Absolutely!
Campaign crossing
I partially blame the loss of Issue 7 on campaign crossing.
When I went to vote, a young woman standing outside the polls said "vote for Nina Turner, and vote no on Issue 4 and Issue 7."
Jay, you know the rules as well as I do ... candidate workers are allowed to harass voters at the polls so long as they stay 100 feet away from the entrances.
The blame rests with the committee that supported Issue 7, and I am unanimous in that, flat out ... period. I know that you and others think that this web site is reaching all the voters when the truth of the matter is that in the grand scheme of things, we are a bunch of tadpoles swimming around in the great pond of Youngstown politics. Never has the local media mentioned our website, yet they are forever mentioning Mr. Kidd's website.
I keep harping on our people calling the local talk shows, writing letters to the editor, and taking advantage of the message boards on the websites of the local TV News stations, yet only TWO of our members do that on a regular basis, Peggy and Shrimp, so stop the whining and urge people to be as committed to this issue as the anti-fraking people are to theirs.
I doubt that the ward reduction committee will try again.
It's too much work.
They were severely underfunded.
Not enough people were willing to help.
This is a sad commentary on how we deal with issues at election time. More often than not they take a back seat to candidates.
Now granted most issues do not warrent wide publicity because they are local options such as those that deal with liquor sales, but there are also important issues that do need wide discussions both in the media and at candidate forums.
The media, especially the print media did give good coverage to Issue 7, as did television news, but what about the various forums that were held running up to November 4th?
I'll bet you that a number of local churches and their preachers spoke out on Issue 7, and told their congregations to vote against it from the pulpits.
By the way, just how many local White churches actually held candidate forums this year, it seems to me that all the forums were held at Black churches.
Jay, you just may be eating those words next year. ;)
I'm disappointed that issue 7 failed, but glad to see the public getting involved and voicing
their opinion. Good to see this kind of involvement in the democratic process.
If public sentiment was divided this closely, the issue might pass in the future - especially if
the city population continues to decline.
I don't believe it will be on the ballot again
I know Ray and Drennen will not be a part of the process again
When it came down to it, only a few stepped up and fought
I believe it will be on the ballot again. Chris Travers, Phil and Drennen are already talking about it.
The count was too close to NOT put it on again. One of the major snafu's was that an organization was paid to get mailers out, and they failed to do so in almost the entire 3rd ward.
We firmly believe it would have passed had this not happened.
Issue 7, as written, is dead. City Council elections will take place in 2015. You can't reduce the number of wards at the same time as you are voting to install all 7 councilmen.
As it is written, yes, it is dead.
However, ward reduction will be on the ballot again. Perhaps not in the 2015 election, but it will be on the ballot again.
We needed more people willing to do the work, plain and simple.
How much did the "Vote No" people spend to defeat Issue 7?