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Youngstown Council President Charles Sammarone won’t run for re-election
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown Council President Charles Sammarone has changed his mind for what he said is the last time: He will not run for re-election this year.
“In the last week or so, I’ve talked with my family and I’m not ready to give another four-year commitment to the position,” Sammarone told The Vindicator on Wednesday. “I’d be close to 80 years old at the end of another term if I was re-elected.”
Sammarone, a Democrat, said last month that he would seek another term as council president after initially saying in June 2016 that he doubted he’d run again.
Sammarone chose to run after getting a letter signed by members of council urging him not to retire.
But he reevaluated that decision in recent weeks.
“I just took another look at it,” he said.
“I discussed it with my family and while they backed whatever decision I made, I chose not to run. This is it. There will be no more changes.”
With Sammarone’s decision, former council President John R. Swierz says he is running for council president in the May 2 Democratic primary.
Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, said he’s interested but hasn’t made a final decision.
The filing deadline for the primary is Feb. 1.
Councilmen T.J. Rodgers, D-2nd, and Nate Pinkard, D-3rd – who like Ray cannot run for re-election in 2019 when their current terms expire because of the city’s term-limits law – said it was “too soon” after finding out about Sammarone’s decision to determine if they would run.
Rodgers said he was “sorry to see [Sammarone] go. But everybody has the right to change their mind.”
Ray said Sammarone “brought great perspective with his 30-plus years of government service. It’s not a decision he took lightly. He wants to spend time with his family and enjoy his life.”
During his political career that started with his November 1983 election as a 5th Ward councilman, Sammarone has also served as water commissioner, council president and spent Aug. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2013, as mayor when Jay Williams resigned to take a job with the President Barack Obama administration.