3rd Ward candidate wants opponent to be disqualified

YOUNGSTOWN — Jamael Tito Brown has asked the board of elections to disqualify his opponent in the upcoming 3rd Ward city council race.

Brown will appear before Mahoning County Elections officials at 8 p.m. Tuesday to argue that Vincent Thomas’ personal voting record should prevent him from running as an independent candidate in the November election.

In June, board of elections officials disqualified several independent candidates for Youngstown City Council who had voted in partisan primaries.

However, records show Thomas did not vote in a primary race during 2007, said Mahoning County Board of Elections Director Thomas McCabe.

“There was no primary in the 3rd Ward this year,” he said.

Brown will argue that Thomas’ 2006 voting record should be considered, said McCabe.

Brown resigned as the executive director for Youngstown’s Human Relations Commission in July. Under state law, the role that would have preventing him from filling the city council seat. He has since been hired as the director of operations for the Mahoning County Democratic Party, according to Vindicator records.

Thomas is Brown’s only competition in the race for the 3rd Ward council seat. The current 3rd Ward councilman, Richard Atkinson, couldn’t seek re-election because of term limits set by the city charter. He is running for the school board.

Brown is on the school board, but that term expires in November.