Voters loudly said no for 4th time to ban fracking in Youngstown

By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

City voters narrowly rejected a charter amendment to reduce the number of wards from seven to five and loudly said no for the fourth time since May 2013 to a proposal to ban fracking in Youngstown.

Members of the Committee for Responsible Redistricting, which got this issue on the ballot, said it is needed to make government more efficient in Youngstown, among the cities leading the nation in population decline over the past several decades.

“There’s two very passionate sides to this: one side felt it was a cost savings and would make the city more efficient and the other side felt we need more council members to address the challenges the city faces,” said Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, who supported the ward-reduction proposal. “Now, let’s get back to work.”

The proposal lost by less than 1 percent, according to unofficial but complete results.

“I’m glad people saw the need to keep seven wards,” said Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, who opposed the proposal. “I had a feeling it wouldn’t pass, but you never know what people will do. I’m glad they voted against this.”

The proposal made it to the ballot about two months after city council approved a redistricting of the existing seven wards that evenly distributed population among them, effective with the 2015 election. Even though council, under city charter, is to balance the wards, if needed, after each census, the last time that was done was 30 years ago.

The population in the wards currently ranges from 7,227 to 12,130, using 2010 census numbers.

The redistricting plan has population ranging from 8,949 to 9,534.

The new five wards would have had populations of about 13,400.

“The results were very close,” Chris Travers, the committee’s treasurer. “The opposition was exceptionally motivated about it. We lost by a narrow margin.”

The committee hasn’t decided if it will seek to put the proposal back on the ballot at a future date.

To prepare a five-ward map if the proposal was approved, the city hired Triad Research Group of Westlake for $7,500 to start the redistricting process two weeks ago. The city will halt that proposal and pay whatever is owed to the company.

Meanwhile, city voters again rejected the anti-fracking Community Bill of Rights charter amendment — the fourth time since May 2013. Supporters of the proposal said they’ll have it back on the ballot until it passes.

This was the largest margin of defeat — 15.7 percentage points — for the measure first put on the May 2013 ballot by the Community Bill of Rights Committee.

“That is a very loud and clear message,” said Mike Chadsey, spokesman for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. “People are not buying the bait and switch, the fear tactics, the scare tactics. Any credibility [the Bill of Rights Committee] had is gone. It’s embarrassing for them.”

Susie Beiersdorfer, a committee member, said this isn’t over.

“We don’t lose until we quit and we won’t quit because this is too important,” she said.

The proposal would have banned fracking in Youngstown even though opponents and state officials say it isn’t enforceable because those decisions are made by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“This is a great margin of victory, and after the fourth time the message should be clear,” said Butch Taylor, business manager for the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 396, which opposed the proposal. “Hopefully we can move on and work together for the positive things — safety, a clean environment and the opportunities for job creation.”

Also, Youngstown residents voted in favor of two other charter amendments — one combines the economic-development and community-development offices, and the other makes the code-enforcement and blight-remediation superintendent an unclassified position to be hired by the mayor and fired by the mayor without a reason.