City Council Gearing Up To Have Another Study

[Towntalk]

Jay, Look at it this way, and maybe you'll understand.

These Councilmen see their wards as their personal fiefdoms from whence comes their power, both real and perceived, and will defend that fiefdom against any intrusion no matter how well intended it might be.

These folks have a unique opportunity that is not faced by their state and federal counterparts ... they can determine the size of their fiefdom as opposed to having the state's ruling party, or the U.S. Constitution standing in their way.

No matter who comes up with a redistricting plan, there will be those councilmen who will be unhappy if their fiefdom is diminished by even a single street, while those whose fiefdom is enlarged will be pleased as punch, and the whole plan will be kicked down the street, and be left for some future councilman to wrestle with.

Conversely, it give us the opportunity to debate the whole issue, even though nothing we might say will make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

We could take out petitions to get it back on the ballot, but I needn't tell you what good that would do since council has clearly demonstrated that they could care less about what the voters think.

Two or three of us will debate the issue till the cows come home, but that is where it will end, and we'll be no better off except for the privilege of being able to say we tried.

[jay]

Some members of City Council were not satisfied with new ward boundary maps created by the YSU Center for Urban and Regional Studies to basically equalize the population of Youngstown's seven wards.  It looks as though these councilmen are willing to pay for yet another study to draw up new ward maps.