creates distance between residents and city hall and weakens the feedback loops that cities need to make uh good long-term decisions.

I want to acknowledge a concern that's been raised about how changes to council structure might affect housing.

Uh many of us in this room support the zone in efforts and updates.

Uh this council's advanced, and we recognize the scale and urgency of Columbus's housing needs, but housing cannot be the only lens which we evaluate democratic representation.

Strong Towns believes cities must be capable of doing more than one hard thing at a time, and the fact that these issues overlap should not be a reason to avoid uh improving accountability and representation for residents.

This is not about division, it's about connection, it's about ensuring every neighborhood has a real seat at the table.

Uh Strong Towns Columbus supports the push for meaningful district-based reform and giving residents a fair opportunity to vote on that reform.

Columbus has grown dramatically.

Our governing structure should grow with it.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Um next speaker is uh Stevie Pismante and then Rachel Wenning.

And after Miss Wenning, we'll have uh Miss Katie Shanahan.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Stevie Pasmante, and I'm a board member for Transit Columbus, a grassroots organization that empowers everyday people to fight for safer streets and better transportation.

If you know anything about transit advocacy, you know that transit advocates are out of necessity housing advocates.

We don't just understand the need for more housing as the city grows, but each of us is also feeling the strain of housing costs.

Every day, the transit improvements that we're fighting for now grow farther and farther out of reach for those who need them, because the people who live in the city are being priced out of it.

So when Councilmember Dorens and others have listed housing as a concern to consider keeping a few at-large seats, I have to say that this doesn't sit well with us for a couple of reasons.

First, it says that you don't trust the people of the city to make good decisions for themselves.

When you say that you're worried about not building enough housing under award system, what you're saying to me is that you would rather drag people along, kicking and screaming toward the solution that you have decided is best for them.

Rather than do the hard work of meeting people where they're at, providing them with the information that they need to actually get involved in the process that will help shape their community.

It is hard work to do that for sure.

We know.

But guess how much easier it would be if you can if you only had to connect with the folks in your district, if you could grab coffee with them, if you could sit and have those conversations, not just in these big public spaces, but with them.

I also want you to consider that we have an at-large system now, and last time I checked, we are nowhere near hitting the city's housing mobile.

Secondly, your assertion that housing uh about housing says that you don't trust this, trust the people of the city to make decisions that would benefit their neighbors.

As someone who organizes alongside regular people every single day, one thing that I know for certain is that they care very much about their neighbors, their friends, their families, and their communities.

And you all should know that too, given how often you have to hear from us.

You think that you're exhausted by the NIMBY's, try being one of the organizers and advocates whose purpose is to reach out to those folks and bring them to our side.

And yet we do this work anyway, this very difficult work, because we know that real change comes from that connection and from those conversations and not from going around people who disagree with you just to put forth what you want to happen.

We've signed on to the R City RSA coalition because our members work tirelessly to create positive change for our city, and it is our belief that elected leadership should be held accountable to these efforts and to the efforts of any resident who wants a say in how the world around them is shaped.

If you don't trust us to make decisions that benefit us, if you don't trust us to fight for our neighbors and our friends, how can we trust the proposal that you are putting forward?

How can we trust that that is in our best interest and not just in the best interests of you keeping these seats and pushing your agenda through?

Um we need to do the messy work that requires that democracy requires.

We're here to do that work with you.

Please support our proposal.

Thank you.

Any questions, comments?

Steve, yep, thanks for coming.

Uh again, next we have uh Miss Rachel Wening and then uh Katie Shanahan.

After Miss Shanahan, we will have DJ Burns.

Good evening.

Um, so I'm going to skip forward a bit because other people have made some of my points, but um, I am a resident of the Hilltop.

I've looked at the Hilltop for about 10 years, um, and I've lived in Columbus for over 20 years.

Um, the study that you, Council Member Doran, cited in your dispatch op-ed uh from Evan Mast, I think makes it clear what is motivating council to put forth a different ballot measure.

Uh, if you look at that study, it looks at cities that switched from at large to districts, uh, but it does not look at cities that switch to hybrid models.

So the study from Evan Mast does not actually support a change to a hybrid model.

It just gives a reason why directly elected seats might be bad.

And so it definitely seems that this study was picked to try to show why our city RSA is bad, not to show why a hybrid model would be better than what we have.

There are many other problems with that study, which show that it does not support wards being bad for Columbus.

Um, just to throw out a few, it deals with cities that had a median population of only 35,000 people in 1980 when we had over half a million.

Uh, it looked at changes only through 2003, which is over 20 years ago.

And the real reduction in housing units that the study showed, even with all of its estimates and exclusions, was five.

Five less actual housing units.

But I think the biggest problem with using that study is that the author of the study specifically says that he does not address the fact that moving from at large to wards increases representation for people in minoritized groups.

So, yes, I think if you look only at the fact that a ward-based system can slow down housing or minorly reduce the units of housing that are built, uh, and it slows down the all-powerful commerce machine, wards could be bad.

But like Mr.

Brown pointed out, we have many more concerns than just building housing units.

Can people actually afford to live in them?

Can they actually get to and from their jobs when they live in those units?

Do they have jobs to go to?

We can't look at one extremely narrow statistic, housing units, and act like if that number goes down, we don't deserve democracy.

I think what really gives away the fact that council's new interest in our format for elections is based on opposing our city RSA and not concerned for our representation, is that you all have been undercutting the will of the voters, even under the current system.

So when council member Dorans, you ran last year, you took 177,000 from your own campaign from contributions made to support you, and spent it on behalf of councilmember Ross's campaign.

Despite the fact that more voters in district seven voted for her opponent in the primary, and despite the fact that more voters in your own district, district three, had also voted for her opponent.

So these actions show that you do not actually care about neighborhood representation.

So I would ask that you stop this process and allow voters to decide on our city R say without interference from council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Wayne.

Any questions or comments to council members?

See none.

Thank you.

Uh again, next we have Miss Katie Shanahan and ask after Ms.

Shannon, we have Mr.

DJ Burns.

I apologize in advance, A, for how quickly I'm about to talk, but also because I'm absolutely going to go over three minutes in part because I have to refute explicitly the testimony that the OSU professor, unfortunately he's left, gave that is demonstrably and historically false about why at-large structures were installed in cities, including Columbus and across the country, and why moving to ward systems is better.

Specifically, he named the NAACP legal defense fund, which actually rose to its current status and acclaim, battling at-large structures, specifically under the now gutted section two of the voting rights act, because they specifically undermine the political power of black voters in those places and moving to ward districts is actually what allows those black voters to have a real pathway to political power.

So to sit up here and listen to a college professor who is teaching students right now demonstrably false information about the actually very clearly demonstrable racist history of at large structures is truly too rich.

Also, I just want to note that that was completely missed in your presentation from the council staffer, that it wasn't just about rooting out corruption of districted seats, but we used uh at large districts to specifically skirt the ability for black communities, particularly to elect representatives of their choosing.

I also just wanted to note that districts four, five, eight, and nine are actually majority minority districts under our current um lines.

Um, and so the idea that shifting towards would deny those voters an opportunity in each of those, what are by definition minority opportunity districts, that they would be unable to elect representatives of their choosing no matter their race is just a farce.

So now for my testimony, as an election law and voting rights attorney, I'd gladly recount in full the many ways our at-large council structure concentrates power in the hands of a few, while denying meaningful representation to entire communities, but such a telling would far exceed my already now three minutes.

You can float this letter.

Okay, you're giving you lots of good information.

I don't want people to miss it.

So I won't dwell on every detail because I don't want to keep everyone here.

We've been here long enough.

I won't linger too much more on the long history of racist at-large systems designed explicitly to dilute the political power, though that history bears directly on the system that we have today gifted to us by President Harden, who couldn't even show up here to hear from us.

For example, if I had time, I could talk through the example of the district seven election, wherein one candidate won the district decisively with well over 60% of the vote from the very community that they were meant to represent, and yet that candidate is not who's sitting up here on the dias tonight because voters outside of that district overruled them, denying district seven voters of their constitutional guarantee of one person, one vote.

And if I may, last week the US Supreme Court, in their Cayley decision, gutted what was left of the voting rights act.

If what happened in District 7 happened in the race where Ms.

Hood ran against Emmanuel Remy, and the district, which is actually a majority black district under current demographics, voted for Ms.

Hood, and yet Emmanuel Remy won because of the citywide vote.

That would have actually been an explicit violation of the now defunct Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Voters now no longer have a legal recourse to fight those specific claims.

And so you all are going hard in the paint to defend a system that we now no longer have legal recourse to actually rectify, instead of going to bat for a system that would actually empower those communities to elect representatives of their choosing.

Nor will I fully recount how power once secured under our undemocratic system is then exercise.

I could speak at length, as many people here have, about how, despite our many people's consternation and Mr.

Hardin's cussing, you still voted anyways to seal a public park and to hand it in 25 million of our public tax dollars to a MAGA billionaire and an insurance giant, to for a private venture, or when you took a public stand against the harms of ice only to later fund the county, the county jail system that cooperates with it to kidnap our neighbors.

Thank you for your no vote on that.

Or the hand-wringing that we see from you every year about tight city budgets and cuts to essential programs, or your feigning concern about the plight of our local schools while at the same time voting consistently as a body, maybe not individually, to funnel our tax dollars away from our schools and communities to give them instead to private enterprises, developers, and the corporate class instead.

Each of these examples and so many others that I could discuss, like the BLM protests in 2020 when I saw Mr.

Harden being maced at point blank range by a racist cops, turned around and did nothing to bring those cops in and not use those weapons of war against us, and where you've just given them uh raises at every contract negotiation ever since.

Nor can I catalog every procedural barrier that you use to block meaningful public engagement here at council, the consent agendas that you use to pass laws without meaningful scrutiny.

You don't even have to read the full language of the bills before you vote on them nine to zero.

The lack of meaningful committees or committee debate process, stricter limits on public testimony than we see from State House Republicans, just a measly three minutes, and when you're voting on something, just six total speakers allowed in a city of nearly one million.

But the overarching pattern of what your version of democracy is in this city is very clear.

A community votes one way, you override them.

A neighborhood objects, you proceed anyway.

Public assets are taken away from us, public opposition quietly contained.

I will not say all I could about how at-large elections make campaigns more expensive, more centralized, and more dependent on large donors who, as an inherent result, not only have disproportionate influence over who gets elected, but also what gets decided once those people are in office.

No, I can't detail all of that, except to note that while we residents are mostly limited to just three minutes at a podium, those interests are in the back rooms where your decisions are actually being made, all without our say.

And that is actually why we're here tonight.

We're here tonight not because council or you, Mr.

Jordans, all of a sudden shows accountability, but because people in this city are organizing yet again in two different ways to demand democracy in a real direct challenge to your power.

The timing and intention of tonight's hearing and whatever watered down reform that you'll undoubtedly unveil to purposely undermine those people's efforts to fight back, speak for themselves.

To close out the very short time that all of us have been granted to have a say on this matter, let me be clear.

We don't need a version of reform filtered through this council, nor a compromise designed to preserve your control.

And we definitely do not need a reform shaped by the very system that that reform is meant to replace.

The people of Columbus are entirely capable of deciding how we want to govern ourselves.

So please stay out of our way, because this is not your system to protect.

It is our democracy to reclaim and our political futures to dictate.

And just like we say when we're up the state house with the Republicans when they're gerrymandering us, and also the Democrats, when they're gerrymandering us to shit at the state and federal level, we will not stop until we win.

Thank you.

Questions of council members.

Thank you.

All right, next speakers is a DJ Burns.

After Mr.

Burns, we have Dana Masoner.

No, this is what you all want to see coming after a long day.

This pastor might have been real.

It's been real.

We're here by choice.

Yeah.

Um, you know, when I started coming up here probably five or so years ago, right?

It was, oh, he's a drunken crank.

And they were right.

I was a drunken crank.

But in the five years since then, you know, I'm not a crank anymore.

And I get it, I'm getting some clout in this city because of my ethos that all politics is local.

And this council as it currently stands is not local.

We saw it in the last election.

I'm sorry, keep beat uh it's just the facts of the case.

Uh, you know, and no matter what we do, nothing will change as long as you guys can still donate unchecked amount of money.

I mean, it's literally obscene, Councilman Dorns.

Obscene.

150,000 at the snap of your fingers.

How are you getting that from the corporations, from the developers with business in front of the city?

And I don't want to go into goblin mode, but the the Columbus, the Columbus partnership is a very real thing in this city.

You guys all know it.

You guys know the effect that it has on this legislation.

It prevents you guys from dreaming big.

And Shannon, God bless him.

We had that interview yesterday, and he said to do big things, we have to have this public-private partnership.

What is the Democratic Party talking about?

With FDR went to World War II, we gotta have a partnership with the business industry.

He led, he taxed properly.

And that is the outside influence happening on this country.

We will never beat the junta, which I'm up there, I live and breathe this thing, until we get our urban machines out of this little fiefdom mindset.

You know, Columbus, our voting our voter turnout is going down.

It went towards Trump last election because all politics is local and how this is currently set up.

Everybody knows, and why is she like, I like you, brother, like you're a good guy.

I trust in your heart, but it's an indictment of this system that there isn't a challenger, right?

It's an indictment that because everybody knows it should not cost 400,000 for a seat on a nine-member commission in an ostensibly democratic city.

We should have things like public campaign finance.

But why won't we?

Because the partnership will never allow it.

Power never dilutes itself.

And you guys have the power, you know, and you guys are gonna answer to them.

You guys are gonna put up some little hybrid nonsense, maybe dilute it so we can only donate $50,000 at a time.

And that's how it's gonna be.

That's how it's always gone.

And that's why people aren't connected to you guys.

That's why when I come up here, most of the time, it's just people with business in front of the city.

Watch it on YouTube, a city of a million people.

How many people are watching this meeting right now?

50 tops.

It's an indictment of the Democratic Party.

And until we beat this mindset, until we get out of this little fiefdom where Columbus watches out of Columbus, the Cleveland does Cleveland, and Cincinnati does Cleveland, until we start working together and building the system where people have to compete with ideas and challenge the Republicans are gonna continue laughing at us.

And on my last point, this idea that the map is gerrymandered for our city R say.

It's this map.

This body drew this map.

Over a seven-hour meeting.

And every every district is uh every district abides by the VRA, the since gutted VRA.

And this current map has one black district that God love them is black is represented by a white man.

So I don't talk about gerrymandering.

I know what gerrymandering is.

And people are angry.

They're angry, brother.

And they saw what you did to McCoy Park.

They're angry, and I would just get out of the way.

Because a storm is coming, and you guys don't want to get swept up in it.

If you guys want any discourse, Brad Pitt will answer a couple questions.

Well, as far as if anyone was being lulled to sleep, you and Miss Shannon certainly brought folks back.

So thanks for being here tonight.

Uh question from council members.

Are watching?

Yeah.

I mean we can we can do big things.

And if we turn power back to the people and get them involved, amazing things will happen.

God bless.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ms.

Mr.

Dana Masoner.

After that, we get Andy's here.

All right.

Hello, Council, Dana Masoner, Bronzeville neighborhood, Near East area, District 7.

And Columbus is destined for great things, and so many fantastic people are making it happen and want it to happen.

But there's something in the water in Columbus.

We have two outliers in this city that the top 50 cities don't experience.

One, no passenger rail.

Two, no direct district representation.

Of the 50 largest cities, we are it.

We are it.

I was involved in 2015, 2016, 2017 with the attempt to get what we want now.

We ended up with quasi district representation, what we have at the moment.

And at that time, there was Austin still had the same situation we have, and there were a few other cities.

But now, 10 years later, we are it.

Now, if there's any questions on are we going the right direction, look at it the other way.

Are there any cities reverting back to at large?

It isn't happening.

Everybody's going the other way.

The road's going that way, and we're going that way.

So this is an opportunity for both uh Mayor Ginther, all of City Council, Zach Klein, everybody, to come on board, be part of the part of the way we're going.

I mean, the river's going this way, it's gonna happen.

Now the other thing is I served on the Near East Area Commission from 2007 to 2020.

The majority of things we discussed were residential development of all types.

It was contentious, very contentious, like I imagine most commissions are.

We had to take a stand.

We paid a price for it.

It was difficult, it wasn't easy, but you have to take your stand.

But the thing is, residential development is being done all across the country with every kind of government city council configuration you can imagine.

They're solving the issue.

Like you said, Minneapolis, San Antonio, Seattle.

They're all doing it.

Why why why is this discussion that it's gonna hurt our attempts to handle the HOMA situation?

That does not make sense.

So we need to have direct district representation.

Everybody up on here, Council, you're all good people, you all have good intentions, but the government system needs to reflect the people more than the people behind you.

You're good people.

It's your opportunity to join us and go the right direction.

Don't be the last person on the ship that goes down.

You don't want to drown.

All right, thank you.

Um we have Sandy, welcome back.

Uh after Ms.

Andy, we have Stuart uh Wyland, and after Stuart, we have Mr.

Uh Gerson Leal.

Okay, um, thank you.

My name is Sandy Bolsinias, and um thank I thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony this evening in support of our city RSA.

I have a confession.

Decades ago, I dutifully voted for city council members without knowing who they were.

In competitive races, I simply selected the incumbents, assuming they must have done something positive in the city since voters had previously elected them.

This is before I learned how City Council really works.

Obviously, my vote was not an educated one.

Quite the opposite.

I simply followed the sample ballots.

To clarify the need for a proper ward system in Columbus, I share this disturbing reality, namely that most local voters have no idea who represents them.

This is true with every elected office in Ohio.

Check it out yourselves, as people.

Why would they need to do that?

The R City R say reform would dramatically revitalize democracy in Columbus by opening the field of council candidates to fresh voices.

A proper ward system would enable the respective members of various Columbus communities to launch campaigns with reasonable assurance that they could they could reach every voter in their ward.

Most importantly, residents of each ward could personally meet each candidate and discuss their main issues so that by election day they would know which ones best represent them and their communities.

Tell me, which is the essence of a robust community?

Reliance on sample ballots or on educated voters.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Happy to take questions.

Any questions, Council members?

Yeah.

By the way, I don't know who my ward representative is either.

I was gonna look it up, but what difference did it would it make?

Thank you.

Right.

Uh our next speaker is uh Stuart Weiland.

Welcome back to Council.

And then we'll have uh Gerson Leal.

Good evening, Council.

Uh thank you for having us here.

My name is Stuart Weineland, and I am a resident of the West Side of Columbus and representing Strong Towns Columbus, a local uh advocacy group promoting a more pleasant and people-centered Columbus.

Uh one of the key tenets of building a strong town is creating functional feedback loops.

Uh a lot of the verbiage from the strong towns community is focused on administrative feedback loops, economic feedback loops, uh, making sure those feedback loops uh end up giving us you know the outcomes that we want to see.

Um if there is no feedback loop, or if that feedback loop is not responsive uh in this case to the people that it is intended to serve, then that system for all intents and purposes would be considered broken.

Um the topic of housing, uh most, if not all of the people in this room are very strongly supportive of the zoning updates being passed by this council uh of more housing generally being built, of more housing being equitably built, of more affordable housing.

Um, all of the things that you guys are doing, uh, you know, there is a a lot of support for.

Uh however, uh those and those same people do appreciate the scale of that need.

Uh however, while housing is a big issue, it is not the only issue uh facing our city.

Um, and it should not be the loan barrier to accountable representation at the city level.

I think it's pretty clear, given the comments on both sides of the dais today that we're all in agreement that something has to change.

Um, the our city, our say proposal is a great start to that change.

Uh it has the benefit of being extremely simple, and it has significant amount of public momentum currently.

Uh, for these reasons, among many others that I won't bore you guys with that everybody has already stated, uh, we encourage City Council to support this proposal.

Another key tenet of the strong town's message is the idea of incremental change.

Uh to this end, I want to remind both council and the listeners uh and the audience I should say that this proposal is not the end of this discussion.

Uh the process of government governing and democracy in general should be seen as one of continuous adaptation and improvement and not one of lurching progress.

I simply don't believe that the passage of this proposal will be the end of the conversation, and it should be.

Uh, there are too many people who care about the city for that to happen, in my personal opinion.

Uh so with all that being said, again, we encourage council to support this proposal.

Uh, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Uh, any questions?

See none.

Uh, we will next hear from uh Gerson Leal, and after them, we will have our last speaker, which is uh Sue Maria.

Um she guess.

Floor is yours.

Uh first off, I just want to thank all the council members for the opportunity to speak today, um, as well as for the very informative and very interesting history lesson that was provided for us.

Uh my name is Gerson Leal.

Uh, I am a Columbus resident, a blue-collar worker, as well as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and I would like to take the time to speak in favor of the R City, R say initiative.

I haven't lived here for very long, but I love the parks, the people, and just how welcoming the city is as a whole.

What I do find that when I speak to other residents, a subject that often pops up is just how much less affordable the city has become in recent years.

The cost of living has skyrocketed between rent, goods, and utilities, and many people are struggling to make ends meet, myself included.

Meanwhile, corporations such as AEP continue to report record profits, in my opinion, at the expense of Columbus residents.

Little to nothing has been done to actually address these issues affecting the working class citizens of Columbus, because our politicians are more interested in lining their own pockets than actually helping us.

I support the Our City, our Say initiative because through our proposal, um proposed amendment, we will get have more of a say in who we get to elect as our city officials, as well as remove the pervasive influence that dark money and corporations have in our local politics.

Our government is supposed to be by the people of the people and for the people, not by the billionaire of the billionaire and for the billionaire.

And with all the respect um to the speakers who came prior, um, you know, who mentioned things such as uh dividing between oh, race or uh how much income, um, I do not see personally anything other than two divisions the working class and the billionaire Ep Sync class.

And with this current setup that we have, the Epstein class is more than winning.

Thank you.

And our final speaker for tonight, President Pro Tem Dorans and Council members, thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony about the Columbus City Council District Voting System.

My name is Samaria Chicas, I'm a proud driving park resident uh and serve on the Livingston Avenue Area Commission.

I moved into driving park over five years ago and have been in the city for almost 10 years at this point.

Uh being a transplant from Houston, Texas, and a first generation American, I'm consistently amazed by how interconnected the residents are here.

As I've met neighbors, they're often able to thread through family trees with each other through the schools and churches they've attended and go back generations.

With the same view of the history among Columbus residents, I'm able to hear about how the neighborhood has and has not changed.

Many of the elders I meet in Driving Park convey the lack of meaningful change in the neighborhood for decades.

As the city has changed around us, Driving Park has remained much the same for 20, 30, 40 years, maybe more.

And it's not for lack of engagement or of trying.

We have civic leaders who have attempted to call attention to the issues impacting our neighborhoods' opportunities.

And while there are initiatives that offer temporary assistance, we're not moving the needle enough.

There's disillusionment among my neighbors given how we compare the investments made and support given to other neighborhoods.

Our neighbors, neighborhoods across Columbus, each have unique assets, opportunities, and needs.

So I don't expect the same type of investments and changes and projects everywhere.

But the people who live there in these specific districts, these wards, dealing with these issues each day, know what they need and what initiatives could have the greatest impact.

This is why I support the R City R say proposal to change the city charter.

When we change how we elect city council members and have true district-based elections, we can amplify the voices of our residents by making it easier for a council member to be responsive and accountable directly only to their district.

This will also open up elected office to more candidates, creating a meaningful competition of ideas for city council and giving voters more options as to who represents them.

We have a chance to bring a greater sense of ownership and empower residents to create the Columbus that we all want to live in.

I encourage you to support the R City R say proposal to have a district-based city council voting system.

Thank you for your time and your commit consideration and commitment to our city.

I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you very much.

Any questions or comments for council members?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um do want to pause.

We that was our last speaker for the evening.

So thank you for everyone for sticking with us who have been here.

I think we've been here for over three hours.

So not quite the longest uh committee meeting we've had, but closed.

Uh want to thank those who testified tonight, brought their ideas.

Um again, this may not be the last public hearing that council has on this topic.

Uh we fully anticipate to continue to engage with community members.

Um again the idea of how we govern ourselves is fundamental to the policy choices that we make as both elected officials and I think to a lot of the comments that were made by uh residents here tonight, how we bring the community along with us.

And I think that's something that is really important as we think about what uh what structures we want in place in a growing city.

Uh appreciate folks also talking about additional uh items that go along with governing structures, whether or not those are campaign finance or ballot access or any number of things when we think about how do we put into place a system that allows folks to run for public office and represent folks that they deeply care about in their community.

Uh again, as I said at the outset, uh there's gonna be a diversity of opinions, and we heard just that here tonight, uh, about what folks believe is the right system for Columbus, not only today, but in five, ten, and twenty-five years from now.

And something I take very seriously.

I know that there are plenty of folks that are very skeptical about council's questions uh with our systems, given um certainly the current system that's in place, and that's fair.

Um, you know, that said I generally mean it when I say this is not about an individual election or an individual council member or an individual district.

It's um, at least for my intention, a actual uh analysis of does our system make sense?

Um is it something that again represents our residents well and allows us to govern the city well?

Um, and something that, you know, again, if my colleagues and I um can have additional discussions with our community about what they would like to see.

Um certainly that'll be something that we want to bring back to the community um and move forward.

So with that, uh, this hearing's adjourned.