From NAACP 2nd VP- William Tarter Jr.
Last week, the 2017-2018 Cuyahoga County Charter Review Commission, a volunteer group chaired by The Honorable Judge Ron Adrine (Retired) and comprised of Democratic and Republican citizens from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, released their Final Report to Cuyahoga County Council. I am pleased to report that my proposal to add Campaign Finance Language to the Cuyahoga County Charter was PASSED UNANIMOUSLY by the Commission!!!
Here is the link to the Final Report. The proposed amendment language is on Page 12:
http://bc.cuyahogacounty.us/pdf_bc/en-US/CRC/2017-2018-CRCFinaleport.pdf
THE NEXT STEP:
The proposal now moves to Cuyahoga County Council for consideration at the Committee on the Whole meeting on July 17th, 2018 at 1:00 p.m. They have 60 days to decide whether to pass the amendment unchanged to the voters, to fail the proposed amendment entirely, or to vote down and submit an amended proposal. If passed by Council, the proposal will move to the ballot in November 2018.
This proposed amendment would add a section to the Cuyahoga County Charter that codifies the ability for Cuyahoga County Council to create campaign finance-related legislation by ordinance. It does NOT add specific campaign finance limits into the Charter. Rather, if passed by the Council and approved by the voters, elected officials, experts, advocates, and citizens would work together through the legislative process on what that ordinance could look like. Right now, there is no campaign finance language in the Cuyahoga County Charter. We, the people, can finally change that!
This proposal has also been endorsed by the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, Common Cause Ohio, the Cleveland Branch of the NAACP, the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus and more!
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP (TAKES ONE MINUTE):
Step 1: If you are a resident of Cuyahoga County, call your Cuyahoga County Council representative, give them your name and that you are a constituent and ***kindly and respectfully*** ask that they “support passage of the Charter Review Commission Campaign Finance Charter Amendment to the voters.” That’s it!
To find your Council representative, here is their contact information below: http://council.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/council-members.aspx
If you want to figure out who your representative is, here is the link:
https://cuyahogacounty.us/my-government/elected-officials/find-my-district
Step 2: If you are available to attend the meeting next Tuesday, it would be great to have people there in support of the Amendment. Tuesday, July 17th. 2018, 1:00 p.m. at the Cuyahoga County Headquarters, 2079 East Ninth Street – 8th Floor, Cleveland, Ohio 44115. I hope to see you there!
Step 3: Please share and spread the word! If you have any friends, family or community organization that want to support this, please let me know and encourage them to contact their Councilperson as well.
I have been working on this as a private citizen for several months now, and I’m so grateful to be at this point. But we have to keep moving forward because, as always, the best is yet to come!!!
Will
