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Council displays creativity
On the side
‘Mindfulness’ study: U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan announced a $3.6 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to doctors at Kent State University and the University of Pennsylvania for a “mindfulness” study.
The grant funds a five-year “serenity study” regarding mindfulness-based stress reduction for high blood pressure. The two universities will recruit and treat 180 people from Northeast Ohio and the Philadelphia area with unmedicated hypertension to see if lifestyle changes can help keep them off medication.
Ryan of Howland, D-13th, is a vocal proponent of mindfulness, a meditative practice that focuses on the present, and wrote “A Mindful Nation,” a book in 2012 about it.
Political fundraiser: Those wanting to relax by shooting with three former Navy SEALs for $250 a pop can do so at U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson’s “Shoot with SEALs” fundraiser from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Special Tactics and Rescue Training Facility in Mingo Junction. This is the third year the campaign of Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, is sponsoring this event.
While the process was sometimes heated and messy — and the final product is gerrymandered — Youngstown City Council approved a redistricting map that balances the population in its seven wards.
The existing lines were drawn after the 1980 census and haven’t been touched despite a charter amendment requiring they be addressed after every decennial census. Under the old map, the population of the wards range from 7,227 to 12,130.
The city is fortunate no one sued as it’s been in violation of the state and federal constitutions and its own charter.
The new lines will have the seven wards’ population range from 8,949 to 9,534.
While the new ward boundaries are ready with time to spare for the May 2015 council elections, the lines may never be implemented.
Ballot issue
That’s because of a charter amendment that will be on the Nov. 4 ballot tying the number of wards to population.
If the amendment is approved, there will be five wards instead of seven starting with the 2015 election.
It appears the chance of the ward-reduction amendment passing is good.
People are doing more or the same with less, and enough who vote probably think city council should be doing the same. In council’s defense, it’s reduced its staff from five to two in the past decade though its members haven’t given up a thing.
One major selling point to vote yes is eliminating two council members will save money.
Each council member gets $27,817 in annual salary, $15,000 for discretionary and travel expenses, and the city pays for their health-insurance coverage.
A group that includes Councilmen Mike Ray, D-4th, and Paul Drennen, D-5th, gathered about 1,700 signatures on petitions to get the item on the Nov. 4 ballot. The committee needed at least 1,215 valid signatures.
However, a count is no longer necessary.
Council voted Tuesday to approve two ordinances regarding this charter-amendment proposal.
One requires the signatures to be counted and the other — the latter is the binding one — to put it on the ballot by council decree.
That means it doesn’t matter the number of valid signatures because as soon as the Mahoning County Board of Elections can get together next week, its members will vote to put the proposed charter amendment on the ballot.
Mayor John A. McNally asked the elections board to count the signatures even though it doesn’t matter. That number should be ready by today.
The fallout after the votes are counted among members of city council should be interesting.
There’s already a great deal of tension and anger among some members toward one another and the McNally administration.
“There’s something going on that’s causing a whole lot of division among council,” said Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st.
Her comments were echoed by Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6th.
Both said they have no confidence in Law Director Martin Hume — Tarpley included the entire McNally administration in recent statements — and that decisions Hume has made are biased against them. Hume said he’s following the law and isn’t biased.